Erik's Blog

To take a break from the 517th Annual Arrival Festival, we walked up to the Monte Real Castle that looks out over the Baiona harbor and also towards the Atlantic Ocean. It houses the Parador de Baiona, which is a ritzy four-star hotel and restaurant. A double room with a view is only 266€ per night! Their marketing video is very well done. What had been an overcast day opened up and shed sunlight on most of our visit to the little peninsula fortress. Once we got up to admire the view, we found a stone bench to sit, and then lie, down on for a short siesta in the sunshine. All that walking, wine and octopus really knocked me out. So I can honestly say that I slept at the Parador de Baiona. Cat nap over, we continued all along the castle walls. Medieval castles are a lot of fun.
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On Saturday, March 6, 2010, I attended the 517th annual Fest da Arribada (“Arrival Festival” in the Galician language) in Baiona, Galicia. In the port of that small town, 517 years ago, on March 1, 1493, a boat called La Pinta returned to Spain bringing news of a New World to the west, filled with bizarre mostly naked humans, corn, potatoes, peppers, tobacco, tequila and cowboys. It was the first of Christopher Columbus’ ships to return, and, should your childhood textbooks be believed (they absolutely should not!), the first proof that the Earth was not round. Normally Spaniards need little to no provocation to have a celebration, so there’s been no stopping this party for half a millennium!
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This past weekend, we went to Vigo, Galicia, on the Atlantic coast of Spain near the Portugal border. On Thursday morning, we got up early, left The Wee One with my in-laws, and drove seven hours west to the province of Galicia. That afternoon, I worked like normal, feeling extra worldly burning a charred spot on a hotel desk with my laptop, while Marga studied for a test about Project Management or some such thing. On Friday morning, she went to take her test and I worked all morning, except for when I when I went out for a brief cafe con leche and a palmera pastry for breakfast. Friday afternoon, I worked some more and then went out to meet Marga and walk around the city.
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Last month, I was asked to participate, as a native English speaker, in a videocast from the local language school, Escuela Oficial de Idiomas de Laredo, about English pronunciation. The man who filmed me and is the brain of the whole videocast, Rodolfo, is really annoyed at his students’ (and, in general, all Spaniards’) lack of care when pronouncing English words. Rather uniquely, Rodolfo has specifically chosen American English as his pronunciation goal; he has worked really hard, and his pronunciation is superb. This is the third installment in his videocast. Here are the first and second.
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The weather today has been very, very odd. Everyone is using the word huracán for what is in store for us tonight. Nora and I spent much of the afternoon outside in the unseasonably warm temperatures and brisk breeze. We saw several dumpsters that had been tied down to keep them in place. There were a few strange occurrences, such as when it rained from a perfectly blue sky.
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The other day I took Nora to the doctor to get her cough and recurring fever looked at. Actually I went in just to get an appointment, but as soon as the receptionist heard the F-word, she passed me right along to the pediatric waiting area. Eventually the doctor saw us, probed and prodded a screaming Nora, and gave us a prescription for a cough and fever medicine. We headed straight for the farmacia.
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Yesterday, I was informed that Nora was expected to be at daycare at 9:00 this morning, dressed all in white, and with moisturizing cream applied to her face so that her face could be painted and she could be dressed as a snowball and paraded around the streets of town. It’s the annual Carnival parade, the time of year when Spanish kids, who have never had the Halloween costume tradition that American kids enjoy, get to dress up as various adorable things and parade around looking cute. Since I’m always a good sport about trying out traditions of my adopted country, I was there at 9:05 sharp with Nora dressed all in white, and my camera and video camera with empty memory cards and full batteries.
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There’s a big hubbub lately in Spain because the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE), the Spanish equivalent of the RIAA, are beginning to enforce a silly law that has existed for a while: that it’s illegal to play the radio in a hair salon without paying royalties for the songs. Not CDs, THE RADIO!! This is quite possibly the most ridiculous Intellectual Property argument I’ve heard, and there are some doozies!
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The other day I noticed an interesting article in Spain’s sports newspaper, MARCA. The article starts something like this like this:

Yeste walks towards the corner flag for a corner kick after two attacks on goal by Athletic Bilbao. He hasn’t yet set the ball down when a shout is heard from the far end of the bar: Gooooooal!!! Seconds afterwards, Yeste kicks the ball, which deflects off Lass in the first row, and Llorente scores the goal.

All the excitement of watching a soccer match has been ruined. What just happened?
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According to Spanish tradition, on the night before January 6th, the same three wise men who visited Jesus when he was born fly around Spain on their three camels, land on the roofs of houses, rappel down to each balcony, break in, and leave gifts for the little girls and boys who have been good all year long. They especially make sure to fill the shoes that the little children have left out for that purpose. Does this sound at all familiar to my American audience?

I learned a lot of this last night as it was being explained to my daughter why her shoes needed to be polished. Apparently first impressions are important in this arena. So we each set out our shoes last night for the Wise Men to find and fill with goodies.
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