Sun and Spain

Andalucia is the southernmost part of Spain. Parts of it get 320 days of sun a year. And having survived a couple of month’s worth of English winter—which isn’t harsh, just very, very, grey—we decided we needed some sun. Europe is full of these wonderful discount airlines that will whisk you anywhere for just a couple of pounds; the one we flew, called Ryan Air, is typical in that there’s no assigned seating—everybody just piles on board and sorts it out. When you’re flying with a family of four, and you want to sit together or at least within shouting distance, it can be a bit stressful—but we managed to secure seats near each other, and last Monday we flew to Jerez (pronounced “Hereth”) a moderately-sized city near the coast known for sherry (“sherry” is actually an Anglicization of “Jerez,” and the English have historically imported tons of the stuff), flamenco dancing, and horses. We didn’t get much experience of the first two—in fact, I don’t really like sherry, and flamenco dancing usually happens after midnight—but we got the third, in the form of the Andalucian School of Equestrian Arts. This doesn’t mean pictures of horses, but rather the art of getting horses to do things they don’t naturally want to do, like arch their necks in a particular way and dance on their hind legs. We watched them training some of the horses. We knew Olivia would love it, and she did. It’s all very beautiful, and stylized, and, well, Spanish.


This the part of the Spain that was under the control of various Islamic dynasties from about 750 to 1350, so there’s an amazing blend of architectural styles and cultural traditions still visible. In fact, Andalucia is probably one of the few places on earth were Christian, Jewish, and Muslim peoples lived together in relative peace. Jerez has a modest—though still impressive—complex called the Alcazar (a much smaller version of the famous Alhambra in Granada), which contains a Moorish castle and baths, a mosque, and a beautiful garden that’s been restored to what they think it looked like a thousand or so years ago. On our last day we spent a peaceful afternoon there, basking in the sun and absorbing the feel of the place. It’s striking to be reminded that while the Islamic dynasties in southern Spain were installing running water and heated floors in Cordoba, creating extraordinary works of art, and reading Aristotle, the rest of Europe was mired in the Dark Ages, basically grunting at each other and eating with their hands. Certainly Eliot was impressed when I told him all this.

Snow in Cambridge

Last week it snowed, and everybody freaked out. London pretty much shut down; Colin's parents, who were staying in London at the time, reported that they couldn't get any food, the buses and the tube shut down, and all the shows in the West End canceled. Well, it was the biggest snowfall in 18 years, all five inches of it. Colin walked in to town on Monday and came back shaking his head: our bank was closed, and the sign in the window said: "Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to open the bank today." Given the current financial meltdown here, Colin said he thought maybe the bank had run out of money. But he looked around and nobody was rioting. Just a few inches of snow, and a few kids throwing snowballs.

There's a general sense of having survived a traumatic event, like living through the blitz. The normally emotionally reserved British got all emotive about things, too, especially on the radio. The local BBC radio station turned into a massive self-help exercise, with the announcers pleading with people to "tell us your story." How were they all managing? Where were the trouble spots? Had they gotten to work? We deeply needed to know.

No one owns a snow shovel in this town. In fact, I took an informal survey of my British friends and none of them had ever even seen a snow shovel for sale - anywhere. I had to describe it: "It's a shovel with a wide squared edge, used for shoveling large amounts of snow. No, not a garden shovel. These have a flat edge. No, not a spade, much larger, with a flat edge. No, not a trowel. You want to pick up the snow with it, not weed with it." You get the picture. The end result of the snow shovel shortage was that all the side walks became slushy and then froze, becoming absolutely impossible to navigate, especially when holding a 3 year olds' mittened hand. Especially when your 3 year old thinks sliding on the ice is really what walking is all about. We did manage to get Eliot to and from nursery without any major mishaps, just slogged through the slush and slid through the icey bits, and put our boots under the radiator to dry out when we got home. We were both wishing we had wellies!

What's interesting though is that people just accept this mess of slush and ice. None of the walks are cleared and so people will have to walk on ice for weeks, but instead of doing anything about it people just carry on. The circumstances are just beyond their control, I guess. On my way to yoga class last Tuesday night, I almost fell a couple of times on some black ice along the sidewalk behind the church. When I left my class an hour later, I decided to walk on the crunchy snow so as not to fall. Ahead of me, 3 British women walked single file, carefully placing each foot on the ice-covered walk. Crunch, Crunch, Crunch! I walked confidently by, stepping on the snow covered lawn. As I passed them one of them said, "Why didn't we think of that?" And I said (and thought later I really shouldn't have), "Because you are all well trained British women and when the signs say 'Keep off the Grass' it's hard to change."