little act of kindness

I have to add that when "the husband" saw the car parked inside the closed car park instead of laughing at me and tease me mercilessly (as I'd probably done give half a chance) he just shrunk his shoulders and said:
-"Well... at least it's safer there than in the street!"-

So, "the husband" is also very kind and forgiving.

Set the record straight

"The husband" asked me to officially record an incident that happened today. He said that I'm always portray him as the air-head of the family and conveniently hush under the carpet any of my wrong doing. Then he forgets them and have no chance to tease me back when I tease him. He said that he always suspects that I'm as forgetful as he is but that I keep track of his incidents an he's to busy to do it with mine.

Well. here is one, on the records.

When I'm back from work I park the car in 2 or 3 places, the usual spots around the flat so I more or less know where the car is.
Yesterday I was extra busy with everything plus my dad's flue and I couldn't find any space in the usual places. So I went into the parking space of the supermarket opposite to our building and left the car there. Did some shopping and went home, thinking to retrieve the car later and park it on one of the usual places latter, when the roads are more empty.

Then, at around 11pm, while we were walking the dog and happened to pass in front of the , very closed, supermarket parking lot... I saw the car, safely parked inside the then closed and locked parking lot.

I'm very grateful that we didn't need the car yesterday after the supermarket closed at 8pm. I do hope they don't call the council to take the car away early tomorrow!!

I do confess. I'm officially another air-head!

Poor Patxi!! Genetically or not, the poor kid doesn't stand a chance!!

Flue!

My dad's got a flue that's going around Sabadell.
He's a bad patient and not used to get sick, so he's a total pain to live with right now.
So, on top of everything, I have to do his share of the chores around the house and take care of him, bringing meals and drinks, thermometers (to his great disappointment; no fever whatsoever) and a million other thing... plus listen to his detailed and often gory descriptions of cough and chest blockages.

"The husband" found out that the Italian travel agency charged us twice for the hotel and wrote to them a month ago to ask them for a refund. They acknowledged the double charging and asked for our bank account number to refund the money (on the 4th of September) and then... total silence and no money.
We're very short of money right now, as this left us 600€ shorter that we should at this time of the month.

I woke up today with a very red eye and the blackest mood on earth. I do hope is not an eye infection or a road-rage incident later today.

No time anymore!

Since we have a dog I've no time whatsoever!
On top of my usual payed job and non-payed stuff: cooking, shopping, doing the laundry, cleaning, ironing, giving orders to everybody (that's called organising the family), driving people around, etc, now i have to take Darwin for walks, clean his pee and poo, feed him, play with him and cuddle him.
So, no more time to write much, and no much things to write about anyway!!

Darwin is a dear dog, very clever,but still a puppy so he's not house train yet and that's a hard and full-time job. I imagine that is like when we were potty training P. in that at the time we could see no end to it and all of a sudden, it was done and over.
Now we take turns in taking him to for walks, "the husband" does the first one in the morning before going to work, then at midday is P's turn as he came home for lunch from school and finally I do it after supper. Most days I also take him for walks at 5 or 6pm, just to keep him entertained so he doesn't need to chew all our stuff. And at weekend we all take him for very long walks. On Saturdays it around the rugby club, plus he plays with all the children there. And on Sundays we go for long walks at a National park nearby, where we all get totally wasted at the end of it.
If one of the ideas behind having a dog was to walk more, well... we're all doing that thanks do Darwin.

But that left me with no time whatsoever and nothing very interesting to tell. Sorry. Life is complicated that way. However, you may be happy to know that I'm very happy to have him around.

The air-head scientist sterotype is true

Totally true. I know because I'm married to one.
Yesterday "the husband" needed to travel abroad for a few days, job related short trip to England. He prepared all his things himself, of course, and at 8:00pm I took him in the car to his campus so he'll meet the his boss, who's taking her car to the airport. So far so good. He even managed not to over pack as he usually does and this time he hoped that he'll be able to take the small rucksack with him in the cabin.
(I'm not sure that Easyjet will allow that as he has some toiletries and the policy on liquids in the hand luggage is quite strict).
Anyway, when I arrived home, my son told me that "the husband" just phoned in a panic estate as he forgot to take his passport with him.
So I have to take it and go back to give it to him.

How can someone forget the passport, of all things?
OK, I did it myself once, but I was 14 years old at the time and never again!
It's "the husband" after all who's always telling that the 3 essential things for any travel are the 3 ps: passports, tickets and money (at least they're 3 ps in their Spanish translation: pasaporte, pasaje, plata), I wouldn't be surprised if he also forgot his credit card!

At the same time he's a brilliant researcher and scientist. So he does have a brain and he know how o use it, at least partially!

As my American friends would say: Go figure!

Burnt

As I was wondering a couple of days ago about how many burnt people do they have every year at the local fiestas... well... I've got my own burnt at home while frying something and later at dinner I burnt my dad when accidentally the content of a plate that I was about to serve him slipped away of the plate and on his lap. Is not that bad, just a few bits on my left hand and some sort of boiled eggs for my dad, but this remained me that most accident occurs actually at home and that the health and safety rules in Britain are going too far and they're stopping the fun.
Here they're totally mad with bulls out on the streets and stuff like that. but the firework exhilaration is well worthy of the risk. And it should teach people to be more careful at home!

Fiesta mayor

Now it definitely feels a year since we moved to Sabadell, as I remember (and you can check the corresponding entry on this blog) that we were already here last year by the time of the fiesta. As it happened last year, the whole city took a few days off to party on the streets.
Now I'm more blase about all this fiesta time, the fireworks, the street shows, the diables with their dragon shooting fire, the trabucaires and so on but for my dad it was his first time and he's never been in a local, small town, fiesta; so I went with him and we had a great time. My dad is amazing in that he never loose the childish ability to crave and enjoy new stuff. He really made an effort to stand there for hours to make sure he didn't miss a thing. And later on he went on watching everything again on TV, as the local channel broadcast the whole party during the following week. From the mayor opening the part from the council balcony, (in Catalán so we couldn't understand much) to the last Castellets on the last day, my dad tried hard to see as much as he could and was sorry that he missed a few of the shows as they were scattered around town and nobody could possibly see it all.
And when all was over, he asked me to send the pictures by e-mail to his friend and my sister so he could share it all.
The thing I liked the most and left my dad duly amazed by was the castells made by the local group Castellers de Sabadell (see picture of a Castell in front of the council house, check the flags on top: from right to left, EC's blue flag, the one of Catalunya, the Spanish and finally the town's own). It never fails to amaze me that triumph and show of union power that this castells are. I think that my dad loved most to see people dancing one of the local folk dance the sardana.

I wish my British friends could see this, as I bet they'll be amazed by the lack of health and safety as diables dance in and out of the crowd brandishing their spears with their burning fireworks at their end. Just in case, there's always an ambulance or two nearby but it still shocking to see how close to the sparks people gets, and that includes small children, even babies, old people who could not jump if needs arises, etc etc. I wonder how many burnt people they have each year; obviously not enough as to stop the fireworks.

Luckily, I'm only starting to work fully on the 17th of September, as Darwin is a hell of a job and need full time attention. We still have a long way to go in order to house train him.

On the day he arrived he was obviously terrified and almost didn't move from a blanket that we put on the floor for him. He ate meekly whatever dog biscuits we gave him and we started to though that he was mute as no sound came from his mouth. He even slept in the living room without any sign of distress.
The next day we took him for a walk and he was a bunch of nerves. Then I realised that he was totally institutionalised, the poor thing lived in the pet-shop kennel probably for months before we got him and he was totally used to not being special or loved. Poor darling!

Well, to make a long story short... by the second night he was adamant that he wanted to sleep with us in the room, if not on our bed, he wanted to eat at the table with us and he most definitely will not take less that 3 walks a day. He would pee and poo wherever he wanted to and he barks for England every time he wants us do to something. Plus he hated to be left on his own.

It was really amazing how fast he realised that he's loved and it seems that not a second later
he decided to push us to try and bend the rules to his advantage. He's very clever and he's going to be a challenge.

I wish Glynnis was here to give me some tips as how to house train him!!

Some nice pictures

I love this picture of my dad. I took it while he was slowly going down the stairs in the parking lot outside the walls of Sienna. He walks very slowly, specially when he's on his way down and it just struck me as a sort of a visual metaphor on age. An old and somehow fragile man against the hard and angular concrete.

This one is just funny. Taken in Arezzo, near the church of San Francesco. Both faces look like they've been actually tortured frozen into the metal.

The last one for today is also a very curious detail of a big building and it was taken in the old part of town in Genoa, Italy. The building was very old, 1500's but the face looks very fresh and too humorous to be that old. What do you think? A modern take while remodeling a portico's details? Or a truly Renaissance piece of irreverent art?

Good start for the pumas

Being Argentinean brings very few moments for joy or celebration, and today we just had one of them. As is often the case, is sport related as Argentina defeated France in Paris at the Rugby World Cup opener in the very same stadium where France won the world cup some years ago. The score was: 17 - 12!

My cousin in France, Marie Pierre, just today sent me an e-mail asking me if i was watching the match... ahh, mon dieu! If my French was any better I'd call her right now to gloat!

I knew that the Pumas were good, but I have to admit that I though that France, being the locals and very good, had just the right edge, so I truly enjoyed seeing the Pumas fight like, well... pumas against Les bleus!

At least 2 of the Argentineans player played in Bristol, the captain of the team Agustín Pichot (surprisingly short, left, when he played for Bristol) and Felipe Contepomi (cute, right) and I was introduced to them once in a party at the Argentinian embasy in London.

The Argies still have to play Ireland at the end of the month, and in any case this is going to be a tough tournament no doub, but... what a way to start!!

My birthday

I spend my birthday in Nice, France. Sound very posh, isn't it?
On our way back from Italy and at my dad's suggestion, we stayed a couple of days with our cousin Michelle who lives there with her son Pierre Alain.
This is my dad's side of the family. My grandfather left France to emigrate to Argentina at the beginning of the XIX century and he left his sister there, to which he was very closed. She married and had children, her children had children and so on, but the family keep in touch as my grandad took my dad and his brother to France several times. As far as I know my grandad even helped them economically during the war when everybody had a bad time there but life was easier in Argentina.
Whatever this is actual true or family lore, the fact remains that we're still in touch after a whole century, half a world of distance and two different languages. My granddad and his sister would have been happy about this, I think.

Michelle is really lovely but she's terribly deaf and sort of lip read people. That's a big problem for me as my French is basically crap, so although I'm able to understand her (most of the time)but between my nonexistent grammar and terrible accent, she cannot understand me at all. Luckily for us, her son speaks a little English and that helped because he could then "translate" what we said to her.

For my birthday we took everybody to a very nice restaurant at the Promende des Anglaise (see picture here, from left to right: Pierre Alain, "the husband", Michelle, me, P. and my dad) and then they had a great chocolate cake with a singing candle waiting for me at home! I even got some presents, such a Zara voucher from my dad and a perfume form L'Occitane from the very dear "husband". This finally proves that he does listen to me occasionally as I love their lemon perfume and it's impossible to buy it here in Spain. Do check their UK site, click on the name of the shop, as you can buy their things there.

P. kept on saying that he had some very special present waiting for me at home in Sabadell and he said that it was something that I was pinning for for years and that it was going to be the best present ever.

Then, a couple of days after we arrived back from holidays I came home after work and found P. and "the husband" extremelly exited and in the living room there was the most gorgeous little Beagle I've seen!!!
P. called him Darwin ("get it? ...." - he said - "he's a Beagle and Charles Darwin actually travelled around South America in a ship called The Beagle"). Isn't he totally adorable?
P's right, of course, Darwin is the best present ever, even though I know it's going to be hard work to keep him happy living in a flat.

Arezzo, Tuscany

We spent more or less 10 days travelling to and from "the husband's" ECVP, the annual vision science conference he attends every year. This time it was in Arezzo, Tuscany, one of the most beautiful areas of beautiful Italy. (Tony Blair and his family used to spend their summers there).
You can just get a glimpse of "the husband" here in a green shirt in front of the San Francesco's church.
For "the husband" was all work and no play but we had a great time, specially because this year we went by car, so we (the rest of the family) were free to go to different towns and just drive around one of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen.

Arezzo is a smallish town, famous for having one of the best, and I think the biggest, frescoes by Piero della Francesca in its main church. He's not my favourite Renaissance artist (that'd be Leonardo DaVinci, of course) but the frescoes were indeed worthy of a visit as it was his pregnant Virgin in the nearby village of Monterchi, the only picture of a pregnant virgin of the period.
Here you can see a close-up of the beautiful severe, regal face of the pregnant Madonna much aware of who's son she's carrying...

I was waiting to go to Florence with "the husband" but he never had any time, so we missed that glorious city this time. A good excuse to go back, because Florence deserves a few days to get just the art. The famous David is there together with many other priceless pieces.

So, we spend our time visiting lovely medieval villages and just driving around in the countryside which was a great. even my dad, who's not the most artistic minded person in town, marvelled at the beauty of the countryside and remarked that it's no wonder that so many works of art has it as a subject. He said that it even inspired him to give it a go and paint! God forbid!!
Mere pictures, specially my own, cannot do justice to the beauty of the rolling hills at the end of summer, but here you a have my favourite.

One of the highlights was a day trip to the gorgeous town Sienna. I've been there once, very briefly, and felt in love with its unique square and the feeling of the old town. And if anything, it's even more beautiful than what remembered from nearly 25 years ago.
My dad walks with a cane (the result of reckless flying in a balloon once, not merely old age), so he found it hard to get up and down the old towns, so I try my best to take him as close as I could with the car to central piazza. I may have gotten I fine or two on the process, I'm not sure, because only residents are supposed to get into the old part of town, and I did it twice, once to drop him there and another to collect him.
Here you can see Sienna's majestic and unique piazza in the shape of a shell, taken from the Internet, of course.
I'll try to find a picture that actually have me on it... I don't think there's any, as I was always the one with the camera.

At the end of it we all have a really good time. I visited lovely places and seen some art that I never saw before, my dad enjoyed mostly the grand views and he loved Sienna, a town that was new for him, P enjoyed Italian ice cream and even "the husband" said that the conference was great and he didn't miss missing the touristic part of the trip.

Catching up

After the party in Bristol we went for a couple of weeks to a lovely camping in the Costa Brava, called L'Anfora. We loved it. All of us, which is a rather rare event this days, as P.'s going into teenagerdoom and thus trying to make a point of not being in the same "vibe" as his old folks.

I took my newly acquired Harry Potter book and devour it in more or less a week. Of course I'm a fan and it didn't disappointed me; J.K. Rowling's not a subtle author and everything is spelled out for you, unlike more sophisticated books such as my beloved Phillip Pullman "His Dark materials".
I spend a lot of time reading, which is such a bliss for me!! reading by the pool, by the sea, by the tent... wherever!
The weather was really nice and it even rained once so we had a break from the heat. Just perfect.
We took our old tent, bought in Argos for less than 80 quids a few years ago and never used much. We were by far the poorest sight in the whole camping, as the other people had lovely caravans or state-of-the-art tents withe every imagined accessories.
After the first day we went out and bough a cheap gazebo to shelter us from the sun, and underneath it we had a small table, and chairs. We also rented a small fridge and microwave and that made all the difference as we were truly at home with really cold drinks and some warm food. Bliss!

It was such a relaxing time, just a short stroll to the most beautiful blue sea, 2 swimming pools to choose from, restaurants, a nice cafe, small supermarket and so on. They even have a little show, different every night, with things such a 80's disco, Disney's nigh of music, etc. And that was just the campsite, outside it there was a whole little summer town with everything else you may want to make a nice time.

It had a nice mix of people as well, loads of German, Dutch and French with some British, Scandinavian and even some Spaniards. Plenty of kids for my son to play with too and the language was mainly English or Spanish so we felt right at home.

Our neighbours were a family of 4 teenager girls and their parents from somewhere north of England. The poor dad was craving male company and totally fed up with going shopping, so he used to come by and go playing pool with my guys. It was their first holidays abroad and they were a bit lost with things such as food, but they were delighted with the weather and with all the facilities at their disposal. I think they were truly surprised to find that Spain was also a sort of civilized place!! And the ladies were delighted with how far their money went. Spain is at the moment very cheap compared to Britain.

After the camping we went back home for a few days so "the husband" prepared his poster and himself for the conference in Italy at the end of August. I took the opportunity to take my dad and son to the beach or the local swimming pool and just to keep on having a nice time. Is great to have a whole month of holidays, specially when the weather is so great and you can spend most time outside and the outside is good anyway!

Me in Rockery farm

This is me, holding Melissa and trying hard to befriend her... the poor thing cried every time I tried to hold her!
Is a picture taken during the weekend in the farm in the south-west of England. As I said before, the sun was really, and incredibly, shinning and all was green and beautiful but still very, very, wet. Mind you the thing behind me is a natural pond and not part of the floods!
Please note the Glastonbury's touch of my tiger Wellies, borrowed from Rossana, as is the top, most other clothes were kindly lend to me by Esmeralda. Thank ladies! The hair, accessories and make-up (as if!) are my own.

The hair may be totally white now, but at least I'm trying not to put on wight despite the many temptations to be found in Barcelona.

The picture was kindly send to me by Lili, who took it. I really appreciated it because we don't have any other picture of the event as our camera was in the lost suitcase.

I'm back

After a few very relaxing days at the Costa Brava, we're back home.

So much to tell so little time!!

First, our Bristol weekend:

Background information:
Every year at around this time we organise a weekend party at Martín's farm for the people of the Latin American group that I started many years ago. The idea is to get together with old friends and meet new ones, all somehow related to the Latin American living in and around Bristol. A few of us used to do all the organising and we all shared the expenses, great value for money as we had a big ball and a great barbecue. This was our fifth party.

We went to Bristol for our annual barbecue at Martín's farm near Weston-super-Mare. We traveled just for one weekend and had many plans to visit friends but Easy jet managed to make our brief holidays far more complicated by loosing our only suitcase.
That meant that we were left on a cold Friday night, stranded at the airport without anything just after we arrived.
Our plane arrived from Barcelona quite late and by the time we realised that our suitcase wasn't there, we find the appropriate desk to complain and we filed the complain about the lost bag and everything, the people at the car rental office were already gone and we didn't have the car we rented. Plus we were very cold as we arrived wearing shorts and T-shirts. Damn!
Luckily, our friend the farm owner, lives quite closed to the airport and is an insomniac so he rescued us and took us to his place were we slept in borrowed t-shirts.

Next day, instead of visit friends in the morning as we had planed we spend most of it at the airport trying to locate our luggage and getting a car, by the time we sort of gave up on finding the luggage... it was time to start preparing the farm for the party!

We not only had clothes in the suitcase but all the Latin American music for the party, some ham and cheese, again for the party, mobile's chargers, camera and, this is the worst, we had my son's Teddy, Winnie, in it. That was a disaster for him as it meant sleeping without Winnie for the first time ever. I think I can survive without clean knickers for a few days, but the poor child couldn't sleep in peace for most of the trip and he lived in a state of fear that the suitcase was lost for good with his beloved Winnie. I truly think that this totally ruined the return to Bristol for P. And this was a real pity as he was looking forward to go back home for a long time.
Luckily we have many good friends in Bristol and as soon as they knew they rally around us and brought us all we needed, from clean undies to Wellington boots for us all! That was really kind and it warmed my heart a lot.

This is the first time I organise this huge event since I left Bristol and on top of that, Miriam, the person who always do more than half the job, moved to Brazil for good, so I was more or less left on my own. On top of that all our previous notes and lists were in Miriam's computer, which was somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic going to Brazil, so I have to trust my memory. So I had to do a lot before, during and even after the party. This was hard work this time instead of partying as it was all the other years and I only wish I had taken more days in Bristol. (This is the fifth year we do this party).

It was harder that ever. So many thing to take care of, from food to toilet paper; so many request to accommodate... Ouch! We had around 80 adults for the barbecue on Sunday, plus around at least 20-something children and I managed to organised it all. We had so many people wanting to attend the event that I had to reject a few and of course they now hate me. Tough! If they didn't like they can try and organised it themselves! I even received hate mail about this !!

We solved the music problem because "the husband" shares the DJ's duty with Alan and he brought all his Brazilian music. Of course you can have many parties with just Brazilian music, but we did miss the other Latino rhythms, at least I did.

I tried my best to delegate all that it was required on to as many people as I could so nobody had a big burden, but that meant that I had to check everything and follow people as they were arriving and then coordinate it all. All that plus organising where the tents should be, where the cars should park, all this a new problem as the ground was very spongy due to the heavy rains in the area and we don't want to ruin Martín's fancy farm.

And it all worked pretty well. People started arriving to the farm after lunch on Saturday we shared a buffet (without our Spanish ham or cheese) and danced until very late despite the sometimes torrential rain. The motto of the party was "Think Glastonbury's festival" and it worked just right as we ignored the rain and had a great time.

On Sunday the sun came up pretty strong and it was all soon very dried and nice, by the time we had the barbecue it looked as lovely as any other summer day in the south of England.
Martín and "the husband" worked overtime to cook and serve the most delicious barbecue that you can have this side of Argentina.
Sadly, I don't have any picture because our camera was in the missed suitcase.

We run out of many things, from plastic glasses to toilet paper, but every problem was solved with the help of everybody. Special mention to a Brazilian lady, Cirlei, who lives locally, so she knows where to go and find things at the last second. She was invaluable help. But she was not the only helpful person as everybody did his or her best to help with many details. I also forgot to ask somebody to bring potato salad, and we almost run out of meat!
But all in all was really great, although I'm not sure if I'm going to organise it again next year as I finished totally exhausted.

Then on Monday, instead of going shopping and visiting friends as we planed, we had to go back to the airport and then to the farm where they finally delivery our suitcase. On Monday!! 3 days after it was firs lost!

By the time I managed to drive to Filton library, it was closed and I missed seeing my former colleagues. And the next day, in the morning we flew back to Barcelona.
Sorry ladies, I really wanted to see you but life doesn't always work as we plan it. Now I really have to go back somewhere again, as I missed doing many things that i wanted to do and I missed many people I wanted to see.

Busy bee and vacation's break

This week has been very busy indeed as we're going on holidays on Friday.

My dad is doing a lovely job and my balcony now has loads of plants and flowers, even a small perfumed Jasmine, and even some tomatoes! Not a proper garden, but a bit of green is always nice. He and "the husband" were busy trying to figure out a device for watering the plants while we're out during our holiday. They did create a complicated looking system that, in theory, will keep the plants moist until we're back. Let's hope it'll work fine.
Also my dad is getting ready to go to France. He's going to stay with our french family there and I can only hope that he'll be careful not too eat too much cheese.

I was wrapping some classes and writing loads of reports and courses plans for next year classes. I've told my boss that want to work around 30 hs a week staring in September. I want to be able to save enough money next year to go to one of my dreams destination: Petra in Jordan, maybe a camel ride to reach the place? That takes at least 3 days of riding camels and sleeping in tents in the desert, so it's a sort of organewsed adventure, but it doesn't come cheap.
I'm also trying to keep our son amused and entertained in a more physical way because he's enjoying his holidays a lot but he spends far too much time watching TV or playing with his PlayStation. So I try to take him at least 3 times a week to the local swimming pool or the sea, where he does a lot of exercise. The local pool is really great,big enough for 3,000 people and with plenty of room to do whatever, swim, slide down on any of the big slides, play with inflatable toys, have a picnic, go to the cafe or just relax under s tree. That's what I do, I take my book, some nice and cool coca-cola and my very comfy beach mat (Ikea-designed, you can see it on the left here, and you can lay or sit confortably enought to read) and just read and relax, when is too hot I take a dip in the pool or a shower and go back to my book. That's the life.
On top of all that I'm organising a barbecue in England... this weekend... in the middle of one of the worst rainfall ever... I'm really worried. But as I bough my tickets, there's no way we're cancelling, so... think Glastonbury!! Fun in the mud! (wish me luck)
I order my Harry Potter book ages ago, and amazon said that they send it on Saturday but hasn't arrive yet. If this doesn't come until tomorrow, I'll buy one in Bristol anyway.

"The husband" also was busy trying to wrap up some projects he's been working on before the dead month of August.

So, starting tomorrow I'm going to take a break from this blog until we're back on the 11 of August. I'll try to write an entry about the weekend party and to include some pictures, before going to the camoping on the 1 of August, but I don't promise enything as I really need a rest away frommy desk.

See you soon and enjoy whatever the weather brings you!

bleeping fiesta!

I never thought that I'd hate a fiesta! This is truly a first for me.
This weekend people in my neighbourhood had their annual fiesta. As I told you before, everybody and everything has a fiesta here in Spain. And far I thought that it was very nice to keep the tradition, great that the community joins together to celebrate that we're alive yet another year, very quaint to keep the tradition going and all that "foreign" crap.
Now, a party is all very nice if you can leave it and go home at any time you wish, but when they force you attend the party like it or not... well... not that nice.
Now I understand while local people just leave the town in certain dates in order to avoid a party. For instance, a few weeks ago the city of Pamplona in the north of Spain has its famous San Fermín's encierros when people dressed in white with a red faja run in front of the bulls throughout the city. This year was particularly infamous as some idiot run with his 10 years-old son. While that party sounds great fun with plenty of folkloric and religious meaning, the actual party meant hundreds of very drunk people running amok. Not much fun if you happens to live there and have to see your doorstep pissed and vomited every night for a whole weekend.

Well... people on my neighbourhood had their annual fiesta during the weekend and that meant that I couldn't watch TV or even sleep until late at night when they finished the noise. And the main party was around the corner from us!
Really it wasn't that bad, just really tacky and noisy, not elegant and folkloric. And the worst part was that I needed to go to work very early the next day so i really needed my sleep and didn't fancy listened to loud pop music from the 70's.
The weather was also didn't help me as it was a hot night, so if I closed my window that cancelled the noise but it was too hot to bear.

I think I start to think as a local! This has to be good! hasn't it?

A very sad departure

In Argentina one of the most popular and talented artists died recently. His name is Roberto Fontanarrosa, and here you can see his portrait surrounded by a few of his many characters. he described our political reality and the Argentinean culture (if such thing does exist) as nobody else did, with amazing acuracy and great humour. He was also a gifted writer.

And he was one of my favourite living artist in the whole world.
I still keep a caricature he draw for my in one of his many books presentation. He dedicated it to me and signed it and it is one of the very few things that I always carry with me wherever I happens to live. I treasured it for years and I will for years to come.
I keep his books in my home waiting for my son to be a bit older so he can appreciate and understand his sense of humour and thus understand and appreciate his Argentinean inheritance. As he's doing now while he discover and enjoy another great artist: Quino.

Roberto Fontanarrosa touched people in many ways and he always managed to make me smile and sometimes even to laugh out loud with his cartoons. Now this news managed to make me feel very sad, as I lost somebody near to my heart.

Here it goes my humble homage to a great artist. We will miss you dearly, maestro.

More visitors and reflexion on female friendship

To think that I ever worried thinking that nobody was going to visit us!

Another friend, this time from Bristol, arrived. She's in Barcelona interviewing people to fill the job of junior language assistant in the department of Spanish of one of the universities in Bristol, and she kindly stayed a few more days just to spend some time with us.
She arrived just a few days after the young French cousin left and, again, my son had to surrender his room to guests. He didn't mind as she's like an auntie to him and as family to us all.

We took her around to visit friends and to the lovely beach in Villanova i la Geltrú, one of the nice beaches a bit south of Barcelona. It was vey full as more and more people are arrivng for their holidays in the sun. The flow of people increases a lot here in summer, with more and more tourist arriving, luckily the prices are not followint that trend but are staying more or less the same. To eat in a chiringuito by the sea doesn't need to cost a fortune, but we need to buy a cooler so we can take our own cool drinks.
(A chiringuito is a place by the sea with some sort of shade, where drinks and some food are sold, usually they also have music, sometimes a DJ and are open very long hours. See picture)

We chat and chat and, by god, how much do I miss just talking to women!
We do talk in a different manner than boys. I believe that we women sort of think while talking... we just chat and the exchange of words help us make our mind when something trouble us. Men are more goal oriented ad take conversations more as the way to reach a goal. We women just go with the flow and analyze thing while we're at it.

Does this make sense to you? I'd appreciate comments on this.

One of the areas where I need to work, now that it looks as we're going to stay here for a long while, is friendships of mi own, specially female friends. I need to work on that.

Au revoir little cousin

My young cousin left yesterday and, yes, she was really nice and sweet and yes, it was a pleasure to have her as a guest. As much as I moan, I do love to have guests. I hope that she managed to improve her Spanish and English
Of course, this being my life, things never go smoothly and simply, there has to be some drama to everything and this was not the exception.

I did promise my dad that I'd take her to the airport despite my quite busy schedule and the summer heat that made a nightmare to drive for 2 hours on the motorway. I don't like driving on the motorway as the people here simply don't know the rules and do whatever they feel, it's very stressful. I used to hate driving on it but now experience and the GPS help a lot and now is bearable. But to drive to Barcelona airport and back in the middle of a working summer day, though, is not something I was looking forward to.

I went to my early class at 8am in a local industry park at around 20 minutes from home. I'm replacing the usual teacher in a multinational company's factory. Because this was my first class there I arrived a bit earlier and parked my car in one of the many places there. I went to reception but had to wait until the receptionist arrived.
Here when it says that the opening time is 8am it actually means that the employee arrives at more or less that time, but first goes to say hello to somebody, grab a coffee and only then actually goes to his/her desk. So I waited for the receptionist to arrive and tell me where my class was and so on.
Let's just mention that also my students are always late for classes, I know this but I'm very professional and I'm always on time, don't know why I bother. Even when I go to their own offices, they'll still find a way to keep me waiting. It's not rude but is just the way things are here.
Anyway, eventually my class started and then the phone run and the receptionist ask for me. She asked me where did I park the car and when I told her there was a long silence on the line and she said that there was a huge crane blocking my car and that she didn't know how long that was to stay there.
OK. I told her that I needed the car but that I'd finish the lesson and we'd worry about it latter.

When the class finished I went back to the car park and, yes, there was a huge yellow crane there totally blocking my car, which was nicely parked behind it and with no way of getting out. I checked everywhere for signs to make sure that it wasn't my fault and then I headed to reception. The receptionist was truly apologetic and told me that it was really her fault as she supposed to warn everybody and she did... by email and in person the day before. She didn't even put a sign there.
As the situation was sinking in, I became more desperate. By then it was 10 o'clock and I was expected to pick my cousin and take her to the airport on time, then I there were 2 more classes on the afternoon.

I was aghast.

The receptionist apologised and told me that she had already called a taxi in. I was about to burst into tears thinking of the expenses. Then she added that as it was all her fault the company will put the taxi at my disposal to go to wherever I needed for the rest of the day if necessary and that she'll call me as soon as my car was freed so I can go back and collect it. In fact, the taxi was already waiting for me.

With great caution I told her that I needed to go to the airport, to El Pratt, and back and then to different places. I just wanted to make sure she knew that the bill was going to be huge. She said not to worry about distance or time, the taxi was mine for me to use it as I had planned to use my car.

All of a sudden the situation wasn't as bad as I thought.
It was actually pretty good.

So without much ado and before the very nice and, all of a sudden, very eficient receptionist had the chance of changing her mind, I jumped into the taxi. The driver was very pleased to hear the whole story as he was going to get a lot of money out of it. As he said: "some body's misfortune can be the good fortune of another", taxi drivers are usually very philosophical here.

Then I went home, the taxi waited until we were ready and my little cousin and I chat all the way to the airport in the comfort of the air conditioned taxi, I think there were some traffic jams on the way but I didn't care a bit. It was the most comfortable and relaxed ride to the airport ever!
After I boded farewell to the young cousin I bought a coke and went back home. Nice.

Then at noon, the receptionist called to tell me that the crane was gone and my car was free, and she offered to send me another taxi. I asked to send the taxi at 1:30 pm so I could be on time to my next appointment.

I finished the day extra relaxed as I didn't drive as much as I expected.

It's really great that what started as a disaster turned to be my lucky day. Great!
I choose to think that this was good karma.