Erik’s Blog

Parking in nearby beach tourist town, Laredo, is really a nightmare in July and August, especially for those of us that go there year round. But never is the parking problem worse than on the last Friday of August, when Laredo hosts their famous Batalla de Flores (Flower Battle), a parade of floats with 100% real flowers. So this year we came up with a parking strategy.

I’ve been walking a lot lately, so we decided that I would drive the car to Laredo in the morning, park it as close to the downtown parade site as possible, and then walk back home. I took Nora with me since she isn’t any extra work on walks (when bribed with cookies), but she is a handful to care for around the house. Then, at 17:00, we set out walking to Laredo. Immediately the sky began to look ominous, and about halfway there, it began to rain. We managed to find a little shelter and soon the rain slowed and then stopped. We got there late for the initial lap (for the judges to see the floats), but we caught the entire second lap (for the awards to be given) and a little of the third lap (for the awards to be paraded, literally, around the town).
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Today, my wife and I we took full advantage of our childless weekend to do a little local tourism. One of the “must see” attractions of Cantabria, the northern region of Spain where we live, is the Cueva El Soplao, an ancient cave discovered by miners in the late nineteenth century and only opened to the public in 2005, containing some of the finest known specimens of stalactites and stalagmites in the world.

The stalactites form at a rate of about one centimeter every 150 years. Some of them are two or three meters long. That’s 45,000 years old. It’s rather mind boggling to look at a stalagmite standing as tall as I am and think that, in the time that it takes to have all the happiness, sadness, pain, pleasure, and joy of one entire human life, this structure gains a couple millimeters. And then, once you’ve contemplated the single tree, you take a step back and see the whole forest of thousands upon thousands of stalactites and stalagmites… You can’t help but have a transcendent moment and appreciate the transience of your own existence. (more…)

The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about his recent trip to visit us in May 2010.

We just returned from our seventh vacation in Spain. Some of them, like Erik and Marga’s wedding, or Nora’s baptism, were centered on events. One of them – Extremadura in August – was centered on learning the Spanish vacation lifestyle. Sometimes Betsy and I spent a few days in Madrid or Barcelona along the way, working on our Spanish, and on our ability to enjoy Spain without a guide. This time, however, we traveled directly to Colindres to visit our son and his family on May 11 and 12, and directly home on May 21. More than any other trip, this was purely a vacation. Well, there was the occasion of my birthday on May 19, but I’ll get to that later. (more…)

Previously, in Rioja…

On Sunday we woke up at 11:00 to the peaceful sound of no baby crying. After a quick breakfast at the pub neighboring the hotel, we checked out and the group of eleven of us took our three vehicles and headed towards Haro. I have wanted to visit Haro for some time, ever since learning about the Batalla de Vino they host every year, which I detailed in the 17th post on this blog back in June 2006. At some point on the way to Haro, the Tom Tom GPS unit in the leading car, decided that it wanted to visit the town of Cenicero. I have noticed Cenicero on the map a few times and chuckled at its horrible name, which is Spanish for “ashtray”. Wielding my trusty GPS-enabled iPhone, I volunteered to lead us to Haro, and in twenty minutes we were there.
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The group of friends that Marga and I dance salsa with a couple times a month organized a trip down to the Rioja region this past weekend. On Friday evening we drove to my in-laws in Mondragon to drop off Nora. Because of my work and errands Marga had to do, we left home at 22:00, a full hour and a half after Nora had gone to bed. While docile all the way from crib to car seat, she ended up crying the whole ninety minute trip. I dislike driving late at night, and it was nice to have someone in the car to keep me awake. On Saturday morning we got up fairly leisurely and left around 11:00 to head south to the Rioja region of Spain. We had a hotel booked in Logroño, but, after getting in touch with our friends who were driving down from Cantabria, we went first to a tiny, tiny town named Tirgo to have lunch in a restaurant that one of our friends knew about. There was no menu, they just had what they had that day. Luckily it turned out to be fried peppers, chorizo, morcilla (blood sausage), salad, and lamb chops. [I started salivating again just typing that sentence.]
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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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