FIFA Update

Seth's now legal to play in the neighborhood soccer league games. Hoping Nathan and Nora's permissions come next week!

General update--December

Long time since I’ve last written. The last month has been challenging, as Jon’s mother passed away suddenly toward the beginning of the month. She was a lovely woman (I always said I got extremely lucky in the mother-in-law department), very gifted in the realm of social relations (which she passed directly to Nora), and also raised three sons who are exceptionally good people.  Jon traveled to Georgia for her funeral, and we’ll get a chance see Jon’s father again in a couple weeks.

I (Heather) also submitted 2.3 NSF grants in the last month. That made November even more fun.   

So somewhere there’s a long draft blog about our city (Alcobendas) and its amusements. But here’s the shorter-term update.

1. We are locked in battle with FIFA (yes, that FIFA) over whether our kids can play soccer matches in the town league (yes, I said town league). Apparently, there’s new regulations this year about foreigners playing in Europe – too many outsiders, apparently, had been moving to Europe to train their kids in high-quality soccer programs (guilty!). So Jon spends a lot of his time shuttling from one city office to another, getting official letters and getting official letters stamped and turning in letters, all with the hope that we can prove that we’re here because we love Spain and not to train our children in European-quality soccer.

One of the more interesting things about this is that Futbol Feminina (Nora) has taken a different approach to said approval process than the boys’ Futbol leagues.  So Jon goes through a completely separate set of steps for Futbol FIFA feminina and masculino (is that a Spanish word?). We kind of think of it as a competition – who’s going to come through with the documentation first?

2.  We are also locked in battle with the Spanish bureaucracy re: our residency cards, which we need to exit and re-enter the country legally. Last time we managed to procure the cards in about three months; this year there’s additional regulations (involving many more trips to the local immigration center, where we routinely see Mormon missionaries…hmmmm) so we’ll be happy to have the cards by spring.

3. Shocking, given the above: the local bus system started, in October, a new program that allows kids to buy a pass for the low price of $21 per month. We applied in mid-October, and received the cards Nov 1. The sprawling (4 companies in our local area!) bus system is generally dysfunctional (see past posts; the randomness of which bus is willing to pick you up when and where has continued….), so why the sudden functionality amid the general chaos?

4. It’s become apparent from the above that it takes a full-time parent to manage the household. One day, for instance, Jon was gone from 4:00 to 10:30 PM, dealing with various soccer practices, school meetings, and so forth.

5. Despite #1-4, we still love our adopted country. Exhibits:

A. Friends and cousins over for Spanish lunches (three times in the last month). Delightful. Amazing. Our kids play with one another, the adults actually have a conversation. Only in Spain can you really invest in time with friends and learn from them. Miraculously, Heather even follows a lot of the conversation. Though she still cannot conjugate a verb.

B. Heather has taken the Starhills to Parque de Atraciones (amusement park) twice (once with the cousins!). The Starhills were remarkably nice to one another during these trips and appreciative generally of a) amusement parks and b) beautiful late-autumn weather to enjoy (a).

C. Bread. From Montes brothers’ bakery/bar. Heather gets the bread most days, and treats herself to a morning there drinking decaf coffee when papers are in late-stage (paper copy) editing. It’s very motivating, actually. The only letdown: Montes has hired a new counterwoman who is totally pleasant and sweet. So despite the senior citizens’/customers’ best attempts to provoke her into an argument about the quality/availability of specific kinds of bread, there are no shouting matches this year. Hot-headed brother has made appearances in the shop, but does not seem allowed to deal with the public.

D. Our kids’ school. Our kids seem again to be having independent thoughts and ideas, which we attribute to good Jewish education (in Spanish). The school has gone out of its way to make our kids feel welcome, and we (well, Jon, whose Spanish is better) are enjoying going to weekly 7-year-old birthday parties.

E. Orthodonture. Cheap and extremely efficient in Spain.  Nora is excited to get her braces off in 6 months.

F. Decathlon. A French sporting-goods store, visited frequently by the Starhills as a weekend activity. They have a skateboard corral, a slack-line, a padel (relative of tennis) court, and other try-it-before-you-buy-it kinds of amusements for the kids. And low, low prices. Like $8 for Heather’s favorite fleeces (I bought two).  And $4 for boys’ track pants, which are essentially a disposable item in our household (holes in the knees from soccer). And $10 for kids’ sleeping bags, which proved helpful upon Nathan’s class trip to Toledo.

G. Churros. With small bowls of molten chocolate. On the way to Decathlon.  Enough said.

H. For two Euros, you get a beer and a tiny dinner (otherwise known as tapas). These tapas are at the bar associated with the kids’ soccer fields. Yes, there are bars associated with all soccer fields in Alcobendas. Enough said.

I. Spanish coffee. Yum. Note to the Starbucks in our neighborhood: stop making Starbucks-Spanish-coffee and just make regular Spanish coffee. As served in the 100+ bars in our area.  It is much better.

Kid update:

Nora had serious, stakes-attached exams last month, her first ever.  Heather’s realizing that middle school is about kids figuring out how to study (Jon, as a former middle school teacher, knew that already). Nora also spontaneously reported that “I’m realizing a lot of stuff lately. It’s like part of my brain suddenly turned on.” Welcome to Piaget’s formal-operational stage, sweetie.

Nathan continues to be a sweetheart. He’s noticeably changed since going to sleep-away camp this year, though: much more social and outgoing, and also more willing to be a joker. He’s got good friends at school and on his soccer team (which he’s allowed to practice with, but not play matches for).

Seth continues to be a force of nature. Around the house, he alternates between reading (occasional), examining and sorting his soccer cards (often), playing a “match” vs. Nathan with those Futbol cards (often) and on-the-move activities like practicing his goalie saves (often). He and Nathan have a particularly funny routine in which Seth says to Nathan only one word: “Cow?” and then next thing you know, both boys are on the rug wrestling. What a cow has to do with it, we don’t know.