Ropes Course

Lots of people leave Madrid for the summer, so I was really happy to have other adventurous families still in town. 

Alexandra in pink is moving back to Columbia. Pray for them, because while she moves back to Columbia and gets the girls started in school, her husband will be working in Saudi Arabia, and possibly changing to a oilfield job in Bolivia.  That is a lot of uncertainty to deal with over the phone. Gina and Mary took all these photos. 

Here's Wyatt on the ropes course. 

It was very different from what I have done before. There was a lot less supervision. The two hooks are designed with magnets so that one hook always has to be attached to the cable. 

I felt really secure up on these platforms. Alexandra had surgery to remove a benign tumor in June. You would never guess, looking at her now. 

And I didn't worry at all about the boys. 

You can see how high some of the platforms are. Ryan has just finished the zip line, hit the pad, and is climbing up to the platform. 

What a great good-bye to dear friends. I should that it is also hello to new friends. Sam and Theo Akey are 12, twins, and good friends already. Their mom works at the embassy and their dad is here, but he gets to take the girly group hug pictures instead of be in them. 

Sunset walk at El Escorial

Every photographer knows that sunrise and sunset are the ¨Golden Hour,¨ when photos magically look soft and true-to-life.  Ever since my one photography class a couple of weeks ago, panic sets in at sunset that one more of the 1,500 sunsets that I have left in life has passed by.

So here´s the first of many more to come!  El Escorial is a monastery and museum and royal hunting lodge.  We didn´t go in this time, because I was on an ill-informed quest to find ¨The Seat of King Philip II,¨ from which he liked to watch the construction of the building.  ¨Go South 2.5 kilometers,¨ was all I had to go on.  But when you hear the same thing from 3 separate people, you know you are onto something worthwhile.

 I will not describe to you the complaining.  You all have kids and could remember if you chose to.

 After going down through nice garden paths, we went up a steep hill.  The fact that we were on a paved, well-traveled road did not stop the nay-sayers.

 And sure enough, there is an actual seat!

 And rocks to climb, so the trip was unanimously declared to be worth it.

 Here´s a nice picture of scrub brush and a bad picture of the building.  The next class will have to be ¨Landscape.¨

 Back at the monastery, you head up these footpaths to the town proper for snacks.

We had bacon and eggs and cheese toast, which might have been filet mignon and cheese soufflé, to hear Tristan in raptures about the perfect toast and melted cheese.  Unless they are hiking uphill, kids are so easy to please.

Summer Festival in Madrid

I received an email from my boss at the hospital that we should all go see another volunteer who would be in ¨Castizo,¨ whatever that means, and serving tasty snacks.  And there would be clowns, so be there at 7:30.  The location turned out to be two blocks from where I always park when I have to go into the city, so off we went.

So this young woman is not ¨going Castizo,¨ but rather Goyesco.  More about Goyesco later, but notice the darker blue pom-poms on her dress.  Castizo is what we would call Victorian, as you see in the drawing below of the woman in green.  You have to have a flower perched on your head, though the shawl is optional.  Only girls are castizo. The boy is ¨going chulapa.¨

I wondered what they would call Victorian, because obviously they would not name a whole 75 year period after an English Queen.  Above is the 25-page program of events, for 5 days across the city. On the left is a call for entrants in the costume contest.  Three festivals take place together in honor of San Lorenzo, San Cayetano and La Virgen de La Paloma.

I saw these two in the street and wanted a picture, but didn´t feel comfortable asking.  But then it turned out that they are in the same ¨Pride of Madrid and Cultural Preservation¨ association as my friend.  She has the typical costume and he has doves on his T-shirt, which is what ¨Las Palomas¨ means.  The graphic was designed by the guy who won the design contest for an image to represent San Fermin, the patron saint of the running of the bulls.  He told me that in Spanish and I smiled and nodded till I could get home and google ¨San Fermin diseñador.¨

This painting of the Virgen Mary is the centerpiece of the celebration.  It dates from 1790, though it looks new, and they carry it through the streets in processions during the week.

Here´s my friend Maria.  Her placard says, ¨Out of service,¨  though in reality she was selling raffle tickets, getting us drinks, and judging the fan competition all at once.  The raffle was for a dress, probably made by Maria.  She told me about the girl above and her Goya-style dress.  Goya was a painter from 100 years earlier (1790, versus 1890) and according to Maria, she only wears her Goya dresses on REALLY special Sunday occasions. Her dress is more comfortable and casual to wear to a summer street festival. She explained in depth how to make the pom-poms and that they have to be made by hand.  When I really looked at the blue dress, there were hundreds of pom-poms.

Here is Maria judging the fan competition, in which people present their fans and the stories that go with them.  One was hand made by the woman´s son, another that Wyatt liked was made of pressed paper flowers.  The Goya girl had one crocheted by her mother, who probably also hand-tied those hundred pom-poms.  One was 120 years old and passed down.  The winning one was 80 years old, painted front and back with a country scene, and a gift from a grandparent from a special trip.  No surprise that tradition wins over novelty.  The boys were fascinated.

The boys insisted they didn´t like clowns, but these clowns did magic and were actually funny.  Maria said the place would be so full later for the dance party that you would not even be able to get into the square.  We did not stick around for that.  We are off to the side in a sort of VIP area for organizers.  Right as we were leaving, more of Maria´s friends showed up...a handsome young man who is Maria´s sewing student for making American style menswear, whatever that is to a Spaniard, and his girlfriend.  There is hope for humanity if Grandma Sewing-Master has a grown man as an apprentice.

Here is a dragon guarding a barbecue.  We bought our food from Maria, though, because we want to support her organization.  She is up till 4 in the morning 4 days in a row and out in the sun all day.  I said, ¨To serve lemonade wine coolers to the young party animals.¨ She said, ¨and to the grandmothers too.¨

Asturian livestock

The first time I saw this pony, it was walking down the main street of town, led by a nine-year-old girl.  It turned that both girl and pony belonged to the lady who managed our property.  The landlady would ¨talk even under the water,¨ as they say here, so I heard all about veal from agricultural subsidies to favorite recipes.  No animal of hers would ever go hungry, she said, though some people buy the animals, collect the subsidies and spend the money on an expensive vacation.  She was very loving, and just about hugged and kissed me to death, especially after 16 people arrived on our last day who had booked for 14 people, didn´t want to pay and screamed at her and abused her.  She cried on my shoulder.  One of their group was a baby and the other a priest.  I guess the families thought they shouldn´t count.

Girl and pony like to walk, so that´s how they spend their summer.

To every Spanish person who asks how the trip was, I say, ¨Asturias has the most beautiful cows in the world.¨  They all sigh and wax poetic about before I get a chance to.  ¨Their beautiful honey skin, their big brown eyes, their dainty black noses... They all just look so healthy.¨  Here´s some AG facts for my Uncle Terry: they eat the calves at 8-12 months here.  The grocery stores all have lean veal, instead of nicely marbled 2-year old beef. 

  I told my Spanish teacher to look up Texas cows and up came pictures of spotty, boney, buck-toothed, bad-tempered looking cattle.  My point exactly.

The landlady also had these little mini goats.  The meat is apparently very much in demand, so she breeds them and sells them.

Whenever the road got really narrow, you would see a sign, ¨No livestock on the road,¨ but there was always cow poop there anyway, and actual cows on this winding road.

I chatted with one set of neighbors who were bringing in the hay.  They cut the hay with a weed-eater  on the steep hillsides and then turn it by hand.  One lady had a mule on the main road up to the pass, though farming with mules was not the norm, and it was the only mule I saw.

Asturias beaches

Our friends from church took us on a nice tour of beaches, all within an hour of each other.  Tony is the representative for a company that makes disposable containers.  Starbucks, for example, is one of his clients.  So he travels a lot and meets locals, who show him lesser-known spots.  One thing you take for granted in the US is good-quality paper products.  Tony´s company bought Solo, of red Solo cup fame, and hopes to ¨enter the consumer market,¨ here, which means there will be plastic cups in the grocery stores that don´t crumple in your hands.

We met our friends at the Ayre Hotel in the city of Oviedo.  It looks like the Starship Enterprise.

This beach had sand, though others did not.

It also had caves and this crack in the rocks that the boys shinnied right up.

This is the geyser beach.  The rocks were riddled with dozens of these scary deep holes.  When conditions are just right, the water enters from below and shoots up in a geyser.  We didn´t see any geysers, but we heard a lot of noise and saw some puffs of spray.

It was really windy, but apparently not enough for geysers.

This is a weird inland beach.  The ocean is ahead, past the rocks.

Panorama of geyser beach.  We then went to a fishing village for lunch.  My rule of eating out with locals is to eat what they eat.  In this case it was a bean and sausage stew followed by grilled baby squid.  I will take my squid fried in the future, thank you very much.

North of Spain country house

All my Spanish friends ask how my trip to Asturias was... I tell them we went to the end of the road and then some.

Our house has been very nicely refurbished.

Notice the beautiful woodwork.  The chairs with real wood loints seemed to be held down by magnets, they were so heavy. I would have been swooning and plotting how to get some, except that they were not actually very comfortable.

Nice picture of a flower that Troy took...he actually took all of these, which is why I am so late getting them downloaded and posted.

Two families still have their family vacation homes in our little village, and there was one more down the hill, along with a 87-year old woman who lives there year round.  There was a little advertizing postcard that said we could rent our house during the ski season.  ?¿!¡Huh?¡  How would we GET TO the ski resort?  How would we eat?  But it turns out they plow up to the one resident whenever it snows, and they will plow on up the last mile if we call and ask them too.  We would still have to walk the last 400 yards.  And the mail and grocery guys deliver right behind the snowplow.  Maybe it is not impossible after all.

Down the road was a place to swim.

I would take this kitchen pass through in any future house I have.

How low can you go

Success!  I promised some improved photography and here it is.  The ivy is perfectly clear with the fence fuzzy in the background.  

 A couple of shoots of lavender are clear and the rest fuzzy.  If they are all clear, it just looks messy.  Yes, I have a two lavender bushes that I run my fingers over every time I come up the front walk.  Don´t hate me.

 As I said before, I was not happy while I was taking the 152 shots, the best of which you see here.  For Troy, the consolation of listening to me complain was seeing me rolling around on this horrible pebbly sidewalk trying to get shots of something besides Cuddles tail.

 I had shots of Cuddles with mulch, Cuddles with sticks, Cuddles with pine cones, Cuddles with weeds, Cuddles with ivy, Cuddles with roses, Cuddles with dandelions, Cuddles with nerf darts.  I had no idea he could find so much to play with in such a short time.

 His favorite spot, as you saw above, is at Troy´s feet.  Here is the opposite photography effect, where you want everything in focus.

 This flower is the size of my thumbnail.  Lucky for you, none of the pictures of ants an the lavender came out.

 Wyatt and I went for a Mommy Date to a rooftop terrace bar.  I cannot believe we have such a fabulous place just five minutes from our house.

He got a non-alcoholic fruity cocktail that tasted like raspberries and blackberries blendered with sugar.  Yummy!  I got tinto de verano, aka sangria, aka wine cooler.  But it sounds so much more exotic if you call it Summer Wine.