A quick blog after a long hiatus. But I have a reason for being late, I promise! We've moved to a new apartment, which in and of itself took a bit of time because there was a slight mix up with a few items (one being we were moved into the ¨wrong¨apartment). Additionally the apartment does not have internet. Now, I know many of you think that in this day and age there should be high-speed accessible around every corner of the planet, but that is not the case here in Spain, and in particular, the Albaycin of Granada. Beyond that, it takes a few weeks to get it into your home (if there is no holiday in sight) and you have to have your NIE!!!!! Which (drum roll please....really, really loud.....) WE HAVE!!!!!!!!!!! I can't stress enough how much @#%& I've been through with this process. Our last ditch effort here in Granada was that I had to hire a "extranjería" abogado (lawyer) to help us out because we were living illegally and things we taking too long. (In the end we found out that our paperwork went down the wrong hallway and they put us in the same pile as people applying for indefinite residency. Of course, our paperwork was denied and I was left with the feeling, once again, that I was going to have to beat feet back to the states with my kids. Over lunch one day with Esperanza and Ricardo (this one only 2 1/2 hours long rather than 6) it came up that our visas were waiting in the wind and we wouldn't be able to leave the country for the holidays if we didn't get this taken care of. That's when Ricardo suggested we use his buddy abogado. In short, 3 weeks later and a few select Euro bills we have NIE's in hand. Myles, Owen and I are finally legal citizens of Spain. It feels strangely wierd and nice at the same time. They treat us differently when we buy things and no longer have to flash the US passport that sometimes would get us the looks of, well, you know, something to the affect of "and YOU´RE ones who started this whole thing and you're buying HOW MANY EUROS worth of groceries, especially including gross food like peanut butter and syrup here in Spain??!!
Ok, I'll stop. Anyway, I currently sit beneath the Sierra Nevada Mountain range south of Granada. The boys and Brad are skiing a half day before we leave for Africa tomorrow. (I woke up with a bum lower back...lovely). I thought I better get a blog off before we leave because it's going to be another 2 weeks before I post again. We're headed for southern Morocco via public transport and I think the next blog is gonna be a doosie, so stay tuned. (We're already taking our acidopholis pills to get our stomach juices ready for what's to come. The last time I was in Morocco I thought I was going to die on a floor in Asilah, south of Tangier. Hopefully this time things have modernized some 20 years later.) Needless to say, the boys are very unhappy with this decision as we are going to an Islamic country where Christmas is not celebrated and we had a pretty measly Christmas ourselves. See photo...They don't seem to want to understand that all the money we're spending on traveling is worth as much as unnecessary plastic items that come over on the slow boat....hmmm. Maybe some day they'll see it our way.
La familia de Araceli - a beautiful group of people we hope to stay in touch with!
Back to the title of the blog. About a month ago our dear friend Araceli (the boys' school secretary) invited us to her pueblo over a long weekend. It is north of Granada about 1 1/2 hours and called Belmez de la Moraleda (about 350 people live there, reminds me of Kimball or Plankinton, South Dakota). We had more fun than we could have ever imagined. We worked on the hills collecting aceitunas, ate incredible local food, cooked goat blood and onions and to make blood sausage called morcilla and most importantly enjoyed time spent with Araceli's family. Here's a clip of Brad, the boys and a few locals in the aceitunas field. Collecting aceitunas is an incredibly tedious and difficult job that takes a long time. The old fashioned way is to quickly hit the olive tree branches with a palo and as the aceitunas hit the ground usually the women would be on their hands and knees collecting each and every one of the olives. In this day and age the women still go out but not as much as the men. Each family owns little plots of land here and there throughout their county and during this time of year you see and hear everyone in the fields collecting the olives to be weighed at the cooperativos. After they collect them they take them to the cooperativo which weighs all the olives. They can then choose to keep the olive oil that is pressed or be paid out. It is a party time too because the harvest is done and money is in hand.
making morcilla
comida del pueblo
The morcilla process is quite an experience. I can't remember how many kilos of goat blood were used but it was around 10-15, some 25 lbs. of blood. This is collected after the matanza or killing of the goats. That was cooked with aprrox. 10 kilos of sauteed onions and various spices such as cumin, clavo, canela, pimienta, sal, etc. After all of this is thoroughly cooked in the large vats(see photo) over coals the mixture is then pushed into the lovely tripas or intestines, boiled, soaked in olive oil for a few days and then dried in the cellar for a year. If I must say so myself, it is delicious. Brad refraned from trying some directly from the vats with pan y vino even when the locals said, "¡pero tío, no hay ninguna carne!" (But dude, there's no meat!) We all laughed.
I'm going to have to close this blog on a really quick note because the boys are chompin' at the bit and ready to go. It's dark and we still have to descend down into Granada in la fiera, the beast. (Someday I'll include a photo of the usually running vehicle we are driving here in Spain. Instead of a "bra" on the front bumper, she's held together with duct tape, if that gives you any clue about her status. Let's just say we almost didn't make it up here today because she overheated twice en route up the hill).
The next two clips I'm sharing because we want to share some of the great things happening with Owen at school. We are so proud of him (Myles too!) and how he is fairing in school. He´s really taken to the language, his wonderfully, sweet teacher, Leonor and his classmates. Myles is doing equally as well, I just haven´t been able to catch him on video...he´s a sneaky guy and quite camera shy these pre-adolescent days. The second clip is of Owen at the Christmas performance at Gomez Moreno.
Lastly...our quotes for this blog:
"Can we stay?"
"So, how many days of school do we have this week?"
"He can put out my fire anytime!"
"Our car can make it in 4 hours...yours in 8."
"But it doesn´t have any meat, just blood and spices!"
"I think Spaniards are smarter than us."
"Mom, have you noticed that Spaniards let their kids do more things?"
"Can we get a goat when we get back?"
"What I did with Alberto is throw some mud at the toro´s butt."
"This was the BEST day in Spain so far!" (Said with much enthusiasm after a day of skiing at Sierra Nevada.)
"This car is a steamy beast!"
"You are a stupid idiot!" (said with a very thick German accent directed toward Brad in the lift line after he wouldn´t let him cut the line; go figure.)
