Life: Idiotropic

All I knew is what I saw so prominently displayed from a distance.  The tall bell tower rising up from a little hill with another hill extending upwards housing what little remains of an old castle.  Then the drop.  To where, we weren't certain, but assumed correctly that it must fall to the river Palancia, a thin turquoise green ribbon that springs from Bejis and winds all through the Sierra Calderona.

So today, we went there.  Just 20 minutes from my house up the V-23, Jerica is the perfect day trip when you're tired of the sea and need a new landscape.  Parking on the outskirts of the town isn't difficult, so we found a spot near that big yellow house and began our walk into the town, past a busy corner and across the street onto the mound, the tightly packed hill that contains the cities oldest homes.

Here the streets wind narrowly up to the top.  There is no hurry since no car can speed here.  Pedestrians amble freely until they hear a car, then squish themselves flat along the thread of a sidewalk to allow the car to go by.  It's a quiet day.  The houses are all stuck together as they often are here most standing three stories tall and differing from their neighbor by a slightly different shade of pastel and a different colored shutter.  It doesn't take long to get to the top, which we did, to find that though the hill didn't look that high, the wind in this river valley roars with such force that we were walking at a forward slat around half the tower, then were pushed into a run 'round the backside.

Jerica's Mudejar bell tower sits upon a platform of Roman origin, though no one knows exactly when it was built.  The tower itself was proposed in 1614 when the city council decided that the bells couldn't be heard from all points in the town.  The tower was completed in 1622 and the bells moved.  It cost 1,775 libras.  The bells that ring from the tower now aren't quite as old.  They two oldest are from 1802 and 1790 and are named Santa Agueda and La Virgen.  The former weighs 2600 kilos.

Near the entrance on one side lies a tiny little street full of flowers.  Three homes face each other seeming to battle over who has the most flowers.  The best is absolutely adorable.  With terracotta pots both on the ground and fastened to the exterior walls and window boxes oveflowing with geraniums, it looks like something out of a fairy tale.  A tiny old lady emerged, so I complimented her on the array.  "My son did all this," she said.  Then she began to tell me how beautiful this town is on a sunnier, warmer day.  She also told me about the path near the river and the waterfalls below.  We talked for at least 5 minutes.  Could have been 10.  People are very friendly in Jerica.  Given enough time, we probably would have shared a coffee.

Around the corner is a tiny playground flanked on both sides by enormous fig trees heavy with overripe fruit.  From there it's easy to spy the path that leads to the top of another hill.  This is where we went next, to another windy spot so blustery, that my dad put Elise and Luci into the mouth of the remaining castle tower worried that they'd blow right off the mountain if left alone.

It was here that my darling youngests discovered and collected old bones, excited and thrilled by their discovery, shoving them in the faces of all who were and were not so interested.  "Oh, how wonderful!  Old bones!"  Blech.

Angie and Arianna stood at the bottom of the hill.  The rest arrived here.  This was the safe house for the littles while dad and I walked to the back and nervously watched each other as we took turns creeping slowly to the edge to look over and take a few photos.  The drop would have been scary enough without the wind, but with it, I moved slowly and crouched low holding onto the rocks so I wouldn't be blown over.  This is where you can see the river approach, skirt around, then continue down some falls and into the orchards in the valley below.


Wild pomegranates grow here as do praying mantis.  We watched this guy walk across our path, then we held him up precariously on a stick to try to get a closer picture.



Old Spanish towns are just cute.  The thread width roads and white painted buildings, the terracotta pots and paint peeling doors.  It all lends to a certain charm that I haven't tired of.  This village also had these funny stacks of pumpkins in several windows that I've never seen before.  I suppose with the cool air, this is the perfect storage space to keep them fresh, but doesn't allow for much a view.

This house had created a mosaic around each arched window and its doorway with old broken tiles of all colors.  Apparently this is the street to avoid if you lack the green thumb. Each tiny courtyard here is lined, green spilling out of clay pots of all sizes.  Even within the tiny room on the right inside the old abandoned tower, someone is keeping beautiful green plants healthy and alive.

Just to the left of this are two small adjoining courtyards and a little water pump.  All of these flowers are cared for by the tiny little lady in the photo below.  I talked to her too and she told me to return in the spring when the colors are much brighter and the flowers are flowering more.  She proudly told me that she had planted all the flowers in that area and all the ones lining the street down to the end of her house, a house that she was born in over 70 years ago, where she grew up and where her own children were born.  She loves Jerica and says that people return every year to ski in the nearby hills and attend the many cultural festivals.  Just to the right of her house is a little plaque showing that this street won the "most beautiful street" award in 1994.  I'm not surprised.








These tiny plant lined streets led to the church where some famous guy was born just facing it.  At this point we were all getting a bit tired and hungry which is why I didn't care at the point who the famous guy was.  His picture is on the wall in tile with his name.  Wasn't anyone I knew.  ;)

The door of the church is made of gold colored punched metal.  It's extremely detailed all the way down to the key hole covers and fancy door knobs.





The old city was created in three phases.  The oldest part began with the castle an only extended to the top of the hill.  Another phase built a wall halfway around the hill and in the final phase, another defensive wall was built at the base.  Even now, the hill remains divided in those original rings with the buildings stuck together and wall connecting the open parts with just arched doorways here and there to allow people through.  There are fun surprises at every corner like tiny covered passageways with half-timbered ceilings that lead to miniascule courtyards with laundry hanging to dry.

We ended up here near where we started famished and ready for food.  There's a "real" restaurant up the street, but this little bar was good enough.  We sat outside under a tree where a bird decided to decorate one jacket while we enjoyed our lunch of pork and fries for some, omelets for others, and a couple of really quite delicious beef sandwiches.  Not beef like roast beef or steak, but a thinly sliced steak about 1/4" thick cooked and placed on a roll with sauteed onions.  Good.  Simple, but good.

Instead of heading directly home I thought I'd try to find the river that the lady on the hill told me about.  I went the wrong way and ended up driving in the middle of nowhere on a very tiny little road until turning around and trying again.  Then, I drove up a road past an old communal laundry with a large stone tub of water where I faced a road tinier than my van with a steep incline, but chickened out, made a thousand point turn, and left.  We found ourselves in a parking lot and discovered the trail head.  Large golden leaf trees bent low over a sequence of water falls and a stone path snaked along the mountain.  The gusting wind blew the leaves which lingered in the air as if they had taken flight on their own, nature's confetti.  Dad and I jumped out to take pictures.  We wanted to walk it, but it was cold... really bitterly cold with that wind and the rest of our party were already warm and deshoed in the comfort of my car.

Another wrong turn and scary retreat down a really steep narrow road and we were finally on our way home with just one stop for this view.

Jerica is beautiful.  With enough time, I'll definitely go back.

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.