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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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about his recent trip to visit us in December 2009.

Betsy and I had been looking forward to meeting our granddaughter in August. We would visit southern Spain, where Erik’s Spanish family vacations every summer, and meet our granddaughter then. As her birth approached, however, it seemed like too much would be missed if we didn’t see Nora before then, so in May we traveled to Colindres and stayed a week with Erik, Marga, and Nora. We had a great time, and another great time when we visited in August. In September, however, I felt uncomfortable not knowing when we would visit them again, so we made plans for a visit in May of 2010. In November, May seemed too far away, so we bought tickets for a trip to Colindres in December, returning to Morganton a week before Christmas. This time we flew from Charlotte to Atlanta to Paris, and from Paris to Bilbao. A week after arriving we would return through Paris, flying to Detroit and then Charlotte. Erik said that most if not all of his winter coats would fit me, and I might consider saving space by not bringing a coat, and that is what I did. We packed just two suit cases, one full of presents, and the other with clothes.
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There is really only one obligatory photograph that must be taken when you visit Bordeaux, the one on the covers of all the tourism guides. It’s of the Place de la Bourse taken from the other side of the reflection pool. They have a large, maybe 20m x 40m reflection pool between the Place de la Bourse and the river that is maintained with about a centimeter of water. It’s pure high-grade photographer catnip.
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I intentionally left out details about the food we ate in my posts about our trip to Bordeaux a week ago mainly so that I could combine the photos into this one mouth-watering post.

The truth is that we ate way more than we usually do and came back feeling bloated. In the week since we’ve been back, we’ve been nearly fasting, and feeling much better.
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On the way back from Bordeaux, we spent Monday, my thirty-first birthday, in St. Jean de Luz, in southern France. In fact, St. Jean de Luz is part of the French Basque Country. It was strange for us, regular visitors to the Spanish Basque Country, to see the Basque flag and hear French being spoken. The truth is, however, we heard very little French spoken. Since October 12th is Spain’s National Day, the entire town was crawling with Spaniards on holiday. St. Jean de Luz’s primary attraction is its semi-circular beach. Originally a fishing villiage, it became a popular destination for wealthy Brits in the nineteenth century and now has a thriving tourism industry.

The day was a considerable letdown for us. Not only was the weather a little drizzly, but we had just been to the beautiful medieval Saint Émilion the day before, and St. Jean de Luz was quite lackluster in comparison. Also, we live in a fishing village right next to a beach a hundred times better than that of St. Jean de Luz, so why would we want to spend a day in a similar town filled with Spaniards when we could be at home doing the same thing? We had lunch, went to the tourism office, realized there weren’t any sights we wanted to see, and headed home.
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After a lovely morning with a guided tour and a delicious lunch, it was time to go to Clos La Madeleine for a tour and a wine tasting. Unfortunately, our morning tour ended at 12:45 and our Clos tour was to begin at 14:30. By 14:30, we were still in the restaurant, 20 minutes from the Clos La Madeleine, just finishing our main course, still with a cheese platter, dessert and coffee to follow! The Mediterranean half of our marriage convinced the Scandinavian half to, “Just relax, and we’ll get there when we get there.” This turned out to be an excellent strategy, since we enjoyed the twenty minute walk much more than the tour and tasting itself.
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On Sunday, October 11, 2009, we drove 50 minutes east of Bordeaux to the small medieval wine village of Saint Émilion. They began making wine in that area in the second century! The town was founded in the 13th century when a monk – perhaps you can guess his name – decided to spend the last fifteen years of his life in a cave. Although Saint Émilion is known more for its wine making, almost more impressive is that it is the home of the largest monolithic church in all of France. What is a monolithic church, you ask? It’s a church built with only one rock. How do you build a church with only one rock? Rather than build it with stones mined elsewhere, you simply mine out the inside of the church, and voilà, a church built from one rock! The extra benefit is that you end up with a bunch of mined rock, which you can sell to pay for the labor costs. Genius. The fact that this church was built/mined in the thirteenth century, the same time that the Knights Templar were returning from The Holy Land where they have many monolithic structures like this is no coincidence
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This is the second post about our visit to Bordeaux, France on October 10, 2009. Please start with the first part if you haven’t read it yet.
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