Where are the Property Brothers when you need them?

Yes, our house hunt continues, although because things don’t pop up in the market as often as in the states, it has slowed. Significantly. In any case, I’ll continue my rant about what kinds of places, and with what kind of quirks, you might find around here.

So…what’s out there? A little bit of everything.

• You have new construction – as in built within the last 10 years. New, new, like recently finished – is a little more rare. There was a big real estate boom here followed by a grand economic flop, and people aren’t running around putting up new houses and new buildings like they did before.
• Then you have old,  but (technically speaking…) livable. Perhaps smallish rooms, layouts that don’t make a whole lot of sense to this American girl, and just, I dunno, old. C sees these and they make him think of (fill-in-the-blank’s) house when he was young. I see these and I think, ummm…well, usually I just think. They are prime for ripping apart, tearing down walls, etc. Some of them are chock full of possibilities, truly. (This is why I need the Property Brothers!) It’s just a matter of how much work you want to do.
• THEN you have old, but gutted and redone. Some of these are just wow. Beautifully renovated. Stone walls, high ceilings, gorgeous wood floors. Really just wow. But you also have the houses that fit into this category – with some of the same well-done components – but some really bad design/layout choices that leave you thinking really? You spent all that money and you didn’t (enter any number of things here) or you (same…for example, put an unusable fireplace in a smallish, rectangular shaped front hall space?). These make me crazy. A lot of money spent with very little thought. And a bummer to see, because then the price reflects renovation and not possibility.  A cool aspect in both of these cases, is that with the old homes, often they come with a large UNrenovated space – could have been a barn or storage, or whatever – that, if you close your eyes, you can see a Architectural Digest-worthy space. A grand, three story open living area, or a 4 BR, 4 BA bed and breakfast. Again, a cool feature depending on how much money and time you want to dedicate to it.
• And THEN, you have the old, completely renovated and refurbished, owner-ran-out-of-money-it-was-taken-over-by-the-bank-and-owner-rips (vigorously)-out-everything-salvageable-and-leaves-house-a-sad-mess, once again purchased and once AGAIN partially renovated house. Snort. Okay, this was only one house, but it gives you a sense of the economy and what can happen when someone runs into trouble. To be honest, this is a cool option – you have old beautiful components, some things partially renovated (some gorgeous floors and doorways, for example), but a lot of possibility to finish it the way you want.

In all of these cases, I found two things surprising. One, is that they don’t all have heat. Not even the renovated ones! They have a coal oven in the kitchen. Seriously, I mean, this gives me instant visions of sleeping on a dog bed on the kitchen floor. And in some of the smaller, more remote towns, getting a gas line to your house is not easy, and not always even possible. Sure, the coal ovens can be very aesthetically pleasing…but no heat? ACK. (This, FYI, is not strange to C.) And because they have a coal oven, they have no regular oven. NO REGULAR OVEN. Whaaaaaaaat? How’m I ‘aposed to BAKE stuff? For the record, these are usually both fixable things. I’m just saying.

Another thing. Rentals, 99% of the time, are rented furnished. Fully furnished. So if you’ve got a house full of furniture (like us), this could present a challenge. Not an unsurmountable one, just a challenge. This part of the world is not littered with Public Storage facilities. But this point I think is representative of one of the biggest differences in the market – in the states, a lot of people move for any of the following reasons: new job/relocation, bigger family, made more money and just want a bigger place, better school systems. So it becomes sell a house, buy the next one, in a constant, dizzying motion. Here, that doesn’t happen. People move because they HAVE to more than because they WANT to. (At least that’s my perception – I am not a market analyst of course.)    People don’t change jobs with nearly the same frequency, and houses stay in the family for generations. They keep old Aunt Nilly’s house until they realize they don’t have the time/money to do anything with it and they try and sell it. Or they turn Grandma’s old place into their vacation home, they furnish it – then when they realize they don’t use it as much as they thought, they rent it. Furnished.

And so we press on. We were supposed to see a house this morning – our third attempt (the first two cancelled by the home owner) – which was this time cancelled by the agent because it snowed, like two inches maybe?? which is now cleared off the streets because of the rain that followed?? – and she was nervous about driving. My sis told me they just got 20 inches outside of Chicago, that would be enough to paralyze this area for months…

I think I’m gonna go email the Property Brothers and try and tempt them with a Northern Spain episode.

My Version of International House Hunters

We have to move. Le sigh. We found out about a month ago, a day or two before C left for the states for the holidays, that the owner of our place would like to actually live in her own place. Time for a crash course in looking for a place to live in our neck of the woods.

I’ll admit, I am a miserable mover. Really. Ask my mother. I don’t know what it is, but the whole physical aspect of packing and organizing and leaving turns me into a monster. I have (literally) already apologized to C for my future behavior. It’s not that I have ever, including now, had any great attachment to the places I’ve lived, nor have I ever been unhappy once I was moved into a new place. But it happens anyway. So there’s that.

The physical moving part aside, I actually loooove looking at houses. I might have even made a good realtor in some other lifetime. And on top of that, the whole thing works just a weeee bit little differently here, which is not only interesting, but to me, sometimes flat out funny. So I thought I’d share some of my observations. First, about the people.

1. When you are looking at, or just looking for a house in a super small town like the ones we live near, the WHOLE town takes note. There is no such thing as inconspicuous. As soon as you park, you start to see curtain corners turning up, pairs of eyes poking out…and the best part is the “casual stroll.” Suddenly those pairs of eyes have found an excuse to take a lil walk. In their slippers and robes. With frost on the ground. Snort. Suddenly it’s time to, uh, take out the trash, or wave a kitchen pan around (kitchen pans need fresh air too). Or the dog has to pee. And the outside patio, shoot, that could always use a sweep. And you just KNOW that Slipper Lady, Pan Waver and Porch Sweeper will TOTALLY be over-the-fence gossiping about you that day. HiLARious.

2. If you want to know something about a house, ask a neighbor. We showed up (with a realtor) to see a house, and she said she had to pick up the house key from the next door neighbor (yeah, I know…). So, knock-knock-knock, lovely little old house-frock wearing neighbor lady comes out. The key? No I don’t have the key. The niece had the key. You didn’t know? Yeah, she supposedly bought the house and was going to move in, but then (in a more whispery tone) had trouble with the bank. Yes, yes, so, the bank might even have the house now. But if you talk to the owner DONT TELL HIM I TOLD YOU.

3. Realtors will be realtors. And independent sellers will be independent sellers. And I appreciate that. Realtors are, after all, sales people. “It only has one bathroom, but of COURSE it would be easy to put in another!” “Yes, just take this cabinet out and install the oven right here! Easy peasy!” “And the best part? The MAYOR lives next door! What better neighbor to have than the mayor!” And for those people who are just trying to get mom’s/grandma’s house off their hands? “Oh, you looked at one like this? How much was it? We really have no idea, we’re just sort of guessing at the price.” Appraisal, shmaisal. Just take your best guess.

4. And then there’s the “OH, you live in Corrales? My cousin/girlfriend/aunt/ex-lover/grandparents live/used to live/are from there. Do you know…?/Ask your uncle, he would definitely know her/him…” Reaffirmation that in Cantabria everyone knows everyone. You gotta watch what you say around here, geez Louise.

5. Owners (if they are living in the house) are usually present when you go to look. No lockbox thing, or giving realtors the keys in many cases. Which also means at the very last minute (like 45 minutes before you’re supposed to be there), said owner can cancel for God only knows what reason. Grrrrrr. Annoying.

All this, to say nothing yet of the houses themselves! More on that to come.

My Annual Thanksgiving Post

I have no excuses for being blog-less for so long. Life is crazy.

But our Fourth Annual Corrales Thanksgiving was the perfect reason to get back on here. One, because I like to stop at least once a year to really think about how lucky I am and how thankful I am for so many things. But also, because I realized this year that if I don’t document this day, how’m I sposed to remember what I made and who was there??? Durh.

This year I managed to lure 20 folks to come together to celebrate this very American holiday. (Although all the stores here have Black Friday sales…but, what is Black Friday without Thanksgiving?? I don’t get it. But anyhoo.) And it was extra special because 12.5% of the group was actually American, thanks to one of my very dearest friends who made the trip for a long weekend to join us.

SO. The FOOD. They say the fourth time’s the charm right? Hm. Maybe not. But ours was. Let’s start with the turkeys. Yes, plural. We had two “smaller” ones – one at 4 kilos and the other at 5. And considering the matchbox size of our ovens here, we decided to spatchcock the turkeys – essentially breaking the breast bone and flattening them out a bit – and cook them in the pizzeria ovens. They were deLISH (thanks to my hubby, he’s always in charge of the birds). They take 90 minutes to cook and come out juicy and yummy.

The spatchcocked turkeys. Doesn’t the one on the left look like he’s chillin out in a lounge chair? A relaxed turkey is a good turkey. Snort.

Can we take one second to talk about the supreme awesomeness of the word “spatchcock?” I mean, helloooo. It’s my favorite word now. I taught it to all my students. Snicker. It might even be a better word when a Spaniard says it. Seriously. I’ve also found it  very flexible, as in “You better get out of here before I spatchcock you!” Heeeeehehehe. Flexible and fabulous. But I digress.

For side dishes, I did two of the standards – stuffing, and my mom’s broccoli casserole. And two new additions which were both pretty big hits – these Roasted Squash and Onion Turnovers (which I made and froze a whole week in advance – and they cooked brilliantly right out of the freezer!!) and the Pioneer Woman’s Twice Baked Potatoes. I luff her long time. She uses lots of butter and bacon, shamelessly. She can do no wrong. Desserts were carrot cake and key lime bars. Easy peasy.

In any case, the day was a huge success. Everyone loved it, and I love that everyone loved it. I could watch people ooh and ahh and yummmm at my food all day.

Happiness is.

And hellooooo, how freakin cute are these?? We made these. Some people should not be working in an office, they should own a store full of cute stuff. Just saying.

And now, some of the many things I’m thankful for, in addition to my hubby and my friends and family, who always, always, always top my list.

1. Whatsapp. My lifeline. My favorite public transportation pastime, because what else am I supposed to do at 10:00 at night on the bus for 45 minutes?? Clearly that time is for catching up. I am thankful for the technology that keeps me connected and for my favorite people in the states who use it.

2. Bob Harper. Yes, for real. His yoga videos keep me sane and flexy bendy. C even does it with me sometimes, as do my ninnies. It’s like family yoga hour.

3. iTunes and the silly shows that I still watch. Yes, I could hack and download them for free, illegally, like the rest of the country does. But that makes me feel bad. And I do love my shows. In English.

4. My adult students, some of whom provide me the most intriguing conversations of my week. For example, I now know an awful lot about the intelligence of ravens and how to perform a kidney transplant. And I’m in-the-know when it comes to new little baking shops or restaurants or bakeries in the city.

5. The pretty flowers in our garden. I heart lilies and the passionfruit flowers are fantabulous.

6. Travel, and the beautiful things you see when you leave your little world behind.

And now Christmas is right around the corner, and New Years…and it’ll be time to do this again before I can even blink.

Ethiopia – Part III (Gonder, Bahir Dar, and a few final words)

We were late getting off the mountain, delayed by the tire experience, and by the time we got back to Gonder, only had like an hour and a half to see what we wanted to see.

Gonder. Gonder is a city of around 400,000 people. Like the other cities, it had that odd mix of unending, partially finished new construction, and goats in the street; the blend of old and new. We didn’t get a really good feel for it and it didn’t leave much of an impression on me, just because we were so rushed for time. But we at least hit some of the highlights.

One of the palaces inside the Royal Enclosure, a 70,000 square meter compound with a number of palaces and castles dating back to the 1600s.

Fasilada’s Bath – 100,000 people descend here for the celebration of Timket, on January 17th. Priests line the edges of the pool, spectators fill the bleachers, and many people jump in. They were filling it up when we were there in preparation.

That evening was New Year’s Eve. We had some dinner in a place that apparently every other traveler in the city had read about, and saw some pretty wild Eskesta dancing – this is the traditional dance of Northern Ethiopia. My pictures were dark and didn’t do it much justice anyway…these women shook their shoulders and spun their head like, well, like they were possessed or something. Check this out to get an idea. In any case, we were in bed by 10:30. Oops.

Bright and early the next morning (another theme…we had a LOT of early mornings) we were up and out for our three hour drive to Bahir Dar.

Bahir Dar. This was like a little slice of heaven. Much more plush because it sits right on Ethiopia’s biggest lake, Lake Tana, 3500 square kilometers and the source of the Blue Nile (and sporting by FAR the nicest place we stayed the whole time), it was a perfect way to wrap up the trip.

I was always trying to pull the nonchalant picture thing, but it was difficult at our speed (cough, cough) and with the reflection on the window. Nonetheless, just to give you an idea, it was typical to see something like this. Pardon the bad, through-the-window shot.

A typical boat, not for fishing but for transporting grasses, sugar cane, etc, that we saw on our ride out to the lake monasteries.

Paintings on the outside window of one of the lake monasteries – the monasteries date back to the 14th century, the paintings, the 17th. Note also the typical mud and straw construction of the walls.

Early morning sunrise on Lake Tana.

Farming the old fashioned way, on our way to see the Blue Nile Falls.

Blue Nile Falls, second biggest in Africa to Victoria Falls. Really beautiful…and we were really lucky. Normally at this time of year it is just a trickle – we were expecting more like the Blue Nasal Drip – but the dam was open.

Sugar cane harvest time.

And a few more thoughts on our trip. Some of the things that struck me the most, I couldn’t or didn’t even capture in pictures. C is a better “nonchalant photographer” than I am and has some great shots, but that’s the only way to capture some of these moments because otherwise you feel very intrusive, or like you’re the Great American Supergawker. Which maybe you are, but in my mind there was a line of respect you didn’t want to cross.

One was the warmth of the people. I felt like everyone was always smiling and laughing, they greet each other warmly by pressing their heads and cheeks together two or three times (changing sides), and even as teens and young adults – and boys – walk down the street literally hand in hand, and they are so, so, so very responsive and grateful when you make as small an attempt as to say “hello” or “thank you” in their native language of Amharic. I never saw one fussy child (and we saw a LOT of children). You might look at them and think they have very little, but maybe the thing is that we all have so much?

The other is that you’ll never see harder workers. Some people still have to walk 5 or 6 kilometers for water, and the women do it and carry 40+ pounds of it all the way home, often in bare feet. One of the clearest visions I have in my head is of a mother walking up a big hill, water container on her back, her hands underneath it, and by her side, a little girl who was maybe 3, carrying a little baby sized one. She will carry water her whole life and will never know anything different. And who is handling the cattle during the day, bringing them out and back in, and watching over them all the while? 6 year old boys. What a huge responsibility.

I am still struggling for the best one-word response when someone asks me how my trip was. A word that infers it was more of a ten-day experience than it was a vacation, that it was travel with the intent to learn and to have my eyes opened, a trip that will leave me more things to think about than I have pictures of. Amazing? Incredible? Maybe the best bet is unforgettable.

The End. (Thank goodness, right?)

Ethiopia – Part II (Aksum and the Simien Mountains)

Moving along.

Aksum. The morning after our day in Lalibela, we hopped a short flight to Aksum. Aksum was one of the biggest surprises for me on the trip. All I knew (or all that I really heard maybe…hey, I’ve got selective hearing sometimes too) is that we were going to see some stelae (or obelisks) – which, after having seen some speckled throughout Spain, fascinate C but leave me bewildered (translation: yawning) and thinking they just look like, well, big phallic symbols. The ones in Aksum were totally different.

They date back to the 3rd and 4th century, range from 1 to 33 meters in height, and lie on a field of tombs only very partially excavated – meaning most archeologists believe you are basically walking around on top of a field of real, honest-to-goodness treasure. COOL. In fact our guide told us that is the case practically throughout the entire town, that there is a world waiting to be discovered at every turn. Sorta made me want to grab a shovel, ya know?

Our first stop was to see the excavated palace of Queen of Sheba, dating back to 3,000 BC. Apparently she was quite the lady. Wild, right?

The stelae field. The tallest one toppled, they just weren’t set up deep enough or with enough balance to stay up forever. You can see some of the others have support.

Our guide here was awesome. All our guides were great really, but he not only knew a ton, he also walked us through the market, took us to a very local place for lunch, and showed us what felt like a very insider view of the city.

One of the market vendors. Few things say more about the way a city works than its market. We always go no matter where we are.

Another market shot. Mules are a STAPLE in Ethiopia.

Lunch, Ethiopian style. This is how they serve injera – the teff based pancake like “bread” – on a big plate for sharing, topped with little mounds of different things. They were in a period of fasting when we were there – 40 days before their Christmas celebration, called Timket, on January 17. So these are all veggie based. Looks odd, but was REALLY good. Yum.

Ethiopians are very proud of their coffee, and coffee rituals. The way they make it is pretty cool, and we stopped for some nearby the stelae. They start with the green coffee beans (yeah, I didn’t know they were green to start either), roast them in a little pan – which is when they start to smell and look like the coffee beans we are all used to seeing, grind the beans by hand with a big mortar and pestle, then begin the process of adding water and boiling and mixing until it turns into coffee. It is a bit thicker and stronger than most coffee drinkers, but it is less bitter and actually has a very good taste. And no, they don’t drink it with milk.

Roasting the beans. And that other hand is fanning the fire. Starbucks Shmarbucks.

After a great day and a really nice evening having dinner at a restaurant owned by the nicest couple, an American man and his wife who was Ethiopian (interesting to get the perspective of a US Military dude from Virginia Beach living in Aksum!), the next morning we hopped on a flight to Gonder, dropped our non-camping stuff off at our hotel, and made our way straight to the mountains.

Simien Mountains. The park itself is a World Heritage site (BTW, notice a theme here…we saw ALL of Ethiopia’s UNESCO sites!) and is one of Africa’s principal mountain ranges. It was an adventure.

To go to the mountains, you are required to have a guide and a scout (a guy who carries an AK-47 or something along those lines). In our case, we also had a cook and two mule drivers, though they didn’t walk with us. They carried all the stuff we didn’t need during the day, the tents, food, etc., and met us at camp each day. We started our journey in Gonder, picked up our cook and headed to Debark to get our park licenses and pick up our guide and scout. So, off we went…all seven of us, in a not-so-new 4X4 vehicle bouncing along those gravel roads I mentioned until….OOPS…that axle came out. Like I mentioned in Part I, the driver tried unsuccessfully to fix it, so we ended up losing some time to that and eventually waiting for a new car, and arrived up at camp at dark.

Bright and early the next morning, we set out for a 15k hike. Our guide was like a little Morgan Freeman – his name was Get and he had been a guide for 20 years. He was FABulous. Knew every plant, bird, animal, where to stop to look for things – plus was an excellent judge of our (translation: MY) capabilities and pace, even better than I was of my own. More on that in a sec. We hiked, climbing from about 11,000 to 12,000 feet. It was gorgeous. And considering that’s not my normal elevation (snort), I wasn’t sure how I’d respond. Turns out I made it through the day brilliantly and then suddenly at night, I turned into little Miss Pukey Pants. OOOPS. The next day – feeling pretty much like dookie birds – we did 20km+ more. I had a terrible time catching my breath, didn’t want to eat, and basically decided an hour into the hike that I would rather live the rest of my life without teeth and eyebrows than continue. BUT dear, sweet, darling Get gauged me better…and even threw out the “well, if you really can’t go any farther, we can always get a horse.” Over. My. Dead. Body. So, the long and short of it was that I made it, SO glad I did, and overall, we really had an amazing three nights in the mountains. I’ll try and put some details into the story with some pics, so here ya go.

Our scout on the right, some children from mountain villages, and the spectacular scenery.

A mountain village we passed through.

Camp, in the distance…we took a bit of a walk for a cool view after we got in that day.

This eagle was amazing. We got so close and he didn’t even budge.

C and Get on the lookout for wildlife.

From our highest point of just about 14,000 feet.

There are between 5,000 – 6,000 Gelada monkeys in the park. They are awesome. They are also called lion monkeys because when they run, the the wind blows their hair and they look just like lions.

It’s worth a chuckle to say that on our way back from the mountains, I prayed like 50% (okay fine, 80%) of the time. Our driver was tearing up and down these cliff edge roads, bumpy and gravelly and dusty, and all I could think was thank heavens my mother doesn’t know where I am right this moment. Holy Mary Mother of God. AND? And we got another flat on the way down.

We had to stop at the “tire store” to change it on the way back to Gonder. Yep, that’s the tire store.

So, overall our mountain experience was nothing short of stellar. Covered head to toe in dust, and most certainly smelling like the four days we had gone unshowered, we made it back to Gonder for a whirlwind tour.

Ethiopia – Part I (Some thoughts, Addis and Lalibela)

This was going to be such an epically long post, that I had to break it into three.

We just got back from Ethiopia. Yeah, I know, I would have said the same thing if someone told me they were going. We got reactions like “Seriously?” Or “What? Why?” And to be quite honest, C did nearly all the planning for the trip, so even I had a hard time answering that. I had sort of an idea, lots of history, mountains, UNESCO World Heritage sites…but not much more than that. Which is why, after being there for ten days, I am so looking forward to writing about it.

Let me begin by saying this is NOT a trip for luxury travelers. It is not a culinary mecca – though eating injera, the Ethiopian staple fermented pancake made of teff flour, is a very worthwhile experience – nor the next up and coming wine region. In the “nicest and newest” hotels,  you find things like ducktaped framework around elevators, a rather abysmal level of service, showers that go drippy-drip, and even the occasional flea issue (yeah, that was a fun one). To get from one place to another, you are often on unpaved and very rocky and bumpy roads – so much so that they call it the African massage – and riding in rather rickety vans that are clearly not built for the beating they take, and that you are nearly 100% sure are going to start dropping parts along the way (in our time there, in different vehicles, we got two flat tires and on one occasion almost lost the axle and hub from the wheel – which the driver promptly tried to fix by jerry-rigging a piece of canvas strap that he cut from the top of the van and nailing holes through it – and no, that didn’t even come close to working). Oh, and did I mention the speed they drive is as if they are riding on paved highway? Our driver even got a ticket once – talk about bizzareville, in the middle of nothing there was a guy with a radar! Go figure.

Having said all that…if you travel because you are interested in history, in seeing excavated ruins from 3,000 BC, massive rock churches carved from one piece of stone, mountains with spectacular scenery and cool wildlife, in observing a farming culture that still uses oxen, wooden plows and good ole human effort, in seeing a way of life so vastly different from your own…in other words, if you want to step into the pages of a feature article in National Geographic? Ehthiopia. Is. Amazing.

There is a LOAD of history to be read about the country – and interesting history at that, especially because of its recency. But because it is so easy to read about, I’ll stick to writing about my experience and suggest reading something like this or this. And if/when you do, or based on what you remember from the news, it’s easy to see how all this and the accompanying media coverage from that time has shaped people’s impression – they think Ethiopia and think famine, death and skinny cows. Not the case.

Because of the layout of the country, and accessibility of travel and roads, normally people choose to either do north or south Ethiopia. We did north.

Addis Abbaba. Our first stop, after a fun layover day in Istanbul (what a cool city, definitely must go back there!), was Addis. It is the capital of Ethiopia with a population of about 4,000,000 people…who appear to ALL be on the same street at the same time as you are no matter where you go. In one word? CHAOS. There is construction EVERYwhere, big cement buildings with hopes of being hotels or apartments (we were told by our guide that there is a huge housing shortage in the city), covered in scaffolding made of what appears to be very long and skinny tree trunks (OSHA would have a HEYday here). And at the same time, in front of those buildings, are lines of tin shack or mud and straw stores and houses, wandering goats, throngs and throngs of people going I don’t know where, and people washing themselves out of buckets. Traffic is INSANE. There are big traffic circles, but with no circles. Cars coming in from five or six different ways crossing haphazardly to exit on the other side somewhere. But yet, it’s all sort of controlled chaos – I imagine from above it might look like a beehive.

Addis was the only city we navigated on our own (at least for a day – in the rest of the cities we visited we had local guides), we simply hired a taxi to take us to the places we wanted to see. We visited some interesting museums – including the requisite stop to see Lucy at the National Museum, the Red Terror Museum, and the St. George Cathedral.

Pardon me for a minute while I channel my inner Ricky Ricardo. “LUUUUUUUUUUUUCYYYYYYYYYYY!” Snicker.

I will state strongly and firmly at this point that one day is Addis is PLENTY. It is crowded and overwhelming, and not the kind of city you can stroll around on your own. Thanks to a cancelled flight the following day, we were forced to extend our time in Addis but headed out of the city to see Tiya.

The stellae at Tiya, a World Heritage site, mark the graves of individuals who died 700 years ago. The carvings represented number of killings – of animals, robbers, what have you – and therefore were an indication of status.

Advisory: 80’s flashback. Remember the fine words of Notorious B.I.G? “Goin back to Cali…I don’t think so.” Yeah, well, we changed that to “Goin back to Addis….I don’t want to.” So there’s that.

Lalibela. The next day – thank heavens – we hopped a flight through Gonder to Lalibela. The primary draw to Lalibela is its famous rock hewn churches. Dating from around 1181 – 1221, these magnificent churches (and you will rarely find me using “magnificent” and “churches” so close together in the same sentence unless I am saying it was magnificent to get a break from seeing so many of them…which was NOT the case here) are carved out of stone and each one is like it’s own piece of art. Legend says the construction was completed in 23 years because of a nighttime “angelic workforce” lending a hand to the daytime workers.

Walking down to see the first church – a good shot to see the massiveness of it. The roofs on several were built for protection, you can imagine the stone takes a beating from the weather.

A priest reading prayer next to another church. You might notice the swastika looking symbol – hard to believe that before it represented something evil, it had religious meaning instead.

One of the coolest churches in the group – again, note the size. Really amazing.

A village nearby.

After seeing the churches, we had some time so we found someone to take us up to see the Asheton Maryam monastery, high atop a hill with spectacular views.

The monastery, C in the distance, our guide on the right, and a fantastic view.

One of the resident monks showing us a collection of crosses.

We got up early the next morning (before sunrise) to go to see a daily worship service at one of the churches. We were basically the only whiteys (also known as “farangi” to the locals) in there for most of the time, so it was sort of a lovely and very local and natural experience. It was so interesting to watch the prayer rituals, and see the people come and go as a very basic part of their daily life.

The town waking up at dusk – such a great time to see everything come to life in any city.

The following day we headed to Aksum. On to Part II.

My Annual Thanksgiving Post

I’ll skip the part where I say it’s been forever, because, well, that’s how I’ve started my last few posts. So I’m going with the assumption that it’s just a given. Moving on.

Today we had our Third Annual Corrales Thanksgiving. C is in the states this year, but I still love to celebrate it, and luckily my family and friends here are willing participants. And double lucky that the family chef is home to man the turkey and gravy side of things. The concept of large double ovens is so very lost on the Spaniards. Shame.

A little bit of the US at our Spanish Turkey Day. Love this shot.

As always, I started yesterday…handled all the desserts (the crowd favorite, but also a lemony-cheesecakey experiment, and the requisite pumpkin component), chopped, boiled, and basically lined everything up for an easy day today. The awesome ladies in my life came over to help, which because I had all day and didn’t have too much to do, basically translated to hanging out with me in the kitchen. MY. FAVORITE. THING. EVER. Seriously. EVER.

We had 17 people this year, a combo of friends and family. All there just because I like to celebrate Thankgsiving. It’s awesome. Everything turned out great…and the turkey? The turkey was AWEsome. He got all fancy with it and was injecting it with Port and I don’t know what other crack magic, but it was the bomb.

About to cut into his work of art. We even had those little white turkey booties or whatever they’re called. What are those called anyway? I don’t even know what they are for. But they were fun.

Everyone, almost. Minus a few who were still bringing in things from the kitchen. 🙂

And besides family and good food, Thanksgiving is a good time to think about all the good stuff you’ve got in your life. So here is a partial list of things I’m thankful for:

1. Skype and FaceTime that let me see and talk to my family and friends in the states pretty much whenever I want. They make the ocean seem so much smaller.

2. The amazing people I am surrounded by here, friends and family, who love me like I’ve been a part of their world my whole life, take care of me, support me, humor me by participating in Thanksgiving every year, and who sit with me in the kitchen and drink wine.

3. My job. Not only because I have one (considering the situation in Spain) but because I totally dig it. I started a new job in October, teaching English for a national company in Santander. It seriously (ask C) has made me a much more pleasant person to be around. I mean it. I have a great variety of interesting adult students who have all kinds of interests and like to talk about different things, and who in general are just really nice, cool people. And my groups of kids I’d even go so far as to say are cute. I love going into the city every day, heck I even like taking the bus. Its just…it’s just GOOD.

4. My hubby. Cause he’s a good egg and he makes me laugh and he supports me and he deals with me when I get snarky (I know, it’s hard to believe a saint like myself gets snarky, I sometimes can’t believe it myself) and he is a little whacky sometimes and he buys me umbrellas that don’t flip inside out with the Cantabrian gusts of wind. All that and he likes my baking too.

5. My ninnies. Despite the fact that they wake me up before my alarm and they shed in a way that makes it impossible to feel like my house is ever totally clean AND that one of them thinks that pooping in the box is so not cool anymore, they are my little nuggets and they keep me company and are my little electric blankets in the winter.

“You’re looking at me as though you’d like to use my bed, which isn’t gonna happen, cause clearly I’m on it right now.”

“We’re in your seat? I don’t think we’re totally clear on what you mean by that.”

6. I’m super happy this guy isn’t living under our house anymore.

Yeah. You should have seen my face before I composed myself enough to get my camera. I think it’s blurry because I was shaking my head saying “That can’t be what I think it is.” But it was. So. There’s that.

7. And for newsy emails. I love newsy emails and my friends and family who like to write them. I eat them up, they make me feel very in-the-loop.

Like I said, it’s a partial list. I’m a lucky girl.

Madrid, Galicia and Asturias…

I just got home after being away for 17 days. 17 days is sort of a long time.

The first two weeks I was in Madrid for a very super-intense training course. By very super intense, I mean I left the house at 7:30 in the morning, got home at 7 every night, and had four or five more hours of work to do. Yeah. I was the oldest in the group by 11 years (I don’t even like being able to say I was 11 years older than someone, for the love…), but MOST of the other folks were 20-nothing. As in they could have been my children. But they were fun, and aside from all the work (I did pass, by the way…although the actual end result is still up in the air), I was reminded how much I love Madrid.

I love, love, love the tops of the buildings. When you go to Madrid, you just have to look up.

I love the Thyssen Bornemisza Museum. It’s one of my favorites, definitely my favorite in Madrid. And Degas’ ballerinas…if I had all the money in the world, I’d line my living room walls with them.

And I love Madrid for the fact that there are still museums I can discover, hiding all over the city. I played tourist over the weekend (yep, got the map out and everything) and hit the Naval Museum, the Museum of Decorative Arts, and El Museo del Traje (not quite sure how that translates…something like costume or clothing museum?). They were all really interesting and different. I concluded I should have lived in the times of these dresses. What a fine way to hide a big caboose. Snicker.

When I finally finished my course, I flew to Santiago. C and I had made plans a while back with some friends to go to a music festival in Galicia (Boimorto to be specific), and that was the easiest way for me to get there. C met me at the airport (he had driven) and we spent the night in Santiago. Aside from having the Camino vibe (I don’t know whether it’s a Camino thing or what, but every time I see the cathedral there, I cry!) it also has a vibrant nightlife, and loads of restaurants and bars. What it also has that I had never been to is an absolutely eNORmous market. Like the Mac Daddy of all markets, the biggest I think I’ve seen in Spain, and that’s saying a lot. And the best part is that it maintains its culture – sure, there are tourists and pilgrims, but it is also swarming with little old ladies in old lady clothes, with fantastic faces full of character. I always say I want to take pictures of them but I mostly hold off – I saw one guy who blatantly took a shot of a vendor lady and she immediately barked, “COME HERE!” and asked him to pay her for it. Yikers.

My not-so-successful attempt at non-chalant photography. But you get the gist. Nothing screams Spain like the old ladies in a market.

From there, we drove to Boimorto for Festival de la Luz. Luz was a famous Spanish singer, and the concert is in her birthplace…basically in the middle of farmland (like we crossed through some corn to get to our tent). This was only the second year, the first they sold 4,000 tickets and this year was double – but it still felt pretty small. The two-day lineup was basically unfamiliar to me, though some of the smaller bands seemed to have quite a following. And there was a mixture – rock, bagpipers, folk-ish, Latin – a little of everything.

This is Budiño, a very cool bagpiper group. Very folky, sort of Irishy, the kind of music you can’t sit still to. Plus two guys in the group did some AWEsome folk-dancing. Gotta learn how to do that, I think it would be a real party pleaser. Snort.

The view stepping out of our tent the first morning. Tons of people camp out, and although the first day was sort of rainy, the second was perfect.

Nap time, for those who can sleep anywhere. Le sigh.

This is Carlos Nuñez, one of the most famous Spanish bagpipers. He explained he had been to the US and the whole group (plus a big band of local bagpipers) busted out a fine version of Cotton Eyed Joe. HiLARious. Also very fun music. This guy definitely makes drastically receding hairlines and playing a large recorder VERY COOL.

Fito y Fitipaldes was like the big name band that played. Everyone knew all the words to every song. Except for me.

We camped out through Monday since the concerts on Sunday ran late. Monday morning our friends headed home, and we started to meander…C wanted to see some places for clients he has coming this year, so we made a few stops. We hit A Coruña, which is up along the coast, north and ever-so-slightly west of Santiago. A really nice city, they happened to have a tapas festival going on so we took advantage.

I know it looks like whipped cream, but it’s not. It is lime-y foam deliciousness. And some octopus (because you have to eat it when you are in Galicia) in the background.

Then we passed through Ferrol (less than spectacular, but perhaps on a pretty day it would have looked nicer), Mondoñedo (where I had been for a medieval festival not that long ago, but it has a cathedral, so…well, yeah, so we had to stop), and ended up staying the night in an adorable town called Cudillero, also along the coast, in Asturias. We had a spectacular meal there…problem was that it was a lil rainy and chilly and so I didn’t take pictures. Bummer.

And to wrap it up the next day, we hit Avilés, and specifically the Niemeyer Center. It’s architecturally very interesting and happened also to have an exposition of National Geographic’s 50 Best Photographs. LOVED seeing it, they had explanations of each picture and were running videos of the photographers talking about how the shot came to be. Really, really extraordinary. Made me want to get out my big camera.

One angle…

…and in the other direction. Sort of space-center like, no? On top of that spiral thing is a restaurant.

ANYhoo. That’s my last couple weeks in a nutshell. And now, what to do with the 3 lb. zucchini I just plucked from the garden…

Visitors, Sightseeing, and Chickens

Two days after returning from Ponferrada, my parents showed up.  The timing of their visit was based on the date of our July Spanish wedding celebration, so they were in town a few days before, and stayed a few days after. The day after my parents arrived, so did one of my best friends – and the day after that, a friend of C’s (those were our four US based representatives at the party here!). Like I said, July was a busy month.

I wish I had more pictures to share of our “wedding” here. I eeked one off of Facebook, but we we went to see them yesterday (they are GREAT) and hopefully I’ll have a link or at least some more pics to share soon. It was a really lovely celebration, nothing to do with the one in the states. It was very casual, C and his bagpipe group played, we involved our nieces and nephews, wrote some silly vows, had a traditional dance group come and dance around us, and then spent the rest of the night eating, drinking, and enjoying the company of everyone (we had about 100 people!).

Just before the vows that went something like this: “L, do you take C with his bagpipe, his tendency not to speak, his excessive love for churches, monasteries, castles….?” and “C, do you take Lynne, her cats, her tendency to break into Broadway song at any given time…?” You get the picture.

And in the days before and after, we managed to show my parents a little more of Northern Spain. We hit Burgos, Los Picos, and San Sebastian, and they also had a chance to spend a little time in Bilbao. We ate well, drank well, introduced them to the ninnies (that’s what I call my cats), and had a lot of laughs.

Love this shot of them in Lost Picos. And if you even think that my mother got any closer to any sort of railing, you are wrong, wrong, wrong.

This railing was at a much more digestible height. 🙂 Mountains one day, beach the next. I live in a pretty cool place.

We dropped my parents off in Bilbao but stuck around San Sebastian for another night. It was the very beginning of their annual Jazzfest and it just so happened that one of my favoritest people in the whole world was performing that night, free, on the beach.

Monstrously huge amounts of Jamie love I have. HUGE. Love.

I think I’ve mentioned before how much I love San Sebastian. There were LOADS of people in town for the festival, so it was a wee bit on the crowded side for me, but I love the food and the vibe and the location…lots of Jamie love and lots of San Sebastian love. A repeatable trip for sure.

SO. In the middle of all this, while my parents are visiting, C and I come home from the grocery store one day to find a surprise wedding gift in our backyard.

Making their big blog debut…drumroll please…allow me to introduce Beyonce and Shakira (yes, seriously).

My parents were like Oh. My. God. Charles was like Holy. Crap. And I, well, all I could think is WTF are we going to do with CHICKENS???? At first I think we were both a little overwhelmed by the idea. But then by like day 3, when we had named them (snicker), we were like OH this is sort of FUN. We have chickens! Snort.

They are relatively easy to take care of…we feed them every other day, give them water, and move that cage around on the yard every couple days cause they tear the crap out of the grass. They poo a lot.  But we discovered chicken poo makes good fertilizer, it like totally revived our strawberry plants! And they don’t make a lot of noise, though I do hear a flurry of clucking occasionally. Otherwise, for the most part, they each lay one beautiful egg every day. Beyonce lays mack daddy eggs, the things are like an egg and a third. I keep trying to see them actually lay one because I understand they come out clear and whiten up with the air. C even set up his GoPro out there, but Beyonce got camera shy and protested by laying her egg on the other side. (See, even as I write this, I can’t believe I’m actually writing this.) I get a little giddy every day going out to look for eggs. And for the most part, when you take them out, they are even still WARM. Soooooooo cool.

See? The ninnies were even like WHATTHEFUCK is in the yard. This kills me. LOL.

And, that brings us through the end of July. Almost caught up.

REALLY Being Hospitaleros

Well, the time had come. We  packed our bags for two weeks, took a delightful detour, and we – just like the GPS lady says – arrived at our destination. Ponferrada.

First a little about Ponferrada. It’s in the province of El Bierzo (hello deeeelisssshhhh wine…yumyumyum…I feel like I say that a lot, woops) in Castilla y Leon, and has a population of around 70,000. It’s actually a nice little town – it has a pretty old quarter with some big plazas, lots of restaurants and bars (sounds like Anywheresville, Spain so far, no?) and some noteworthy tourist attractions such as the Castillo de los Templarios, among several others.

Being that it was our first time as hospitaleros, and our first time in the albergue there (we didn’t stay in Ponferrada on the Camino), we didn’t really know exactly what to expect! The albergue itself is very large, and really very nice. (I can say this especially because I have seen a little bit of everything.) There are bunk beds for 148 people split among rooms of 4, 6, and 8, and two very large rooms of 30+. There were six big bathrooms, a really large and fairly well stocked (pots, pans, fridge, etc.) kitchen with two stovetops, two big open patio areas, a library  (where we’d also put people on mats on the floor after we filled the beds), and a chapel on the property. To give you an idea…

This is a view from upstairs looking out…so you can see the covered patio – complete with a fountain – the outside patio covered by trees, and also the chapel.

Looking toward the front door. That table is where we check everyone in…

The library – what it looks like when we are pushing 200 people and had people sleeping on mats and on the couches there. During the day, it’s a nice big open room for folks to chill and relax.

The kitchen from one side…soooo many people stayed in and cooked. And you should have seen what some of them made. I saw homemade gnocchi, pasta cooked in white wine and cream sauce…I mean…there were some pretty good pilgrim chefs, I must say.

The stove side…the very. Well. Used. Stove side.

We were lucky here to have, among the five hospitaleros who were with us, really awesome people. A girl from Italy, another from Columbia who was living in Australia, and another from Spain. We got along great, and worked together – for the most part – remarkably well. AND the hospitaleros here have their own own rooms (C and I in the “couples” room), a bathroom only for our use, and our own kitchen as well. It makes a huge difference to be able to have your own space among so many people!!

SO. We had to find our own rhythm, a schedule and division of labor that worked for us (like every new group of hospitaleros has to do amongst themselves). The first days we were sort of walking in circles, like a bee colony with no queen bee or something. But after like 3 days we had it down. It went sort of like this:

5:20am – C and I – voluntarily (I am a morning person anyway) would get up to unlock the doors. The albergue is locked from 10:00pm until 5:30am – no one in or out. We had some very hot days (in the 90’s) when we were there and there were almost always 3 or 4 people up and waiting by the door to get an early start, beat the heat, ensure they have a place to sleep whenever they wanted to stop (July is a SUPER busy month, good heavens…and yes, there are albergues that can fill up). One morning someone told me that a guy had jumped the wall at 5:20 because he wanted to get out. Hellloooo….that’s a serious wall-scaling with a 20 pound backpack, and for 10 minutes? But to each his own.

5:30am – 7:30am – We would mull around, send people off and wish them a buen camino, answer questions, etc. From what we heard, we were the first hospitaleros to do this (the others woke up, unlocked the door, and went right back to bed), but we both really enjoyed it. I especially loved seeing everyone’s faces as they got going, watching their morning foot-preparation rituals, that wince as they put their backpacks back on. Plus it’s a really pretty time of day, cool, crisp, you can watch the sun come up…

7:00ish – The other hospitaleros would be up and about. Many of the pilgrims were gone by then, on average I’d say they left around 6:30. BUT we always had a few stragglers, a few folks who just couldn’t pull themselves out of bed, or who miraculously slept through the morning bustle of everyone ELSE packing their bags – everyone HAD to be out by 7:30, so between 7 and 7:30, we’d be wrangling folks out the door, starting to organize the morning cleaning, and if it was especially quiet, making a dent in the day’s chores.

7:30am – 8:15amish – We started the cleaning process. And what a process it was. We had to divide and conquer the work…scrubbing all the bathrooms (toilets, showers, urinals…and mind you, after walking 20 or 30 kilometers, you do NOT show up clean and shiny, so these bathrooms got a beating), the kitchen (including all that food people left and the dishes they didn’t do and the messes they left), the patios, the big bedrooms downstairs (wiping down all the beds, washing the floors), the library, the trash and separating all the recycling…

8:15amish – Normally we were at a good breaking point to sit down and have breakfast together, which we always, always did. At about that time, the two fabulous ladies who came to help clean showed up, and – because it was our lucky two weeks – we had a team of five SUPER awesome visiting Franciscan brothers who showed up around this time and ALSO helped us clean. Lord only knows how long it would have taken us without them. Poor guys had no idea when they signed up to come to Spain that they’d be scrubbing toilets every day. But they were such good sports.

8:30amish – 10:30 – Massive, aerobic, intensive, thorough cleaning. It’s good for what ails ya. No seriously. Aside from some barf-worthy stuff, I don’t mind it at all. I got seriously schooled in cleaning products. So there’s that. When we got back home, I had to buy a new mop because ours suddenly looked wimpy.

10:30am – A mandatory break. We would have coffee – all of us with the ladies – and the priest would show up every day to catch us up on anything, to pay anyone who had gone grocery shopping (we shopped as a group, and always got reimbursed), and just to chit chat. At first, I was like “ugh, I’m in my rhythm, I just wanna get this DONE” but then I realized it was a daily bonding moment, and I really enjoyed it. We had a lot of laughs.

11:00am – Back to work to finish up whatever we needed to…after a few days, we had gotten into a pretty good rhythm and were usually not working much past this. So then you had time for a quick nap, or a run to the store, or a shower – all really depended on your schedule for the day.

1:00pm – Doors to the albergue open, and C would always play his bagpipe to announce it. There were usually at least 20 people waiting, sometimes more. We created a daily rotating schedule and worked in two hour shifts – always two people at the door at a time, 3 in the first two hours which were usually the busiest of the day. Checking people in means writing down their name, ID#, where they are from, where they started the Camino, and stamping their Camino passports. One person would do that (everything was documented in books) while the other person figured out how to distribute the beds/rooms and where to put everyone…it would change if someone was by themselves, or in a group who wanted to stay together, (and occasionally accommodating requests for the lower bunk…which EVERYone wanted because EVERYone on the Camino has some kind of “tendonitis” or what have you…for the record, I always took the upper bunk, and thank heavens, so did some other people), etc. etc. The crowds would vary from day to day, sometimes it was steady all day long, sometimes people showed up in big massive spurts. But always, always, always a lot of people. From 1:00 until 10:00 when we closed the doors, two of us were always at the desk. And the others? Resting, running errands, chatting with and helping the pilgrims (the questions…never ending! Ranging from “where’s the nearest store/bank/restaurant?” to “Help, I lost my wallet…” to “I need a doctor…” to “I have a million questions about the next towns along the Camino” to “Whats the bus/train schedule…” You name it.).

The line of people waiting to come in one day when the doors opened at 1. People would show up and wait outside from as early as 9am, especially in the hot weather. If they got an early enough start, they could have already covered 20km by then.

During this time, we would also be giving credentials to anyone who was starting the Camino in Ponferrada – every pilgrim needs credentials to stay in the albergues. Basically, this is documentation that says you are actually a pilgrim walking the Camino. In 2012, almost 7000 people started their Camino there. (By the way this links to some really interesting statistics if you’re interested!) Those folks always had a ton of question too, especially if it was their first time! People would show up all day long – folks who were staying or weren’t staying at the albergue – didn’t matter. One morning I had an 83 year old woman waiting outside the door to pick up her credentials at 5:30am – she was starting that day and told me it was her 8th time doing the Camino. WOW.

9:30pm – We would begin to rally everyone inside. Our rule was 10:00, in bed, lights out. Most people are tired and ready to hit the sack. Others? Well, notsomuch. It IS hard sometimes, by 10 it was just a lovely time of day and people have had a few drinks and are relaxing and having a great time with their Camino friends…who wants to go to bed?? We never really had a huge problem – one night a bunch of 20-somethings wanted to go out later than the albergue was open, so they took their sleeping bags and came back at 5:30 in the morning. Ah to be young. It was really fine with us…the rules we had were to help allow people get the rest they need to get going the next day, as long as we did that, we’re doing our jobs.

Once we got everyone in bed, lights out, all the talkers and stragglers and smokers and wanna-be-escapees in bed…we all retreated to the kitchen for dinner, a few glasses of wine, and general daily recap.

Our moment at the end of the day in our kitchen. Note the wine in water bottles…LOL…we’d fill them up and keep wine chilled in the fridge cause it was so hot!

Repeat.

I loved it. I loved the routine, being so busy that the days flew by, falling into bed exhausted at night…plus the people, talking to them helping them, learning from them, laughing with them. People from all over the world, all sizes and shapes and ages, every day something different, every day never knowing what kind of group it would be. It was awesome.

This is Evaristo. He lives at the albergue and does just about everything as far as maintenance goes. He is a character like no other, but he is a good man and must have the patience of a saint to put up with a new group of clueless people every two weeks…having to explain everything over and over…we had a lot of laughs with him. And he had a lot of laughs with us. Nothing quite like screwing with the newbies. 🙂

We had three different pilgrims come by…or should I say with?…a donkey. Obviously the donkey sleeps outside…

The guy in the pink is Carlos. He is a nurse and he and his wife have both been hospitaleros and live in Ponferrada (they met on the Camino). They are some of the most wonderful, generous folks I’ve ever met. Carlos would come almost every afternoon and help people out with their ailments, mostly badly blistered feet. Plus, he showed us all around, would pitch in and help if we were busy, answered all our questions, advised us…he was like our albergue angel.

The number of young kids doing the Camino with their parents blew my mind. What strength!! Kids walking, biking…either way, what a memory for a child to have, and what an amazing way to open your kids’ eyes to the world. Loved seeing them.

Finally after a week, we got some rain in the afternoons…cooled things off and made for some beautiful double rainbows. These folks came with three horses, and opted to camp out with their animals…we had a few pilgrims on horseback those weeks.

Our youngest pilgrim. They were traveling with three kids…the whole family was lovely. What a bunch of troopers.

Hangout time. When you can finally take a load off…get in, take a shower, do your laundry and chill. The fountain was great for sore feet (and even better for startling unsuspecting pilgrims). And of course, people still showing up. Constant movement.

Sleepy hospitaleros. Gotta squeeze in a few minutes of sleep whenever you can…

The five of us on our last day.

Like I’ve told everyone I’ve talked to about this…being a hospitalero is a lot of work. You are go-go-go all day long, for us, from 5:30am until usually after midnight. You feel a strong sense of responsibility to take care of all 150+ people sleeping under your roof, and to make sure they have a really good experience staying with you. On top of that, it is a lesson in how to work with other people, in being a team, in group problem solving, a test of patience, kindness, of your ability to put all judgment aside and treat everyone with warmth and respect. And it is incredibly rewarding – pilgrims were so kind with their words and their gratitude, by being there for them, or helping or listening, or whatever it is they might have needed, you have literally changed their Camino in some way.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat. We WILL do it again. I’m already looking forward to it.