GREAT PARTY FOR ROSE (AND GEORGE CLOONEY IN TOWN!)

We just passed three weeks in Valencia! The last week’s big event was a rockin’ party at our apartment for Rose.

PLEASE COME TO A PARTY FOR ROSE

SCHILLIG.

WE ARE SO EXCITED THAT ROSE HAS COME

TO LIVE IN VALENCIA WITH US, AND WE

WANT EVERYONE TO HAVE THE CHANCE TO

MEET HER.  SO, PLEASE COME TO OUR HOME

TO VISIT WITH ROSE AND WELCOME HER TO

YOUR FAIR CITY!!

WHEN: SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2004

TIME:    19:00 – 23:00

PLACE: C/PROFESOR LOPEZ PINERO, 10-62

                             15^TH FLOOR

Almost everyone was able to make it, and as opposed to last year, kids were included and many came. First, the menu:

Apples on Horseback (apple slices with manchego cheese sticks wrapped in bacon, and roasted)

Hot artichoke and parmesan cheese dip

Karen McGirr’s cheeseball

Cheese and ham plate

Gourmet crackers for the three dishes above

BBQ Meatballs (the hit of the night with three recipe requests)

Shrimp cocktail

Nuts and olives

Deserts

After the party, I threw out five wine bottles and uncounted pop cans and bottles!!!  It was a loud, raucous affair, with kids running and playing among the groups of adults.  16 adults, four teenagers, a 10 yr. old, a 7 yr. old, and 14 month old who can really run fast! Some of the younger kids go to an all English school, so they used there English to make comments.  Gerri’s favorite was Pau, Juan’s daughter, telling Gerri that the food was “Delicious”!  Gerri asked her what was her favorite food (in English) and Pau said: “Crackers”.  Rose has a picture album of 50 family pictures we made up for her from the last 40 years, and she proudly spent 45 minutes showing it to Vicente Casanova and Pepe Martinez-Canales.  At the end of the night, we had an unclaimed sweater that Alfredo recognized as Carmen’s, and then we later found a scarf that was also Carmen’s.  Three sets of our kids’ parents came to our apartment for the first time, as well as several other first time visitors.  The view from our balcony was a big hit (more on that view, seen in these pictures, in the “Clooney section” of this report).

Frist, however, the party pictures with captions to identify the party-goers:

Ernesto!!!! Son of Alicia Ribes and her husband Juan. He is 14 months old and added a lot of spice to the party.

Gerri mugging it up with Ernesto and his parents, Alicia and Juan.

Add Dale and Ernesto’s grandparents, Carmen and Francisco.

Left to Right: Coque Martinez-Canales,Alicia Ribes, Lucia Gutierrez, Coque’s wife Patricia, Carmen Salas, Gerri, Nuria Martinez-Canales, Dale, Roberto Ballester (Nuria’s husband), Alfredo Gutierrez, Luis Martinez-Canales.

Dale, Rose Schillig, Linda Casanova, Nuria again, Vicente Casanova, Roberto again.

Carla Gutierrez, Alfredo’s sister, with the phone in her pocket, and her friend Jose at the far left.  Center is Pau holding Ernesto.

Back row:  Elena, Carla, and Tono (Carla Gutierrez and Toni Gil’s three children) and Carla’s friend Marina. Front row: Lucia Gutierrez (daughter of Carmen Salas and Alfredo Gutierrez).

Ernesto doesn’t look completely sure of his safety here and Pau is coming along as his escape route!!

Lovely flowers brought for Rose that we are still enjoying.  It was a really fun evening, and Rose was a real trooper until the last people left near mid-night.

We have been lucky to be able to use Rosa, Nuria’s nanny and cleaning helper from South America as our bi-weekly cleaning helper too.  We asked her if we could take her picture with Gerri’s mom, meaning it was a picture of the “Two Rosas”.  She said yes.

During the rest of the week, we did a lot of things.  One was to visit the MuVIM, which is a museum that has a permanent exhibit called “The Adventure of Thinking”.  It is a one hour “walk” through a set of rooms with slide shows, model cities, murals, and more giving you the history of thinking since the Renaissance to the present day.  It is really cool! We saw it with the Spanish soundtrack last year, and this year we reserved an hour to see it with the English soundtrack.

Rose is getting an education in the differences in Spain for shopping.  Food. Clothes. Drugs.  She bought a new winter coat the other day.  Very stylish!

And she likes the pharmacies better in the US!  Over the counter stuff in the US needs a prescription here!  Cosmetic stuff is largely NOT in a pharmacy here.  All a little strange.  Later today, we are going to “shop our a– off”, according to Gerri, to look for something “dressy and red” for Rose. Should be interesting!!!

Yesterday, we got snookered by the local holiday calendar, which is full of holidays we don’t know about.  Yesterday, only inside the city limits of Valencia, it was St. Vincent Day and most of the shops were closed, including the Mercado Central where Dale went to buy fresh food!  Oh well.

Now, the “George Clooney thing” in Valencia.  When the people arrived at our party last Saturday night, they saw the City of Arts and Sciences buildings from our patio and said the George Clooney was arriving in two days to shoot part of a movie in those buildings!  So, we looked it up, and indeed he is shooting a Disney film called “Tomorrowland” to be released in April, 2015.  Ever since the 50’s, Disney had wanted to do a movie with the same name of one of the most popular areas in both Disney Land and Disney World: Tomorrowland! So, what we thought was repair construction when we arrived turns out to be a movie set for George Clooney for 10 days starting two days ago!!  Look of some of the things they have put up around these remarkable buildings:

A space capsule for George! Surrounded by Blue Screens to let them add the digitally the life on the planet he is visiting!

The “space train” that runs on the planet, and in real life runs on a rail that covers about 500 yards!

The space tunnel they can use in the film.

Everyday, we watch with our binoculars to see them shooting this film and changing the sets.  Cranes hold up huge blue screens in just the right place for each shot to be a mix of real film and digital material added later.  No requests yet from George to come over for lunch, but we will keep our hopes up!

Lastly, I went food shopping on a rainy day last week and decided to show off some “Cincinnati colors”.  Go REDS!!!!

And speaking of Cincinnati colors, how about those BASKETBALL BEARCATS!!!!

See you next week.

Dale, Gerri, and Rose