For the grandparents

Some more pictures from our trip to the beach in Valencia...

The wolf does in fact eat the pigs!

So we've bought the kids some Spanish-language storybooks along the lines of "my first trip to the doctor" and the Three Little Pigs. Both books have been fairly true to Spanish life, in their own way. In the doctor book, the M.D. takes a look in the sick kid's mouth and without further tests, prescribes antibiotics (approximately what happened last week with Seth -- although for an unbelievably low cost and extremely high convenience). And in the Three Little Pigs, the first two pigs actually die. Or more accurately, they are "gobbled up" (zamparado) by the lobo. In U.S. versions, the first two pigs rarely expire from their stupidity--mostly they are shunted off through authorial sleights of hand (in one book, by David Wiesner, the pigs actually move into 4-D space). Jon's theory goes something like "It's such a ham-based culture, no wonder they're killed off." My theory is that it says something profound about the way we choose to teach our children.

Week in Valencia

This week, thanks to more Spanish/Jewish holidays, we visited Valencia, viewing exotic species such as Emporer Penguins, a warm beach in October, and a doctor who makes house calls. Here’s some highlights.

Valencia is a pretty city located on the Mediterranean Sea. It’s Spain’s third largest, and seems to be a destination for British tourists, British college students, and British retirees. There’s a huge tourist industry there now, but historically Valencia has been a port city, with accompanying imports (fabric, we assume—see below) and exports (oranges).

We stayed in a nice but somewhat moldy (=sneezy) apartment in one of the shopping districts. This particular shopping district seemed to specialize in fabrics and high-end wedding gowns (yum!). The fabric stores – and there were tons of them – had everything from cheap cotton to gorgeous silk brocades. After two days of lobbying by Nora, we gave in and let her select a remnant (she chose leopard-print spandex) to take home. Nana, she’s bringing it to CT so you can help her learn to sew on your 1932 Singer Sewing Machine.

The shopping, more generally, was pretty unchanged from what it must’ve been like 50 years ago. In addition to fabric stores, there were glove stores, fan stores, sewing machine stores, and more. Valencia also has a large central market with meat, cheese, fruits & vegetable, and fish stalls. Jon pretty much parked himself there in the mornings and Heather finally located some excellent cheese.

Valencia has a phenomenally large complex called the “Ciudad de Arts and Sciencias” (city of arts and sciences); all the four main buildings look something like giant abstract fish. We went down to the aquarium portion for a day. It was fairly small by US standards (we recently went to the new GA aquarium, which rocks!) but did feature a dolphin show complete with “Aqua Man” –like riding of dolphins by people.

In the late afternoons, we went to the beach. It was in the high 80s, so the kids got to swim and dig in the sand. All in all, they did pretty well for having only one towel and no beach toys whatsoever. Here’s some pictures:

(Seth is in the no-way-I'm-letting-you-take-my-picture phase -- thus the shot of him fleeing).

Finally, Seth had been complaining of a head and earache since last weekend. Mostly he hadn’t needed ibuprofen, but by Thursday night he was up quite a lot; Mommie spent parts of the night being breathed upon and clutched by him in bed. Seth's comment on the experience when he woke up Friday, delivered with utmost seriousness: "Let's do that again. Every night. OK Mommie?"

Jon called the doctor Friday and found, much to his surprise, that the doctor in Valencia makes house calls. For $100 (reimbursable by insurance) one came and prescribed a whole array of medications – antibiotics, decongestant, and something to alleviate the stomach issues that come with the antibiotics. Seth woke up Saturday and reported that “My ear feel better. Not all better. Just better.”

In other news….

1) Nathan’s proven himself to be a champion eater. He’s willing to try almost anything, and in a 24-hour period quaffed down calamari, whole baby squid, green beans and couscous, half a jar of olives, black pudding, a feta wrap and paella. The only rejection so far has been the local drink – Horchata – on account of being too sweet. We have started to call him “Grampy” after my father who’s pretty much got the same eating habits.

2) Heather discovered that cabbies make easy marks for practicing her Spanish.

Things that surprise us about Spain

[Somewhat in chronological order]

1) Spanish businessmen in three-piece suits + briefcases speeding down the highways…on their Ducatis.

2) Sex and the City is shown uncensored on Spanish TV.

3) On the “Divinity Channel.”

4) On the channels on either side of Divinity, there are psychics taking live calls.

5) When Charlotte gets married on S&TC, they translate “Mazel Tov” as “Something Jews say to one another to mean good luck.”

6) Spanish pharmacies will sell you whatever you claim to need, sans prescription (if you’re not faint of stomach, google “pinworms” and imagine getting medicine for that without a prescription in the US)

7) Beer at lunch.

8) Beer is cheaper than Diet Coke and coffee at lunch.

9) Beer is the same price as water at lunch.

10) The kids have a day off from school to celebrate Columbus discovering America.

11) Despite going to a Jewish school, they also get the day off for the Immaculate Conception. Which, by the way, is roughly 3 weeks before Christmas.

12) Said Jewish school is guarded by two guys who look like they’re fresh out of the Mossad.

13) Who hand-search every vehicle entering the premises.

14) And operate the 2-ton gate that shields the school from the terrorists who live in the Beverly Hills section of Madrid.

15) Speaking to Spanish telemarketers is a joy – in fact, we keep them on the phone as long as possible in order to practice our Spanish.

16) Six hours to work before the east coast wakes up.

17) For the first time in 15 years, I am unmotivated to work.

Backhoes are boring

While Jon and the big kids were out gallivanting around Spain, Seth and I stuck closer to home. I figured “why spend a couple hundred Euro to go to Salamanca when all Seth’d want to do is watch backhoes and we have them for free here in Alcobendas?”

As some background, Seth has had an obsession with backhoes for the last 24 months. While in Arlington, I often plan my jogging routes around the location of construction sites and roadwork (made easier this summer after the town finally decided to fix the gas leak that’s made our neighborhood/park/school whiffy for the past several years). I’ve also been known, while caring for him on his days off from school, to bring my iPhone and conduct business while he’s gazing at backhoes. Seriously, he can watch for almost an hour without growing tired of it.

However, since moving Seth has gone to school five days a week, leaving precious little time to view backhoes. So we look forward to Jewish holidays because they give us an opportunity to get out and check around Alcobendas for construction sites.

The morning of Yom Kippur, however, Seth woke and practically the first words out of his mouth were “Backhoes are boring.” He also rejected his velour “lovey shirt” – called this because he will often stroke the shirt and say “This shirt loooove me.” The end of an era. The end of this particular era left us 48 hours to kill.

So we just spent Friday meandering around San Sebastian and la Moraleja, enjoying the “fall” (low 70s) weather and stopping at a yummy cafeteria for pork sandwich (yes, I know it was Yom Kippur! Sorry!) lunch. We also visited every park we saw, even hopping off our $1.50 bus tour of la Moraleja at a park down in that section of Alcobendas.

As I’ve mentioned to some of you, la Moraleja is the Beverly Hills of Madrid. Here’s my observations of life at this park at 6 PM on a Friday:

- 2 French mothers, dressed to kill

- 6 nannies, most likely hailing from Central/South America, dressed in work scrubs (many nannies here wear uniforms)

- 1 long-haired Spanish-Asian man with a gorgeous tattoo, caring for three blonde kids

- Roughly 15 other blonde children

o Girls in pinafore dresses or school skirts

o Boys in shorts and collared shirts

I fit right in in my 15-year-old ripped shirt and accidentally-bleached-while-cleaning-the-tub shorts. Europeans seem adept at interpreting my clothing habits as “Badly dressed, thus American.” Often, folks will just start speaking English to me even before I open my mouth. The dress-up is actually even worse at the kids’ school (also in la Moraleja), where many of the Moms apparently get their hair done and don sheaths and pumps in order to pick up their kids from school.

On Saturday, we had to cancel a planned visit with the cousins because Seth woke up with a fever. He seems mostly better today.

As Jon mentioned, the kids are speaking more and more Spanish now. I got chewed out by Nora at lunch for using “sus” instead of “tus,” and Seth took it upon himself to quiz Nathan in how to say certain Spanish words.

Finally, a picture of Seth in “handsocks” – all the rage in the Starhill household. It's entirely logical. If you need socks for your feet, why not for your hands?

Spanish touring and the High Holidays

Nora, Nathan, and I went on a short overnight touring adventure this weekend to Salamanca and had a great time. We got up early on Friday (no school), took a bus to Plaza de Castilla, took the 5 minute walk over to the Charmartin train station, and then took the 2.5 hour train ride to Salamanca.

(A short digression: In Spanish, instead of saying “take” the train, you can say, “we caught” or “nosotros cogimos” the train. When I was writing the previous sentence, I found myself writing “we caught the train” instead of “we took the train”. This seems to be happening more and more – where my thinking about Spanish is influencing the way that I write and speak English. As another example, when in a restaurant and ordering a drink, in English we might say “I’ll have” water or a beer.  In Spanish, one might say “Yo tomo” water or beer, where “tomo” means I’ll take. So in English, I find myself saying, "I'll take" instead of "I'll have." Finally, I’ve also noticed that we refer to lots of different foods by their Spanish name instead of their English name, including pipas (sunflower seeds, a popular snack here), chorizo, leche (milk; Seth says “Quiero more leche.”), and pan.)

Salamanca is a beautiful city. Back before there was an America, the university in Salamanca (which was founded in the 13th century and which was at its height in the 15th and 16th centuries) was one of the most important universities in the world. There are lots of interesting old buildings, churches, and streets to explore. The Plaza Mayor in Salamanca is gorgeous, especially when it is lit up at night. The kids enjoyed searching for the frog in a famous building facade at the university. (This is one of those wonderful university traditions, similar to not stepping on the “M” on the Michigan Diag, not stepping through the gates at Brown, rubbing John Harvard’s foot, etc. Supposedly, if one can find the frog without assistance, one gets good luck and also, some believe, will be married within a year. None of us found the frog without help, but we did find it!) We also found and ate at a wonderful vegetarian restaurant – not a common site in Spain. Our hotel was lovely - perfect for the 3 of us for a night. We took the train back on Saturday – it was a very fun overnighter.

Needless to say, we have not done much for the Jewish high holidays this year. (I think this is the first year since I graduated from college that I haven’t fasted on Yom Kippur.) We have had a lot of time off from school (either a perk or a drawback, depending on one’s perspective, of attending a Jewish school). For the four weeks beginning on Sept 26, we only have 3 or 4 school days per week, as a result of various Jewish holidays. Certainly we could have found a temple to attend, but we are viewing these days off as an opportunity to explore Spain. It seems like the chance to spend time together, taking advantage of the unique environment we are in, is an appropriate way to celebrate the New Year.

This week we have 3 days off for Sukkot. All 5 of us are getting on the AVE train (this is Spain’s ‘bullet’ train) and going east to the Mediterranean coast – Valencia. A drive that would normally take 4 or so hours will only take 1.5 hours on the train. We have rented an apartment for 3 nights there and are looking forward to exploring the city a bit as well as sticking our feet in the Mediterranean. (The last time Heather and I saw the Mediterranean was 10 years ago on our honeymoon.)

Finally, here is a picture I just snapped of Nora with two of her friends from the apartment building. Flo (left) is a tad older than Nora, and her sister Bella (middle) is a tad younger – they are from the UK. These three gals are the nucleus of the girl group in our urbanizacion. 

Weekend report 10/2/11

So this weekend was a loooong one, thanks to Rosh Hashanah. We started it off by dividing and conquering the kids -- on Thursday, Jon took the big ones to the big museum in Madrid (successfully! They don't hate art!) and I (HCH) took Seth to see backhoes in the 'hood and then around in his stroller to do errands.

On Friday, we rented a car and drove up to Segovia, a city to the northwest of Madrid. The city boasts an enormous Roman aqueduct, a beautiful cathedral, and a palace reputed to be the inspiration for Walt Disney's. Jon and the big kids climbed up 152 steps to the top of the tower to see, as Nathan reports, "A really good view, you know." Heather had a panic attack at the thought of shlepping a backpack full of water and huge toddler up the steep spiral staircase, and stayed at the bottom to collect chestnuts with Seth. Nathan reports that he was a little freaked out by the moat around the castle, which was in fact several stories deep with mud along the bottom. Who knew moats were for real?

On the way back from Segovia, we drove through the mountains north of Madrid -- very beautiful. A lot of the landscape reminded us of the southwest, especially Joshua Tree and New Mexico.

On Saturday we retained said rental car (imagine a Hyundai hatchback stuffed with Starhills) and went out to El Escorial, home of a monastery/palace/burialground for Spanish royalty. I didn't get the full history because I was shepherding a grouchy toddler ("I can't walk! I can't walk!") through gallery after gallery of 16th-century paintings of the crucifixion--the perfect Rosh Hashanah activity. The burial rooms were indeed impressive, with lots of marble and gold. Lunch, dictated by Nora's never-ending quest for hamburgers and thus "American" grill restaurants, less so. A quick visit to the non-feverish toddler cousin (Liam) and some intelligence from my cousin (Mary) re: Spanish lifestyles, and we were back home. Well, except for Jon and Seth who left to return the rental car and had a 90-minute bus adventure. And Nora, who got asked to go see Phineas and Ferb (in Spanish) by one of her school friends.

Today was fairly quiet, spent cleaning and then downstairs with the UN crowd. There has been an addition of several new French kids, tipping the balance in favor of that language; two new Spanish boys, however, seem promising in terms of providing Nathan some soccer buddies. Seth has finally learned how to ride his balance bike fast -- fast enough to keep up with the big kids, whom he follows around religiously and very seriously emulates.