Merry Christmas :)

The highlight of Christmas this year was by far the annual visit from our favorite Minnesotan, Adam. :) He made the two-hour AVE trip down on Friday afternoon, stayed here for the celebrations all day (and night) the 24 and headed back to Madrid on Christmas day. It was a too-short visit, but all the same we were happy to see him. Somehow, having visitors at Christmas makes it seem more festive!


Last year, if you remember, we made a bonfire and spent the night of Christmas Eve singing carols and celebrating. This year, however we were quite a bit warmer, since we all got together to spend the night in a friend's garage that is equipped with a wood stove. :) Bedtime was 6:15am...

No sooner had I closed my eyes, than my parents called wanting to Skype! I'm sure they assumed they'd woken me up and thus my refusal to get up and turn on the computer, but that was far from the case. I was exhausted after a full day of merry-making. Nothing could take me away from my warm bed and snuggly down comforter. (sorry!)

Chirstmas Eve is just the start of the holidays here in Spain. There's still New Year's Eve and the Epiphany to be celebrated! Although some of the excitement and joy abates after the 25th, people are still in festive moods and this year there are all kinds of activities and events that the city has organized to celebrate the holidays.

Wednesday was the equivalent of "April Fool's Day" in Spain: el día de los santos inocentes. The city organized a costume foot race for the occasion. In the end it was more of a jog/quick walk for about a mile through town, but it was great fun. What did I dress up as?? Santa Claus and his six reindeer!

Here are the pictures:

The reindeer.

We look slightly like Christmas hobos...but once we're pulling the sleigh it's obvious what we are. :)

Santa in his sleigh! :)

This is the sleigh from behind. Apparently the white doll figure is the symbol of los inocentes. Just like a "Kick me!" sign, people cut out a little paper doll like this one and stick it to your back... strange Spanish customs, what can I say. I think a "Kick me" sign is funnier!

And here's the view from the front. All of us reindeer were holding the reins that had jingle bells sewn on to them. You can't really see that in the picture.

The only awards given at the race were for best costume. We won second prize: a surtido ibérico (a chorizo, a salchichón and a cured pork loin). Mmmmmmmm... Soon we'll have a party all together to enjoy our winnings. :)

Finally, among the other events in town, last night was a concert at the church. It was a trombone and piano duet--beautiful! It's been at least two years now since I last played my trombone, and the truth is that as I sat there in the church listening to such wonderful music, I couldn't help wanting to join the band again. I do miss playing, but I really haven't got the time to dedicate to it... The concert lasted for about an hour and they played a great variety of songs: classical, jazz, film sound tracks, Disney. Finally they played an encore of my all-time favorite Christmas Carol, Silent Night.

I hope your Christmases were merry and you've been properly enjoying the holiday season. Have a happy new year!

My Christmas Carol

It might be a bit presumptuous to liken myself to Charles Dickens, but I have just come home from the first annual Christmas story contest. I won first prize. :) The city organized the contest for all ages. The only pre-requisite being that you had to be "de La Roda". The maximum length was two pages, a little bit short for much development, but I took it as a challenge and last weekend wrote up a short story about an American girl's first Christmas in Spain. (Sound familiar?)

Unfortunately there was very little participation, so I can't be quite as proud of my first prize as I would be otherwise, but all the same I have a full "cesta de Navidad" valued at 50 euros! Needless to say, I was thrilled, though now that I haven't got much of a sweet tooth I'm not sure what to do with all the Christmas candies, chocolates and truffles. I'm most happy about the bottles of cava and the salchicón ibérico!

Here's a photo of the winnings:



Merry Christmas!

Aguardiente y Pestiños...

"que los hace con gusto, mi abuela!"

That's the chorus to one of many traditional Christmas carols. It's been running through my head all afternoon because my mother and sister-in-law made 4 kilos of pestiños today! This year I wasn't a whole lot of help since I had classes and couldn't stay long, but Angelines and I went over to pitch in a little and have our post-siesta café con leche. ;)



I'm looking forward to pestiños with my coffee tomorrow.

...And other news, A and I finally made our way out to the pueblecillo to visit a good friend of ours who has an adorable three-month-old son. :) We hadn't been to visit her since the birth! Inexcusable really, especially considering how CUTE he is. This is little Nicolás:

'Tis the Season

Yesterday was a great day. It's been a while since Angelines and I have taken off on a Monday. It used to be every Monday we would go somewhere new to have lunch and explore. Since we've moved into the house, and since the economy's gone south we haven't done much of that. Yesterday was an exception.

After an hour swimming laps in Antequera and a quick stop at Mercadona for sandwich provisions, we headed to Malaga with the excuse of seeing the alumbrado (Christmas lights). Of course, you can't fully appreciate the Christmas lights before dark so we had to find something to do between 3pm and sunset. We headed to the mall at the Renfe station in central Malaga and while we waited for the movie theater to open, we went to the bowling alley!

I haven't bowled since I was a Girl Scout. I remember we would take trips to the bowling alley with troop 309--I hated it! I don't know if it was because I was a sore looser and was never any good at bowling, or if it was the ugly shoes that always smelled; but I dreaded going bowling. Angelines, however, had never bowled and so I decided to put childhood hatred aside and give it another try. For one euro each we got 10 rounds... In the end, we miraculously tied and both of us had sore fingers; but it was a good time.

After the movie, the newest in the Twilight series, Breaking Dawn, it was dark and so we walked to the calle Larios in central Malaga to enjoy the Christmas lights. We were not disappointed. They were beautiful.

Looking up calle Larios.

Rotunda at the end of calle Larios decorated with a giant nativity scene and the Magi on camel-back.

A glimpse of the Cathedral's bell tower through the narrow streets of the city center.

Giant Christmas ornaments!

The facade of the Cathedral (La Manquita).

What trip to Malaga would be complete without coquinas??

...And thus we've officially inaugurated the Christmas season and spent a lovely lunes out on the town.

And I thought I was unique:

Excerpt from today's reading in my "Artistic Education" class (use Google Translator):

"Las niñas de esta edad con frecuencia centran mucho su interés en los dibujos de caballos."

I think drew more horses as a kid than there are in the entire United States! And it continues:

"Ahora que ha desaparecido el miedo a los animales, las niñas proyectarán sus propios sentimientos en esta forma animal. Para algunas, el caballo se ha convertido en un símbolo veloz y gallardo de la libertad que forma parte de crecer."

This was one of my favorite books when I was at the height of my horse craze (wait...have I outgrown that?). I think mostly because the pictures were colorful and beautiful, but also easy to imitate. I can remember drawing horse after horse from this book: horses running, horses grazing, horses rearing.

But I wasn't alone in my obsession. My best friend at the time, Katy, was right there with me. When we weren't drawing horses, we were playing horses! The game consisted of galloping around on all fours in Katy's basement, grazing, whinnying and trying to escape from her little brothers who usually assumed the role of wolves or bears.

We were quite technical in this game, nothing was left to chance. Both of us had horse encyclopedias that we spent hours pouring over so when it came time to be a horse we were never merely "small brown horses," but chestnut Morgans. We were "buckskin," "bay," "dapple grey," or "palomino;" and depending on our moods we were wild Mustangs, Shetland ponies, or Thoroughbreds.

My favorite horse in the book was the Andalusian. He stood tall and strong. He was powerfully built, yet still elegant and well-balanced; and his mane and tail were amazingly full, long and beautiful--I fell in love. When I wasn't a buckskin Mustang, I was a dapple grey Andalusian. Looking back, my current life is an adult version of the same game: switching between wild American and proud Spaniard.

When I finally got a horse of my own he was about the furthest you could get from a noble Andalusian: a mixed-breed pony named "Snake" (Note: I did not name him! My horse names ran along the lines of "Desert Sunset"). Snake was a Christmas present.

Just like the movies, Emily and I woke up early on Christmas morning, tore through our presents and as the euphoria was wearing off, my dad said causally, "I think Santa left you girls a present outside!" And after scrambling to the window, we looked out to see a 13-hand, brown (excuse me, chestnut) pony tied to a young madrone tree and complete with a big red bow around his neck.

Snake was an ornery little one, but I was too excited about having my "own" horse to worry about much else. When I think about how I rode him I feel a little guilty. Now, after taking several horsemanship classes, reading books and watching movies, I feel bad for man-handling (or girl-handling, as the case may be) that stubborn little gelding. But for the most part we were friends. There's a home video of me jumping Snake at Glenna Atwood's house. She gave me riding lessons and on about a three acre piece of her property she had set up jumps made from logs and oil barrels. In the video I take little Snake through the jumps seamlessly and then try with Glenna's palomino mare, Blondie--no luck. She's a stubborn thing and though I kick and kick and kick, she balks and walks around every jump. Finally I give up and get back on Snakey for one last lap around the jumps. He doesn't flinch.

Snake was a pet and a toy all at once. I would take him out and brush him, trying to give his coat the luster I read about in my horse books. I braided his mane and tail. And many were the times that Emily and I would play Indian princess in the forest behind our home in Somes Bar, leading little Snake along behind us. He, of course, was an integral part of our play, being the trusty Indian pony. Every now and then we would have to hop on bareback and trot through manzanita and poison oak to escape the imaginary cavalry.

After Snake there was Apache the Appaloosa; Straw, my dearest Palomino Overo; Hobo, our wonky little, flee-bit Mustang; and finally Fuego, Straw's colt (now my mom's horse). I love them all. Still, no one taught me patience or perseverance like my first pony. He died when I graduated from the eighth grade; I may never have cried so much over any of my pets.

Here, I haven't got time much less money for horses, but I still love them as I did when I was seven. When I go back to California I get as much saddle time as I can. And during the feria here in Sevilla, I am still gaga for those strong Andalusians who prance through the streets, legs high and necks arched, proudly bearing their polka-dotted riders.

West Wing - Why are we changing maps?

I'm doing last week's reading for my "Didactics of Social Sciences" class today (oops...just slightly behind!). The reading covers the difficulties of teaching geography to students. According to Jean Piaget children's cognitive abilities evolve through a series of stages progressively allow for greater abstraction of concepts, mainly: pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. Primary education covers almost exclusively the concrete operational stage (from seven to twelve years of age). Abstract concepts are generally only able to be conceived toward the end of the concrete operational and formal operational stages. We don't tend to think about it, but teaching the very concept of a map, much less how to read one, is very abstract and therefore difficult for elementary students until around 5th and 6th grade.

Maps are something we don't give much thought to generally, but when you begin to think about it they are very complicated. How can you transfer something spherical onto a piece of paper? There are several different methods, but of course all are merely symbolic representations of the actual Earth's surface. None of them can be absolutely faithful to the area, distance, angle, etc of the world's terrain, even accounting for scale; there's a level of distortion innate in the translation from three to two dimensions.

Of course being our only guides for understanding location and spacial relationships, maps are quite useful; but the spacial distortions can be a problem if one doesn't fully understand that a map is merely that: a guide. They are not actual, true representations of our world.

While reading, I was reminded of this scene from my all-time favorite TV series, "The West Wing" and lucky you, I found it on YouTube to share. ;)

Kind of a trip, huh?

Evolution

This is the evolution of the latest assignment in my "Artistic Education" class.

Enjoy:

Ta-Dah!

Pretty good, huh? I am very pleased with how it came out... It was doubtful when I began adding the shadows, but I think I can safely say I've never been so impressed by something I've drawn! :)

---

Yreka, California 1990: I am seven years old and enrolled in an evening art class. Every week my mom comes with me along with another mother-daughter pair, friends of the family. We do things like linoleum block prints, glass etching, and drawing upside-down to work both sides of our brains.

Today we're drawing hands--they're hard! I've been erasing and redrawing line after line and I'm not very pleased with the way mine have turned out. As I scowl down at the paper, my mother's friend looks over from across the table, "That looks like a cow's udder!" I blush and an embarrassed anger churns in my stomach--I will not cry.

But when we get home I let loose. I cry and cry, and scream: "I hate her!!" Then I cry some more.

A Feast to be Remembered

Thanksgiving preparations left little time for work and thus my delayed post: Please excuse me.

Our Thanksgiving feast was, in a word, fabulous. :)

Menu:

Starter:

Clam and saffron soup (a little Spanish touch, compliments of my mother-in-law)

Main Course:

Oven-roasted turkey (previously brined--soooo moist and tender!)

Traditional bread stuffing with roasted pine nuts

Steamed green beans with garlic

Lemon mashed potatoes

Dessert:

Pumpkin pie

Maple syrup yams with cinnamon and walnuts

... Although I gave specific directions to each of my sisters-in-law--bring nothing other than drinks--they showed up with more food! So in the end add shrimp, green salad, tomato/tuna salad, pastries and a cake to the above...

There was too much food, but Angelines and I have been pecking away at the leftovers throughout the week and we're nearly finished. Needless to say the week's menu has been somewhat monotonous. (I'm currently eating turkey soup).

Everyone liked the food. My green beans didn't turn out as good as past years, but everything else was delicious! The turkey was incredible. I was able to brine it the night before and this year I squeezed it into my tiny gas oven. It slow cooked on low flame all morning: 8am-2pm. I'm not sure if it was the brinning, the slow cooking, or the extra love and attention I added, but this was by far one of the best turkeys I've ever cooked/eaten. (Only surpassed, of course, by my dad's BBQ turkey!)

Angelines took the day off so she could really enjoy and relax with all of us--definitely something to be thankful for.