Spanish Inquiring

Vietnam proved to be a great time, full of enough adventure to fill several vacations. While we were sad to say "farewell" to the Spees and to Vietnamese food (and prices), we were excited to move on to Spain. It was great to finally make it back to a country where we were (somewhat) comfortable with the language for the first time since November in South Africa. And of course, there's tapas and Spanish wine too.

It didn't take us long to realize that our trip had come full circle. Out taxi driver pointed out the Spanish treasury as we drove by and I made a comment about how "there must be a lot of gold in there," to which he responded, "Yes - my people's gold." It turns out he was Peruvian. We had begun in Peru, where the Spanish got their gold and now we found ourselves at the destination.

Ah...so that's where the gold went. The Monarch's dining room.

And a bit for the basilica too.

After a brief stop in Madrid, we jumped on a train and made our way down to Granada. Situated in South-Central Spain, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, it is a lovely town. Full of history, food, and culture, and with snow-capped peaks rising above, it's a great place. One of our main goals was to see the Alhambra. The Muslim Moors ruled Spain for many centuries. Ultimately, it was the last remaining Muslim stronghold in Spain, and when the Spanish Monarchs conquered it in 1492, the victory marked the beginning of Spain as we know it today. It also marked a crossroads in global history, as this is where Christopher Columbus met with the monarchs to get permission to set sail to "India." Either that or "to introduce syphilis to the new world." I'm not sure how he sold the trip to the monarchs. It was a neat place to see, though we missed seeing the main halls of the palace due to a visit from the current Spanish king and queen. The nerve! It also gave the boys a good lesson in how not to be a gracious guest, as one of the other tourists spent the entire time telling the guide what a vile, dishonest, person he was for not making the monarchs visit on a day that wouldn't inconvenience her. From our perspective, it just gave us a reason to come back!

Inside the ornate Alhambra

A traditional Moorish bath

Visiting an evening Flamenco show

Granada also served as our introduction to "tapas." These basically are small snacks provided with your drink, and are fantastic. They can be all manner of food, from roast potatoes, cured ham, olives, kebabs, croquettes, to meatballs. The story behind their origin is unknown, but legend has it that Queen Isabella stopped in a dusty bar and said, "if you have something decent to eat and wine without flies in it, my whole entourage will dine here." Desperate to keep the fruit flies out of her wine, the owner put a piece of ham over the top of the glass and said, "here is your wine and tapa (topping)." And the name stuck. It turns out that we needed to be educated in the ways of tapas. On our first attempt, we sat down and as soon as the waiter came by, we asked for some food. He looked appalled and said, "No, no, no. Have a drink. Then I will bring you a tapa to snack on. Enjoy them for a while. Socialize. Then after a bit, I will come check on you, and if you liked your wine and tapas, then maybe we can talk about some food." It took us quite some time to adapt to the Spanish pace of life, but I have to say that an afternoon siesta is something I could get used to. Especially since restaurants don't even open until 8 PM.

Learning the art of ordering tapas

On a visit to Salobrena, on the southern coast

The boys end up in the castle keep

In Salobrena we learned for whom the bell tolls. The bell tolls for lunch.

Carol ordering treats. There are still several cloistered convents who support themselves by baking. You ring a bell, give your order through the door, put your money on the wooden wheel behind Carol, then the wheel gets spun, money disappears and treats appear. A miracle!

From there, we jumped on another train and made our way to Salamanca, home of "the Harvard of Spain." I suspect they are glad not to be the "Harvard of the US" at the moment. Our time there was spent seeing some amazing forts and cathedrals. It gives you a sense of how young our country is when you are touring the "Cathedral Nuevo" (new cathedral) and it was built in 1513. The nearby old cathedral is a more respectable 850 years old. The latter was a strange place to attend mass, as the entire floor is the lids of century old coffins. Talk about "if these walls could talk." We also managed to squeeze in some day trips to nearby Avila, which has one of the most intact medieval walls still in existence, as well as Ciudad Rodrigo, a former medieval outpost city.

The city walls of Avila

The chapel of Avila, where St. Theresa de Avila was baptized

Neil learning to cook Pallia

Tim mastering the wrist flick for tortilla de papas

We thought from there we'd go visit a different part of Spain, but accidentally wound up in a different country - Basque Country. I'd long been interested in the region, since the Grand Junction area had a large population of Basque shepherds in the 1900s. The city park still has a Basque handball court, and I once found a carving by one on an aspen tree near our cabin. Plus, our divemaster in Thailand grew up there and said we had to go. And apparently, it's where "Game of Thrones" was filmed, if you care (the house of Dragonstone, apparently). If you, like me, think that Basque Country is another region of Spain, I'd encourage you not to say that to the Basque. They remain fiercely independent, with graffiti demanding independence all around. They also have their own language that is older than Spanish (about 4000 years) and has no relation to any language in existence today. Sometimes, if they were feeling generous, they would also put Spanish on a sign or two.

The remains of a medieval foundry and longbow workshop

As it happened, we were there for Palm Sunday and decided to go to the Basque capital of Bilbao for mass. We expected to see a Palm Sunday procession, but you will have to forgive us for thinking we had stumbled into a Klan rally. We had come across a procession of "Nazarenos," penitential brotherhoods that perform work for the churches and other civic activities. For Holy Week, they also process in their traditional garb, which is derived from the costume sinners would be sentenced to wear during the Middle Ages. Each group has their own colors and style, but they all look kinda like Klansmen. While there is some suggestion that the Klan may have taken their sartorial inspiration from the Nazarenos, they want nothing to do with our wayward domestic brethren.

They even come as cakes!

A failed attempt to get the boys some culture at the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum

Having had our fill of Game of Thrones sites and pseudo-Klansmen we set our sights eastward to San Sebastian. Once a bustling and important port on Spain's Atlantic coast, it is now kinda like Spain's answer to Aspen. Fur shops abounded (who still wears fur?) and a porche wasn't even a noteworthy sighting. Nonetheless, it's a gorgeous place and popular for a reason with a famous bay called Bahia de Conca shaped like, you guessed it, a sea shell. We wandered the streets, ate some amazing tapas, and visited the lovely aquarium. We eventually got expelled from our AirBnB because we had the audacity to ask if it was legal. Span has a big issue with illegal rentals, and the sign on the kitchen table telling us to lie and say we were the owners friends had made us wonder. The host claimed that he "was a non-profit with a mission of providing housing to visitors and so a license isn't needed." When I asked if we could get more information so we could donate to his important nonprofit work he responded by inviting us to leave. All's well that ends well though as we now had time to visit the pretty border town of Irun, where we had some great food and went scuba diving. If you haven't been diving in 13 deg C water, I'll ruin the surprise and suggest you skip it. What else is fun about being on the French border? Pheasant island. Spain and France could never agree who got this unimportant speck of land, and so now it's Spanish for half the year then French for the other. In years gone by, this no man's land served as a place to sign treaties and exchange brides and grooms (though I'm just rehashing old news, for those of you who attended the wedding of Louis XIV there). What's it used for now? Mainly it serves as another thing to check out on Atlas Obscura. At this point we decided we were sick and tired of being in a place where we could speak the language and it was time to make life difficult again.

Notable Quotables:

Tim: It's good to be back in empanada land.

Logan: Timothy, you are drunk with power, you need to calm down! (Tim was relishing vanquishing his family at Uno for the third time in a row)

Carol: These (Palm Sunday) palms have been blessed, you can't hit your brother with them!

Tim: It's important when you choose a stick that it have awesome sound effects.