Reunion

We had a really great week hosting our friends from Oman for a week.  The Sanoussy´s are currently living in Ethiopia.  Their top priority was taking the kids to parks.

Tied for the top priority was eating out.  Eating out in Ethiopia is apparently buying a slice of beef right off a fresh carcass and going next door to eat it.  Raw.

I felt like an under-acheiver at the airport.  The muslims were all there welcoming their people with trays of juice and milk and tea.  Kim told me that they do that when the travelers are coming back from the Haj.  They set the tray on one of the few chairs, open the boxes of UHT milk and juice and voila!  it looks really fancy and nice. 

The first Boy Scout trip of the year was the same day that they arrived.  Camping was one of the things we enjoyed doing together in Oman.  Troy asked if the guys could go on the trip and the Scoutmaster said, ¨Technically not, but if they just happen to show up at the campsite and just happen to be walking on the same trails…¨

Wyatt is trying out his new backpack and finding out what it is like to be a turtle.

Meanwhile, us girls and Winston went looking for a park.  This one was so awesome we went back with the guys for their last night here as well.

Triathlon

Here are a few pictures from my triathlon a couple of weeks ago.  I thought it would be no big deal, because I have run, swum and biked since age 12.  Actually, since before that.  I was thinking of riding my bike to the university to use their olympic pool and 3-meter board.  But I had a pool and bike by age 5.  But it was HARD.  I know, Mom, you are laughing at me for doing crazy things and being surprised at how hard they are.

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You can barely see the little orange caps.  Troy could not understand why I was so late coming out of the water.  Actually, I was in the next group, the green group.

I was 24th out of 100 coming out of the water.  That is me on the left.  I ended up 44th with my slow mountain bike and lack of training.

It was a beautiful day and you can see how pretty the park is.  When is my next race?  Next summer when it warms up again.

Hot Glue Project for Halloween

The boys sweet-talked us into $65 worth of materials plus $35 shipping for a costume project.   All I knew was that they were making armor from foam based on a video they saw on Youtube.The foam arrived a couple of weeks later in a box that said, ¨We sell mats!¨ 

Sure enough, it was a box of foam mats like you would find in a nursery school. 

 While they waited for the slow, overpriced shipping, they made paper models, so that they did not waste the foam.

 Tristan is gluing some nylon webbing onto the knee guard.  

 He is also improvising with the locking edge of the mat to make an awesome scary spine.

 The heart of the project is that you hit this foam with a heat gun and then bend it.

 When it cools, it holds its shape.

I am amazed.  I am glad Troy has hot glue and a heat gun!

Local Fiestas

Every town has a local fiesta with a running of the bulls.  Americans only ever hear about Pamplona, but in fact we had three to chose from this weekend.

They set up these temporary walls leading to the bull ring. 

The heart of these festivals are the local social clubs.  They organize activities for the whole week, book musicians for the evening concerts, and prepare free food to hand out.  The food above is churros and chocolate.

In another village, we had fried eggs.  

Random pink ladies.

Here is the add for the bullfight in another village, Hoyo de Manzanares.

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The actual name of the festival is in honor of the local virgin, in this case of the Consolation.  I misspoke at the hospital and said that protestants don’t have so many virgins, and they set me straight that it is all the same virgin, with the same face, but she shows herself differently to different people and they love her for all her characteristics.  The most beloved in the city is La Paloma, the one my hospital co-worker invited me to, and there is another, La Mudena, but she’s a bit more for the royalty and not for the common people.  So that’s what I know so far about the Virgin in Madrid.

A singer that I like played for the opening night concert.  The plaza was lit up like Christmas.  The walls echoed with people singing along.  The boys are lined up for cotton candy.

Here come the bulls!

Some people have a nice balcony view.  The two women in the street are friends from the embassy.

Grandma is about to get run over by this kid because...

the bulls are right on his tail.

 My town, Pozuelo, does not even have a bullring, and the information in the flyers was all a little sketchy. I found the temporary bullring by going to the end of the road with the barriers.

The kids run into the bullring and then the parents chase them around with the wheelbarrow bulls.  After the kids, the locals get in the ring with younger bulls.  One young man got trampled, butted, and thrown into the wall.  We were already below the bleachers, so we saw the emergency team jump into action.  They were impressive and had the young man into the trauma van in two minutes flat.  His friends were left outside crying.

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Later that night we were back for the bullfight. 

After he killed the bull, the torero made a circle around the ring.  If he does a good job, the judges award him the bull’s ear, which he throws into the crowd.

My kids scrambled for the ear, and got it, but ultimately gave it to the family behind us.  They did not like the bullfight much, but we had some good conversations.

Back to School

The boys are starting the school year with some strange rituals.  Wyatt is packing his bookbag….Nothing too crazy there.

Winston cuts some watermelon for himself, because it is still summer outside and light until 9 pm.

Tristan sits on the floor eating cereal out of a plastic cup.  Maybe he wanted a last few minutes of Cuddles.

My favorite ritual of the new school year is getting ice cream afterwards.  This is another case of a friend recommending a place that turns out to be on the drive home.  I drove by it all the time and never noticed.

Avila from above

 

The walled city of Avila was the place we went the first week we got here, so going back marks one year in Spain.

Last time we could see people up on the wall, but we could not figure out how to go up.  We found it this time. We could see much of the market, but rather the surrounding countryside looking out and the backs of apartment buildings looking in.

Here is the historic church built into the wall, and below is a newer church outside.

Here we are watching the horse show.  The boys headed straight for the highest rock and I headed straight for the shade, even though it meant I couldn´t see.  Troy headed straight for the water fountain.

We are in line for shawarma.  The boys were really excited.  I was really hungry.

Here is one guy who is into it with his costume.  The other guy in green is probably thinking, ¨How did I get bamboozled into another shopping expedition?¨  That is what my friend Jeff said.  He is the adventurous stay-at-home dad of the twins Sam and Theo.  Hopefully you will be hearing more about them in the coming year.  Tristan really liked all the stalls:  the blacksmith was making trinkets, there were little wooden carved things, people had swords and knives, of course.  I learned the names of some of the beads Mom sent me, because they had flourite and unakite at the geology shops. 

I have so few pictures because I was trying to get up the nerve to take pictures of people.  I looked up advice on-line, thinking I might find a better way to be sneaky.  Would you believe, all the street photographers who give advice on this subject say to take the picture with the intention of talking to people.  Say something like, ¨I like your look.¨ The truth is, nobody cares.  Hardly anyone even noticed.  This seems like a typical Spanish family, except that four kids is a lot. 

I will say here that my kids might complain while they are hot or hungry or tired of walking, but at the end, they always say, ¨Thank you for taking us here.¨

Controversy at the Naval Museum

For our last Tuesday outing before school starts, we went to the Naval Museum.

Here is my faithful group:  Mary from Bible study and Kirsten who is in my Spanish class.  

These cannons came from a shipwreck called Nuestra Senora de la Mercedes.  I heard a piece on the radio about it. American treasure hunters found it, but ¨Reason triumphed over exploitation,¨ as the exhibit stated over and over again, and Spain reclaimed its patrimony.  In other words, US courts made Odyssey Marine send it all to Spain.  Without rich American treasure hunters, who almost always lose in court, they would have nothing, so I found it all extremely annoying.

I was so busy being annoyed that I did not exploit my opportunity to take pictures of the treasure, which I was very keen to see.  They had a hunk the size of a football of crusty, corroded coins and then row upon row of pretty, cleaned up ´pieces of eight.´

Here we are watching a video of the heinous unprovoked action of the British against the neutral Spanish couriers that resulted in the ship being sunk.  If you have seen ¨Master and Commander,¨ you know that in 1800, they were all stealing each others´ ships and seamen and supplies and treasure.  The boys got their fill that day of swords and knives and treasure.