February Update

Greetings from Spain once again. We’ve had our two weeks of winter (gray, cold, damp, windy), and have moved into spring-like weather – sunshine, highs in the 60s, light winds, even some trees and bushes blooming. Not happy, on the earth’s behalf, that this period began in late January. But happy given all the kids’ soccer we have, that I’m not turning into an icicle four times per week.

Jon’s been back and forth to the US quite a bit this month (teaching), and thus I’m picking up more of the soccer duties than usual. Seth’s 7-year-old team has been particularly interesting. They’re pretty good (undefeated in league play, with something like 60 goals to their opponent’s 1), and the coach is clearly very pleased – and also very clearly interested in keeping up the winning streak. We get long whatsapp texts previewing each week’s game, and before a recent high-stakes game, he gave en epic 22-minute motivational speech to the boys, complete with whiteboard diagrams of strategy, etc. The games are just fun to watch – one of the taller boys is so good that he will pass the ball to himself around defenders before scoring. Seth has chosen to play goalie, both because he enjoys throwing himself on the ground (guess all those toddler tantrums were good practice for something) and because he really loves wearing the goalie gloves. We’re pretty sure that Seth’s team could beat Nora’s team, in fact; our poor girl did not get winning soccer karma this year, though she hangs in there and seems to enjoy playing with the team.

The Spanish election and its fallout have been interesting to watch. The ruling party (conservatives) failed to achieve enough seats in Parliament to form a government; there are multiple parties on the left (including viable socialist and communist parties), but these have a) refused to join with the ruling party and b) refused to join with one another. So it’s stalemate. Spanish daytime television has abandoned is usual fare (fashion, food fights) in favor of round-the-clock tabs on Parliament, interspersed with footage of perp walks by local corrupt politicians. The King, whose job it is to invite a leader to form a government, is also often featured trying to play broker to the warring parties. New elections are pending if the King and the politicians can't work things out -- but interestingly, Spain does not have a run-off structure, meaning we may see the exact same results again.

We had another  positive encounter with the Spanish health care system this past weekend. Nathan slipped while playing soccer, fell on his hand, and had a potential break. So Sunday morning we headed to the local ER and got it x-rayed.  Diagnosis: Not broken. Total cost: $250. Total time from check-in to wrapping it: 1 hour. It took longer to get to and from the ER than it did to get it checked out. 

Over the past few years, I've occasionally threatened to get myself tattooed with the Alcobendas city seal (see right). Just a small tattoo. Nevertheless, the kids have reacted with horror -- apparently having a tattooed mother is not in their playbook. The pending crisis, however, has been averted. Seeing that city workers all have cool Alcobendas shirts and fleeces, our friend Miguel called the city to see whether they would be willing to let us buy one. No dice -- apparently, such things are not done. But Miguel did capture the figure and have a friend turn it into an image that can be printed onto shirts. That and a trip to the local Decathlon, where they did not bat an eye when we asked them to put this image on six shirts, got me the next-closest thing to a tattoo.

Other notes…

The French school now has more police guarding it morning/night than our school; however, the police at our school have bigger guns.

On Sunday, we took a little walk outside the Madrid city limits. Which, unlike what you’d see America, is farmland. In the city, the residential apartment complexes go right up to the last road built, and then there’s no structures except some ramshackle farmhouses (complete with crowing chickens) and a few villages off in the distance. Apparently, according to our friends, the Spanish dream is not to move out to a big house in the ‘burbs, but to move in closer to the city center where there’s more going on. Or to live where you grew up in – there’s a startling number of Spanish who live only blocks from where their parents live, their grandparents lived, etc. In any case, all this means no suburbia; the city comes to a line and then stops, and then the farmland begins. Sighted a few hundred yards from the city: horse farm, free-range horses, free-range donkey, and a giant herd (flock?) of sheep, complete with a sheepdog and shepherd attending them.

We continue our semi-monthly pilgrimages to the local giant sporting goods store. This place never fails to amuse us. Spotted on our last visit: shark-finned swim caps and a flamenco section: 

We also spend a lot of time at the local amusement park with the kids. Nora and Seth are quite the roller coaster enthusiasts. Winter weather (such as it is here) means no lines and empty rides, much to our delight.