Life: Idiotropic

A bit of Halloween decorations and candy in the stores combined with the lure of sweets and the readily available American programming (dubbed, of course), and the Spanish have figured out what Halloween is.  Implementing it... well, that's where it gets tricky.

The kids know.  They dress up, grab bags, and head out.  The adults, well, that's where things get a bit slow.  Probably 90% of the kids want to adopt this holiday while less than 10% of the adults have a clue.  Thus, thousands of kids and only a couple houses offering candy = participating homes run out quickly and kids go home with what might fill a small sandwich bag.

Our neighborhood organized the "event."  The vigilantes stood watch and slowly drove around the neighborhood.  It was posted and mailed out that we would begin at 5:30.  At 5:30 there was a huge crowd of oddly dressed kids at the club entrance.  At 6, the vigilante told us to start and we all fanned out throughout the neighborhood.

Kirk and Elise passed out candy.  They were out in an hour and the doorbell ran for another hour even though the pumpkin was in and the lights off.

A pumpkin on the gate meant that house was open for trick or treating.  Not many were.  Some streets had one house.  It was still nice to be out walking and gave us the chance to gawk at some really palacial homes here.  (Mine is quite normal, but I live among mansions.)

With large yards and walls built around each home, it took a while at each house.  They'd ring the bell, then wait as the person inside had to gather the candy bucket, leave their house, walk to the gate, then open in and allow the children to choose candy. 

 An American in the neighborhood created a haunted house in her basement that was really quite scary.  A few allowed kids to enter their homes or patios for the candy.  I peeked in to see the houses themselves.  Amazing.

The Rules of Trick or Treating don't apply the same here.  Many houses gave out unwrapped candy.  A lot of gummies were thrown in.  My kids wanted to eat them... normally, they'd get tossed, but here... yep, they ate them.  It's Spain.  It's different.  In some ways, it's safer.  In this neighborhood, definitely.  And, most of the time, I saw the families grabbing the candy directly from the bag, so I saw where it came from. 

So, after two hours of walking and having a great time doing it, this was Arianna's loot.  Luci got about the same.  There was nothing left at our house.  Sad.  I bought some good stuff.

 It looked like just another ordinary day at the Oceanografic.  It was supposed to rain.  We had out of town guests.  The kids were out of school.  We needed something to do.

This was easy.  I expected nothing.  I'd shoot a few photos.  Nothing special.

But that's not really possible, is it?  Nothing is really that ordinary.  Nothing is ever really exactly the same twice.

Today we began the same and followed our same usual route.  It was fairly typical until we got to the shark exhibit where the sea turtle is usually absent. 

Today he was back and busy.  He swam all around the large circular room close to the glass so everyone could see him, then down the long tunnel and around the next large circular room before returning to the first.  We followed him.  The girls were entranced.  Arianna demanded I take photos.  I obliged.

 The route continued.  We saw the walruses and the belugas.  They did their usual laps.  I thought passing through the stench of the penguin room would be quick.  The penguins, after all, are smelly and quite boring.  They either stand there like statues or just float around.


It appeared that I was right... but then these two kept staring at me.  They stared at everyone bobbing their headed up and down in the water to see which view was better, from underwater or from behind the droplet splattered glass.

They kept my attention long enough for the show to begin.  Not one that was planned by the Oceanografic, but one that the penguins seemed to enjoy.  A high speed chase of Hollywood proportions.  Ultrasonic speeds, lightening quick turns on a dime,  up and down with such speed and fluidity that it was almost as if they were weaving the water with long smooth stiches, up and down, in and out.

From there another first:  a bird show in the dolphin area keeping us entertained until the usual dolphin/trainer show began.  That was normal.

But after at the sea lion exhibit we saw three pairs of nursing babies with their mothers.  That was sweet. 

And then more babies in the tropical area... this time a jellyfish the size of a quarter.


And a supersized starfish showing off on the glass.

And the first time that we've ever had the patience to actually stand in line long enough to enter the bird exhibit where you are close enough to these beautiful birds to touch them though you don't, but they stand there next to you and don't even flinch as you get near.  It's really amazing.


 Just another day at the Oceanografic.  One when the lighting was just perfect... for one fleeting second.  And I caught it. 
 

But after school we had a bit of a party here at the house with some of the girls' school friends and when one brought plastic teeth to my little hostesses, the party took on a whole new level of scary.

Bats blood with chips, witch noses and goblin eyes, spider legs, and cups of mud with bugs... by 5:30, the kids are starving, so snacks would be the first order of party business.

Sue organized a treasure hunt that sent a morose gang of girls screaming and running and and out and around and through the house with lightening speed.  The sugary snacks probably helped, but they'd get more.  They played the donut game next, trying their best to eat a donut hanging on a string with their hands behind their backs.  Messing eating continued with apple bobbing grosser than I'd remembered with so many kids dipping their open mouths into that same pot of water, some coming up with drippy wet hair and faces.

They did a ping pong ball toss, painted terra cotta pots with jack o lantern faces, and carved real pumpkins before someone decided to paint those too.

It was fun.  A scary game of freeze dance to the Monster Mash and other Halloween hits and the party ended with sugared up kids going home and a mess to clean on Dad and Angie's first night here.  Yes, visitors arrived today and I welcomed them with a houseful of screaming kids on a sugar high.  I'm such a good hostess.  Want to come visit?

Halloween is on the 31st, but that's only really known here through commercial efforts and the sweet tooth of children.  It's not a Spanish holiday at all.  Here, on the 1st of November, they celebrate All Saints Day by going to the cemeteries and remembering their relatives.  The don't celebrate with pumpkins or chocolates, but with simpler treats like this.

My bakery knows tradition and serves it happily.  So many treats, so few days of the year.  These, we'll only see for these few days and once the 1st has past, these will be gone until this time next year.

Too bad.  Though I didn't try the marzipan creations in the foreground, I did buy 6 (sadly, why only 6?) of the buñuelos in the back.  These donut-hole sized balls of deep fried dough are filled with rich custard, coffee cream, caramel cream, or chocolate mousse, then rolled in sugar.  I knew they'd be good. I didn't know how good.

Only six.  I thought I'd get one for each of us... then I forgot... then dad and Angie arrived.  So one night, I brought these out.  Angie asked if I would cut them in half so she wouldn't have to eat a whole one, then laughed as we demolished the plate and picked off the crumbs.  We hadn't needed to cut them in half after all.

Today I found these orange friends at Consum ridiculously priced, so we only came home with the minimum three.  The "large" ones cost 5 Euro. 

The girls came home from school, did a quick tidy of the patio, then welcomed 4 friends with appropriately loud Halloween screams.

Suus and Jop, children of my Dutch friend, Gabrielle, had never carved pumpkins before, nor had Natasha and Mateus, from New Zealand.  They all enjoyed getting their hands gooey and drawing on faces.  Gabrielle and I laughed half way through when they all tired of it, running off asking the mommies to finish the job. 

Typical.  The kids all played school together until it was nearing dark and the mom's had to get them home and sleeping because tomorrow is a real school day.  I don't play work when I'm not working.  Don't get why playing school could be fun during a school week, but to each his own.  I was thrilled they were all playing happily.

Sometimes advice isn't specific enough, but then there's Google maps.

A couple months ago I heard about the beautiful waterfall at Navajas where young couples like to go to swim, so early this summer I tried to find it.  Navajas isn't far away.  It's just a small town 30 minutes up the highway past Segorbe.

The town itself is really pretty with unusually palacial homes for a town its size, so I wonder what the history is.   It was Moorish before 1238, but so were all the towns in this area up to that time.  It is known for the river that runs around it and many wealthy Valencians have built their summer homes there, so those might account for some of them.

Our first attempt put us west of the town where the water was pretty, but irregular in depth and not safe to play in for my little ones.  Today we found it... the "Salto de los Novios" or Lover's Waterfall not because I'm particularly brilliant, but because I looked up another town on Google Maps and accidentally checked the box that overlayed geotagged photos from Picassa albums onto the map.  It was amazing. Instead of looking at a simple map, now I was looking at thumbnail photos of exactly what I'd find there.

I scrolled down to Navajas and found the waterfall.  Beautiful.  So today, knowing now exactly where to find it, we headed into town.

We could have stopped at the parking spot overlooking the river at the end of the roundabout, but my driver decided to take the two-way "horse and buggy" road down the beginning of the trail while I prayed that no one would be coming up the road in that moment because there was clearly no room for two.

The trail begins along the soft red rock cliffs with caves in the sides and a fountain at the base where the water comes out and makes a short falls into the river there meeting with the other part of the river at the bridge and following it down.

The path itself is extremely well groomed - an easy one for young and old, so the girls enjoyed skipping on it.  The water is cold and crystal clear.  Just past the bridge large flat white stones  jut out into the river making platforms for people to stand on and a narrow path for the water to push through.  There it pools into a large calmer place with the waterfall in the background.

A smaller bridge crosses again to an area with large built in lights.  They look like concert lights.  From there you can see more on the hill, so they must have concerts or events of some kind there.

Families filled the large grassy area.  There are a few picnic tables, but most sat on blanket and threw balls to tiny dogs.  My girls ran across the bridge, climbed on a rock, and nearly slipped into the water. 

We followed the trail for a while.  I'd hoped that it would hug the river and give us more photos ops for pretty water and dramatic falls, but it didn't.  We heard the water, but could only get small glimpses of it.  The rock formations there were stunning though, so we found ourselves touching the rocks and discussing how they might have formed that way.  We found crystaline structures and hard white veins through the cliffs, perfectly striped areas with differing textures and colors, shards that looked like California's Devil's Postpile and some that could have inspired the Alhambra's ceilings.  Luci reached up to touch a white smooth rock.  It looked rounded.  She pulled her hand away covered in soft white powder.

We found an old bridge, some interesting trees, and a grove of bamboo.  I found a grasshopper and a butterfly, so I was happy.  Bugs are cool.

We let the girls play in the shallow water with their Barbies before heading home.  A few Spanish kids came and played with them.  They all spoke Spanish together.  I wasn't listening, but they were able to communicate.  That makes me happy.

I have the most amazing friends.  Globally.  It's really phenomenal.  I remember one day in Germany, I came home to find a potted plant and a bottle of malt vinegar by my garage door.  Maria.  She has a talent for leaving wonderfully fun and sometimes quirky gifts then apologizing that the flowers weren't perfect because "they toppled over" in her car.

Here, my friend Eva is the occasional bearer of some really spectacular fruit.  One day I was just getting into my car from the bus stop and she sped up next to me and handed me these tomatoes.  Royal tomatoes.  These are what the prince prefers.

And today I was out running errands and returned to find this.

I am spoiled and I absolutely love my friends... all of them... even the ones who don't bring me vinegar and fruit.  ;)


But there's really nothing quite like a tray of really spectacular fruit. 


Later tonight Kirk will prepare an absolutely delicious Korean meal.  Bulgoki and several different types of kim chi.  All delicious, but so much work.   I'm really missing the Korean House in Midwest City right now.