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.