Santander

Let me remind you, I met Marisa the first week of “Vive el Ebro” trip, I thought she was just the right blend of wit and humor, which I very much admire, although perhaps it was due to all that Rioja wine we downed. When we reached Logrono, she anounced that she had to go back home with her daughter Candela; she wasn’t the only one, Mamen and her son Carlos from Cuenca (if you remember the incident of the puppy that lost a toe) and Maria Antonia from Valladolid were also leaving; so that was the day I was supposed to go to the Wurt museum with the group, but I stayed to have a late breakfast instead with these wonderful people. Marisa showed me a picture of her home on her phone, she showed it to others too, along with an invitation. I was sad, but later that day I had the opportunity to read a poem about the fairies that had created the Ebro Delta to the rest of the group that she had left in my hands. Those days were so full of excitement and emotions, many other great people came and left, that I became accustomed to saying good-bye.

But the second to last day, when we left Tortosa to arrive at the Delta in the evening, for an observer would have compared it to the final leg of the Amazing Race, past contestants reunited; but it was so much more, so many tears, happy tears of course; it was the twilight hour, and we were received by a group of children playing drums, a batukada, then I started to see faces that had left, like Manolo from Madrid, and when I saw Marisa I was ready to explode from joy. We were all exhausted, yet we continued to celebrate each other for as long as our bodies would allow us.

I had been dragging my feet about visiting Marisa and a city I had not yet seen before, for no other reason than money shortage; but I took a Ryan Air flight which is very cheap, under 50 euros($60 aprox), but very important to read a follow thru the instructions, otherwise it can become expensive as they will charge you for everything, like 60 euros to print your boarding pass or any, and I mean “any” baggage.

Marisa greeted me at the airport and took me to a “romeria” (spanish for outdoor celebration), where her friend Inma was waiting with Candela; this romeria was organized by the “Gildas” a group of women that do fundraisers to help out critical disaster affected peoples around the world. The term “gilda” in Spain is usually in reference to an old Rita Hayworth character meaning beautiful strong determined woman. It was a nice surprise to see such a crowd of progressives here, because a well known fact of Santander, it was Franco’s favorite spanish city, and had been the royal house’s summer getaway for years before the civil war, so basically it was and still is a fascist haven.

Santander is on a large peninsula with many smaller peninsulas, the city facing opposite the windy Cantabric Sea and enjoying the more protected bay area. The drive home was along the bay coast, and Marisa’s home was in the Cueto neighborhood, just around the peninsula and facing the northern windy Cantabric coast, an area where no santanderino would ever build a home, so while other family members had long ago sold their land for very cheap, Marisa’s wish was to build her home on her grandparents plot where they had grown their own wine.

Standing outside on the terrace and just watching the sunset I could understand how Marisa was able to simply loose herself to this peaceful environment and wash away her troubles at work, she’s a professor of microbiology, which she loves, the pressure is the constant daily mindless name-calling and bullying from her fascist colleagues. She is thinking of leaving her home and moving to the south of Spain, in hopes of improving her surrounding, and because she believes the warmer weather will make her thrive.

Directly in front of the house is “el Panteón del inglés”, the spot where William Rowland died in 1889 when he fell off his horse that plunged into the sea. While Marisa went to find water shoes for Candela’s sailing class beginning that afternoon, I went for a walk with Inma, Candela and Vera (chocolate lab). 

Inma pointed out a huge rock that will eventually slip off into the sea someday, and as if the picture was not enough, throw in a daring fisherman to make it even more unique.

Estela, who I had also met on the Ebro trip came to join us too, so while Candela was learning to sail, we went to visit the city. The downtown area is the least popular, due to the fact that after the 1941 fire that destroyed a large portion of this city, the now homeless citizens were divided and relocated to the outskirts, while the few wealthy fascist families simply took an entire block for each and built their ugly legacies. Marisa’s grandparents and parents were one of these families that had everything stripped away from them, despite the fact that her father was in Franco’s army.

The “raqueros” was the name given to local young boys who would dive into the port waters in order to chase the coins that were thrown in by tourists or navy men before reaching the bottom for their amusement; naturally they would get to keep any of the coins that  they could get.

Any homes on this promenade have alternate backstreet access, to be used for service and deliveries, but on strong south wind days, it was so strong their front doors could not be opened, so they would hang up this hilarious sign not so long ago: “los dias de viento sur, los señores reciben por detrás”, translates to: on south wind days the gentlemen will recieve from behind.

The following day was a work day, so I was on my own, Marisa loaned me her bus and bike passes, although I ended up walking all along the coastline, first towards the nearby lighthouse, and since the fog began to follow me, I took my time in an effort to wait it out and try to get s few pictures of the lighthouse. Along the way, I had been told to look out for the recently fallen natural rock bridge, which had been up till just a few months ago a popular picture spot.

Just past the lighthouse is the Forestland Park, and just as in NorCal the same mistake of planting eucalyptus trees happened here, however they took the opportunity to use these trees for a different kind of amusement park. Like many other things though this used to be a public a free activity, but that has changed, and is for paying customers only.

The next peninsula contains a golf (of) course, don’t forget Severiano Ballesteros was from a town just across the bay. While a thick stone wall has been built around it, which many locals are not fond of, I felt it needed to be taller, as in some parts I felt compelled to duck, as I’m terrified of flying golf balls. On the other side of this peninsula is the small beach of Mataleñas, where I wet my feet in the Cantabric Sea for the very first time.

The popular trendy Sardinero beach area reminds me of Bondi beach, because of the english colonial style buildings, like the casino. As I was approaching it I noticed more people were walking up and down, most clothed, as if it were a promenade of sort,,, so I joined in.

Lastly and before Marisa picked me up after her work, I walked on to the next peninsula that harbors the Palacio de la Magdalena, built in 1908-12 as the royal summer home.

The next and last day before going back home, I stayed in and around the home collecting and identifying local wild plants that I need to make the “pomada sanjuanera”, named for the summer solstice, the recipe was handed to me via Concha, another Ebro friend, after seeing it’s extraordinary healing and not being something you can purchase anywhere.

The Visitors

By order of appearance: Dre, Jordi, Adelina, Dee & Peter, Cheryl, and the locals.

I first saw Dre as I invited him to join me and a few friends for the massive general strike protest on March 29th (29M). He had to leave early as his friends would have been worried otherwise, as it was expected that “anti-sistemas” could cause havoc. And they did. I had a hard time myself trying to get back home, as all of Plaça Catalunya trains and subways were closed, and my next nearest station was on the other side of the pokice lines.

The day Jordi arrived, April 1st, Victor and I also picked up Dre at the hotel as he had finished his training at FCBarcelona, but after dinner at Rekons, they went to spend the night at Albert’s in order to play some indoor soccer at 7am the next morning. 

Jordi got to play tour guide to Dre for a few days. He whines about not knowing how to get around, but you toss in a buddy and he becomes an expert. This way I had my time to do classes and line dancing.
We went to have lunch with Edward, Carmen and her daughter Ariana where David works the tables at lunch in Mataro.

I wanted to give the guys a glimpse of the catalan countryside, so we took the train to Ripoll, where my friend Maite came to pick us up and go back to her home in Borreda. Other than her husband, there were three other friends of theirs. 

After a late, late lunch, we strolled to town to watch the Barcelona-At Bilbao game at one of the town’s bars. Both Jordi and Dre fell in love as I had done last summer with this special place.

Maite is working on an idea to introduce bird nests on tall poles, since there's one local species that will "occupy" these, since locals and immigrants will do anything for work/money, so there's been an ongoing problem when it comes to tree clearing, and that is they've been cutting down the tallest pine trees, that are the ones local bird species will nest in; and since these taller trees are going bye-bye, so are the birds, which has created a plague of tree killer worms (the picture of a typical worm nest), thus more trees become kindling.

Dre went back home, and Jordi went to Camp Nou with Sol. Not only was the company nice, but Barcelona scored big against Getafe.

I still had Jordi for 3 more weeks, we went on long walks with Wilbur to neighboring towns, we went to see the colored fountains of Montjuich, which I had to drag Jordi to, because he didn’t think they would be that interesting to him, and because I had pulled him away from Maite and Xavi who he very much enjoyed, in hus words "they are both exceptional people"; but I think he changed his mind about the fountains afterwards.

 On Earth Day at the same fair we had visited the year before, but first we managed to get free tickets for the Aquarium.

We went to recieve Adelina upon her arrival, and then met her, Peter and Dee for lunch one day; and again after Cheryl arrived as we got together to visit the Sagrada Familia. And then it came time for him to leave, it went by so quickly. 

Cheryl went back to Manchester, Adelina went to the Costa Brava with Peter and Dee, before they continued their trip to Madrid and the Canary Islands. Now Adelina had a few more days left to visit local friends and me.

And since everyone left, Gascon took me to Palau Sant Jordi, that was built for the 92 Olympics, and large venues like last week’s Bruce Springsteen, however I had not yet been inside till now. This event was “Biocultura” much like San Fracisco’s Green Festival. Where we would use the word “organic”, most Europe uses “biologic” and here they use the word “ecologic”, particularly with food and produce. They do use the word “organic” when referring to compost waste.

I also met up with Juanjo at Placa de Catalunya last Tuesday 15th to celebrate the first anniversary of 15M; it was good to see more and more people participating, not just younger unemployed, but a lot of elderly, as they are cutting back on healthcare (keep in mind they actually have healthcare here), still not enough people though, but it’s getting there. Along with all this mess, the different autonomies (similar to states) and in this case Catalunya is threatening the central government (Madrid) with independence because the treasury won’t pay back the fiscal debt of the past years, today hundreds of vehicles displaying the “estelada” flag of independence, blocked the tollways as they are refusing to pay the tolls. People who have been paying tolls for 40 years to get to work, when they had promised no tolls after these roads were paid off. This collection goes to Madrid. All roads going from Madrid to any city south or west is a freeway, no tolls, yet all catalans must pay and the cash goes elsewhere. Same is true of the fast speed train, the AVE has trains going to where nobody goes, yet the one to Barcelona is just now getting built, never mind that it is the main traffic route to the rest of Europe.

oops! I almost forgot, as I was tossing compost into these old pots of dirt during the winter, and had abandoned the project, before I got back to it I was surprised by some very determined tomatoes.

I know, I know...where in the world is Carmen Sandiego (Mateo)?

I did come back, go back, depending on where "you" are at; I travelled to SFO where Jordi picked me up and headed straight up to Truckee; actually stopped to load up on food on the way, boy I sure missed Trader Joe's all this time, the biggest problem in Spain is getting any organic food at a reasonable price . 

Three days later borrowed Jordi’s car, headed to Marin for 5 days to visit friends; it was a lighting visit because I didn’t want to leave Jordi without wheels for so long, weather was not exactly good conditions for riding a bike yet, as a matter of fact it had just started to snow, first of the season. Still, it was a very pleasant visit, was able to get caught up with a few friends. During girls night dinner, we were all so intrigued and fascinated with all of Noelle’s changes, that I left without updates on Zany or Dianne (except for seeing the sweet new digs...nice). 

 On my way back up to Truckee I stopped to see Robert, not sure if I mentioned this before, but he has adopted my smart car for a while, since his landrover bit the dust, and I know first hand what a shitty vehicle that is, if you ever have an inclination to get one...don’t; anyway, he happens to be an astrologer, and he’s been helping me gain a better insight as to what may be more favorable and to be more intuitive when the opportunity comes along in developing my new plan...you may want to call it a business plan, but I’m not quite sure if that’s the right name for it yet, but you can check out what I have so far in the images below:

Amongst friends, acquaintances or stories from others both here and there, a common denominator of people tired, frustrated, trapped in their current daily lives, wanting change, big change. I don’t have to tell you, most of us have been in the process of awakening, now we have to start moving. So I’m just including all of those things I would like to surrounded by, and we can all start trimming away, or…?

Back to the trip, I spent two more weeks with Jordi, before heading to Vancouver, the trip went well, but I was surprised that both planes (reno-seattle, seattle-vancouver) were old school propeller planes. In this photo you can see Mount Ranier to the right of the propeller. Adelina picked me up and we headed to Squamish.

Back in Barcelona, actually Premia de Mar, the beach town just 20 minutes north of the big city, life goes on, I resume my english teaching and more country line dancing, I actually just got back now, had to jump in the shower as I was totally drenched from dancing out in the sunshine at the Plaza de la Sardana. I’ve been realizing more and more how this dance style is improving my coordination overall, as I’ve been getting clumsy with age.

Although I did see my bread-making friend Jordi last Sunday, it was only briefly, and although he’s been getting less and less work, his mom took a turn for the worse while I was away, so she’s been staying with him, and he’s been driving her from doctor to doctor. She had been scheduled for the same eye surgery that my mom had last year, but the day before her back collapse, now Jordi is using electromagnetics while she sleeps to rebuild cartilage around her spine, which must be done every single day for three months he tells me, and she’s already on morphine pills. So the whole bread making has been put on hold.


In the meantime I've been working on cleaning out the junk room, in order to make room for Jordi and Dre. Dre is already here, to get some training at Barcelona's futbol club, so California can get some future Messi-like players. Jordi will here next week.