IN FLORIDA, WE SALT OUR MARGARITAS, NOT SIDEWALKS!!

Okay. Okay.  We know we are not living in Florida this winter, but we do think we are quite lucky to be “away” from the continuing awful weather in both southern and northern Ohio and we do think of Valencia as our “New Florida”!  So, we just wanted to make SURE that we shared with you how nice it is to sit at sidewalk cafes in the sun here and have a nice drink, snack on olives, and make cracks about the winter storms and temperatures back home!  Actually, we think there has been a marked decline in Facebook posts from Ohio since the onset of the frigid weather, and can only attribute it to a general malaise connected to the bad weather.

We need to thank everyone for all the mail that is being received by Rose!!  We had mail the last two weeks on Mondays, with one of those Mondays having three letters. We thought that was pretty good.  But this week.  Wow.  She got mail on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, with a whopping FOUR letters on Tuesday.  She reads every letter to us aloud, and then reads them again privately at least twice.  Then she writes replies and sends me off to the Post Office nearby to mail them out.  They don’t deliver mail on Saturdays here, so we spend each weekend anticipating the resumption of mail and hoping for more mail from y’all.  So, great job everyone and keep those cards and letters coming!!

Now, some tidbits from daily life.  First, food.  We have a “cookbook” we handmade by copying over 100 recipes at home and making them into a ring-bound book to use over here in our apartment.  Of course, it is subdivided into many categories with little tabs and an index up front, which is classic “Gerri-style” organization.  Thus, we have foods for breakfast (around 9:00), lunch (big meal at 2:30) and dinner (small meal at 8:30).  There is a snack in the Spanish meal schedule at 11:30 and again at 5:30, which we observe faithfully! We usually eat lunch out about 2-3 days a week, and cook lunch at home the other days.  Dinner is always at home, unless someone is throwing a party.  So, we thought we would tell you the main dish of the lunches (main meal in mid-afternoon) we ate the last two weeks:

Penne ala vodka (Rose’s favorite for years)

Lamb with honey (a Moorish recipe we got 20 years ago from a restaurant in Cordorba, Spain)

Merluza ala Gallega (great white fish and potato dish from Galicia)

Sausage and egg casserole (we have “breakfast for lunch” sometimes when the dish is filling like this one)

Gourmet chicken sandwiches

Rice with chorizo, shrimp, and green olives

Gourmet hamburgers with the works (have a favorite shop with burgers from beef, lamb, duck, chicken, turkey, veal, and more)

Herb fusilli with roasted vegetables and parmesan cheese

And for the light dinners, we have had BLT’s, empanadas, gazpacho, quesadillas, pot luck pasta, tuna and olive bread salad, homemade chicken noodle soup, and “picnics” of ham, cheese, fruit, olives, shrimp cocktail, and yogurt (plus leftovers from lunch dishes).  We are eating well, but not gaining weight because of all of the walking.

Speaking of walking, we have started having “aerobic walks” of 30 minutes 2 or 3 times a week because they are part of our routine at home (on machines at the health club) and they are a big part of Gerri’s post cancer routine.  So, we go across the street and walk around the City of Arts and Sciences buildings and gardens, and then go across the street to the mall and finish the walk inside while combining it with an errand in the mall.  The first time, we did this without Rose and the wind was up and the pace was above her normal walking.  Then, we invented a method for he to join us.  We walk faster than her, but we “double-back” and rejoin her at various stages and it all works out.

Watching TV.  About half of the TV we watch is in Spanish.  Local news, sports, some travel shows, tours of homes, etc.  Almost all of the movies and serials (Bones, Castle, Hawaii 5.0, NCIS , CSI Miami, NYC, LV, etc) have an English soundtrack available, so that is good.  But Rose said yesterday that it will be funny to go home and find all the TV in English.  One issue we knew would come up is:GAME SHOWS!!  This is a huge fraction of Rose’s viewing time in Ohio.  They have local game shows here, but in Spanish, of course, and it has been hard to get into them.  There is: Atrapa Un Million; Pasa Palabra; Hace Un Contato; La Routa de la Suerte (like Wheel of Fortune) and more.  But we knew there was no Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy!!!  In fact, we “Googled” and found out that a version of Jeopardy was tried here for 6 months in 2007 and then cancelled.  So, anticipating this, we found last fall and bought an Official Jeopardy DVD!  Yes folks, it really does exist.  It has 21 years of reruns, interviews with Alex Trebek, hints at how the questions are developed, and more.  So, when the “jeopardy blues” set in, we all sit down in front of the laptop and watch about three episodes of Jeopardy ( they are shorter since there are no commercials).  It sets Rose right for another week or so! FUN!!

Rose, and Gerri in turn, has caught the shopping bug since the post-holiday sales set in at all the stores in town.  Remember that the big gift giving day here is the Three Kings day on January 6.  So the sales have been on since January 7!  28 years ago, the first new word Gerri learned in Spanish upon arriving in Madrid was “REBEJAS”, “SALE”!  You already saw Rose’s new winter coat, but she wanted to get a top as well.  We went out looking and she ended up with two, both located and recommended by Dale!  That evening at home, Gerri told Dale that her mom “had inspired her”, and she wanted to look at tops on sale the next day.  Five tops later, it was over.

Rose is still coming to grips with the lack of “one stop shopping” here.  Her main ire is with the Pharmacies (Farmacias).  Here, like most of Europe, they are descended from the “chemists” (not alchemists, well maybe) of old, and focus almost exclusively on medications and creams.  So, you can’t get greeting cards, toiletries, candy, beauty products, stationary, etc.  Those items are separated and available in department stores, para-farmacias, and perfumerias. Way too much trouble for Rose, who is looking forward to going back to Walgreens and Walmart.  They don’t really have stationary in our sense of it, with paper and envelopes in a matched set.  The only form of that here is the very expensive custom  ordered stationary that also includes business cards and social cards you hand out to people.  Not going there, so we finally found some small size paper and some envelopes that will have to do.

A George Clooney, “Tomorrowland”, update is in order.  All the spaceships, subway trains, and “tunnels” have disappeared, and they are starting to take down the huge “Blue Screens” that were backdrops to the scenes being shot.  So, we think they will be done by the weekend as the newspapers said.  Good-bye George. : It was nice having you in Valencia.  We already have a plan to get together in April, 2015, when this movie is released and see it together, as it has so many scenes from our “neighborhood”.

Now, the weeks big social events.  The first one started innocently, with Nuria saying: “Lets have a coffee at 5:00 on Saturday at the Mercado Colon”.  Fine.  Then she moved it to 6:30 because: ” I forgot the siesta (for Cristina) after lunch.”  Okay.  (It turned out that Cristina would NOT sleep during siesta time, went fast asleep only in the baby carriage as they left for the coffee date, slept through most of it, and then woke up and was very confused about where she was!) Well, most of the time, the Martinez-Canales family turns our in force once this kind of date with us is set up.  So, EVERYONE came.  Pics:

From the left: Rose, Gerri, Coque, Diego (eyes only), Pepe, Ana,Roberto, Cristina, Nuria, Paticia (knees only). Luis arrived just after this picture.

Same crowd except Roberto took the photo and put me in it.

Diego, Patricia, and Cristina.

We had a great time.  Coque and I had some “soccer (futbol here) chat about a great game the night before.  But I mentioned a 15-yr. old goal from a soccer game I saw on TV with the Vazquez-Pena family, and Coque said: “Oh, that is my favorite goal for all time!”  He had it in his “favorites” and brought a video of it up in about four seconds.  We watched it together, cheered again, and it made me feel a little closer to be a true soccer fan in Spain.

Then, during the last week, an idea suggested last spring by Alfredo’s sister, Carla, and her boyfriend, Jose, came to life.  They had offered to arrange a tour of a vineyard and winery in the town of Requena, about fifty miles west of Valencia, followed by a lunch in Requena.  So, we were asked to arrive at 10:15 at Carla’s home in Santa Barbara, outside Valencia.  We did.  When Tono, her son, answered the door, it was clear they were just getting up.  Carla came down a few minutes later, with wet hair, saying: “Ahh, punctual Americans!”  When we went back to the street, an entire caravan of cars had formed.  Alfredo Sr., our Alfredo, Elena (his other sister), and Jose, along with many children.  Off we went in a five car caravan for the 50 mile trek to the vineyard.  This is the first time we had our rental car out of the city and into the low mountains to the west, and we discovered it has no guts on the long hills.  So, the other members of the caravan (driving BMW’s, Lexus, and Passat) quickly learned that our customary speed of 120 km would have to slow down to 90 km on the long hills going up.  But, we all made it fine, had a great tour and wine tasting, bought lots of wine to take home, and drove the short distance into town to eat.  The old city had really narrow streets, but we managed to find a small plaza where all five cars could be parked.  “INCREDIBLE” as Jose remarked.  You never get that much parking in one place here.  We had a great meal, with two new foods we had never eaten in our 28 years of coming to this country: a pig liver pate with cinnamon, cloves, and garlic;, and a bacalo (salt cod) pate with potato and spices.  Both great!  This meal was one of those moments here where the several “tapas” dishes are served, with unending supplies of bread, and then you realize the main course you ordered is still in your future.  Ooops!  Well, our main course, was gazpacho manchego, which is not like tomato gazpacho.  It is a wonderful, hot soup with chicken and rabbit meat, flat square noodles, and a rich broth.  More wine, please!!  Pics:

This vineyard has won national awards for its wine!

The owner is just to Gerri’s left and has just shown us the grape cleaning and crushing building behind him.  Now, he is telling us that he grows six types of grapes for his red and white wines.  Alfredo and Lucia, both recovering from colds, are in the background.

Inside the building with the huge fermentation tanks.

As you know, vineyard tours always end with the fun part, tasting!  Here, they are smart and had snacks and projects for the kids to keep them away from the bar where the adults could taste three wines.  Notice that adults for the purpose of wine tasting includes kids who are 14 and up.  It is a part of their education to know about wines and to learn to appreciate them.  Good idea!

On the right, our host, Jose, who is friends with the owner’s family.  Also in this photo, with the beard, is Nacho, Alfredo’s nephew, who we later learned wants to study Forensic Investigation.

Dale, Gerri, Carla, Nacho, Carlita, Tono, Alfredo.

Gerri and Alfredo.

Gerri and Alfredo.

Lunch from the kid’s end. Marco is hiding under the table.

Lunch from the adults end.

It was a wonderful day, and we told them that vineyard tours are really one of our favorite things!!

We begin our ending this week with a discussion of Rose’s hair and hairdresser.  It was Nuria’s recommendation to use this shop, with its name in English, called the Clip and Curl.  Blanca is a real favorite and both Gerri and Rose really like her.  She has had several different “looks” if you look closely at the pictures over the last four weeks.  Here is this week’s look, as they used curlers and a dryer for the first time:

Pretty snazzy, huh!  Blanca has analyzed Rose’s hair and said that she needs to wait until February for a new permanent.  So, we will get it after we return from Madrid.

That was a sneaky segway, as we are going on our first road trip next Monday.  We will be staying with the Vazquez-Pena family, as usual (One of the most welcoming and comfortable homes in the world.  Just ask Madison Schillig!)  We will also be visiting Gonzalo and his family, and girlfriend, while there.  So, next week’s blog will be published from Madrid.  See you in February!

Rose, Gerri, and Dale