There are more dogs than kids in Seattle and I’m pretty sure there are more kids than dogs here in Buitrago. But there is definitely more shit here in Buitrago than I have ever seen in Seattle…or it’s suburbs for that matter. I have seen exactly one, ONE dog owner here in town that had a little plastic bag of dog dukie tied to it’s dog’s collar. There are no little doggie poop bags provided at parks. I’ve seen but one owner have a bag with them. I can tell you there are party hats EVErYWHeRe. It’s disgusting. It’s gross. It’s on the middle of the sidewalks. It’s in the middle of the playground. It’s on your front steps. It’s really quite outrageous. Here’s our front door yesterday. This isn’t out of the ordinary. It’s…have I mentioned…absolutely disgusting!
Our town of Buitrago hosts a living nativity for four days in December. It’s a big deal and has going on for quite some time. And I’ve been looking forward to it for awhile. I believe around 2,000 – 2,500 people show up for it each night it’s put on. We watched the streets get blocked off and swarms of people head into the city center all day. I followed the directions on when to show up and where we would be going. What I failed to remember is that things happen here…..when they happen. So, nearly two hours after we arrived the program finally began. These two hours mostly consisted of us standing in line, eating loaves of bread hastily purchased, pleading with the kids to not crawl in the street and then waiting some more in a crowded mass until the program began. Jeff, October & Lavender left before it even started. Scarlett and I stuck it out. We had left at 6:15pm and returned home at 9:45pm (it’s a 5 minute walk away). Although at one point, I wondered if I had been standing with my knee’s locked and what exactly would happen should I pass out in a crowd of 2,000. I know what to expect now and we’ll try again tomorrow night but skip the early arrival and the welcoming portion of the program. That part was in Spanish anyways and it was so crowded there was nothing we could actually see. But the living nativity scenes were pretty amazing. There are 39 scenes winding through the castle and castle walls ending with Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus and the three wise men. I imagined it more of a “working” farm sort of thing where the actors, acted out the scenes they were in. Instead they sat silent and completely still while this crowd of 2,000 walked past and took pictures. The actors are people from our village and surrounding villages. The girls recognized several of their classmates and one of Scarlett’s sat silent and unflinching as Scarlett loudly whispered her name and waved to her. Check out the complete set of pictures here.
Shortly after we arrived and the girls began school, Scarlett was very excited to learn her name in Spanish is Scarletta. And since then she has been signing her name as such and asking her classmates and her family to call her Scarletta. I guess I can be glad it’s not a completely different name. Although it’s pretty much the same I seem to butcher the correct “espanol” pronunciation…every….time. I simply say “Vi-O-let-A” but according to the small people inhabiting my home it should be: “BEE-O-let-AH”. Maybe I’ll get it right for the plane ride home.
We took a day trip to a city north of us, Burgos last weekend. I wanted to go visit the Castle ruins that are there as they have siege tunnels underground you can walk through and large winding stone staircases. It wasn’t a must-see attraction online or even by reviewers. Many reviewers had said it would have been way cooler and the siege tunnels even better had the damn French and Napoleon not blow the place up. Unfortunately, by the time we found our way to castle it was closed. We missed it by a few minutes! Argh! There was a complete lack of signage to the castle. It was clear the the castle ruins was not a major tourist attraction but nonetheless, I was disappointed. We did find a rather impressive playground (at least for those we have seen in Spain – they are all pretty plain and generic with few pieces) that we promised we’d take the kids back to. And after leaving the closed castle, being shuttled into one-way narrow streets and out to the main road we eventually found our way back to the playground. I’m sure this will be the highlight that the kids remember.
We left the house late, we got lost, we had few snacks, we had no extra clothes. It really wasn’t a well planned out trip but it did end up being a great one. At the playground, Lavender had an accident (remember no spare clothes??) but luckily October had pants on under her dress so her pants got sacrificed to Lavender. And while Lavender now had dry pants, she had pee soaked tennis shoes. We leave the playground to go find the cathedral. This is on the must-see lists so we were off to find it. And we could see it. But we just…couldn’t….get….there. The snacks have all been consumed. October’s hungry and letting us know every….three…seconds. I continue driving in hopes of finding the cathedral, taking some pictures, finding some food and heading home. I don’t have lofty goals at this point. I do however find the castle, the closed castle, again in searching for the cathedral. We find a dirt lot by the castle wall, park and head off to find food. I’m really not hopeful. It seems like the place is shutting down for the night. It is a Sunday on a holiday weekend. I see the top of the cathedral poking over some buildings and hastily snap some pictures. I assume this is as close as I’ll get. Lavender is holding up her pants as we hurriedly look for food, to which we stumble into a major plaza of Burgos right off the Cathedral entrance filled with holiday lights, holiday vendors and restaurants. Burgos is known for it’s Morcilla or blood sausage. Unfortunately, we were too hungry to try anything local. Pizza it was! I inadvertently ordered morcilla last time we were in Madrid (I thought it was hamburger) and it was good. It was even October’s favorite tapa that day. Jeff told me what it really was and I just couldn’t order a second after that.
Having our bellies full. We were able to explore and enjoy the plaza. It was cold. October had a dress on and no one had their hats with them but I was the only one who seemed to mind the cold. The girls rode the Carousal, we went for a tourist train ride around the city, the girls had a gigantic doughnut, Jeff had mulled wine, we took pictures and enjoyed seeing all the holiday vendors. I was really glad we didn’t quit and leave after we, also, couldn’t find our way to the cathedral. I was really glad we stuck around for the holiday lights to come on. The town was just coming awake after dinner and we would have missed it. And I’m really glad that October’s internal thermostat is set high! I never could have wandered around for hours with bare legs!
Being away from home, away from friends and family, away from traditions can derail your holiday spirits. And while it seems the girls are wholeheartedly embracing the idea of a simple, family Christmas they are listing all the dolls, fairies and toys they would also like. We spent last weekend listening to non-stop Christmas music, putting up purchased decorations, making decorations and watching Christmas movies together. The girls have made foam ball snowmen and lots of paper snowflakes. I decorated stockings with glitter glue. We have big pine cones beckoning us to pour glitter on them and tie them with ribbons. I bought a little artificial Christmas tree (stealing one from the forest was seeming like an increasingly bad idea). At home, I like my Christmas tree to look nice. Or maybe I should say I like it to look the way I want it to look. Organized, color-themed, symmetrical, non-commercial. I have red and silver bulbs with with white and red lights. I have homemade ornaments and store-bought ornaments and but for one Maxine figurine I have no tinkerbells, barbies, pooh bears, or other cartoon characters on my tree. But I decided here to buy non-red ornaments, colored lights and to let the kids completely decorate it on their own.
It also snowed a bit. The kids thought it was amazing! They went out and ran in the snowflakes, we took a hike in the woods. It certainly wasn’t going to stick. It didn’t even look like snow as it hit the pavement or the grass. Either way though, the kids loved it!
Scarlett had a great time at first grade camp! She went zip-lining, rock-climbing, held a falcon, made toothpaste, had a disco party and made a coco powder drink. She explained that the toothpaste had lots of sugar in it. I’m not sure if this was a translation issue or an understanding issue. Her favorite part was the zip line and she quite triumphantly exclaimed how the child that is a class behavioral problem DID NOT go because HE was afraid. Her least favorite part was when the kids were calling dibbs on the top-bunks. She didn’t think this was fair since she had no idea what they were saying and therefore was left with a bottom bunk. A bit odd though was that the bunk rooms (eight kids in a room) were coed. She said she stayed plenty warm as they were inside doing many of the workshops. I debated whether to send her with her fleece and rain jacket (which wouldn’t be as warm) or send her with her winter jacket which is not waterproof. I notice though she is without a hat or gloves in all of the pictures and yet she is snuggled up with her teacher in fourth picture below wearing her teacher’s gloves because she was cold.
But she had a blast and she was exhausted when she came home!
While you’re waiting for me to write a more interesting post. I thought I’d share some photo’s of the topography of where we live. We live in a valley in the Sierra Norte area of Madrid. There are mountains surrounding us and I would describe the landscape as mostly desert-like. It reminds me a lot of the eastern slopes of the Washington cascades and some parts of western Montana. We drove to Burgos (200 km north) and there were parts that looked like the badlands of South Dakota and then the rolling hill farmlands of Nebraska and then more forest area’s of mid-Michigan. Here are some photo’s of the drive from Madrid to Buitrago.
I’ve been to one art museum before. It was nice. I saw a Van Gough exhibition in Seattle. And while I don’t remember the exact painting I do remember being impressed by seeing the actual brush strokes and the amount of paint on the canvas. Lonely Planet has informed me that Madrid is home to three world-class museums and I figured I should check at least one out. I choose Museo Reina Sofia based on a recommendation from a friend in Washington. It’s a commitment to get there. A nearly two hour bus ride followed by a 17-station stop Metro ride (which for awhile we were packed liked sardines) Truthfully though, I’ve been itching to get out of Buitrago. So even after we missed the first bus out of town. Yes, we were not up and ready to go in time to make the 10 am bus, I still wanted to head out. I knew either way (or at least I guessed that either way) an art museum was not going to be long-lived with three children. And I was right. They did enjoy looking at the art and showing there enthusiasm with vigorous pointing which made the museum attendants quite nervous which in turn made my experience less enjoyable. We made it through 2 of 4 floors. The kids said their favorite art was Guenica by Pablo Picasso. And it was fun looking through the painting and talking with the kids about what they saw in the painting. It was the last painting we saw before we left so we did hang around extra long to enjoy it.
After leaving the museum we headed back toward the metro station (which was really close) and heard drumming and chanting. Lavender excitedly pronounced it was a parade. It was instead a protest rally of some sort. And from my limited ability to understand the news I have gathered that protests in Mardrid are a rather frequent event. We then left and got on a very crowded metro train. Standing room only doesn’t even describe it. But press on we did as our bus only runs every 1.5 hours and I didn’t want to be stuck waiting for the next one. I enjoyed going into Madrid, eating lunch out and visiting the museum. Yes, I needed to blow this Popsicle stand.
Here are the police following the protesters along, as well as the street sweepers. The protesters are off to the left. And yes, I was that tourist that pulled out my camera and took pictures.
Happy smiles once the metro train cleared out and they got a seat. You couldn’t even see the floor or the walls 3 stops ago.
Thanksgiving is not an internationally celebrated holiday. As such, on Thursday the girls had school and Jeff had work. Interestingly, Jeff asked students if they knew what Thanksgiving was. A few did but mostly they wanted to know if he went shopping for Black Friday. During the day I picked up some last minute supplies up for our planned Friday Thanksgiving celebration — although in reality the stores were open as normal if we did need something. We watched a live streaming of the Macy’s Day parade when the kids came home from school. And while we had our celebration planned for the next day, it was really hard not to feel a sadness on not spending the holiday with family. On not knowing how the food we had planned for tomorrow would turn out. On not being part of a larger celebration. It was hard evening. I hadn’t anticipated that. My bottle of 1.66 wine didn’t really make it any easier either. But….
We celebrated Thanksgiving today. (I’m not really sure why the schools in Buitrago were closed. It wasn’t a national holiday). And it was nice. It was good. Jeff and I spent most of the day cooking and listening to Christmas music. The food turned out great. Everything was homemade. Actually, now that I think about it I don’t even own a can opener. We had scalloped potatoes with ham, baked beans, green beans, squash, homemade mac & cheese and an apple pie. We watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. We all shared the things we are thankful for. It was really nice. Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Walking around town isn’t so bad. It’s pretty small. I can walk from far end to far end in 20 minutes. I can walk to any shop I need within 7 minutes. But I do find it a bit confining. I’d like a car. I’d like to buy things that aren’t available here in a small town. Like peanut butter. Here’s October’s thought on not having car.
As I started this post, I thought how I would share about the Blue Lake trail itself; how steep it was, how exposed it was, how well a family could hike it, how many switchbacks there were, and how busy the trail was. But as I sat to write, thought, started sentences and deleted them, […]
We had an amazing summer! Really, it was awesome! We finally were able to buy another mini-van (we sold our last Sienna to pay for our plane tickets to Spain), we put our mail on hold and took off for adventures around Washington state. We spent most of our days out exploring and […]
Granada was the last of the three cities we visited over Christmas break. With the fact that we would be there be that we would be there for four nights during the holidays, I tried to find a place where I didn’t also have to pay for parking. As parking added considerable cost to the hostels […]
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