Thru Galicia to Portugal: Part 1-The Cheese Festival

I am sitting in our living room thinking about how it SNOWED in Bilbao yesterday and comparing it to the mild, spring-like weather we had in Galicia, when I realized that you, my blog following friends, were unaware of our car trip. I'll try to remedy that in the next few blogs.
Tom doesn't usually troll through the internet, but about 2 weeks ago he did, and he found a female Galician piper he really liked. According to Tom, "she looks like a model", which I think means he found her very attractive. Or maybe just curiously different from the current administration. Regardless, he got very excited when he found that she was playing at the Festo do Queixo in Arzúa, Galicia the following weekend. [note: my Spanish hasn't deteriorated, this means Cheese Festival in Galician]. Here's where Arzúa is located:
http://www.worldandcitymaps.com/europe/spain/galicia/arzua/
A cheap (100 euros!) car rental later, we were on the road.
We first stopped in Santander to visit my friend Mary's sister, Bernadette. Santander is a surprisingly large city with several lovely beaches. I can imagine how busy it gets in the summer. Bernie was grand and showed us around a bit.

 

We had a long drive to Arzúa though, so after lunch we hit the road, arriving in the dark, with some difficulty. This is rural Spain, with few posted roads and generated some anxious moments for the navigator who always likes her courses to run smoothly. 

But what a special place! I would highly recommend Casa Brandariz in Dombodán, outside of Arzúa to anyone who values history and charm above luxury. It was very comfortable, with some of the kindest and most generous hosts, Eduardo and Carmen, that I've ever met. Imagine, when we told Carmen how much we liked the wine, she told us that the 2011 vintage had won an award at a big wine festival in Brussels and offered to try to find us a bottle of the 2011 to buy. Mr Brandariz, Eduardo's father, made us a gift of a bottle! He wouldn't even let us pay for it.

church next to Casa Brandariz

Parts of the house are over 500 years old. The yogurt, honey and meat we ate came from the farm.
The festo itself was a unique cultural experience. There were 50-odd booths of commercial cheese producers, mostly local (1 French and 1 Italian); about 25 small producers were represented. Cow, sheep and goat milk cheeses were available, but for some reason there were no mixed milk cheeses. All styles of cheese, but a soft tangy style seems to be a regional specialty. Some of the small producers were selling local honey too. Everyone was handing out samples of cheese and, if there was honey available, samples of that too.

The wildest thing were the other attendees at the fair. There were 10 or 12 huge buses filled with little old Galicians. I could look them directly in the eye-must be a reflection of our common Celtic ancestry!-and they packed the hall and the food tents. They were fierce too. They weren't about to let any cheese samples get away from them and they elbowed and pushed their way through the ever growing crowds in an exemplary way.
Ah, the food!! What would a fair be without food? In a uniquely Galician way there were vendors of prepared foods:

And foods that needed more prep:

are these ears? the ones on the left are pig tails

yes, this is a dried pig face

And then the food tents, where those fierce, small people gathered to eat octopus, drink thick wine, and smile at the strange 'mericans:

we opted for the ribs; they were yummy

Tom didn't come for the food though, he came for the piper, remember? Before the piper came other traditional music, and very entertaining it was. You can hear a sample of Galician music here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzF35iRocJA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4ZlFky4Imc

The piper was quite a... well... experience? Full of energy and a cross between traditional and rock. She also plays piano and tours with Yoyo Ma, so Cristina Pato is an amazing musician. She had a fantastic singer with her, who sang several songs the whole crowd (excepting Tom and Ellen, that is) knew, and they all sang along

Hope you enjoy this bit of her music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teauoWFZgGg
next blog: Portugal

Madrid

On Sunday last we took the premium bus to Madrid to party, visit excellent museums and more excellent friends and, most importantly, try to get our pending and frustrating visa issues resolved.  Happily, we had success on all fronts, as you'll see below. However, for those of you who find the details of bureaucracy tedious, or are tired of me whining about the non-lucrative residence visa process, I'll post information on the visa separately. 
The premium bus ride was easy and very comfortable; there's a 'flight' attendant who offers food and drinks, and a better entertainment system than most airlines. Free internet access too. We originally planned to take the train, but there's no train to Madrid on Sundays, and David talked up the premium bus to the point where we thought we'd try it. It was so popular that we decided to take the bus back to Bilbao, too.
We hopped off in the long distance bus terminal on Avenida de América and walked a short distance to the metro, where, 2 stops later we were met by our friend Teresa and her mother. We spent 3 days with them and Teresa help getting our residence papers was invaluable. She also recommended the Hotel Inter Plaza San Martín, where we spent another 3 days.

Descalzes Reales

The walls of Descalzes Reales convent and museum are just outside the hotel's entrance. It's one of my favorite places in Madrid and we ended our visit to Madrid with a 45 minute guided tour. The convent was founded in 1559 by Juana of Austria, an infanta of Spain and designed to hold just 33 nuns, each with their own miniature chapel or altar they cared for. The nuns were, and still are, sequestered from the world, meaning that once they entered, they never left and never saw or spoke to anyone outside the order. The convent attracted wealthy and titled women, some young, some widowed and some both. Maybe it was a convenient place to stash "embarrassments" or "wild women". Ah, the stories the walls could tell! Their dowries were significant and made the convent one of the wealthiest in the country, with the dowry money invested in tapestries, paintings and holy relics. The novices also brought portraits of their family with them and as a result, there's an amazing assortment of royal portraiture. The guide took pains to ensure we understood that the convent didn't just accept wealthy women, and this must be true, because by the mid 1900s the nuns were pretty much destitute as they couldn't sell any of their treasures. Thank God for tourists! Now the guided tours through unused areas of the convent support the community of 33 nuns.
We also spent 6 hours at the Prado, a personal new best for maximum time in a museum. Love this museum! Unfortunately, no photos allowed, unlike the Reina Sofia museum. Although much of the modern art in Reina Sofia leaves me cold, there were a few memorable pieces, aside from Picasso's Guernica.

Tom really liked this one

Of course, there were the obligatory walks, dinners and glasses of cava, wine or sherry. We loved a new trendy spot called Mercado San Miguel, a traditional market that has been updated while preserving it's beautiful ironwork. A lovely spot, with interesting tapas, wine bars and trendy stalls selling gourmet items, like truffle salt, my new favorite.

so cold I bought the new hat

 Gotta run, we are driving to Portugal today, after we stop in Santander to lunch with Mary McLaughin's sister.

Plaza Mayor at night

Plaza Mayor by day

The train, the rain, the brain and Spain

Wednesday, February 27
At long last, a sunny day, 13 degrees C, not a cloud in the sky. This is a contrast to Monday morning when we woke to snow.

 

Yep, that's SNOW!

 This made me think about how much it has rained over the past month. Since it hasn't rained in Santa Cruz since we left, we must have brought the central California coast rain with us to Bilbao. People in Bilbao and San Sebastian-Donostia say it's never rained rained this much. There was 30+ days straight of rain. So you can believe that when it's sunny, we get outside.

The Guggenheim in the sun

 Like we did the day we took the Euskotren to Getxo, a 30 minute ride. A short walk from the metro, we found a wide, paved path that ran for miles along the cliffs. Along with throngs of Spaniards, we unzipped our jackets, took off our scarves, and started strolling.

walkway

toy boat, toy boat, toy boat

check out the windmills

 The air was brisk and clean and the view was impressive. The sailboats looked so small I was sure I was watching a radio-controlled fleet of miniature yachts. Ha! They were Lasers! What I thought were 24 ft boats were at least 50 ft. You could see the mouth of the Rio Nervion with it's commercial dock and smallish islands stretching away to the west. We walked an hour and a half or more and found this beautiful, wild beach with surfers. The path stretched up and up and there were hang-gliders dotting the sky.

 We also had a spectacular sunny day when we visited Guernika. This is the town immortalized by Pablo Picasso in the moving piece of the same name ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernica_%28painting%29) and is infamous for the Franco-sanctioned German Condor Legion bombardment that killed approximately 250 civilians during the Spanish Civil War.

ah, not the REAL one!

 However, it's been an important town to the Basque people for hundreds of years, because it's one of the three places in the Pais Vasco where each Spanish monarch came and pledged to uphold the Basque laws (different from Spanish laws) and protect the Basque people. The pledge always took place under an oak, and the current oak is a descendent of the 'father' planted in the 14th century.

The town was, ironically, rebuilt by Franco at the end of the Civil War...maybe there was some guilt associated with this, or maybe there should have been. Today, visitors can walk through the Peace Museum (dedicated to defining and preserving peace throughout the world), the Museum of Basque Culture and the Legislative Representatives' Meeting Hall (Casa de Juntas) and, if the day is fine and dry, the Parque de los Pueblos de Europa is a tranquil spot to walk off your menu del día.

Casa de Juntas

beautiful and bucolic

So, if I start complaining about the rain again, feel free to remind me that Bilbao DOES have some nice sunny days!

Carnival in Bilbao

Carnival is BIG in Spain and gracías a díos, we are here to celebrate with the Bilbainos. Carnival started on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, with all the primary school aged children wearing their costumes on the streets and to school.  We were standing in the laundromat and had the chance to see them returning from school. Very very cute.
But Saturday was the big day. We started seeing people gathering early in the afternoon, including a group of 'convicts' we saw gathering in front of the Palacio de Justicia. We figured they were lawyers! They turned up  again, marching in the parade.

Around 5 pm, the local police started blocking the streets around our apartment, and just before 6 we joined the steady flow of people to the parade route. We didn't have to go far, just down to the end of our street and we had an excellent vantage point. Not Macy's-Thanksgiving-Day-parade crowded, more like Aptos-Fourth-of-July-parade crowded. The parade started with traditional Basque marching music:

Poncho Villa?

and continued with about 60 floats that were each accompanied by troops of 25-50 costumed revelers, tossing candy to the watching children. Each float and group had a theme and, unlike parades in the US, many of them were political in nature. Some of the social and political statements were difficult to understand, but some were pretty universal, like a circus float, followed by about 50 men, women and children all dressed as clowns. Nothing to strange there, but the float had big signs saying: Politics isn't for clowns. See, universal themes!
You'd have to know that the mayor of Bilbao was selected as one of the best mayors in the world to get the next one: A float with an effigy of the mayor topped by a halo, followed by assorted priests, bishops and nuns.
There were many floats with anti-bank/anti-multinational corporation themes. One float had big signs that said : Stop the evictions! Yes, the economy was a popular theme too.
This one was funny. Here's a group dressed like bags of wool. Written on each bag is: Made in Bilbao/80% virgin wool, 20% not so virgin. 

We left the parade undaunted by the drizzle and went to the Casco Viejo (Old Town) to refresh ourselves as parade watching is thirsty work. We were proceeded by everyone in the first half of the parade, all their   friends and family members, so it was jumpin' in the Casco Viejo. The Casco Viejo is only about 7 streets, so there weren't nearly enough bars and restaurants to hold all the partying. The costumes were fantastic; no manufactured costumes, but many creative and well made. Groups of friends, couples and families usually stuck to a theme. Pirates were very popular; there was a group of people dressed as mops. Here's a group of bees:

Tonight is Tuesday, the last night of carnival, where they "bury the sardine". Sorry, can't enlighten anyone on that yet. Maybe next post.

Bureacracy 101

January 21, reposted February 12

“The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.” ~St. Augustine

I was more than a little slow to recognize that we would need visas in order to stay longer than 90 days in Spain but the consulate web site didn’t provide the best information either. Neither did any of the typical resources I used. We started planning the trip in the late spring of 2012 and in July, while we were in Mexico for a month, I was still thinking we had the option to leave Spain before the 90 day tourist period ended, fly to a non EU country for a short visit, and then reenter Spain for another 90 days. Of course, this is wrong, you can’t do this anymore. The Schengen information on the Spanish consulate web site was confusing although those visas are only valid for 90 days and we wanted to stay about 6 months. The consulates have farmed out all the visa application process to a private company (VFS Global); they charge you to schedule the appointment with the consulate but they don’t provide any help or information whatsoever about the visas. They wouldn’t even answer yes or no when I explained the situation to them and asked if they agreed that we needed non-lucrative residence visas. I even considered using a visa application company but could not find one that would handle visas to Spain.

The consulate has a detailed and intimidating list of the documents required for the non-lucrative residence visas so the list below might not be complete, but I spent the month of September and October gathering these items:

*National visa application-one each, Tom and Ellen

*Passport photos, 3 each, Tom and Ellen

*Income documentation in English plus certified translation into Spanish, one only

*Letter of intent/introduction in English plus certified translation into Spanish, one only

*Proof of medical insurance, Ellen and Tom

*Health certificate in English plus certified translation into Spanish. Tom and Ellen

*Criminal background check in English plus certified translation into Spanish, Tom and Ellen

*Marriage certificate in English plus certified translation into Spanish, less than 3 months old

The letter of intent had to notarized and the items in bold had to apostilled as well, which required a trip to Sacramento. Actually, 2 trips as I didn’t understand that the marriage certificate needed to be a copy that was dated less than 3 months previously. As the consulate staff said “well, you could be divorced or something.” First lesson: never argue with the person who has control over your visa application. Second lesson: don’t take offense that the California DMV treats you better than the Spanish consulate. This is your first taste of Spanish bureaucracy. Finally, check everything with the clerk and make sure they understand how long you want to stay in Spain.

You might have to take out a small loan to cover the visa application costs. Notary public, apostille, copies, medical exam, lab tests, translations, visa charges…yes, this all starts to add up even before you get your airline tickets.

The worst of the application was the criminal background check, which is provided by the local sheriff’s office and the State. Should be straightforward, right? It took us 3 weeks of bureaucratic fiascos to get the necessary paperwork and this included time lost due to use of the wrong form (Santa Cruz sheriff says it’s the right one, Sacramento says it’s the wrong one. Who wins here? Not the poor applicant who’s stuck in the middle and who eventually has to pay for a second check with the ‘new’ form) and failure to electronically transfer information from the sheriff to Sacramento. I’d like to give a shout-out to Anthony Molina in the Secretary of State’s office in Sacramento for being so helpful and polite.

OK, enough about visa application. It took 8 weeks plus 3 days for the visas to arrive in San Francisco. Our original departure date was 8 weeks post application, which meant a lot of last minute changes and changes equal dollars in the airline industry. But, we are finally leaving on January 23. Despite Tom’s broken toe from yesterday’s misadventure on the stairs. He’s a hearty guy; his biggest concern is his planned walk on the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile trek from the French Pyrenees across Spain to Finisterre, the medieval end-of-the-earth, but it looks like the big toe will be mended in time.

If you are interested in obtaining a Spanish visa I’d like to encourage you to visit the excellent blog http://www.kurpediem.com/.  Shanna has a great description of the visa application process that has a happy ending.

The new home:calle Colon de Larreátegui

Tom on the Gran Via-quiet Sunday afternoon

Amy studies Spanish in the living room

January 27, 2013

If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home. James Michener

Llegamos a Bilbao! After a relatively painless flight on British Airlines (so much more polite than American Airlines) and a 6 hour lay-over at Heathrow, we arrived in chilly, rainy Bilbao. David graciously came to meet us and direct the cab driver to our new apartment, where we were met by Amy. The apartment is grand; David did a bang-up job finding it, although it couldn’t have been easy. There are 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, kitchen, living room and a dining room we are using as a library/study. There’s also a big beautiful terrace that looks out on over calle Colón de Larreátegui and should get some heavy usage as soon as the sun starts to shine.

Cafe Iruña, our local spot. David and Amy beaming

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We are a half a block from the Jardines de Albia and 2 blocks from el Corte Inglés, 8 floors of everything from car parts to groceries, including 25 feet of butchers case specializing in different types of ham; ham from every corner of Spain or “ham de terriore”. And the cheeses! Hundreds of them! Cheese from cow’s milk, sheep milk, goat milk or a mixture of 2 or 3. My favorite shopping experience so far is a roofed market with some 100 or so individual stalls, at least half of which sell fresh fish and shellfish. There’s a special stall that just sells mushrooms, all types, including a small chantrelle we will have for dinner tonight. There’s another type called senderuelas that looks suspiciously like a candycap but I didn’t get a chance to detect that telltale maple syrup aroma. There’s another stall that specializes in olives; dozens of different colors and flavors, and again, terroire seems vital. Also cured capers, pickles The shopkeeper ladled the olives requested into plastic bags, offering samples directly from the ladle.

Last night we went to a flamenco performance at the teatro Arreaga, a short walk across the river. The teatro is a beautiful Belle Epoque style building and the flamenco performance was top notch. It included a riveting performance by a Mexican dancer, Kerime Amaya, but the head dancer was Farruquino, the descendant of a several well-known flamenco dancers.

Today we visited the Sunday book and antiques fair located in la Plaza Nueva en el Casco Viejo. Lots of inexpensive used books, records and DVDs. Throngs of pre-teenagers buying cards of their favorite soccer stars from dealers. Think baseball cards, but these kids were ORGANIZED. Each had a written list and they crossed off their purchases as they made them. We bought an Agatha Christie and an Arturo Perez-Reverte, both in Spanish, but my most exciting find was a DVD called Las largas vacacciones de 36, about the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. When I took Consuelo España’s film class last year, I searched endlessly and fruitlessly for this film so I could include it in my final project. Now I have it!! Maybe she’ll let me re-write my paper.

Tonight we have a special treat…actually 2 treats. Treat number 1: a vegetable dinner (meals so far have been largely bread and meat or fish) en nuestro piso, and treat number 2: Paddy Keanan, the eccentric and virtuoso uillean piper, probably best known for playing with the Bothy Band. This last treat is especially delicious as it is so unexpected.