Adios, Madrid; Hola, Seville! January 14, 2014

Adios, Madrid; Hola, Sevilla!      January 14, 2014

The next two days in Madrid were filled with more exploration, more good food, and lots more conversation.  We learned about the desire of the Catalonians (the area where Barcelona is located) to become independent, which frustrates the rest of the Spaniards.  In fact, it seems that all of the northern regions are more prosperous than the south and somewhat resistant to sending their revenues to support that area.  

We learned about high unemployment and the outpouring of young Spaniards to places like England and Ireland. (I'd also heard about this on National Public Radio at home.)  We attended a gallery show in the Matadero, featuring amazing new ideas from all of the Latin American countries, as well as Spain.  Lots of creativity out there for solving the world's problems.

Angel brought tourist brochures that he had collected, describing the lesser known (to us, anyway) areas of Galicia, Asturias, and the Basque area along the northern coast, west of the Pyrenees.  He is a great promoter of Spain, and it's obvious that he's passionate about his country.  He also helped Bruce get up to speed on using our new smart phone.  (Still having trouble with pix on this blog, though.  We've got a couple but not the ones I want or where I want them!).

On Saturday evening, after B & I had been out visiting a home where Cervantes had worked and other Madrid sights, Angel took the lead in cooking his grandmother's recipe for potato tortilla (omelette).  These had an added touch of long, green sweet peppers which had been cooked in oil and laid over the top.  Yum!  The next day, Andrea led us on a grocery store tour where we picked up ingredients for a paella, including a bare baby bunny, which the butcher chopped into pieces for us.  Our meal began with large shrimp (langoustines), then the delicious moist & flavorful vegetable-rabbit paella.  Dessert was a special fresh strawberry/balsamic vinegar dish that Andrea had learned as a teenager in Venezuela. Oh, my, did we eat well in Madrid!  We certainly enjoyed our time there so much.

                      Tile detail from the Alcazar in Seville

All good things must come to an end.  It was time for Andrea and Angel to reclaim their lives and their living space.  We departed on Monday morning on the train for Seville.  It was a 2.5 hour trip through mostly flat terrain, past olive groves (Spain produces an enormous amount of olive oil) and past sheep and cattle farms. 

                             Pool in the Alcazar in Seville

We walked from the train station to our airbnb (their first guests ever to walk!).  We're staying with a nice family in a beautiful second floor apartment near the Alcazar, the ancient (and current) home of Spain's royal family.  Our roomy bedroom looks out through tall French doors onto a quiet street.  The weather has been rather cloudy for the past day but the temp is about 60 degrees.  Palm trees and parrots add an exotic touch.  Last night we sampled bulls tail, a Spanish specialty, at a tapas restaurant.  Kinda bony.  I wouldn't recommend it.  The pork stew was much better.

Today we toured the Alcazar, an impressive, large complex of palaces and gardens dating back to the 1200's.  They are very Moorish in appearance with lacy filigree arches and lots of tile work, geometric designs, and fountains.  That burbling sound of flowing water must be so appealing in Seville's scorching summers!  One could easily be transported to an ancient mystical time.  As we walked the garden paths, we turned around to see a peacock ambling down a path with his friend, a lame mallard duck, following in his footsteps!  They responded to Bruce's whistle while I took a picture (of course), then continued on their way.

We are still way off on our eating/sleeping regime.  Just when I thought that we had it, we seem to be missing meals and then getting hungry when we're not supposed to!  Bedtime seems to be around midnight, with wake-up around 9 am.  Breakfast right away, a big mid-day meal around 2 pm (?), then a nap, and a lighter meal late in the evening.  Give us a couple of more weeks.  Maybe we'll get into the rhythm.  

Bienvenidos, January 10, 2014

After a lovely overnight with Jane Andrews and Don Bouchard in Gorham, during which we could re-think our packing and make adjustments, we headed to the airport for our 3:30 pm flight to Philadelphia on Wednesday, January 8.   We encountered several delays in leaving first Portland, then Philadelphia, finally lifting out of USA on our way to Madrid at about 8pm.  The pilot promised to try to make up for lost time, and that he did, landing us smoothly on Spanish soil at about 8:30 am on Thursday.  The flight was good but we barely slept.  Those US Air seats are fine for sitting but just too small and uncomfortable for sleeping.

European customs seems to be non-existent.  We got our baggage and left the airport, without anyone asking if we had citrus fruit or had visited a farm or were bringing weapons or lots of valuables.  Seems very trusting.  Outside we were met with 60 degree weather, green grass, birds chirping - nirvana for Brucie!   We found the shuttle bus to the city center and treated ourselves to a taxi from there to Andrea's apartment.

Andrea is the young woman whom we had met in Guatemala in 2011, when we all were volunteering at Safe Passage.  She calls herself our "heart daughter", and we are very fond of her.   Having grown up in Venezuela but lived in Madrid for the past 10 years, she knows the Spanish culture of both the new world and the old.   She is a fantastic person, full of life and ideas and fun, a foodie like us, and obviously very generous, having opened her home to us for the second time now.  It is such a gift to spend time with her and her boyfriend, Angel (AHN-hel).  They are like cultural coaches for us, very knowledgeable about the history and culture of Spain with much information to share.  Andrea speaks English well, and Angel is giving us a good work-out in Spanish while trying to practice his English, too.   It's hard work all around!

This is a sampling of our activities for the past two days.  After a wonderful home-cooked meal by Andrea, including a fabulous artichoke dish, off we went for a long walk to the Matadores, a complex of beautiful old industrial buildings which served as a slaughter house in the old days.  It's now a trendy venue for all kinds of things, including a gallery offering a presentation on the papyrus scrolls discovered in Pompeii (remember our discussion about Pompeii just last week, Sam?).  We then ambled along part of a long walkway that we had explored two years ago, passing dog walkers, a busy skateboarding area, a soccer field filled with young athletes, etc., until after dark.  Bruce felt that he had been liberated from winter!

Today was a full-on foodie day.  We made a pretense of visiting a cathedral, but it really was all about the food.  Andrea and Angel introduced us to the "Latina" neighborhood of Madrid, named after a woman who had lived there and had been a scholar of many languages.  It has narrow side streets and lots of eating establishments.  We began with a stop to sample vermuth.  It was the color of coca-cola and tasted nothing like the drink that is included in martinis.  More like sherry. Then we were off to a cheese store where we restrained ourselves, buying only 3 small wedges.  This was followed by an amazing ham shop, sporting large dried ham hocks hanging from the ceiling, hoofs and all.  In the middle of the store was a big wheel with about 5 ham hocks speared onto it, where the young vendor was slicing off paper-thin pieces at about $80 per pound.  We bought the more reasonably priced pre-packaged serrano ham.  Two tapas bars followed with small dishes of delicious offerings.  My favorite was the bacalao (cod) buried in aoli sauce.  The breaded sauteed eggplant with bacon and cheese was pretty good, too!  We topped it all off with coffee and chocolate cake to share in the back room of an atmospheric little cafe.

Of course, the tapas was accompanied by red wine and lots of good conversation.  Angel and Andrea are encouraging us to hike part of the Camino, the ancient trail that Roman Catholic pilgrims have trod for centuries on their way to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.   It is believed that the bones of St. James are buried there.  Various trails from all over Europe lead to this religious site.  Bruce and I have considered doing some of the hike - but not very seriously, I must admit.  Well, we're getting more serious.   We have our backpacks, our hiking shoes, and a place to leave our suitcases!  We'll see.  It would be at the end of our time here, in early April, if we do it.

Now it is evening.  Andrea is off to her yoga class.  Angel will join us all later to do some cooking, imbibing, and sampling of all those goodies that we bought today.  We like this Spanish lifestyle!  

Andrea's Yummy Artichoke Dish 
artichoke hearts           chopped serrano ham
chopped onions            chopped parsley
minced garlic                paprika
salt & pepper                lemon juice
olive oil
Combine everything and saute in the olive oil.  

Sorry for the lack of photos. Getting them from the camera to the blog is our next challenge!

Escaping Winter, January 2, 2014

Escaping Winter, January 2, 1014

Testing, testing....(my rusty technology skills!)
After 17 months at home and with winter approaching - heck, with ferocious winter weather here already- the Webb's are firing up the blog for another adventure in a far-away (read "warmer") land.  This time our travels take us to Spain.  We leave next week, on January 8, 2014, and will return on April 15.   As the snow whips around us this morning, Bruce is delighted to have tix to "be on a jet plane" very soon.  I always find it more difficult to leave my cozy home, my family, my friends, my meaningful activities - but I usually snap into gear and love all the new sights and experiences after Bruce manages to pry me loose!  

Adios (literally, "to God", I like that.)  

mucha luvia (lots of rain!)

Antigua, Guatemala, October, 2011

It has been raining here for days.  It IS the rainy season, and to be expected, but it´s supposed to be winding down, now that we´re in October, or so we thought. As I lay in my lumpy bed, wide awake in the middle of a recent night, snug and warm, listening to the drumming of rain on the metal roof, I couldn´t help but wonder about landslides in the countryside and dark little tin-sided shacks with dirt floors with streams, undoubtedly, running through them by then.  Or a classful of squirmy kids, unable to go outside for fresh air and a good run - which I may be dealing with soon.  

Well, it turns out that there have, indeed, been landslides and flooding in the area surrounding Xela, where we were living until last week.  Already 10 people have died in that area and 10 others in other parts of the country.  Schools have been closed all over the country.  Closer to Antigua, where we are now, Safe Passage volunteers have been sent out of Guatemala City and back to their living quarters in Antigua early for a couple of days because of concern about the roads getting cut off with landslides.  The land must be so very saturated with water by now, as the rain continues, both day and night.  There are periods of just drizzle but it´s been pretty constant, in one form or another, for the better part of a week now.  It´s all part of a tropical depression that is predicted to continue into next week.

To keep our spirits up in this dankness, Bruce and I have been gathering up our books and the umbrella, putting on our ïmpermeables and heading out each morning (our "gap" week), to a beautiful cafe where the coffee is good and the prices are good and the ambiance is amazing.  The guy with the uniform and the big gun, standing guard at the door, (guess he´s part of the ambiance,too) will soon begin to recognize us.  We sit at a table, upstairs in a colonial home dating to the 1500`s, looking down on a patio filled with lush plants, with little sparrows darting in and out, pull out our Spanish verbs and settle in for the morning.  Slowly, we are making sense of the present tense, the preterite tense, the imperfect, and the future.  Still painful, but we´re trying to be patient with ourselves.

Today Bruce and I went on a 3 hour walking tour of Antigua.  The tour was given by a woman from California who has lived here for 30 years and is an authority on the city and its history.   We learned all about the Spanish conquest of the area, the strong role of the Catholic church,  and the history of the Mayan people in this area.  We visited several churches,  the town hall, a jade factory and a lovely old Dominican monastery.    We were pretty tired at the end and hungry, but it was a great orientation to the town.  I`m sure there  is more to learn during our stay.

Adios for now.

ps.  I love the Spanish word for retired:  jubilado!

Winding Down

Antigua, Guatemala        November, 2011

 My new friend, Andrea is a classy and bright young Latino woman from Venezuela  who is volunteering at  Camino Seguro and living with us in the Morales home.  She has advised me that life in Latin America is full of contrasts.  She mentioned this in relation to Caracas, where abject poverty exists not far from the high rise opulence of the well-to-do.  Here in Guatemala,  I am often struck by the irony of the beautiful pink rose bush that rises up over the cement wall, in defiance of  its surroundings in the dump neighborhood.  And when I get to school, I love seeing the occasional little girl who has emerged from a filthy environment, dressed in her gauzy, many-layered ball gown, with a pair of dirty sneakers to complete the outfit!  As we approach Antigua on the bus at the end of the day, we pass a small cluster of low tin-sided shacks with smoke from an open cooking fire inside leaking out of the eaves of the house.  Looming over the house is a giant billboard advertising a luxurious hotel in the city!   Contrasts do, indeed, surround us. 

52 Beds in 52 Weeks: A Trip Around the World

As our adventure comes to a close with our return to Maine tomorrow, we are reviewing the year and trying to get a handle on what it all has meant to us.  Our heads are full of so many beautiful sights: the volcanoes and bold colors of Guatemala, the turquoise water of the Caribbean,  the mysterious golden culture of Thailand, the peaceful temples - and wide sidewalks - of Laos, the tidy tea plantations and enormous monuments of India, the misty moody hills of Scotland, the quaint hedgerows and lovely seaside towns of England, the medieval towns of Spain,  the vineyards and mountains of southwest France, and the bright green rolling meadows of Ireland.  And that's just a taste - a good dollop, mind you - but just a taste of the world's gifts that we experienced.

It was an incredible privilege to have this opportunity to spend a year exploring the world.  The highest privilege was being invited into people's homes and into their lives for a moment - real lives where transitions were taking place, where personal losses were being grieved, where a new home was being planned or where uncertain financial futures were being wrestled with, where serious health problems brought re-evaluations of life-style, where young people were working hard to gain an education and were setting out on their own adventures, some graduating after many years of study, where parents were joyfully anticipating a child's wedding or dubiously looking forward to the life changes that retirement would bring,   We weren't escaping from life; we were jumping into the middle of it everywhere that we went!  We have been impressed by the young people that we've met who are so creative and hard-working and ambitious and desirous of all the good stuff in life that American youth want.

There were experiences of spirituality in huge historic Christian places of worship in Europe, in a modern airy church in Asia, in a damp chapel carved out of a mountainside in France, in an ancient abbey on a tiny windswept island off the coast of Scotland, in a small friendly church in Guatemala, in mysterious Buddhist temples smelling of incense.  Those were the formal, intended places of worship.  There were other places, natural locations so beautiful that they brought an unexpected prayer to mind.

There were funny times, too, like when monkeys came after me in India.  I yelled for Bruce's help while trying to distract the little buggers by throwing my sunglasses at them (it didn't work!). There were scary times in the backseat of an Indian taxi driven by a maniac on narrow twisting roads.  There were moments when we wondered why we were wandering around the world, so far from home, and moments of boredom and loneliness  - and lots of lovely moments as recipients of generosity and kindness and fun, and great gratitude for our good fortune in having this incredible experience.

What have we learned?  How have we changed?  Would we do it again?  Do we still have some wanderlust?

Well, these last two are the easiest to answer, given that we are still jotting down places that we'd like to see and noting tidbits of info, like the fact that Ryan Air plans to begin service from Ireland to Gdansk, Poland.  Ahh, so many interesting places still to explore and so much to learn about the world.  I don't think that we have another long adventure in us - but shorter ones still appeal. It's been a tremendous amount of work to get this endeavor to unroll as smoothly as it has - and it has all been done by Bruce!  Thanks to him, we never had a night without a bed or were left stranded by the side of the road or found our bank account empty when we needed it!  But the time and stress involved with arranging hotels, B&B's, apartments, houses, Woofing, visas, buses, trains, flights, ferries, car rentals, credit card payments, money transfers, new currencies and phone cards in every country - with internet service that was often dodgy - it's been a HUGE undertaking!  Bravo to him.  No wonder I'm the one who wants to get out and see, do, experience every day while he wants to take it slow and easy.

What have we learned about ourselves?  Well, I know now that I have a pretty good sense of direction and that we're both pretty flexible, that Bruce is surprisingly more cautious than I in many situations, that he is incredibly good at aforementioned planning.   We both are more acutely aware of the disparities between the "have's" and "have not's" in the world - and the incredible sweetness and generosity of those who have very little in the way of material goods.  If we have any regrets, it's that we might have done more in the way of being of service to those very people.  Overall, it's been a proverbial blast!  It's hard to let go of such a wonderful experience, but we are ready now to rejoin our families and friends, to reconnect with those whose roots and histories we share, and to reclaim our lives back home.

As the year has unfolded and we've written blog after blog, we've often wondered who was reading them and what their reactions were.  We'd love to have some feedback, thoughts, reactions, etc.  You could send them to my email at:  lwebb34@gmail.com.  Thanks and cheerio!  

Green Green Fields of Ireland

This will be a very quick post since we leave for home tomorrow.  But Ireland isn't to be passed over, so I feel compelled to get out a few words and pictures about this lovely green land.  By tomorrow we will have been here for about 8 days, mostly in Cork, and then a couple of days in Dublin.  We had hoped to stay in Galway, since so many Portland folks of Irish descent came from that western Ireland city and it's reputed to be beautiful.  Alas, it was horse race week in Galway and not a room to be had there.  As a fellow in Dublin remarked yesterday in giving us directions back to our hotel (located next to the Royal Dublin Horse Show site), "all roads in Ireland lead to horse races!".  So, we opted instead for Cork, second largest city in Ireland, where Gay Pride weekend was about to be celebrated rather than horse races!  And, as we've found so often before, the city and surrounding areas had a lot to offer.

                               Cork, second largest city of Ireland, on the River Lee.

                           Church of Ireland tower with rainbow flag for Pride weekend

Probably the two most interesting things about Cork were the place that we stayed and the nearby city of Cobh.  We stayed with a young couple, Denise and Ben, who have a spare bedroom which they offer through AirBnB at a very reasonable rate, with a great breakfast thrown in.  Denise, as it turns out, manages a shelter for immigrants, housing nearly 300 refugees.  Ben works for a mobile phone company.  Of course I was very interested in Denise's work and how the Irish government handles their refugees.  So, on our last day,  Denise took me to see the shelter.  I'm a bit familiar with the Canadian approach and with the US approach, which encourages independence fairly quickly.  It was fascinating to compare them with the Irish way, with its very benevolent services, including housing, meals, educational classes, recreation, health services, day care, and employment support.

It was such a travel plus to stay with ordinary folks and to learn about their lives.  Watching the Olympics together on their big screen tv and using their kitchen to cook up a simple meal and exchanging travel stories felt a lot like staying with friends.  Neat experience.

                                            Our AirBnB, Denise and Ben's home in Cork

Cobh, formerly known as Queenstown and before that as Cove (Cobh is the Gaelic spelling of Cove), is the coastal city from where 250,000 Irish left their country on the "famine ships" to look for a better life elsewhere in the 1800's.  It's also where the Titanic last stopped to pick up passengers in 1912.  Three years later the Lusitania survivors and bodies were brought there after the ship was torpedoed by the Germans in World War I. And, it was one of the cities on the New York, Cherbourg, Queenstown circuit for big ocean liners, too.   Lots of history there that we learned about in a heritage museum.  The tourism guy shared an interesting tidbit:  When Ireland got its independence, it rid itself of anything British, including the name of Queenstown (named for Queen Victoria) and several statues of Victoria, which they sent to Australia and Victoria, British Columbia.  A third statue was buried but recently unearthed in these more enlightened times.  In mentioning the name of the hated English statesman, Cromwell, he gave a little spit out of the side of his mouth!  Makes you realize how relatively recently the war of independence took place, not quite one hundred years ago.

This is a photo of a photo - but doesn't it almost feel like you're on board the Titanic?

Our brief stay in Dublin has gone quickly with Bruce needing to spend time on his new on-line class that he's teaching.  We've walked downtown a couple of times and enjoyed the cool air and the beautiful Georgian architecture, the lovely parks and gardens, and the old pubs.

                                  Our Dublin hotel where Bruce was hard at work on his on-line class 

                                                        Georgian house in Dublin

                                 Garden, park, church - a little bit of everything here!

Ireland was a good choice for our last stop.  We certainly felt closer to home here.  The US-Irish connection was everywhere:  lots of American (and Canadian) flags; lots of businesses and products with American names, such as Manhattan popcorn and Long Island Bar;  lots of people with relatives in the US or who had traveled there themselves.  Everyone seemed to know where Maine is.  I could feel an invisible thread pulling us homeward to those we love!