Summer 2010: Homeward bound
After the fiesta del agua at school, I packed a few bags and left temporarily for home, family, and cabin. I was lucky enough to be able to spend a good chunk of the summer Up North with my dad, working, fishing, and watching the ospreys glide by. I know this is supposed to be my blog about my home in Spain, but there is truly nowhere on earth I feel more at ease and more at home than on Lake Vermilion.
The other highlight of the summer, aside from catching up with friends and family, was a college friend’s wedding—I was thrilled to be able to stay home long enough to celebrate with Katie and Blake!
Fall 2010
A glimpse of Poland
It took 24 hours and three separate planes to get me back to Madrid. On the way, I had a seven hour layover in (of all places) Warsaw, Poland. Being the good Polish descendent that I am, I took full advantage of the time and spent most of it in the historic city center. I was told that it is not the most beautiful city, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The old center, at least, is gorgeous! And colorful! I suppose in a country with a colder climate and grayer skies, it helps to gild and paint the buildings. Wonder why we’ve never thought of that in MN…
I had four hours to wander around Market Square, Castle Square, and lots of streets with (for me) utterly unpronounceable names. People kept coming up to me and asking me things in Polish. Most likely directions or the time, but they could have been asking me the derivative formula for calculating the exact landing spot of the Mayflower in an adjacent parallel universe, for all I know. All I could say was “Prosze” (please) and “uhhh”, accompanied by a helpless look. It was actually an odd feeling: it’s the first time I’ve been mistaken for a native and not actually known the language. Until then, all of my traveling has been in Spain, English-speaking countries, or Portugal (where Spanish works well enough, and absolutely no one mistakes me for Portuguese. Spanish, yes, oddly enough.).
Windmills
Continuing the theme of random trips, I hopped on a nearly-empty bus for a two-hour journey to a small town in the middle of La Macha (de cuyo nombre sí que me acuerdo!): Consuegra. The only other people on the bus were a pair of Japanese girls and several little old ladies. Once in the town, I immediately started up an endless series of stairs until I came to the main (and, really, only) attraction: windmills. A dozen honest-to-goodness, quixotic (in the original meaning of the word: Quixote-esque!) windmills are strung across the crest of a hill. They march around an old castle and reign over the patchwork vista of russet, sage green, and goldenrod that is La Mancha. I spent a marvelous few hours trying to photographically capture the shadow of windmill arms curving across the rough white surface of windmill towers, wandering around each and every one, and even climbing up inside one of them (it doubled as a tourist shop, and the owner told me to say hi to my grandma for him, so here it is: Hi, Grandma!). Each windmill had its own name. My favorite: Chispas, with its sky blue door. A little girl seated atop her daddy’s shoulders grabbed one of the arms and started to shake it until the father told her to stop “or we’ll see on the news tonight: Little Girl Breaks Famous ‘Chispas’ Windmill!". The old giant somehow withstood the onslaught.
Mary plays dress-up, and Other Adventures
Other Fall highlights: a flamenco show at Casa Patas which was possibly even better than the one I had previously seen in Sevilla (you know it’s a good place to be when someone in the audience is also a flamenco dancer and gets up at the end, in jeans and boots, to join in). A Halloween party at Tasha’s, complete with pumpkin carving, witch wigs, and a “guess-the-body-part” game. Thanksgiving dinner, also at Tasha’s, complete with pumpkin pie! Related to the pumpkin carving? We may never know… ;-)
And, also in November, the U.S. Marine Corps Birthday Ball, hosted by the U.S. Embassy at the Hilton. Long story, but basically an Embassy official invited a whole bunch of auxiliares to the Ball, and all of two of us went. I bought myself a fancy dress, was seated at a table full of Marines, and felt more than a little like Cinderella. I schmoozed and danced and met the ambassador (very briefly) and, well, had a ball!
After the fiesta del agua at school, I packed a few bags and left temporarily for home, family, and cabin. I was lucky enough to be able to spend a good chunk of the summer Up North with my dad, working, fishing, and watching the ospreys glide by. I know this is supposed to be my blog about my home in Spain, but there is truly nowhere on earth I feel more at ease and more at home than on Lake Vermilion.
The other highlight of the summer, aside from catching up with friends and family, was a college friend’s wedding—I was thrilled to be able to stay home long enough to celebrate with Katie and Blake!
Fall 2010
A glimpse of Poland
It took 24 hours and three separate planes to get me back to Madrid. On the way, I had a seven hour layover in (of all places) Warsaw, Poland. Being the good Polish descendent that I am, I took full advantage of the time and spent most of it in the historic city center. I was told that it is not the most beautiful city, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The old center, at least, is gorgeous! And colorful! I suppose in a country with a colder climate and grayer skies, it helps to gild and paint the buildings. Wonder why we’ve never thought of that in MN…
I had four hours to wander around Market Square, Castle Square, and lots of streets with (for me) utterly unpronounceable names. People kept coming up to me and asking me things in Polish. Most likely directions or the time, but they could have been asking me the derivative formula for calculating the exact landing spot of the Mayflower in an adjacent parallel universe, for all I know. All I could say was “Prosze” (please) and “uhhh”, accompanied by a helpless look. It was actually an odd feeling: it’s the first time I’ve been mistaken for a native and not actually known the language. Until then, all of my traveling has been in Spain, English-speaking countries, or Portugal (where Spanish works well enough, and absolutely no one mistakes me for Portuguese. Spanish, yes, oddly enough.).
Windmills
Continuing the theme of random trips, I hopped on a nearly-empty bus for a two-hour journey to a small town in the middle of La Macha (de cuyo nombre sí que me acuerdo!): Consuegra. The only other people on the bus were a pair of Japanese girls and several little old ladies. Once in the town, I immediately started up an endless series of stairs until I came to the main (and, really, only) attraction: windmills. A dozen honest-to-goodness, quixotic (in the original meaning of the word: Quixote-esque!) windmills are strung across the crest of a hill. They march around an old castle and reign over the patchwork vista of russet, sage green, and goldenrod that is La Mancha. I spent a marvelous few hours trying to photographically capture the shadow of windmill arms curving across the rough white surface of windmill towers, wandering around each and every one, and even climbing up inside one of them (it doubled as a tourist shop, and the owner told me to say hi to my grandma for him, so here it is: Hi, Grandma!). Each windmill had its own name. My favorite: Chispas, with its sky blue door. A little girl seated atop her daddy’s shoulders grabbed one of the arms and started to shake it until the father told her to stop “or we’ll see on the news tonight: Little Girl Breaks Famous ‘Chispas’ Windmill!". The old giant somehow withstood the onslaught.
Mary plays dress-up, and Other Adventures
Other Fall highlights: a flamenco show at Casa Patas which was possibly even better than the one I had previously seen in Sevilla (you know it’s a good place to be when someone in the audience is also a flamenco dancer and gets up at the end, in jeans and boots, to join in). A Halloween party at Tasha’s, complete with pumpkin carving, witch wigs, and a “guess-the-body-part” game. Thanksgiving dinner, also at Tasha’s, complete with pumpkin pie! Related to the pumpkin carving? We may never know… ;-)
And, also in November, the U.S. Marine Corps Birthday Ball, hosted by the U.S. Embassy at the Hilton. Long story, but basically an Embassy official invited a whole bunch of auxiliares to the Ball, and all of two of us went. I bought myself a fancy dress, was seated at a table full of Marines, and felt more than a little like Cinderella. I schmoozed and danced and met the ambassador (very briefly) and, well, had a ball!
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