A chance encounter

Madrid felt like the center of the universe this weekend - both Bad Bunny and the Pope were visiting. Bad Bunny is pretty famous, but it´s hard to compete with the Pope when you´re in a Catholic country. The planning for this visit was tremenous: while there was lots published about who the Pope would meet and where you could see him, I was even more interested in learning about where to avoid. They closed 15 metro stops throughout the weekend, and on Sunday they expected more than a million people to attend the open air mass. (The mass was held in a huge traffic circle, normally circled by six lanes of traffic. I still don´t know how they maanged to fit that many people in one plaza.)

So my main goal this weekend was to avoid the hoopla. The city government gave lots of instructions about how to prepare for the influx of tourists, including the recommendation to buy all your groceries three days before the Pope arrived. I mainly stayed close to home, but I thought I was safe on Monday, when the Pope had only private appearances. However, since teleportation hasn´t been invented yet, the Pope has to travel on the streets, like a regular person (okay, not really that regular). My friend and I were having coffee in our favorite cafe with a view, when we realized that if we hung around, comfortably, in the cafe for an extra hour or two, we could probably catch a glimpse of him and his entourage. We did, and I found it delightful, simply because it´s fun living in a big city where things like this can just happen. 

All things The Pope, exhibit 1: The news was 100% about the visit. Even the weather was branded with his image. 

All things The Pope, part 2: metros and buses were decorated. This one said, "Welcome, Holy Father," and the blue car next to it had his portrait.

And, the main event. 

Final Germany post: Things that might not happen on everyone´s vacation

My bicycling buddies and I are all physicists, with some additional culinary and sartorial interests. I wanted to capture some of the things that make this special. For example, above, I´m enjoying four different pieces of cake. The intense focus on baked goods during my trips is not unique, of course, but I blame it on my year working in a French bakery when I was younger.

S is a solar physicist, who uses data from satellites to study the sun. When we found one of those solar system models with the planets proportionally spread across a few kilometers of park land, she cycled back to the beginning to get a selfie with the sun.

N appreciates the finer things in life. He found this incredible German hatmaker at the top of a mountain, and convinced me to drop a ridiculous amount on this hat. I love it. I do actually wear sunhats every day in Madrid, so it will be used, and you can really see a different between this and my 5€ convenience store hat. 

The guys really, really loved the extensive hotel breakfasts and occasionally sneaked out a "road sandwich", aka one for the road. 

Emergency coding after a long ride. 

Taken at the airport, before the trip began, discussing physics. N actually travelled with several physics textbooks. I didn´t ask, but I really hope they weren´t actually in his pannier the whole time.

Germany: All the best things

There is a lot I miss about Germany, and I tried to soak it all in while I was there. Of course, many of those things are food. Spain has excellent produce and nuts, and is rightfully proud of its Mediterannean diet. But it´s also a little lacking in food for vegetarians, and of course every country has products you just can´t get anywhere else.

May is prime asparagus season in Germany. That really is an official thing - it´s called Spargelzeit. Especially beloved is white asparagus, and many restaurants offer special menus featuring asparagus. I didn´t find anthing as unique as the aspargaus burger (six huge white stalks piled on a hambruger) compared to our last bike trip to Germany, but we ate lots of asparagus soup, asparagus and hollandaise sauce, even asparagus pasta dishes and flatbreads. 

As is tyrpical in the US and the UK, almost every restaurant has a vegetarian option on the menu, something that I can´t rely on in Spain. This was my favorite - "napkin dumplings" that are wrapped in cloth before being boiled. They were topped with a creamy mushroom gravy. It never occurs to me to make dumplings in my own kitchen, but I need to do so more often.

I am a fan of cake, and on all our bike trips I try to convince a group to make a cake stop daily. Usually we share so we can try many different flavors. I remember this particular cake shop had about a dozen options and I insisted my friend N come view them all before choosing. 

Cool, rainy weather! I don´t actually want to live in continuous rain, but I´d definitely take it over baking heat.

We were able to check a bag back to Spain, and had extra luggage space, so I quickly bought German products I miss. The incredible strawberries didn´t make it more than 15 minutes past this photo. The  rest I have been slowly enjoying over the past few weeks: soft pretzels topped with baked cheese (Käsebrezel), cherry yogurt, plum butter, hazlenut yogurt.

Since it was spring, and there was rain, flowers bloomed everywhere, helped by the German love of gardening. I am now back in Spain, where the temperatures are topping 32C / 90F. When this happens, all the grass dies and the city comes and mows it down to the ground and rakes it all away, leaving bare, dry earth (and presumably reducing fire hazards). So I am especially missing spectacles like this. 

Cycling down the Rhine

Last May, I took a smashing cycle trip through eastern France with friends R, N, and S. We had so much fun that we decided to do it again, this time in Germany. As always, the criteria for our trips are: Schengen zone (so I can travel easily), low chance of Putin invading, good bakeries and beer or wine, and not too many mountains. 

This time, I knew I´d be head translator, so I brushed up on my German the month before. I was pretty sucessful, I think, based on the fact that people did not switch back to English when we were talking, and I´ve definitely heard that Germans will do that if they think their English is better than your German. 

Even though we had a relaxed trip, somehow the days were packed and I didn´t manage to post anything during the trip. If you allow 1-2 hours for every meal, plus castle tours and cake stops, the days fill up very quickly. So stay tuned while I get caught up this month. 

We had lots of meals in little courtyards like this. 

Last year in Lyon, the them was "chateaus". This year the theme was "castles", which are almost excessively abundant on the Rhine. Sometimes you can stand on one location and see three at once, so it seems like all those dukes and barons would be rubbing elbows with their neighbors.

A river, car-free bicycle paths, and easy-going friends. What else could I want on a trip? Well, cake and castles, but I got those too. 

Our free day took place in Koblenz, where we saw the huge statue of William I, the first German emperor, at meeting of the Rhine and the Mosel rivers. That day, we managed to take a river cruise, drink a few spiked coffees, ride a cable car, and tour a fortress. We did not rest much on our rest day.

Three-quarters the way through our longest day, 65 km. I may have taken a nap on one of those benches, but I admit nothing. 

Let´s hear it for modern medicine

I´ve been dealing with some tooth problems again. Right after my trip to France, I got a pretty bad toothache, and the dentist found an infecion deep in my jaw. I´ve already had a root canal there in 2021, but the solution seemed to be to more or less do another one. There have been a couple of days with really unpleasant levels of pain, but mainly I´m on a steady trajectory upward. I´m three appointments into the treatments and only have one more left.

I have been pretty regularly reflecting on how great modern medicine is. I´ve received antibiotics, novacaine, and pain killers that will probably allow me to save (part) of the remaining tooth. Two weeks later, I can eat solid food again and almost all of the pain is gone. Two centuries ago, at age fifty, I probably would be toothless because of all my dental problems, and the treatments would have been agony before anesthesia. I feel really lucky to be alive in this era. (And after a few weeks of laying around and doing nothing more than taking legal drugs, I´m really enjoying walking, eating solid food, and bicycling again!)

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Lo siento, hoy no hay ninguna entrada en español.

Toulouse

As I've talked about in the past, I am exploring other possibilities where I might make a home. One option is France, and that's why I visited it last week. As I did last year in Hamburg, I used a housesitting service, which lets me take care of people's pets while staying in their homes for free. I applied for two positions in France during April, and received one, in Toulouse.

I was in Toulouse a year ago, but that was a touristy kind of trip, and this time I really wanted to learn more about day to day life, not what museums I could see. So I did my usual scouting trip process, which includes talking to other immigrants and using the buses to go to the very edges of the city. In addition, of course, I ate lots of French cakes.

I love the size of Toulouse and that it has a couple of big universities. This, for me, is really a sign of the academic and cultural vibe I'm going for. They also have a great public transportation system and the weather, at least in spring, was lovely. Now I just need to learn more about the disadvantages, like the legal processes I´d need to undertake.

The cats at my last petsitting gig did not like me at all (but I don´t think they liked anyone). These cats, named Paulette and Pacha, were very friendly. I miss pets a lot, and it was a delight to spend time with them. //

Los gatos de mi última función como “cuidadora de hogares” no me gustaban nada (creo que a ellos no les gustaba nadie). Pero estos gatos, que se llaman Paulette y Pacha, me gustaron mucho. Echo muchísimo de menos a las mascotas, y fue un placer pasar tiempo con ellos.

Gariguettes, the best strawberries that I have ever eaten. Sweet and soft, they turn into mush 

within a day, so you have to eat them immediately. They are a specialty of the region. //

Las mejores fresas que he probado... dulces y suaves, se ablandan en un día, así que necesité comerlas inmediatamente. Son una especialidad de esta región.

Market day // El mercado

Really fancy apple cake // 

Pastel de manzana y nata realmente elegante

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Como expliqué anteriormente, estoy explorando otros lugares potenciales donde podría vivir. Una posibilidad es Francia, y por esta razón la visité la semana pasada. Tal y como hice el año pasado en Hamburgo, en Francia, mi intención era cuidar una vivienda mientras vivía gratis. Solicité dos puestos en Francia durante el mes de abril, y recibí uno, en Toulouse.

Visité Toulouse hace un año, pero esa fue una visita turística, y esta vez quería pasar más tiempo explorando el día a día, y no los museos o las atracciones turísticas. Es por eso que tuve algunas citas con otros extranjeros y viajé en autobuses por toda la ciudad. Además, claro está, comí muchos pasteles franceses.

Me gusta el tamaño de Toulouse y que haya algunas universidades grandes, porque define muy bien su interés por lo académico y el gusto por lo cultural. También tiene un buen sistema de transporte público y el clima (al menos en primavera) es agradable. Ahora tengo que aprender más sobre las desventajas, como por ejemplo, los procesos legales.

Olives

t is no secret that I really miss gardening. I make do with my little terrace window boxes, but they certainly don´t scratch the itch of growing and storing your own food. However, I have managed a bit of this by collecting olives. My first winter here, I noticed that a nearby park had been built around an older, existing olive grove. I watched carefully, and noticed that in the late winter, the birds were feasting on the olives, so clearly the city did not pick them. I had seen people who did not look like locals (as evidenced by their headscarves) picking them, so the following year I did too.

I picked 5 kg of olives this fall. That is a LOT.

Processing olives to make them edible is time consuming work, as I knew from the one time I ordered a delivery of raw olives in the US. After picking, you sort by size and variety, prick or cut the skin of every fruit, then soak them in water. This water must be changed daily for 2-4 weeks, until the bitter compounds have been leached out sufficiently to make them edible. If you try to eat an olive off the tree, you will spit it out immediately - it is that astringent. After the many soaking, you marinate the olives in salt, vinegar, and flavourings, and in just a few more months, you have tasty olives to share. This is not for the faint of heart, or for those who can´t abide a bucket of olives in the kitchen for a month, but it definitely feels close to gardening.

Oviedo

The countryside is very near to the city of Oviedo. // El campo está muy cerca.

Oviedo is a small city in the north of Spain. When I made a list of the places I might like to live besides Madrid, it was one of the top choices. It´s quite close to the sea, which give it a maritime climate with lots more rain than Madrid. It is extremely picturesque, surrounded by mountains, and is filled with fountains and sculptures. Apropos of nothing, it was awarded the title, "Cleanest City in Spain", a fact that almost every person I talked to here told me about.

I went up there last week to explore. I followed my standard scouting mission methodology, which I use when visiting places I might like to live. I schedule coffee meetings with as many immigrants and expats as I can, to learn about their experiences and I take the bus to the end of the line to see what the countryside and outskirts of the city look like. Since culinary ingredients and bicycling are important to me, I always check out the local Asian grocery store and monitor how many bicycles I see as well.

I´m not sure this will be the location of my forever home - it´s simply too small. But it was a fun trip and it feels good to be exploring options.

Woody Allen is apparently a fan. // Woody Allen es un fanático de la ciudad. 

It´s a beautiful city, with lots of sculptures and fountains. // 

Es una ciudad muy chula, con muchas esculturas y fuentes.

Oviedo es una ciudad pequeña en el norte de España. Cuando hice una lista de lugares donde pudiera vivir además de Madrid, fue una de las primeras. Es cerca del mar, que da lugar a un clima suave con más lluvia que Madrid. Es pintoresco, con montañas, fuentes y escultura pública. Además, ha ganado el título a “La ciudad más limpia de España”, aspecto que casi todo ovetense me dijo.

Estuve allí la semana pasada para explorarla. Tengo un horario y metodología cuando visito lugares que podrían ser un posible hogar. Planeo citas con café con inmigrantes, para aprender sobre sus experiencias. También, voy en autobús al final de la línea del autobús, para ver los campos y los barrios de las afueras de la ciudad. Dado que cocinar es importante para mí, siempre voy a las tiendas de alimentación asiática. Al final, presto atención al uso de bicicletas.

No estoy segura de que Oviedo sea el un hogar para vivir siempre; es demasiado pequeño. Sin embargo, fue un viaje divertido y me alegra explorar mis posibilidades.

El Escorial

My friend L came to visit right after my brother vacated the guest premises (which is actually just a comfy mattress on my living room floor). We had big plans, but unfortunately L got sick and spent most of her Spanish holiday in bed. Before she succumbed, though, we visited El Escorial, a place I´ve been meaning to return to since my first visit in 2018.

El Escorial is a palace / monastery / basilica / hunting complex built by Phillip II in the late 1500s. This was during Spain´s Golden Age, and Phillip II was a very devout man who plowed a lot of those stolen riches from the American into this building. It is the largest Renaissance building in the world. (According to the English Wikipedia page, but not the Spanish one, so who knows what the truth is. In any case, it´s big). A friend who recently visited said they did the full tour and then visited the gardens and he tracked his walk at 5km (3 miles).

There was so much to look at, but after the library and basilica and the crypt (where all the Spanish royalty are buried), I started flagging during the second half, where all the living and entertaining rooms were. I have resolved to go back some time and simply sprint through the first half, so I´m fresh to enjoy the second half. We revived ourselves with coffee and cake, then headed home.

A stunning library, featuring gold books, achieved by gilding all the books pages and turning them wrong side around. // Hay una biblioteca impresionante que cubre de oro las tripas de los libros, razón por la cual están colocados del revés, para que se vean sus páginas bañadas en oro.

Its really, really big. // Es muy, muy grande.

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Mi amiga L me visitó inmediatamente después de que mi hermano fuera de mi habitación de invitados (que en realidad es un colchón en el suelo de mi sala). Tuvimos grandes planes, pero desafortunadamente, L se puso malo y pasó casi todo el viaje en encamado. Aunque, antes de esto, visitamos El Escorial, un lugar que visité por última vez en 2018.

Oficialmente, se llama El Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial; es un palacio, monasterio y casa de caza que fue construido por Felipe II a finales del siglo XVI. Esos años fueron parte del Siglo de Oro de España, y Felipe II fue un hombre piadoso que usaba una parte de los tesoros que robó del Nuevo Mundo para construir este palacio. La página web de Wikipedia en inglés dice que es el edificio renacentista más grande del mundo, pero la página web en español no dice nada, entonces no sé qué es la verdad. De todos modos, es muy extensa. Un amigo que lo visitó recientemente me dijo que su guía de los edificios y jardines juntos se midió a 5km.

Había muchísimo que ver, pero después de la biblioteca, la basílica y la cripta, estaba cansada y no prestaba mucha atención a los detalles de la segunda parte del palacio. Decidí volver e ir más deprisa durante la primera parte para poder disfrutar más de la segunda parte. Después, recargamos las pilas con café y pasteles y volvimos a casa.

Calçots

There are only a handful of Spanish dishes that I can appreciate, because most involve pork (aka jamón), fish, or at the very least meat broths. That´s why I usually content myself with enjoying Spanish ingredients, like olives, fresh-squeezed orange juice, or the massive and sweet red peppers. So when my friend T. suggested a meal of a local onions, I was very excited.

These onions, named calçots, are a Catalan specialty eaten in the spring. (By the way, Catalan in the language spoken in Barcelona, which is different enough to Spanish that I cannot understand it. It also uses the letter "ç" which finally explains why that letter is on my Spanish keyboard, even though Castillian, the Spanish that I speak, does not use it.) It´s quite an event to eat them, starting with the fact that we had to request the number of calçots that we wanted when making our reservation, and our lunch reservation was limited to a strict two hours so the next shift could eat. (Usually, once you book a table, it´s yours for the entire mealtime, which can be 2-4 hours.)

The actual eating is also a bit of a process. The calçots are grilled until they are black and charred. To eat, you peel off the outer burnt layer, revealing a smoky soft onion. After donning you plastic bib, you dip it into the romesco sauce sauce, which is made of roasted red peppers, tomato, almonds, garlic, and oil. Then you lower it into your mouth, because you´re not supposed to eat it with silverware.

They were delicious and definitely the highlight of the meal. We had very simple main dishes - my friends shared a sausage and a few slices of potato, and I had white bread topped with tomato paste and slices of manchego cheese. I hope I can make eating these a regular springtime tradition.

Eating lunch with friends can be an all-day affair here. After the three-course lunch, we went to a café for coffee. My friend T then needed to go, so A and I went to a third location for Aperol Spritzes, which are the taste of warm weather for me.

Adventures with my brother

My brother recently had to travel to Morocco for business and added a few days to his trip to hop over to Spain. It is a real treat when friends and family come to visit - not just because I enjoy spending time with them, but because having them see my life here and forming memories of US friends in Spain helps these two parts of my life feel more connected.

His trip was poorly timed, in that the weather was pretty awful. They were predicting strong winds and "mud rains", which are when storms brings lots of dust from the Sahara and dump it on us. So we cancelled out plans to hike in the nearby mountains and stayed closer to home, where we could time outings to breaks in the bad weather. He never saw the sun while he was here, but he lives in the Pacific Northwest, so that´s normal for him.

We hiked in a huge park west of the city, and bicycled another day. But most of the time we spent on projects, as that is my family´s idea of a good time. He helped set up an infrared reader for my heat pump, so I can automate it to turn on before I wake up. Spaniards do not run the heat during the night or while they are out of the house, and I was always cold while I waited the few hours in the morning for the chill to leave the brick and stone walls of my apartment. This was a piece of cake for my brother, who has automated his house so much that in the morning, the house turns on the lights and makes a cup of tea for him when he awakes.

I also decided to replace my oven. It has been the bane of my existence. On one hand, I know I am lucky to have any oven at all in a small Spanish apartment. On the other, it is tiny and lacks both thermostat and fan. Although I monitor it obsessively when baking, I have burnt many cakes in the last few years. I knew it would be hard to convince my landlady that the oven was faulty, so I just replaced it without her knowledge. I´m not sure she´ll notice, but if she does, who can complain about a slightly larger, better functioning appliance being left in the apartment?

My brother carried it through the city to the metro and then to my house.
No trip to the gym needed for him.

We discover that the oven is actually a toaster oven built into the wall.
As you can see, there is very little space available.

S had to modify the built-in cabinet a bit. The oven definitely burns fewer things now, but I still need to think of slightly more complicated things to bake so I can  really test it.

Lo siento, hoy no hay una entrada en español.

Languages // Idiomas

I´m still doing my language exchanges, many of which include coffee and a nice view. // Continúo con mis intercambios de idiomas, muchos de los cuales incluyen café y una bonita vista.

In January, I took my certification exam for B2 Spanish. As a reminder,Europe has six standard language levels, and this is the fourth one (read more here). It was an official examination of the Madrid Community language schools and it lasted more than four hours. The exam had a lot of parts: reading, listening, writing, talking, and interpreting written texts. I got my grades at the end of January, and I passed it with flying colors. Honestly, I was quite surprised, because I thought I would pass, but not with such good grades. Unfortunately, more than half of my class failed it, because it's a really rigorous exam.

Now that I have this level, I'm going to take a little break. Level B2 is good enough to study at the university or to do a lot of professional jobs. I still can't get involved in philosophical debates, and I still sound like a bit of an idiot when I talk, but I really understand life, and language, on a day-to-day basis, Plus, I can read books and newspaper articles and talk to old people at the bus stops.

Because of all of this free time, I've started studying French. I underestimated how difficult it would be to begin a new language at age 50. I'm taking some classes online with an asynchronous program, and a few private lessons with a teacher in Cameroon. I hope that after a few more months I can tell you my name, my age, and my favorite color. Right now I can only count to 20, so I'm 20 years old. :)

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En enero, hice mi prueba de certificación para el nivel B2 en español. Fue una prueba oficial de las escuelas de la Comunidad de Madrid (Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas) y duró más de cuatro horas. Tiene muchas partes: de leer, de escuchar, de escribir, de hablar y de mediación de textos escritos. Recibí mis notas al final de enero, y lo aprobé con notas muy buenas. De hecho, me sorprendió, porque esperaba aprobarlo, pero no con tanta facilidad. Lamentablemente, más de la mitad de mi clase la suspendió, porque fue un examen muy riguroso.

Creo que demostrando este nivel, puedo hacer una pausa. El nivel B2 es suficiente para estudiar en la universidad, o para llevar a cabo diferentes oficios o profesiones. Todavía no puedo discutir sobre la filosofía, y sigo sonando como una idiota, pero me desenvuelo muy bien el día a día, puedo leer libros y artículos de periódicos, y hablar con los mayores en las paradas de autobuses.

Dado que tengo tanto tiempo libre, he empezado a estudiar francés. Subestimé lo difícil que sería empezar con un nuevo idioma cuando tienes cincuenta años. Tomo algunas clases online con un programa asíncrono y algunas clases privadas online con un profesor de Camerún. Espero que después de algunos meses más pueda decir mi nombre, mi edad y mi color favorito. Ahora mismo, solo puedo contar hasta 20, entonces, así que tengo solo veinte años : )

Springtime // Primavera

Enjoying the scent of an almond tree. // Estoy disfrutando de un almendro.

It's almost spring. It's still cold at night, but I don't always need a coat. It rained a lot here during January and February. In fact, it was too much, because there were floods throughout the country and a lot of people were desperately missing the sun. I read that if we don't receive a single drop of rain more, we still wouldn't have a drought this year because all of the reservoirs are full. On the other hand, winter showers bring spring flowers, if I may mangle an expression.

The early part of March is the season for blooming cherry and almond trees. The almond trees have a strong, sweet scent which I enjoy. I know that almond trees can be ornamental or actually produce fruits, so in the fall I'm hoping to go visit them and see if they actually have nuts. I love the idea of being able to collect almonds in the parks, just like I do with olives. 

I am part of a hiking group, and almost every month there's been an opportunity to take a walk with them. The last one was really lovely; with all the rain there were tons of mountain streams. Fortunately we had a really tall person who could help all the short legged people cross them. The hiking schedule this group uses is delightful. First, we have a coffee and then we take the commuter train to the mountains. After a few hours of hiking, we have a picnic in the forest. and then before we return, we drink a beer together. It's very civilized hiking. 

 

My "winter garden" on the terrace. // Mi terraza con mi «jardín de invierno».

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Es casi primavera. Todavía hace frío por las noches, sin embargo aún no necesito un abrigo. Además, en España llovió frecuentemente durante enero y febrero. Francamente, fue demasiada, hubo muchas inundaciones en el país y mucha gente se quejó de la falta de sol. He leído que, si no recibiéramos ninguna gota más durante el año, no tendríamos sequía porque los embalses están llenos. Por otro lado, cuando hay lluvia, hay flores silvestres y árboles florecientes. 

La primera parte de marzo es tiempo de cerezos y almendros. Los almendros tienen un olor dulce y penetrante. Sé que los almendros pueden ser árboles ornamentales o dar almendras. En otoño, tengo pensado comprobar si ya tienen estos frutos secos. Me encanta la idea de recoger almendras en los parques como se hace con las aceitunas.

Soy parte de un grupo de senderismo, y casi cada mes hay una oportunidad de dar un paseo con ellos. La última fue muy bonita; con la lluvia había muchos arroyos de montaña. Afortunadamente, hubo una persona alta que pudo ayudar a los paticortos a cruzar los arroyos. El horario de senderismo de este grupo me gusta muchísimo. Primero, tomamos un café y vamos juntos en tren de Cercanías a las montañas. Después de algunas horas de senderismo, comemos un pícnic en el bosque. Antes de regresar, tomamos una cerveza juntos. Es una caminata civilizada.

Eindhoven

I recently returned from a trip to Eindhoven, Netherlands, where I was visitng my old university friend A. We only manage to see each other once every three or four years, but always have a good time when we get together. He moved from the US to NL a couple of years ago, which gave me the perfect excuse to enjoy some cold weather and non-Spanish cuisine.

We had exceptionally non-rainy weather on the weekend I was there, which mean we could bike to Belgium for beer and cake. It sounds really impressive to say you´ve bike to a new country, but really it was only 20 km (12 miles) each way, so not that long of a trip. In any case, the beer and cake was outstanding, and I would have biked twice as far for it.

On my final day, I was reminded of the more typical February weather. I was the only one bothering with an umbrella in the light drizzle. Spain has clearly made me weak.

A helped me buy a weekend train pass which meant we could traverse the country. Lunch in Utrecht, the windmill museum in Zaanse Schans, and fancy gold-leaf strewn cakes in Amsterdam. We also attended a fun video mapping / music show that A had located as a 50th birthday gift to me. 

I love, love, loved all the vegetarian options. This was all purchased at the train station convenience store, which had a large selection of sandwiches for me (I opted for the egg and fake bacon) and lots of  types of beer, including non-alcoholic versions. Sadly, there was no vegetarian sushi. It was a nice picnic on the train.

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Lo siento, hoy no hay entrada español.

Part two of the US trip, on the other coast

The second part of my US trip was a delayed Christmas celebration with my family. We decided the main meal would be collaborative and span the continents. It was: 

Moroccan appetizer platter (Africa) 

Japanese okinomoyaki, a pancake/ cabbage/ noodle dish (Asia)

Australian roasted vegetable Salad (Oceania)

Take-out roasted chicken (North America) 

Brazilian rice and vegetables (South America) 

Ice water (Antarctica) 

Russian honey cake (Europe)

It was all delicious, but the standout dish was the ten-layer honey cake my sister-in-law made. It required her to "burn" the honey, incorporate that into ten cake layers, and then stack them with a dulce de leche whipped cream frosting. Incredible. And not something I'll be recreating soon, as it made about 20 servings and took five hours to prepare. 

I really, really miss pets, as evidenced by big grin here. I do hope to get a cat someday soon, but only after I feel more sure about where I´m living for the next five years.

I spend all my time in the Pacific northwest remarking on how pretty it is. I also miss green, verdant landscapes.

The flip side of the wonderful time with friends and family is what's happening to immigrants and their allies in my country, especially in Minneapolis. It was surreal to be there and know what was happening within the same borders. These signs were a stark reminder that it has been happening in Portland and other cities too.

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Lo siento, hoy no hay una entranda en español.