Mayo

San Isidro

Don't mind me... Plaza Mayor.

Culapa fixing her dress.

Chulapas between Plaza Mayor and the Mercado de San Miguel.

Chulapo y Chulapa cerca mi casa.

Chulapo hermanos.

This weekend is the saint day for the patron saint of Madrid, San Isidro. Madrilenos dress up as traditional chulapas y chulapos. The costumes are great. Unfortunately I've been very tired lately so I took it easy and skipped most of the festivities. I'd regret it, but I still got some good pictures and I enjoyed the quiet as everyone was out at the Feria and in the Center.

Teacher!

Ms. Forslund at Fun and Fitness Day.

I love my job. It's hard work, and sometimes I'm not very good at it, but I love my job. Part of the bittersweet love I feel is tainted by the knowledge that I don't want to do this for very long. Yes, I enjoy teaching, yes I love this age group, but I don't think I would be happy doing this as a career. I am so thankful to have the opportunity and great fortune to give teaching a little bit of a try for these two years. Not many people have had the opportunity to try as many different walks of life as I have.

However, I like the person I am when I'm with the kids. It's something that comes easily to me right now and I'm thankful for that. Every day I feel myself becoming more and more fun for the children. Now I love teaching math, look forward to recess and lunch duty (which I dreaded at the beginning), and I'm writing my own lesson plans for social skills. The love my students show me is the main reason I've felt so at home here in Spain. Will something change my mind before I leave the American School? Will I decide to start my teaching career? I admit that the thought occurs to me often. It certainly would be an easier path than as a professional artist.

Leon-Uno y Dos de Mayo

For the first puente in May I traveled to Leon, a small city in the inland northwest of Spain. We stayed at a Parador, San Marcos. Paradors are historic landmarks that were converted into five star hotels. You can travel all around Spain, staying in castles, monasteries, and forts. San Marcos was originally a monastery built to shelter pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. The Camino is still used today and there are many different routes to take. San Marcos was originally built in the 12th century, but was torn down and rebuilt in 1515. It was truly something to call a Renaissance masterpiece my hotel.


Upper terrace of the interior of the monastary. What a day.

Upper terrace of the interior.

Interior courtyard of the monastery.

The view from our terraza. The river is just beyond the last line of shrubs. Silence but for the songs of birds.

Susan, me, and David. David and Susan are old friends from when Susan was living in Chicago. David is in Spain for a few weeks while he figures out what he would like better than being a lawyer. Difficult to imagine anything better than being a lawyer, right? They were great travel buddies. Though with two women and one man in a room together we got a lot of strange looks.

Susan and David on our terraza drinking wine and entertaining me with stories.

Straight down the front wall of the building... sigh...

Amigos.


This lovely man decided to show us around Leon. He spoke eloquently about architecture and history but we only understood about half of what he said. I think he was telling us he's a professor at a university. It was lovely to have our own tour guide, but hammered home the need for more Spanish practice and immersion.

Unfortunately his name was too foreign for us to remember--Gua... something. I mean really, what happened to calling everyone Fernando, Nacho, Pedro, Miguel, or Diego? Naming your children in Spain is easy, they don't have those "500 Baby Names" books. They just pick from the 12 standard names for boys or for girls and let it be. Or they name their children after the patron saint of their city. Too bad for women in Granada who's patron saint was La Virgen de Angustias (virgin of anguish).

Roman walls built sometime after 70 AD when the Romans rebuilt the city of Leon. The amount of Roman architecture that has survived these 2,000 or so years is amazing.

Bad French grammar. It should read, "Je t'aime." This makes me feel better about my Spanish grammar.

"Je t'aime" is a fascinating phrase. You can say that you like something by using the verb "aimer" but you also say that you love someone using the same verb. I often tell my friends that I like them and it's limiting in French and Spanish to have to dance around phrases like "te quiero" and "je t'aime". It's disconcerting. "Te quiero" literally means "I want you," which to me would have a sexual connotation. However, in Spanish "te amo" is a much stronger phrase. You wouldn't say "te amo" to anyone but a close friend, family member, or lover but you would say "te quiero" to anyone you liked.

I think that this graphitti is saying that the wage of the King is causing the "Crisis".

You can see the roman walls interwoven into the modern architecture. Our friend was telling us about the wineries on this street, I think. I totally lost him a few times.

The Cathedral in Leon is known for its amazing stained glass and gorgeous facade. Here David is illustrating the effect of such a holy atmosphere on his attitude.

The white stone was even more beautiful as it glowed in the dark night. And the rose windows! Sigh....

Two people I admired. The artist is making his own pilgrimage through Europe collecting donations for various charities while sketching and photographing the beautiful sights. The biker is, well... biking. Maybe I should bike through Europe with a camera and some sketch books and sell my resulting artwork for charity? Hmmm....

May 1st is a puente (government holiday) in most of Europe. It's a different kind of Labor Day. Instead of eating hot dogs and drinking beer, Europeans take this day to protest unfair labor laws, discuss union issues, and parade through the streets chanting about change and equity. It's my opinion that this is why the labor laws are so strict and so much in favor of the working man. In the United States we're much more interested in our own good time to waste a free day off work by challenging our government.

The sign of the Camino de Santiago is a shell. It's found on many of the buildings or walkways in Spain. When I was in Switzerland and Lichtenstein we also found shells on the trail markers of our hikes.

Window display at wine shop. In Europe these are pius priests. In the States these figurines would conjure up much more hideous connections.

Another view of the Parador.

Local game played much like bowling. You throw a disc that is flat on one side and rounded on the other. I think the object of the game is to land the disc inside the pins without knocking any of them down. The amount of grey haired spectators was astounding.

Very exciting. Also, the best comb-over I've seen in a while.

The courtyard at the Parador. Que bonita.