Franca - a dose of home

Long awaited and long anticipated - we got a visit from home. My sister, Franca, came to visit.

We would have been JUST as happy even if she didn't bring 25 pounds of our favorite American candy, 5 pounds of peanut butter, a quart of maple syrup, and Yana's computer. REALLY!

We were so happy to have a little dose of home. We were so happy to see Franca after almost two years! We were so happy to show Franca our home and our life in Valencia.

We brought Franca to a few of our many beautiful parks.

We went to the beach.

We introduced her to a few of our wonderful friends.

We took Franca to the ninot (little Fallas) exhibition and to a mascletá. What are the Fallas? (See the blog from last year.) What are mascletás? They are hard to explain - you have to experience one. They are my favorite - I will most certainly write another blog specifically about the mascletás. For those who do not have the opportunity to feel them, here is link to a video from last year (mascletá). The mascletá starts at 3:30 into the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV1Egj9B2X4&feature=channel_page

We went to Sagunto and then orange picking ... while it was raining and pouring. Kerrie and Katie (in photo with Franca) are from Wisconsin and are studying abroad in Valencia. They joined us on our wet adventure. Everyone was a great sport and pretended that they were enjoying themselves and having a great time.

Franca jumped right into our matrix of cooking, cleaning, schleping (bringing kids to/from school) and entertaining children. She made sweet potato lasagna - the sweet potatoes replace the noodles. (Just typing that made my mouth water.) Above is a photo of Franca, Eva, and Bronson on the railroad tracks which the kids cross to/from school. I can't believe I don't have a photo of Franca playing Uno or Skip-Bo with Eva and Bronson ... I think they played a thousand games while she was here.

Franca spent a lot of quality time with the kids. Besides staying up late every night talking and playing games - Franca spent almost 4 hours making pineapple cake with Kerline and, for the record, teaching the kids how to whistle (REALLY LOUDLY).

For more and more and more photos of Franca's visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157615121051570/

"Art"

I literally lol (laughed out loud) and rotf (rolled on the floor). I thought I lmao (laughed my ass off) but I looked back and it was still there. Maybe I should have cried.

Yana told me that they are practicing how to spray paint in her art class. I say "practicing" because Yana was the only one who was learning. She was the only one who had never spray painted before. Actually, a few of the kids in her class are really good.

I guess I should not be surprised ... looking around the parks and buildings and walls and trash bins and postal boxes and bridges and sculptures and monuments. I've even seen bushes and dogs spray painted.

Spray painting is a very affordable and accessible "art." In Spain, anyone of any age can walk into a China store (kind of like our dollar stores) and buy a can of spray paint for a euro or two. Sometimes the spray paint display is in the front of the store, in the first aisle, or even next to the door so you don't forget it. And the surfaces are readily available ... unless they have been "claimed" by an artist with better talent than your own.

Valencia Oranges

Last weekend, Rafa took us to his family's citrus grove in Algemia - outside Valencia. We picked oranges, tangerines, and grapefruit. Hey, where do you think Valencia oranges come from ... Valencia, California or Valencia, Spain?

The answer is both - kind of. Valencia oranges are a specific type of juicy oranges developed by an orange farmer in California. He named them after Valencia, Spain because the city was famous for its orange trees. (I've since learned that his farm was in an area of California later named Orange County. Orange County is southeast of Los Angeles and Valencia, California is northwest of Los Angeles.)

Anyway, back to the orange grove. Every time I looked at Matthew, he was eating oranges - though I'm pretty sure he picked a few more than he ate. Maria was taking pictures and playing with Rafa's daughter, Maria. Rafa was showing Elena how to "bowl" with oranges and grapefruit down an irrigation canal. Bronson was inside the trees hiding from the invading Moors or invading Christians (depending on what era in history he was playing).

After we picked as many oranges and grapefruit as our many hands (and bags and shoping carts) could carry, we flew a kite in a nearby soccer field.

Since moving to Valencia, we've become orange snobs. However, our love for Valencia oranges was not love at first bite. In the city of Valencia, there are orange trees on almost every street and in many of the parks. We tried a few of those "street oranges" when we first arrived. Cough - sputter - gag! They tasted like rotten lemons.

Then, Sara's student gave us fresh oranges from the orange groves last spring. Sara gave us fresh lemons from her mother's lemon tree. Ana Pilar and Tony gave us a whole bag of the biggest and juiciest oranges. Francesco's customer gave us fresh clementine oranges. Loli's father made a concerted effort to go and pick a few bags of oranges right before I came over ... so they would be fresh! Rafa brought us mountains of oranges and lemons and grapefruit from his family's grove. THANK YOU!!!

Now, we don't really like store bought oranges anymore and we have a hard time choking down anything but fresh squeezed orange juice. We prefer to get our oranges from the fruit store or directly from the orange tree!

Back to Reality

After 2+ weeks of Christmas vacation ... we returned to reality.

It was sad. We had to say good-bye to Mayra (for now).

It was great. We could sleep in our own beds.

It was cool. As we were walking up to our apartment in Valencia, we realized that it actually feels like "home."

It was scary. Our pile of laundry was almost as big as the ski hills in Wisconsin.

Sierra Nevada

During our Christmas vacation, we went skiing for two days in the Sierra Nevada (near Granada, Spain). (There is also a Sierra Nevada in California. Maybe we'll try that one next year.)

It was Mayra's 1st experience, the kids' 2nd experience, and Matthew and my BEST experience skiing.

The Sierra Nevada is kind of like the rolling hills of southern Wisconsin ... but 10,000 ft (3000m) higher. We were above the tree line, so it is snow-snow-snow in every direction.

The first day, we led the kids down a few harrowing hills. It is kind of hard to tell how steep the hill is - when everything is white. By the second day, we figured out how to read the signs that marked the level of difficulty. : )

Lots and lots and lots more photos of our two wonderful days of skiing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157612248299331/

Sevilla for New Years

We celebrated the New Year in Sevilla. We stayed in a GREAT hostel that was beautiful and had a friendly climate (and FREE internet access). It was an especially great place to hang out when it was raining outside.

Sevilla has everything - a cathedral, huge palaces, a winding river, and many parks with no end. There are also Starbucks to no end but we didn't stop at any. We visited the parks, rode the river boat, went to see the palaces, and climbed to the top of the cathedral tower.

For New Year's Eve, we went to the city square. There wasn't a countdown so we shouted our own countdown (about a minute late). Notice: Yana and Maria were too embarrassed to shout the countdown.

Then we looked for nice place to eat for New Year's Eve. Ha ha HAAAAA. I guess we don't get out much. The menus were about 100 euros MORE per person than we had expected. The restaurants didn't want us to pay for one meal and split it seven ways. So, we made sandwiches and drank coke. (New Year's Eve is one of two days a year the kids can drink coca-cola.)

And ... we made our own FUN!

At the Alcazar palace, we pretended that we were little snotty royal kids running around ... complaining about how our 100's of personal servants don't wipe the bottoms of the partridges after the partridges go to the bathroom. Of course, in jest but as a reminder of how many servants it must have taken to the maintain the whole place. We hoped that the servants were treated well. (Indeed, one of the servant houses was twice the size of our house in Evanston.)

It was easy to capture Bronson's attention in the Cathedral ... just tell him that we were walking over tombs with skeletons. We climbed to the tippy tippy top of the cathedral ... just in time to hear the church bells close up. DING! DONG!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

And here's more photos of Sevilla than you can shake a stick at (my dad used to say that) ...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157612241590971/

Notice Bronson's photos. Can you guess what movie was playing in the train?

Spiderman.