The Market and Alcoy

About halfway through France, the light on our dashboard that shows the gear started flashing. We looked in the owner's manual and it said it could be an indication of transmission trouble, but that it also sometimes happened if the gas cap wasn't screwed on correctly. The Linguist messed with the gas cap and it stopped flashing...until we were leaving Barcelona. He spent some time Monday researching possible causes and finally called a Honda dealer in Valencia who agreed to look at it. According to their machine, it's a temperature gauge in the transmission...so we're pressing on.

While The Linguist hung out at the Honda place, the kids and I explored the nearest local market. I love the location where they are because we could stand on the balcony and peruse the stalls before we even went out shopping! They had similar offerings to what we find in Ferrara -- shoes, clothes, jewelry and a few other odds and ends. The most interesting find was the box of huge caterpillars at a pet stall! Oh, and the meat department of the Mercado. The Mercado is like a market, but inside. Individual vendors have their wares displayed and there were several fruit and vegetables stands, a nut counter and several meat stands, as well. The boys were immediately drawn to the meat counter that boasted skinned rabbits (whole, but skinned) and a huge head and neck of a turkey, its beady black eyeball still intact! The woman running the stand was very kind in answering all of our questions about exactly what animal each piece of meat had come from, and I'm sure was amused at our ignorance in the world of meat. Probably much like the way we used to laugh and shake our head at the Utah cousins who wanted to eat the calf grain when they visited the farm!

All blood and bugs having been discovered, the younger kids wanted just one turn around the market and then begged to go back to the apartment to play with the dogs. Pianogurl and I dropped them off and then spent an hour or so perusing. She found the perfect purse, and I got a really cute skirt for just 8 euro.

Following the market, we headed to Alcoy to watch a re-enactment of a battle in 700 AD between the Moors and the Christians. This was The Linguist's first area on his mission and his first mission days were actually during this festival! The first thing that struck me about the city was the beautiful blue dome on a huge cathedral. The next, was the fact that nearly everyone was dressed in period costumes -- not just the folks involved in the re-enactment, but the whole city! We eagerly walked up the road to the plaza, afraid that we'd missed the battle by a few minutes. We were pleasantly surprised to find that it had yet to begin and jockeyed for a good position along the edge of the crowd. The first half hour or so was a yelling match between the leader of the Moors and the leader of the Christians. We couldn't understand much of it, and about the time things looked like they were going to take off, Rosa had to go to the bathroom! Thanks goodness for close porta potties!

On "El Puente de Sant Jordi" in Alcoy.  The Linguist crossed this bridge almost daily back in the day.

The men (and a few women) lined up in groups. Apparently, during this particular battle there were many military groups from neighboring areas who came to defend the city against the Moors. Each had their own unique costume, so there was a wide variety in dress among the different groups. We heard a shot that sounded like a cannon and the "battle" began. I was expecting something along the lines of what we had seen in the United States -- maybe 10 minutes of fire. I soon realized we were in for a totally different experience. What we thought was a cannon blast was the shot fired from one of the guns. A Moorish group would fire off 6 shots or so and then a Christian company would answer. Each shot was like a cannon blast -- literally rocking the ground we were standing on. We stood with our fingers in our ears, watching in fascination. About the time "shrapnel" started falling on my head, I looked around and realized that Pianogurl, Rosa and I were now the only spectators sitting as close to the railing as possible, everyone else was squeezed back against the wall of the buildings. We moved back, too! Songbird didn't like the noise and was in tears by this time. It made us all reflect on how horrifying and chaotic it must be to live in a city where a battle is being fought -- let alone to be on the street with the guns.

Near the faux castle in the main square, Alcoy.

We stayed and watched all of the groups march through the square and proceed on their route throughout the city that followed the actual route of the armies during the battle. We stumbled on a victory party in a neighboring square where Lionel Ritchie's "Celebrate" was blasting and people dressed in period costume were dancing, eating, drinking and selling balloons! (that was another of those surreal moments!). We posed for pictures with some folks in costume that we stopped on the street, bought pastries in a little shop and paused for snacks on a bench in a crowded park. All this time we could still hear the gun blasts at regular intervals! We wound through the streets and back to our van and as we left town, the guns were still blasting. Apparently it lasts for 4-5 hours before the final showdown in the plaza...

The Linguist has vivid memories of climbing this hill many times during his time here.

The Linguist has a similar photo.

Gotta love the pastries!

Swimming in the Mediterranean!

The Linguist says that technically we didn't swim in the Mediterranean. Since the day was chilly, most of us did more wading than anything else. The kids, however, did swim -- so swimming it is!

For me, this was one of those surreal moments when things I've just heard about seem to come crashing into my reality, and I wonder whether this can really be happening. I was walking along the beach, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea! The sky was a beautiful blue, coming down to meet the line of dark blue water out in the distance. The mountain rising up ahead was what really took me back. I've spent plenty of time on beaches in Florida, but I've never stood on the beach and gazed at a mountain. I told The Linguist that I need to live on a beach with a mountain...in my castle, of course!

Deep Thinker and The Net really enjoyed shell hunting &
playing in the beautiful water.

Happy smiles all around the beaches...though there were
no sneeches.

Despite the cool wind, the kids loved the beach and begged to go back every other day we spent in Spain! They collected shells and The Net even found what he thought was a shark's egg case. (We later identified it as a stingray egg case.) He also found another shell that was about 1/2 an inch across and about 4 inches long. We learned later (when we saw them alive in the market) that it's a creature called a "knife."

María served us more delicious food -- fideua (not sure if that spelling is correct) -- which is a macaroni dish seasoned with saffron, that has shrimp and chunks of fish in it. Since the shrimp had eyes and antennae still attached it caused quite a stir! Rosa and Deep Thinker had to have their food segregated and ate just the macaroni. We fed the younger kids eggs and nutella bread for their second dinner and put them into bed a little earlier. We ate leftover salad from the night before around 10 p.m. Spain has such a laid-back, take-things-as-they-come feeling. I'm pretty sure I could get used to dinner at 10 and breakfast at 10 the next morning! A little different than our 5 and 5 routine at home.

Fresh shrimp from Fideua trying to escape...not.

The Lladro factory

We had crepes for breakfast! Yummy! María had meats and cheeses to put in the center, along with Nutella (Deep Thinkers favorite food!). Spanish breakfast is served with warm milk to which we all added chocolate! The Linguist has always said that he didn't like regular hot chocolate made with hot water. I never understood what was wrong with it until living in Europe where what we would call hot chocolate is served with milk all the time. It's so much more creamy and rich I don't like the kind with hot water anymore either. Their hot chocolate takes decadence to a whole other level -- it's a cross between melted chocolate and pudding and is much more suited to dipping than to drinking. I don't think I've managed to finish a cup yet!

We spent the morning touring the Lladró Factory, which was fascinating. It was started by the Lladró brothers who built a kiln in their backyard and started pouring porcelain there. Eventually their business expanded and they are currently one of the premier porcelain makers in the world. Their statues are breathtaking and positively intricate. First the statues are carved from traditional materials, then molds are created using the statue for a model. The liquid porcelain is poured into the mold and left to dry for a specified period of time. Since something as small as an arm on a figurine may be composted of 3-4 different molds, it's a pretty lengthy process. After the molds have dried, the porcelein is removed from the mold and the different pieces are pasted together using liquid porcelain.

Artists paint each piece and then the pieces are fired in the kiln. The detail was impressive -- not just with the painting, but also with the detail work. We watched as a woman molded miniature flowers using little bits of porcelain. Each petal on their flowers is made individually!  

This masterpiece, La reina del Nilo (the queen of the Nile)
costs 150,000 Euros and takes 3 months to make.

You can make out the flowers on the middle of the boat.
Each petal is maybe 1/4" long by a bit less skinny.

The royal queen herself...

Valencia! Well...a smaller town close to it...

After trying in vain to attend church in Barcelona Sunday morning (it must've been Stake Conference since we found the building at the appointed hour and it was locked up tight!), we headed south along the coast toward Valencia.

Spain looks a lot different than what I expected --think Albuquerque meets Miami. It's desert, but with huge mountains like the area around Albuquerque, New Mexico. In addition, though, there are palm trees everywhere and you can see the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea running along the coast. The cities we saw were clustered up next to the coast, some had high rises and modern-looking buildings, others looked smaller and more picturesque.

We were welcomed with open arms by María and Will upon arrival at their apartment in Carcagente.  María is a friend of The Linguist's from his mission days. Since she visited the United States right around the time The Linguist proposed to me, I count her as my friend, as well. We've kept in touch via e-mail and letters, and she was so happy when she heard we were coming to Italy and immediately invited us to visit and stay in her home! I was a little nervous about bringing our family of 7 to her apartment for a week since we can be a little overhwhelming, but we had such a wonderful time together!

She had prepared paella for what we thought was dinner! Paella is a traditional Spanish dish with rice, chicken, seafood and vegetables kind of stir fried together. It's one of the Linguist's favorites, and the kids and I like it, too, since it has a mild flavor and not too much seafood! We stuffed ourselves and then she brought out a delicious (and beautiful) chocolate cake...so we ate some more. While she was clearing the table, she started talking about what we were going to have for "la cena," which is dinner -- apparently what we had just eaten was lunch!

Paella for all!

Yummy Austrian chocolate cake

We THOUGHT we were being European in our eating habits when we had dinner close to 8 p.m. in the hotel in Ferrara. That's fairly standard for Italy, but in Spain it's more like 10:30! I put the younger kids to bed before dinner since they were exhausted and the rest of us stayed up and enjoyed a delicious second dinner with María and Will. It was a salad composed of potatoes, peas, carrots and bits of crab. After putting it on your plate, you added a heap of mayonnaise and stirred it all together. I confess, I don't remember a lot about that night because I was so tired things were starting to feel dreamlike.

Before we go further, I have to introduce María and Will's dogs. Dana (pronounced Donna) is their dog. But María, who has a tender heart, also fosters dogs that need homes. One of her puppies had just been adopted, but she still had Kahli when we visited. At about 6 weeks old, Kahli is adorable (see the pictures below). The kids fell in love with both dogs immediately and didn't want to do anything but sit on the couch and hold the dogs! I'm not sure how many requests we had to adopt Kahli, and I confess, for about a minute I seriously considered it, but I just feel like it's unfair to an animal to bring it into our crazy world where our surroundings change so often.

Dana enjoyed sitting on The Net's lap.

Kahli sleeping.

Songbird and Kahli became best friends instantly.

Marseille to Barcelona --tolls, European bathrooms and finally, our friends!

After spending nearly an hour trying to get out of Marseille, we headed to Barcelona.

Downtown Marseille. We're driving toward a facade of an archway overlooking downtown. It was realistic enough to make us double take.

The cathedral we didn't have time to drive by...

Happily, in our "tour" we got to see the cathedral that we didn't have time to drive by, as well as a lot of the downtown area. I think whoever programs routes into the Garmin GPS must have a wicked sense of humor. More than once in Ferrara I've seen a terrified-looking Japanese tourist gripping the wheel of his little rental car, attempting to navigate down a narrow road that is obviously designated only for pedestrians and bicycles. We had a similar experience in Marseille, turning left onto a road where there was barely room to fit between the parked cars and then being directed to turn right. Fortunately, The Linguist just stopped and turned the van around (much to the chagrin of the traffic trying to use the through road) before we barreled through the walkway filled with fruit stands!

Our drive to Barcelona was notable for just 2 things -- the number of tolls and our European bathroom experience. I lost count, but it seems like we stopped at least 10-15 different times for tolls during what was supposed to be a 4-hour drive! All of those stops just seemed to make the drive last forever and added a good hour or so onto our trip. The toll machines in France rejected our credit card, so I don't have a good record of the money we fed into those machines, but it was over 50 euro (about $80). Despite that, it was a beautiful drive and the the landscape really changes as it transitions from France to Spain. But I digress! I'm supposed to be telling you about the bathroom....(no pictures : ))

So bathrooms in Europe vary from place to place -- not region to region, but store to store, restaurant to restaurant. Sometimes they don't have toilet seats. Those, apparently, are optional. Sometimes they have bidets (that's a whole other blog post!). One time I entered the restroom and found that the whole toilet is optional. It was just a big hole in the floor! Anyway, the kids and I hopped out to use the bathroom in France and found the women's bathroom was closed for cleaning. The solution? Everyone was just using the men's bathroom. Men lined the wall, using urinals, and other men, women and children we using the rest of the facility. It was just business as usual...in a smaller space. I was grateful Songbird was not with us or she would've had a fit! As it was, we strolled in just like this is how things always operate and made all of our comments of surprise AFTER returning to the van.

We finally arrived in Barcelona and were thrilled to meet up with some good friends from our Montana days! When we found out they would be finishing up a cruise in Barcelona and that we could spend the evening together if we flip flopped some dates on our trip, we just couldn't resist! The kids spent the afternoon/evening in the hotel game area and took a dip in the really cold pool. Afterward we walked over to a huge department store called El Corte Inglés for dinner and enjoyed good food and lots of conversation.
We feel truly blessed to have such wonderful friends and family...and even more blessed when we get to spend some time with them -- even just for a few hours.

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to France we go!

Today we headed out for adventure – 10 days in Spain, followed by 3 days in Switzerland! To begin our trip we headed to Marseille, France. We passed through a different part of the Alps than those we’ve seen before, and they seemed a little softer – although still formidable! The terraces are so narrow that it looks like a lush, green accordion folding down the mountain. Much of it was covered with what looked like grapes.

Our first view of the Mediterranean brought squeals of delight from everyone but The Linguist. I think it was especially exciting because we were reading about the expansion of the Roman empire and the Punic Wars, during which they were crossing back and forth on the Mediterranean Sea. Crazy to be right next to it!

We also saw 6 (no, that's not a typo!) Ferraris on our drive today. It was about that time that The Linguist pointed out how close we were to Monaco. It made me think of The Net when he was little. At about the age of 2, he'd point out all of the sports cars on the road and say they were his. Then one day, he took it a step further and pointed out an old beater. "That's dad's," he said. I had a good chuckle over that one! 

I’ve decided that the U.S. can dig itself out of debt by charging tolls on all the roads the way they in Europe. We paid a 40 euro toll when we left Italy and then stopped 3 or 4 times in France for tolls that were about 3 euro each. We wrapped up the last leg with a 14 euro toll. That’s a lot in tolls, especially when you consider that it’s in addition to the $9/gallon gas!

The French countryside was absolutely breathtaking. I was trying to decide how to describe it in words. The part we drove through was a valley with mountains that were not as high as those in Utah, but they were rugged and rocky like those. There were some really interesting formations where the mountain looked like someone had carved the top off. The valley was so beautiful that it looked like a painting.

We entered Marseille on a long road that led down from a gentle rise. I can’t think of another city I’ve been in that has that same kind of entrance. It reminded me of the tree-lined roads in Louisiana, but it was lined with building instead of trees and was much, much longer.

Our hotel is right across from the Metro station where we went to scavenge dinner since it was really late when we got in and we didn’t want to be up until midnight eating dinner! For entertainment while The Linguist got us checked in, we watched a rat run up and down the road across from where our van was parked. The Metro station had a different feel than the one in Rome. Someone was playing classical music on a piano there and a bunch of young men were break dancing in a different area. It wasn’t particularly crowded and there seemed to be a lot of people strolling.

Our hotel view of half of Marseille Train Station

Using the Ol' Noodle

In American we're getting the short end of the noodle! In recent years I've tried the "no-cook" lasagna noodles sold in stores, but they're pretty much just regular noodles and you cook them with more sauce and get kind of a gummy lasagna.

Yesterday, because we are all out of gummy American noodles, The Linguist ran to the store to procure some more. Most of the pasta we've seen here looks like what we eat in America. It's even the same brand! So I expected a regular box of noodles, but he came home with something different --thinner, shorter, rectangular sheets of pasta, one box of green and one box of yellow. The package said to make the lasagna without precooking the noodles and then to bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes. Twenty minutes?! I've never heard of a non-precooked noodle baking up in 20 minutes. Heck, my precooked noodles still take closer to 45 minutes.

With some trepidation, I made 2 different lasagnas -- one a regular tomato, meat and cheese. The other was a new recipe that had broccoli and mushrooms in a white sauce. I put them in the fridge all day and pulled them out and baked them for 30 minutes, and they were delicious, non-gummy and warm through. They were probably done after 20, but I was nervous about trusting the noodle. The noodle layer was thinner than what we normally eat in America, but I am happy to trade that in for 1/2 the cooking time. I think that's using the ol' noodle!