Cuevesita con salsa

Back to the big ear

2008-04-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

I bought my ticket home this weekend. 10th of July. I have mixed feelings. At first I was very excited. I'll have Sara with me and we'll get to do a tour of the West coast. I'll get to see mom and dad and the rest of the fam who I miss so much! I'll also have a good chunk of time at home to get sick of it again.

But, now I'm realizing I have no idea when I'll be back to Spain. I'm really going to miss Iñaki's family and how they've welcomed me here and tried to make me feel at home. We had a birthday lunch for him on sunday with his dad's fam and I found myself looking up at the faces around the table and getting a little choked up.

And, I don't know if Iñaki will get to join me at home or not. Because we don't know where we'll be next year yet, he may just be in Spain, saving money until we can meet at our new home, wherever that might be. Scary. I know I can handle it, I'm Darby, not the girlfriend of Iñaki, but I kind of like having him around ; )

No matter what, I'm excited to be in Portland for the summer and in my neck of the woods and with my peeps and my language and my culture. I need to recharge my bats.

Aight, I better get to Spanish class. I'm taking the intermediate test for a degree in about a month! Javier says the intermediate should be easy for the level of our class and the advanced, a challenge. Since I have to pay to take the test, I'm taking the int.

Love to ya!

Bum foot and Catholic guilt

2008-04-04T01:21:00.000-07:00

Hi!

I've had a pain in my right foot for a while now. It's the same foot that caused me lots of discomfort in college with plantar fati-whatsits. Gotta love wearing a boot to bed. Now, the issue seems to be a little tendony and is starting in my ankle and aching down to my big toe (phys ther majors, feel free to comment), especially after practices and games. I'm taking a week or so off of hoops in hopes to heal up.

The issue is, I feel bad. I've never really taken a large amount of time like this off from a team. And half of me really wants that time off, injury or not. So, I'm afraid I'm making to big a deal of it. But, it's hurt for a month and not improved, so no matter how minor, I need to rest it or it won't get better.

Isn't it strange how playing competetive sports can do that to you? Guilt you? I mean, hello, my good basketball days are over, college was as competetive as it's gonna get and if I want time off I should take it. I don't even care about this team and half the time I spend with them is just uncomfortable for me. Why can't I just listen to my own body's reaction and stop? I want to stop. I should stop. But I feel bad.

It's Catholic school... just kidding. It's being conditioned to never stop. Sad but true. I'm a product of a thousand different psychological games that coaches have to play with you, it is their job to play with you, to get you to preform at your highest level. Sick and twisted.

But, I think I turned out ok. And, since I am obviously detoxing now, I think I'll make it through.

Newest update... Thailand may be in my near future. I just got a tiny bit of info on it and now I'm telling everyone. I'm so lame. Tomorrow it will probably be going to Australia to teach a small aboriginal tribe that wants to assimilate to the world! A ver...

Besos y abrazos y Guillrmos mojados!

I did Madrid... in part

2008-03-28T03:10:00.000-07:00

I'm at a crossroads... yet again. I think, maybe until I "get settled", I will continue to have these crossroads because it will be a constant battle to find work from year to year. But, I've been asking everyone's advice on this, so let's not taint the blog with more of it, shall we? I suppose any type of tainting to this pathetic excuse of a blog, at least this year, is a good thing. Words to the page my friends, it's much harder than it sounds.

Madrid and Salamanca were b'u't'full last week. Salamanca is small. The main square can be seen in a new movie that's out called "Vantage Point." They say the whole thing is in Salamanca, but mostly the overhead shots and the main square are it. The stuff outside the square is in Mexico. But, for a taste of where I was, check out the movie. There's a famous Spanish actor in it named Eduardo Noriega. It's his first American film. He's quite the looker behind the beard ladies... and gents?

Anyhoo, we walked all around Salamanca for one evening and saw the cathedral, the university and the main square. We went for pintxos at night and it was great. The cathedral was kind of creepy as it's all saints week so they have all the dying Jesus floats out on display and those always weird me out. As you remember last year, folks dress up like klansmen, but it's religious garb here, and march the stations of the cross, among other statues, through the street. Everytime I make eye contact with a dead or dying Jesus I get a chill and a cold feeling.

I bought a special t-shirt for good Friday actually... It's from the Big Lebowski. Remember Jesus, the professional bowler played by Jon Toturo in that movie? Well, I found a sweet T in Madrid that had a picture of him on it being super sassy, and the caption reads "Nobody fucks with Jesus." I felt it was approriate. After all, they say Jesus rose, hence, you can't really fuck with Jesus (son of God) because he comes back. As well, in the Big Lebowski, Jesus is the best bowler around. So, it's a double meaning. Anyhow, it's my first religious/raunchy T-shirt and maybe the only one of it's kind. Two themes on one shirt that have no business being in the same sentence, but really, they do. I dunno, I have a twisted sense of humor.

Anyhow, my trip... The university in Salamanca is one of the oldest in the world. They have a large door facade on one side with a million things carved into it and one tiny frog somewhere. If you find the frog, you have good luck. So, we did that... yay luck!

It's a fairly small town, Salamanca, so we saw most everything in one evening and then went for pintxos. Pintxos is how they say tapas in the north of Spain. I actually prefer it to the term tapas because when you say you went to a tapas bar, people always think you said topless bar. Back to it, the pintxos in Salamanca are famous. Not for their deliciousness, though they are, but for the price. Each time you order a drink, you get a free pintxo. And they're not small. We got tiny plates of paella, eggs and potatoes and chunks of bread with various mayo based spreads slathered on them. At one place, we had two wines a paella and a potato/egg/chorizo mix a piece for 9 euros total. It was great. A fabulous ambiance too. The bars are packed and you fight to the front to order, stand on one leg to eat and then off to the next bar, nextdoor to see what tiny treat they have prepared for you. Well, that doesn't sound wonderful when I read it, but such great people watching to do and convos to listen to.

Next, Madrid. I will have to go back. We had one awesome night out. Gma Billie and Pa Pete would be proud of how Iñaki and I cut the rug... or the cigarette covered, waxy concrete floor, as it was. It was a Thursday night and still lots of folks out and about. One club just had really great music, so we hung there most of the night and danced hardcore. I'm talking a little swing, a lot of dipping and twirling and maybe a salsa attempt. Anyhow, great fun.

We walked around on Friday as well and it reminds me of NY how it's sectioned off into various neighborhoods, with big buildings everywhere and a large park in the middle and museums. Everything was closed on Good Friday, so I'm going back some weekend soon. I'll take more pictures then.

Here area few links for a bit of visualization...

Salamanca, Madrid, Me...

Alive and pretty healthy. Lovins' by the tubfull!

Carnaval

2008-02-09T07:09:00.000-08:00

This past Tuesday, Katie and I decided to ditch our obligations and soak up some Basque culture, which I truly needed. I gave my 14 year old girls team the night off and rescheduled my Tuesday tutoring session for Thursday.

And why do all this you ask? Car-nah-vahl... carnaval! It´s sort of like the Mardi gras of Basque country but much older and a totally different celebration. It´s sort of like Halloween, but there are specific, historic, legendary costumes. Some kids just go as whatever, and others choose a typical get up. There´s no door to door trick or treating, but a big party.

Katie and I went to Lanz. Here´s a tiny description. As the link tells you, the winter nights were long and boring and needed a bit of folklore and a reason to party. As well, a great way to ring in the spring. In Lanz, they follow the old carnaval legend of Milochin. Milochin was a giant robber, they say. He used to come down from the hills and rob the townspeople of Lanz with his buddy, Silipot (I think is how you say it), and then they would run back up into the mountains with all they had stolen. One year, the townspeople decided to stop him and captured the pair and ran them through the town for everyone to see. Afterwards, they killed them both and had a big bonfire and dance in the center of town. Mom, you should ask Tom Graff if he knows any of this stuff.

So, the town re-enacts this each year when the sun sets on carnaval and it´s so cool. Katie and I went way too early, because someone from my school said we had to. But, Irene and Angel were there an hour before to meet us and they got a better parking spot than we did! Anyhow, we arrived at 4 and waited around and walked around the tiny town about 10 times, sat on an old wall, chatted and had a snack in the car... it was a beautiful day, and crisp. A good one for passing time in a small town. There was just one bar so we had a beer and a coffee and then just perused. Anyhow, once the sun set, the festivities began. Irene, Angel, KT and I stood on the side of the road and all these guys dressed as sort of clown witches and sacks of potatoes came running by and hit the townspeople and threw them all around. I guess they are Milochin´s gang. The sack guys have huge wooden pitchforks and they really get scary with poking you. The witch clowns hit us with brooms. Angel is much smaller than Irene and Katie and I and they grabbed him and threw him across the street, it was hilarious!

Then came Milochin, in capture. He´s a big giant they´ve made out of broom sticks and dressed like the clown witches. Silipot is a big fat guy that rolls along behind him, also captured, and is dressed like the potato sack guys. They walk them all through the town to show they have caught them and they are guarded by the guys who are going to shoot them in the town square and two guys carrying the fire to burn their bodies with. Sounds violent, I know, but all old legends are that way.

So, the whole thing finished in the town square, where the exicutioners waited for the criminals. They shot them, and dismantled them and then did an old Basque dance in a circle for a while. The news was there and Irene said I should have gone and been like, "I came all the way from the U.S..." But I was too shy. I think I could have done it though, the español´s gettin´pretty good.

We headed home after that, but it was a cool adventure. I´ll try to upload my pictures soon.

I hope all is well back home. Talk to you soon I hope!

Parqueso

2008-02-04T08:43:00.000-08:00

Hello!

I miss you! Whoever you are… if you are in Spain reading this, if you are from the States, I miss you. Lately, I just want to be around the special ones in my life and say goodnight to work. Probably because I have to change schools and my schedule could go all out of whack again just when it was starting to even out…

This past weekend was Jennifer’s last one here. She’s my Canadian friend who was au pairing for a family here. She got on a train for the long journey back this morning. For the last 4 days or so it’s been all Jennifer, all the time. I’ve been sort of a homebody the last few months, so I strapped it on and took one for the team.

The festivities began Friday, going out the Chinese food, then out downtown until 4. It was really fun and I hadn’t done that in a while. However, I had to coach a game the Saturday morning at 9 and got home at 5… you do the math. I rested up after getting our butts kicked and a big group of us went to a sidreria in Pamplona and went out for a bit after. A good time was had by all. The lack of sleep was totally worth it.

Sunday, I woke up at around 12 and realized I had a test on the whole first half of the year of my Spanish class. I started to study and then got a call from Irene because I had planned to have lunch with her, her dad and her grandma that day. I nervously walked back out the door at 2 that afternoon to meet them to get a ride over to Bene’s (grandma) without my usual helping hand/hindrance, Inyaki, by my side.

Bene has the cutest dog ever named Chiqui (chicky). He’s so good all the time and tiny and doesn’t smell bad and they seem to be the best of friends. Irene and Paco and I sat in the living room with the pup for a few as Bene finished up cooking. Mom, this is the kind of dog you want. He’s got mostly black fur with a little bit of Jack Russell tan coloring in the face. He comes to about my mid calf and doesn’t jump or drool and just reaches up and puts his chin on your knee when you sit near him, so cute. Oh, and your hand doesn’t smell after you’ve pet him.

The lunch was fabuloso. We had a paella and some roasted pork ribs that were delish ish ish ish. She even made a cake that had this creamy middle and frosted it, so yuum. In the middle of the paella, I reached in to serve myself more and Bene said, “I like what you’re doing.” Confused, I replied, “eh?” And she said, “the food is here to eat, never have shame about it, just eat,” or something to that effect. It was great. I told Inyaki about it later because I thought she might have been teasing me. He said she’s never ironic.

After the coffee, Irene looked over at me innocently and said, “wanna play Parcheese?” I said sure, I’d never really played before, but sure. As soon as everything was set up, I realized I had no idea what I was in for. The Mayos are professionals. The only sound you could hear for the first few minutes was the click of dice against the walls of hand sized wooden rolling barrels or Paco and Irene telling me it was my turn. The dice were being rolled so fast I had no idea when to go and when to stop! If someone rolls a 6, they go twice, so sometimes I would roll in the middle of someone else’s turn and they’d get annoyed.

Paco tried to take me under his wing and tell me when to move and which piece and where, but I was a little frazzled and not understanding too well. I think he ended up getting a little irritated at me. It was actually pretty funny because I’d never seen this side of them before, the Parcheese just brought it out of them. I ended up winning the last game so, yeah!

On the ride home, Paco helped explain some of the stuff I needed to study and I ended up getting a good grade on the test. My professor even told me that I’ve improved a lot, which was nice to hear. He always says, “es el amor.” (it’s the boyfriend). To which I respond, “no, es la familia del amor.” (it’s the family of my boyfriend). Inyaki has helped a lot, yes, but one of my big motivations has been not to look like an ass in front of his family and to be able to hold a conversation.

So, that’s all that’s new with me. Hangin’ in here trying to find a balance and think about the future, or at least to plan the next year. Hope to talk to you all soon! Loves!

Hortz and T-day

2007-11-22T01:29:00.000-08:00

First off, happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are all thankful for something this year.

Second, I have to share... many signs in Pamplona for various businesses are written in Spanish as well as Basque. The language is spoken frequently. In fact, the school I teach at is Basque. Anyhow, sometimes I get a kick out of reading both and realizing what certain words are in Basque because of the Spanish sign.

My favorite, by far, one that always makes me laugh is the word for dentist. There are lots of "Clinica Dental"s around in each pueblo. As you probably guessed, this means Dental Clinic. The word for clinic in Basque is simple enough, "Klinika." But the word for dental is a kick in the pants... "hortz." Hortz klinika. So, when basque people go to the dentist do they say, "I have an appointment with the hortz"? Isn't that hilarious? To me, it sounds like an old Jewish man. Isaiah Hortz. Anyhow, I just wanted to share.

In otehr news, I'll be having a proper thanks giving this year. Last year was fun, but no turkey. This year, I ordered a turkey from the butcher, which I'm rather proud of, and will be having around 10 people over to the apartment, a few Americans, Canadians and some English. It'll be great. Did you know they have thanksgiving in Canada? It's a different date that our though. I always thought it was a celebration of a day of peace between pilgrims and native americans. I don't think Canada has native americans... ha. Plus, we're having English people... shouldn't they be sort of mad about thanksgiving? I mean, we broke from them. But, technically, english people probably had the first thanksgiving on American soil, as they were the pilgrims. We will be quite historical. Not to mention, Iñaki, the only Spaniard coming. He will be representative of Columbus.

Anyhow, I have a class in one minute, so I better go. Happy thanksgiving and I'll see you all soon!

Halloween pics

2007-11-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hi dudes!

Here are some shots of my lovely Halloween that caused me to lose my voice which has yet to return in full force...

I was Harry Potter.
Iñaki was a Pimp-pire. So, a cross between a pimp and a vampire. He has this obsession with pimps lately, maybe that should worry me... my head is so tiny in this picture.This is my new friend Kait. She´s an art major and did her own zombie makeup, great huh?This is one of the bars we were in. As you can see, most people do not wear costumes.Irene and Iñaki dancing til they drop.
And that was about it, we went home shortly after this. But it was really fun. I got my hair cut the other day and here´s the picture... I think I´m really going to like it, but I have some more experimentting to do with it. I´m feeling a bit better about the whole basketball thing. I always do when we win, whcih we did last night. Send me positive thoughts for this week so I can stay positive!

Like stretching a balloon over a cowboy hat

2007-11-03T04:42:00.000-07:00

I know sometimes this blog is used for complaining... now again. Sometimes it's just nice to put my gripes in writing for everyone to see and possibly relate to.

It's Saturday afternoon around 1 o'clock here. We had Thursday and Friday mostly free for all saints day on Thursday. I had a kick ass Halloween and went out with a bunch of American students and Inaki and Irene plus the usuals. No one really dresses in costumes here, but I dressed as Harry Potter. It was a good one. I can't upload pics to my computer, but I'll post when Inaki gets home with his compy. Anyhow, a great time was had by all.

Thursday, I decided not to do anything. It was great, but at the same time, there were so many things looming in my future and things that needed to be done, that it was hard to enjoy. Friday, I got my hair cut, shorter than I've had for years. I love it by the way. It's basiclly the same I had during the summer but shorter.

Here's where the stretching too thin comes in... I had to coach a practice and then play in a practice last night. After, my team had a cena, so I went to that, which I didn't want to, but for some reason they all seem so offended if I'm not there to check in with every 20 minutes and yell short phrases to in English. I have to read a 23 page unit and try to get it done by tomorrow and clean the apartment still. I had to get up and be at a basketball game today to coach, but I didn't really want to. I took about an hour for me time after the game, but now I need to get all my stuff done before I play in my game tonight and am expected to go out with the team after and don't want to.

It's just so hard to say no to all these things and when I don't, I'm just angry to be where I am. I don't feel like playing hoops really anymore. I just feel angry during practice and no one works hard which makes me not work hard and then I suck, which makes me work even less hard. I know, I'm being a victim and should play hard all the time.

I feel resentful that I have to coach as well. I'm pissed that there are a million things that I'm not doing for me and just continue to be places for other people. I dunno.

I'm no saint, these things that I'm doing should be fun and I should enjoy them. I'm just not. I'm not sure how to get it back. I am pretty happy teaching and am enjoying getting to know all the little kids and going to my spanish classes. But the bball is on my nerves. I don't know how I'm gonna make it through the year, but I have to. I can't just quit. What do you guys at home think? Gimme some advice if you have a momento.

Other than these little annoyances, I am well. I need to do more creative posting for sure. Entries wander through my mind all the time and I forget to put them in. Like cute little moments from my classes. A positive: the kids I'm teaching are sometimes fabulous. There's one group of 7 year olds that really likes me and the last time I went into their classroom, they bowed at my feet and chanted "Darby". As I've said to a few people, everyone should be greeted like that once a week. A little girl from one of my 9 year old groups made me a gimp key chain that is actually really cool. Another little boy from that group freaks out every time he sees me and runs up and hugs me and yells "Darby!" like he can't believe that I really exist. Once he ran up and hugged me and a huge group of kids followed him and we had a big group hug before I left for the day. And as I walk down the halls in school all the kids say, "Hello, Darby, hello Darby, hello..." These are the little perks that make my job great. I think it's amazing how little the language you speak has to do with a positive teaching experience. Silliness, smiles and high fives are universal.

Okay, enough saying how great I am. I hope all is well at home and the fall is treating you to calm cozy evenings. One of my favorite quotes about the fall, possibly the only one I know, is when Tom Hanks says he'd like to send Meg Ryan a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils as the first orange leaves start appearing in "You've Got Mail." Well have a great day and go sharpen some pencils.

A busy month

2007-10-23T05:22:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I´m so sorry I´ve dropped off the face of the earth for a month. Thanks for all the well wishes on my birthday. I didn´t do much, just laid around and watched season five of the Gilmore Girls. I needed it, as I´ve been keeping a crazy schedule. My friends Jennifer and Katie also came over for dinner, so that was nice. Irene and Dori had me over for cake and lunch too. Iñaki was an all-star and got me a ton of cool stuff. My old dinosaur computer from GFU now has WiFi, so that´s cool.

Other than that, I hurt my back a bit a week or so ago, but it healed quickly. I should do a whole other blog on how Iosu stretched me out and the amount of awkwardness that occurred.

I´ve been teach-teach-teaching lately. I do my own lessons for the school and all my other classes, so it´s some great experience for the future. I teach grade levels 2-6 and have 2 business classes, two individual classes and various little groups of kids in Zizur. I have my biusiness classes early in the morning and then start at the school around 10 each day and finish at 1. Depending on the day, I have more classes for the acadamia or some of my own to teach in the afternoon. It´s so busy. It´s getting pretty hard to stay motivated to play hoops and I´m missing more practices than I ever have in life! But, I don´t really feel bad about it.

I´ll be home for Christmas for 3 weeks, woopie! Leaving here the 18th and coming back the 8th. I really need a recharge from home.

So, I want to show you all more of my apartment. I decided it will never be totally clean, so I´m just going to give you the actual tour instead of the cleaned up version.

This is me in my usual teaching garb. Inlingua is the acadamia I work for and they gave me a sweet bag! I bought this jacket for myself for my birthday, it´s super chulo, I think. And, as always, rockin´the iPod.
This is our kitchen door, which is pretty, so I wanted to show it. But, the actual kitchen really is too messy to show.This is the hallway as you come in the front door. We call the rug sort of thing on the wall to the left "the mop."Moving down the hallway to the left, here´s what you see...
The first two doors on the right are Iñaki and my bathrooms. His is the first, mine is the second. At times we refer to his as his office. On the left side, which you can´t really see, is the door to the first guest room, which is where I have all my teaching stuff and where we do our laundry. Here´s where the mess starts. Really, it´s a utility room, so it can be messy.
This next one is of the actual guest room at the end of the hall. It´s quite cute with twin beds and bright bedspreads, but has becaome our walk-in closet. Don´t worry, if you come visit, it´ll be nice again. We´re still having issues figuring out the huge japanese lantern that covers the light. It reminds me of that one Whit had in her room forever that she bought at a garage sale and probably ended up getting beaten down.Now, here is our room, which I love. It´s usually clean, and is true to form here.The bed´s low to the ground and has the phases of the moon on the headboard. That door leads out onto the terrace which you´ll see in a sec. This next one is of our cool closet on the other side of the room.Here is the fabulous view from our terrace and then a shot that looks back into our room from the terrace...And that´s your virtual tour! I hope it gives you a better idea of where I live. I better run because I need to plan my next lesson with two little 10 year old girls, classes for tomorrow and my practice for this evening with my team. We lost our first game by the way, but only by 122 and wee scored 38! Vast improvement from the 25 to 0 finish at the tournament. Love you all, and send me your updates!

Here I go...

2007-10-01T08:43:00.000-07:00

I had my orientation for my job with the government working as a language assistant today. Things are about to get reallly really busy, but I'm excited. Lots of experience to soak up. I had a tournament with my girls team that I coach last Saturday and that was fun. We lost, but we got to know eachother. We're really pretty terrible at playing basketball, but good at being nice.

Not really anything new is occurring in my life now. And the thing is, now it is an actual life with a real job, so that's why it's getting boring. No time to travel too far, actual responsibility and people who count on me. I guess if that's the definition of life, I'd rather not have one, or at least a little less of one.

I've been sick lately, a cough I can't get rid of and sort of tired. I just can't seem to catch up. I'll have two solid days of sleeping in this weekend, which will be nice. Yeah, really I have nothing else to say. I hope all is well at home. Shout me a holla when you wanna.

In the business of Darby Cave

2007-09-19T00:45:00.000-07:00

Holy wow! I've been trying for the last 6 months to make sure that I could stay in Spain and not worry about being able to feed myself. I've attempted to apply for about a million different legal ways of staying, all of which have fallen through. I decided to go out on my own and drum up some kids who want help with their English and that had started to roll, which was awesome until I was walking down the street Monday morning and was stopped by the boss of an acadamia here that I had interviewed with at the beginning of August. I was listening to my iPod and she literally had to grab me to get my attention. She said, "Darby, it's me Isabel, I think I have a class for you to teach." And we walked over to her office and sure enough, Friday afternoons I was free and could do it. I was pumped. I'd be teaching a class of 6th years and first years, switching off every other Friday. Apparently a visa isn't so important when you really need a teacher.

Then, she called me Tuesday morning and said she had more for me. So, I scooted downtown and we talked some more. She had 2 classes to be given in companies who speak english during work and two individuals who want private lessons with a high level of English. So, I suddenly had 5 jobs with the acadamia and 4 of my own putting me over 1000 Euros a month which is way more than I'd hoped for!

But it doesn't stop there. I got home from my first tutor job, that my pupil did not show up for this morning abd I had received an email about a language assistant job with the government I applied for last week. I can only work 14 hours a week and would be an assistant to a teacher in a classroom of a school in a nearby pueblo. I'd be getting 665 euros a month and this job is more official than the other and I'd be with more kids.

So, now I have a huge decision to make. I don't want to be working too much, but I also don't want to say no to such cool opportunities. I also don't want to cancel on all the private work I've racked up so far. Right now, I'm thinking I'll see if Katie wants to take over some of my day jobs with the acadamia, if they want her and then I can take the job with the government and still do a little of everything else.

Crazy. Any advice you have is welcome. Love you love you love you! And scratch that idea of the plane ticket home as a Christmas gift, I think I'll be able to cover it now!

Fotos finally

2007-09-11T02:14:00.001-07:00

All right, I know some folks would like to see my apartmant. Well, I have 3 snaps of the livingroom, but nothing else, so here they are...

This is the view when you walk in the front door to the right of you. It looks sorta dark, but it's a very bright room actually. Remember it came furnished. And yes momma, the tree came with it, which I need to water by the way.
This is the dining area. If you look at the first picture, you can see the TV in the left corner. Well, to get an idea of space, the TV is right outside of the right side of this photo. We also took down that disgusting painting on the wall and put that vase with the leaves in it in a more central spot against the wall.
And now my blog is acting funny, so this caption is below instead of above... This is the couch that I love so. I use the one on the left as a Gilmore Girls viewing station and I prop the DVD player up in a cubby hole in front of it and stretch out. I use the one on the right as a Sex and the City viewing station and put the laptop on the table in front of me. And yes, that last seat on the right is a chez lounge (sp?) and it reclines!

Behind the orange wall is the kitchen, which is cool too and when you come in the door, if you go left you go down a hall with two bathrooms on the right , a bedroom on the left and two more at the end of the hall. So, plenty of room, come visit!!!

Other than the apartment, I'd like to show you "the tower" that's in my neighborhood. I live in the middle of a bunch of apartment buildings. It's not very pretty, but charming with all the tiny businesses set beneath the homes. This building, in the picture below is called "the tower" here because it's bigger than the rest. It reminds me of Howl's moving Castle with all the rooms jutting out, only supported by beams.And now, a food antecdote. This is our first meal in the apartment...We thought the stove would work, since we just moved in and all. and it started to, but then got lazy and stopped in mid pasta cook. We tried putting some weird bbq spice thing we had on it to distract from the chalky film the pasta left in our mouths, but that only made it worse. So, goodbye pasta. The stove works now, but not the oven.

Another bit on food... Iñaki's Abuela Bene made some flan the other day and sent some over in a jar for me to try. So, at dinnerr that night I split it up onto two plates and was all set to bring it out for dessert. I don't know if you know much about flan, but it's a custard that jiggles a lot and has a very slippery sauce on it. Well, I grabbed the two plates and started to walk out to the livingroom when I heard, "splat!" I looked down and between my feet lay a pile of flan jiggling away and my hand held one empty plate and another about to empty itself. Iñaki just weent all quiet out in the dining room and then fiercly dove for my purse to find my camera as I shrieked no! He hadn't even seen me yet, the noise of flan hitting the floor is so distinct that he knew what happened immediately. I got it cleaned up before he got the pic.

So, a lesson in flan inertia. Since flan is pretty much always in motion, jiggling and andulating, it does not ever want to stop. I can totally respect that as I myself like to shimmy and shake from time to time. Just remember, flan is a bowl food. Sadly, I don't recommend it. The texture is just too raw egg in spit sauce.

Tomorrow is my one year anniversary of living in Spain. I can't believe it's been a year, still. Since I already did a bit of a reflection blog I think this is more of a top 10 moment. So, here are my top 10 need to know items when you come to live in Spain...

10) As previously stated, flan is a bowl food.
9) Spain and Navarra are two highly different things.
8) Learn the difference between "tengo calor" and "estoy caliente" quickly. If you say the first, a gentleman may offer to take your coat, with the second, a not so gentleman may offer to take off your bra.
7) Spanish people are not Mexican.
6) George Clooney's Spanish voice is not as sexy as his own.
5) The words "coño" and "joder" have totally different meanings in Spanish than what we might think if translating them the English literally.
4) If you are asked to dinner, plan on getting home around 5... A.M.
3) Never turn down a dinner invitation because it's the experience of a lifetime.
2) If you smoke already, great, if not you will because of all the second hand you'll be consuming.
1) Sidra does not taste like cider.

A busy few days

2007-09-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

My life in Spanish received a jump these last few days. I helped coach about 80 Spanish children at the club during an end of the summer hoop camp last week. I had to be there for my first day at 9 a.m. I was really dreading it. I didn't want to go, I didn't want to misunderstand, I didn't want to be quiet and shy... all of which seemed inevitable on my walk to the gym. But, it was 150 euros for 5 days of not much work so I couldn't say no.

I trudged to the gym in the haze of not having been up before 10 in a month. The day began slow. Somehow, I feel so see through, so transparent, like they all know I don't understand, but I don't want to ask the questions needed to figure it out. And that was just the coaches meeting. The funny thing is, once the kids started coming in, I felt better. I could communicate with them and felt more comfortable and they seemed more patient with my Spanish and explained words to me when I asked and we had a great time together!

By the time the week was done two girls and I had become quite good friends and one even came to give me a hug. It was hard being around so many kids for 5 days, 7 hours a day, but I made it and the best part was the boost in confidence and a bit of fluency that it gave my Spanish. I could see in the kids faces that they thought I knew how to speak Spanish. Sometimes I get skeptical looks from adults and people my own age and it makes me second guess myself. But the kids just came right up and talked to me and weren't confused when i answered them, which must mean I speak alright. So, a good week.

I also got to go out 2 fridays ago with Kakun and Maria from my team. It was great! They came over and we hung out for a while and it was the first time I'd had actual conversations with them. I talked all night long, not even a wisp of a wallflower in me. I know I'll still have shy days and uncomfortable situations, but I'm getting more comfortable around more people and that's the key I think.

We had a game last Tuesday that we lost, blech and one on saturday that we won, yay! Em went home on Tuesday, sniff, sob, but Katie came to take her place and we've been having fun times.

It was Irene's birthday last week, which lasted from Thursday to Saturday, which reminded me of my birthday that usually lasts around a week and a half in the states. We had various dinners and went out on Friday night to a huge cena at which I slurpped flan, which I guess is how you eat it the first time. Fredo, the American on Iñaki's team and Katie came out too and it was great. We danced the night away and chatted with all Irene's friends. I had a game Saturday, so maybe not the smartest decision to go out, ut it's preseason and Irene's birthday, so I had to do as she asked right?

On Sunday Iñaki's team had a game that they ended up losing, but it was against a team from two levels above them and they hung with them at least through the 3rd quarter. I guess there's a picture of Katie and I cheering in the paper today, so I'll have to check that out.

Still tons of stuff on the job front. I have my first official english client for Wednesdays, 10 euros an hour. I still have my au pair work. I might be taking care of Iñaki's cousins for about 2 hours in the morning and getting them off to school for another little chunk of change. I have an interview and a school in Zizur to monitor a session of art or something during their recess where they speak english and then coach a little girls hoops team for 45 minutes. All this will go from like 1-3, which is great. It's a super catholic school and super not connected to needing a visa. I'm currently coaching a team at the club of 14 year old girls who are really sweet. We had 2 practices last week, but I think I have to quit for now because my afternoons are too full. Finally, there's some job I can get with the government through Iosu that I just have to register as a foreigner for and then I can lecture in english at various schools around Pamplona, I think. This is also in the morning, which is great.

Ideally, I'll get to take care of the kids in the a.m., go do a lecture and be home by 1 to go to the school in ziizur for monitoring, be able to cut back on au pairing and then have a few more english clients and maybe form a class or two. We'll see, because the only thing that's been ideal so far is my sweet apartment.

As you can see, I've been a tad busy. I had a rather homesick day thursday, so that sucked, but I was good by Friday. Basically still chugging along and trying to get into a routine. Sorry for the lack of story and Darb-voice in this blog, I'm just trying to get the update out. I hope all ks well back home. Love love love you!

Nacho, not just a cheesy chip

2007-08-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Hi folks.

Well, nothing fantabulous has happened lately, just stress and hoping that all this will work out.

I'm on the road to success, I think. I have an au pair job for the afternoons, chatting with 3 boys: Javi (11), Alvaro (9) and Nacho (5). Their mom, Helena, is about the coolest lady, now that Catherine is gone, in Spain. Sometimes, we just sit and chat for an hour or so while the kids do their own thing. They all speak English and have spent the year in London, so thye have British accents, which is adorable, for the kids that is.

The other day, Alvaro and Javi and I were at the park and I warned them of some dog poop in the grass. Alvaro immediately ran right through it, on accident. I laughed and told him what he did. Javi turned around and said to me, just like Harry Potter or someone, "Oh, don't mind him, Alvaro's a great poo-steppah." It was hilarious.

That day, we also had a soccer ball juggling contest and played on the playground. I earned instant respect as I juggled the ball over 15 times in a row. The boys' faces were amazed and Alvaro kept sying, "wow." I guess their just not used to athletic girls. But really, I felt they respected me the minute I met them. It was a whole different feeling with the last 2. Alexis was fine, but obviously not obediant and Louise was nice in a way that screamed manipulation. The Matas, my new family, get mad at each other, but don't hit so much or whine at me, they solve it themselves. And my job isn't to solve arguments, it's just to talk. Helena intervenes if the kids are acting up.

Nacho, the littlest, is my fave, I must be honest. He gets a little whiney sometimes, but it's easy to make him stop. And sometimes he just gets this wicked little smile on his face and starts poking Javi, who won't hit him because he's protecting his little brother and Nacho knows just how much he can get away with. Or, sometimes, when I'm playing with the older two, Nacho will just go in his room and start singing softly to himself and do a puzzle or take the scooter and ride up and down the smooth hardwood floors. He's just fun.

Other than the Matas, I've got some pupils to teach English to on Wednesdays and I'm going to coach at a basketball camp this week, starting tomorrow... in spanish! We'll see how it goes. Hopefully all the kids will fall madly in love with me and want me to teach them english all year. There are also a couple coaching opportunities for the year that might work out

Oh, and Helena is a huge Sex and the City fan and has every episode, which she let me borrow! She's so generous. Yesterday she gave me some medicine just becasue she thinks it's a good one and that I should have it if I need it. She used to be a sports nutritionist and worked in the ER so has been giving me tips on what to eat and drink during all the hard practices.

I guess that's all I've got for now. I hope all is well back home.

Getting the bread

2007-08-21T03:50:00.000-07:00

Bread in Spain is not just bread. Iñaki often makes the distinction between the soft baguette style that is most common here and the sliced flat bread from the U.S. that is most common at home, as "our bread" and "your bread". The bread in Spain is more delicious, no doubt. It is eaten with every meal and dipped in anything from coffee, to thick, warm chocolate pudding, to oil and vinegar. It can be a meal, a dessert, a snack, you name it. It's also used in place of a knife here while eating. You scoop the tiny bits left on your plate onto your fork with a chunk of bread rather than a utensil and then take a bite of chunk where drags or juices from the meal have been left. However, you can't use a whole piece of bread to do this. You rip a piece from your slice and set the rest alongside your plate to be used later once you've exhausted the first part. To top it all off, I've been instructed to eat my eggs a certain way with the bread. You can't simply cut the egg with a fork and eat it, but you must poke it with the edge of your bread and let the yoke run a bit and then continue to break it up with the bread and scoop it on top and take a bite. It is a wonderful bite.

I've only been to get the bread twice and today was my second time. My first, if we're talking new pueblo bread retrieving. The first official day I got bread was a Sunday. Iñaki and I were making breakfast, at noon, and we only had old bread. So, I went to the nearest open bakery, because most are closed Sunday, and fetched a loaf of bread and a Sunday paper. Isn't that enchanting? I just loved it. The little bakery was on a corner in downtown Pamplona and had low lighting with baskets and baskets of various breads lining the walls from floor to ceiling. It was cool inside and a nice break from the heat outside. I lined up behind a few folks and waited my turn, said, "I'd like one of those," pointing at one of the baskets and grabbed a paper as well. They wrapped up my loaf of bread lovingly in a little piece of wax paper and I paid and walked out, trying my best to master the phrase "hasta luego" which still comes out garbled every time.

I remember feeling so Spanish because of this tiny ritual. It's what everyone does each morning, unless they have theirs delivered, which many of the smaller pueblos do. In Tajonar, our neighbors and Emily's family have a long thin bread bag that they hang on their door and each morning when Em gets up, she opens the front door and there's a fresh loaf waiting for her to be used that day, like milk in 1950s America. Charming.

Today´s bread getting felt a bit different, and for some reason, wonderful. It's pouring down rain today and I wanted a little coffee to cozy things up a touch. I've only tried the coffee at two of the little bakeries here in Zizur and the one right across the plaza from us is better because it uses better milk. So, I grabbed a book, strapped on a hat and hustled across the plaza with some change from the money cup for bread and a spot of joe. It's the first time I've been in the bakery and it's quite cute. It has the bread lining the walls, like most, and a case of pastries in front with lots of little treats on the counter that I'm sure kids beg their moms for each time they enter. There's a little counter to take a quick coffee at or a few tables along the wall if you want a snack or something.

A little lady with died red hair, no color that could be natural, and a man who looked tan and lived in stood behind the counter chatting with customers. The man was a bit more serious and straightened up as soon as I walked in. He said, "hola, dime," and I asked for my cup of coffee and sat at the granite counter on a rickety stool waiting for it. I opened up my book and started reading and he just set the coffee in front of me quietly, so not to disturb. I read a few pages of "In these girls, hope is a muscle," and sipped, secretly scanning the surroundings.

A little boy was sitting at a table to my right all by himself. He couldn't have been more than 7 years old. He had a small bag of chips in front of him and sat in the chair, on his own feet so he could be at the proper height to use the table. He lazily nibbled his snack and looked around at people. When he finished the chips, he walked over to the counter and sat a few stools away from me. Maybe he was a grandchild to one of the people who worked there.

A lady sat in front of the little boy's table, at the next table. I couldn't see what she was eating, but she had the paper all spread out in front of her and was focused on reading. No one bothered her with questions like, "can I get you anything else." A man sat at the opposite end of the counter from me, drinking a coffee as well. The red haired, round lady walked over to chat with him from behind the counter and the man sort of seemed to be waiting for this. As they talked, I realized he couldn't really. His voice was so hoarse and crusty it came out like a forced whisper. The man behind the counter took fresh loaves of bread from the oven and placed them in the baskets, as the lady and the customer talked.

I finished my coffee and stepped to the register and asked for my bread, "una chapata integral, por favor," ("a loaf of wheat bread please"). The man rushed to get it and wrapped it in the little piece of paper, taping it closed. The lady rung me up and gave me my change, with a large, genuine smile on her face. I tucked my bread under one arm, my book under the other and headed for the door, saying, "hasta luego," as I went, still attempting to master it. The man said the same as I headed back out into the rain and tip-toed across the plaza so not to get my pants wet.

I made contact in Zizur! I talked effectively with the people in the cafe and will hopefully go back and make my face one of the regulars and get to know the shop keepers and maybe be sitting there the next time an American wanders in and nervously sits at the counter with a book and surveys the scene. This is the advice Kev gave me when I left, to make myself a regular at a cafe and read a lot. So, here comes year two, and hopefully I'll take his advice and got get the bread every day.

The whole experience, which may seem small and silly to some, cost me one walk in the rain and a euro eighty for my coffee and bread. I'm not sure what we're having for lunch yet, but I know there will be bread involved.

Keep them doggies rollin'

2007-08-16T02:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I've done it. I'm out of the Rigault household completely. I thought I had until the 24th, but Catherine came to me and said, on Monday, that I had til Wednesday because they're just going to stay in France. This is good on one hand because I was really done with those kids. But, it's also a bit said and gives me a little pang in my chest thinking that it's over and my life is once again changing pretty dramatically.

Yesterday, after pilfering as much food, toilet paper and small appliances as I could, I walked around the house and wrote the kids a couple of notes. It was really nice to hear from Catherine that she thinks Alexis, especially, will really miss me. She said the other day he said to her, "Mom, why do you give Darby the afternoons off? I want to play and you never play with me. She always plays with me." But, at the same time, I think he thinks of me like the kid in "Toy" thinks of Richard Pryor in the beginning. We did have a lot of fun though. The other day we played two on one against Iñaki and we wore uniforms and had a team name and everything. We won, needless to say. Alexis even gave me a little guidance with his eyes sometimes, looking at the place he wanted me to cut to. It was great. I'll miss him.

Louise on the other hand, I will miss some of the moments we had together, but she's 12 folks. She manipulates every chance she gets, doesn't want to do anything but be on the internet or watch movies, which she's not allowed during the week, so it's a constant battle. But, we did have some great shopping trips together. She just needs to be with her friends more and have a bit more freedom. I think she'll really grow a lot in London this year.

Catherine was amazing this year. She really is a wonder woman. She does her job at the store and never comes home in a bad mood. She's always ready with hugs and kisses for the kids and just makes the whole house feel like it functions. She helped me with so much and gave me free time when I needed it and was fabulous. A one of a kind person that you don't meet often in life and I'm glad to know her.

I will not miss all the French cheese, the chocolate drawer, the ice cream stuffed freezer or everything being cooked in oil.

I'm really excited about the new apartment. The furniture is so cool and I'll post pictures as soon as we're all moved in. My camera struggles to keep enough battery power, otherwise I'd have pics for you today. We've got 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, fully furnished and awesome kitchen and a terrace on the back big enough for a table and 6 chairs I'd say. We're on the 4th floor. We're 2 blocks away from the club where I play basketball and Iñaki coaches and it's great. Iñaki just got a job assistant coaching with another team that's semi-pro here in Pamplona and they have 2 Americans coming. They fly in this Saturday and Iñaki is supposed to act as a translator. I can't wait to meet them! One is from New Orleans and the other I'm not sure, but he went to Lafayette.

As far as me, mentally goes, I feel unsure, but pretty good. I can't believe the changes and adventures and ups and downs this year has brought me. I've been homesick, I've met lots of new people, I've grieved, I've learned a new language and continue to, I've played hoops, I've been to San Fermin, I learned how to drive a stick shift, I've learned some Spanish cuisine and I travelled a ton. The ups were really up and the downs were super down, but all in all, I'm happy here. I don't know if I could have said that my last year in Portland. And through all of this, I don't really feel like my insides, like the person I was and am has changed. In reality, I don't think I've changed much on the inside my whole life. My basic Darby essence has stayed intact since birth. But, I really thought this experience would change who I am and I don't think it did much. I realized what I'm capable of and that if I can move half way across the world alone, than I can do lots more. But my favorite places and people are still in Oregon. I like the fact that I still feel like me though. I guess it just means I like who I am and I think that's a good thing. Maybe I like myself too much sometimes, but don't we all?

Now, for the unknown... in one of my last conversations with Dave, I said to him, "I don't know what I'm going to do next, but I feel free." He told me he knew that's why I needed to be in Spain and following my heart. He said that was always one of my big issues back in Portland, I felt stuck, but not with any direction to go in, so I stayed stuck and it weighed on me. He said that statement, that I felt free, gave him a lot of peace of mind and it made me feel wonderful that he recognized that and pointed it out to me so I could realize the amount of good this trip to Spain has actually done me.

So, I'm trying to continue to feel free, but it's hard when I don't have a job or know for sure what will be in the months to come. I know that if this was the case last year, I'd be home right now. It wouldn't even be a question. It might just be stupid of me to try, but I'm gonna give it a shot and see if I can make it. If not, the worst thing that happens is I go home and get a job and plan my next move.

Here we go again, Darb's big adventure, part two! Hopefully I'll see you all at Christmas, and not before. We get tons of time off here for Christmas, so it should be a good long stay at home. And, just so you know, I have no Christmas list this year, just pool together and get me a flight home!

Love you!

Sunflowers!

2007-08-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

So, the other night... I'm not sure that I mentioned the 11 p.m. picnic yet? Well, Iñaki, Luis and I had one. We were driving around in the dark with all our food, tummies growling and my headlights flashed on a patch of sunflowers. Iñaki said they have them all over the place in Pamplona and I couldn't wait to see them in the daylight.

The other day I was running what I like to call, "the Tajo T" which consists of an old trail into someone's field of overgrown grass across the way from our house. Well, just as I passed the tall trees at the edge of the field, Taj Mahal's "Corinna" came on my iPod (which I love) and I looked to the left and saw a huge field of sunflowers staring back at me. I can't even describe the feeling. It was about 8, so the sun was on it's way to the horizon and the field seemed to go on forever and sparkle, yellow and green in the late evening rays. I felt like I just walked onto a the Walker plantation in the Ya Ya Sisterhood. The dad ends up turning up all his tobacco in that book and planting sunflowers.

So, for my next run, I went a bit earlier and then came back to the house for my camera so I could get some pics before the sun set. Here's what I saw...

In this one, I am commencing the run out to the T, working so hard.

Now I am pretending to be Maximus in Gladiator.

The beginning of the T and a hint of the sunny yellowness to come just past the trees.

My first view of the beauties.

I'm just so happy to be near so much brightness. I think I get that from Dad.
Many sunny returns!

San Fermin de Mayo

2007-07-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

The 14th of July is still a bit of a blur for me. It was a big day. I met Iñaki's family on his Dad's side, woke up at 5:30 a.m., and it was the last day of San Fermin. We laughed, we cried, we ate, we drank... we ate and drank some more. My body was stretched to it's limit of being tired, and then some. I found out just how much food I can actually eat before feeling like passing out (didn't think it was possible). I haven't sweat that much since Oregon City Basketball Camp, during which we played 5 games a day. I have never felt more disgustingly dirty, like I could actually sleep comfortably standing up, or out of place in my whole life... I have to come back next year!

Like I said, the day began at 5:30 a.m. The events of the day might best be described in a timeline format in fact. Iñaki, Irene and I headed down town from the Mayo abode at 6:15. We found a good parking spot and had a short walk to the square in front of the government building (where all the pictures of the crowds were taken in my previous blog). "La Pamplonesa" one of the official San Fermin bands begins the day with a little walk down one of the streets in old town while people dance all around them calling out which number song to play. The songs don't really have numbers, but there are 4 and everyone thinks they know which is which, but they don't and it's just a bunch of chaos until they start a new song and everyone pretends like that's the one they asked for. It begins at 6:45 a.m. and it's called "Las Dianas." We met up with Iñaki's dad Paco, Mikel, Aunt Pilar, her friend Gracia and Irene's main squeeze, Dani at about 6:30.

The band let it rip at 6:45 sharp and we all danced down the street next to it. It was a pretty great way to start the morning. Really, there are bands walking through the streets each day and all the time during San Fermin. It's pretty cool. Everywhere you turn you could end up in your own personal parade.

After Las Dianas came a bit of awkwardness. We walked back to Eduardo's apartment to catch the Encierro (Running of the Bulls) at 8 a.m. Iñaki's Dad is a little intimidating to me and speaks Spanish quite quickly and always looks you right in the eye and was on the board at the basketball club and is all official so I sort of shied away from much contact with him at first. I talked with Pilar and Gracia a bit, but all my small talk had dried up by the time we were on the balcony at Eduardo's and still had a half hour before the run. Irene, Iñaki and Paco, went to go buy churros while the rest of us hung out in the apartment. It's traditional to eat churros for breakfast during San Fermin and there's a specific churreria that everyone goes to and they sell them fresh by the bagful.

When the churros arrived, we chowed down and took a swig or two off the Brugal bottle (it's just San Fermin, I swear!). At one point, I turned around from out on the balcony and saw Paco back in the apartment leaning with his back against the kitchen counter with the bottle in two hands, head tilted back and pouring it into his mouth like a man needing water in the desert. It was quite a sight.

We passed the rest of the pre-run out on the two balconies just watching the crowd, my nerves running too high to understand or speak a word in anything other than a thick American accent. So, I held tight to Mikel who took pity on me and busted out some English. He kept telling me to go down and run. He said he'd come with me if he could just be a few feet ahead of me. Ha ha ha.

As we stood watching a song began to rise from below and I looked down and made eye contact with a group of young, strapping, Spanish runners who seemed to be serenading me. At first I thought, oh, that's kind of fun, so I focused in and listened to what they were saying. Spain seems to have so many jovial songs, I thought it might be familiar. As I strained my ear and leaned forward, they only got louder. After a few verses, the chorus became quite clear... "Hey brunette girl, show us your boobs."

I'm sure as soon as I noticed what they were saying, realization flooded my face and I hoped none of the family had heard as I tried to duck back into the apartment discreetly. But, it was too late. Irene started yelling at me from the next balcony over, "Darby, they're singing to you!" I just sort of shook my head nervously, like I didn't understand and, as Irene's a brunette as well, with much bigger jugs than mine, I acted like they must be talking to her and snuck back into the livingroom.

Yet, once I did so, I felt a bit disappointed in myself. Afterall, it was San Fermin. It was my move and I folded. So, I went back out, stuck my chest out, completely clothed of course, and the songs started up a little later. I wagged my finger at them and smiled sweetly. As they were letting the crowd break and spread a bit, I acted like I was going to do it... and then let them all run away without showing a thing. I was satisfied with it anyway. You may think this little antecdote is self absorbed. Really, though, all the men during San Fermin want to see boobs and they don't care who's, it's just like Mardi Gras. I just happened to be the one who got the song that time.

Moving on... by 8:30 we had finished watching the bulls, a spectacular view once again. One of my favorite moments was Dani yelling at the T.V. announcers about a strong opinion he had on how the Encierro had gone. He´s always got an opinion and was fighting the whole room on what he thought. It was hilarious. Next, it was decided that churros were not enough to suffice our tummies. We headed out to find a bar for breakfast, the whole group. We were seated outside at a long table about a half an hour later, after some walking and ordered eggs and chistezorra (chistorra to Spain, chistezorra to me) and wine and bread and yum yum yum.

As we sat and ate, I was getting tired and full and not understanding at all. Irene and Iñaki kept trying to talk to me but my brain was as fried as the egg on my plate and I felt like an idiot because Iñaki kept having to translate. Dani was sitting across from me during a great moment where my head was swivelling back and forth trying to catch a few words. All the sudden he just started giggling and I turned to see he was staring straight at me. He spoke to me and I understood my first clear Spanish words all day, "You're trying but you just don't understand." It was great, he totally got how I was feeling. It was like he summed up my morning in one statement. I'm glad he at least saw my effort : )

Irene, Mikel and Dani had been up all night so they left for some rest after breakfast and it was down to me, Pilar, Gracia, Iñaki and Paco by 10 a.m. Paco decided, hey, it's time for more churros. Feeling stuffed, I said no thanks, but we went to the churreria and stood in line to get them. Do, duh, do, I twittled my thumbs and stood around and didn't talk much. We got into the churreria after about 20 minutes and it was pretty cool. They had pictures up all over the walls of past groups of churro makers from San Fermines gone by. I think it's only open this time of year actually, but I'm not sure. They had little samples to take from a round little old lady before you bought your big bag and scuffled out the door as the next customers squished in. It was a neat pinch of history. It just goes to show how deeply rooted and historical San Fermin is here. The churro place even has a past. I bet you Hemmingway got a churro there!

With our second bag of churros in tow, we strolled over to the Plaza del Castillo. When I politely (I thought politely at least) refused a churro, as I thought it might make me hurl, Paco said to me, in my second phrase successfully understood in Spanish of the day, "Darby, we eat here." So, I said fine and Paco then pulled them away from me. As Bogey said best, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Anyway, I ended up eating the damn churro and could barely walk when we got to a bar in the plaza and sat down for some beers and rum with lemon. This was at 11 o´clock a.m. Wow. I was sitting there getting a little buzz on and my nerves were finally letting loose when a direct question was posed to me by Paco. I sort of understood, sort of didn't. I don't even remember what it was really, but we got into a tiny chat I guess, with Iñaki as an interpreter when needed. Apparently a lot of jokes were being thrown at me and I was missing every one of them. I guess at some point, I was told later, that Paco said, "The U.S... I like the country, but the people, not so much." He then asked me if I understood and I said yes, smiling like an idiot, but I guess I hadn't. Pilar got the point across to me after this that I was going to have to carry a lot on my back as the day went on, meaning a lot of horse poo was going to be flung my way, so watch out.

That's when I put my game face on and got ready for the long haul. Number one, it was affirmed that we were going to be together all day whether I liked it or not. Number two, I was getting braver by the second. Number 3, I have a blog, so I always get the last laugh ; ) So, I grabbed Iñaki's rum and lemon, drank more of it than he did and laced up my gloves.

Sadly, the rest of this tale will have to come later on. My butt hurts from sitting at the compy for so long and I need a run.

P.S. did you know we have huge fields of sunflowers here? They are amazing! I'll get a picture and blog that soon too. Speaking of pics, I forgot my camera on the 14th, so all I have is from that night out. Those will be up in the next blog. Or maybe not. I'm at about noon and I have to cover until 5:30 the next morning, so we'll see, possibly 2 more entries. Still to come are events like the huge family lunch, U.S.A. being chanted at me frequently, getting dowsed with rum and coke, meeting up with Luis and screaming for joy at the sight of a familiar face... the list goes on. Love to all!

San Fermines... bwa!!!

2007-07-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

While walking through the streets of old town Pamplona one Saturday night, the unmistakable scent of urine wafted up into my nostrils. I immediately said to Iñaki, "ew gross, someone peed outside." He turned to me, breathed in, and smiled with his eyes closed pensively replying, "mmm, San Fermines. That smell gives me goosebumps." I said, "what?!? Gross, what's wrong with you?" He said, "Darby, you'll understand this July."

And now, I do. San Fermines is crazy, amazing, nothing like anything in the whole world, and yes, the streets smell like pee... and it's great! Before I arrived in Pamplona, I knew San Fermines as the running of the bulls. I thought the bulls ran one time, people got hurt, and that was it. I was really wrong. It's actually a 9 day long party that begins on July 6th and ends on the 14th and the bulls run every day and there are bull fights every day. The way Iñaki explained it to me was that Pamplona is quite a conservative city. People dress in a particular manner, eat meals at the right times, get enough rest, give cordial hellos and the like. San Fermines is the one week of the year where everyone goes crazy and does all their "sinning" in one foul swoop. Here's some more info.

The whole town is into it. You see grandparents out in the street drunk and singing, teenagers with arms interlocked dancing all over and families trudging through all of it. And, everyone, I mean EVERYONE is dressed in white with the red scarf at the neck and waist. You go to the grocery store, and everyone is in the San Fermines outfit, you walk down the street and there it is, you knock on someone's door and they will be wearing it when they answer. The city is completely into it. It's like it doesn't matter if other people can't see you not wearing it, San Fermin can!

My San Fermin began slowly and I only experienced sort of a mini one this year. That was fine with me as I was so jet lagged all week. I returned to Pamplona on Tuesday and went to sleep. All of the plazas, there are numerous, have various events each night and I rested up to catch a couple concerts that night. I'm not sure when I woke up, but I was downtown in time for the fireworks at 11 pm with Iñaki and his cousin, the brother of Nanes, also known as Mikel. Really though, I have to give two snaps and a twist to Mikel because he kicks ass as a person. He's hilarious and we were best friends from the start.

So, we caught the fireworks in the park, which were so close that the debree fell on our heads as we looked up at them. We met up with Irene and Sergio afterwards and hit up the Mateo Parker concert in the Plaza del Castillo. It was packed with people. We headed over to another plaza and checked out a cuban piano player as well, who I can't remember the name of, but it was sweet. I got home pretty early, around 4 I think, and slept until like 3 Wednesday afternoon. I was so tired.

On Wednesday night we went out to this all city inclusive parade called Struendo. During the year in San Sebastian they have a pretty serious and talented drum procession that comes with a certain holiday. It starts at midnight there and goes for a weekend, ending at another midnight, I think. During San Fermines, Pamplona has a drum procession that begins at 11:59, to make fun of the one in San Sebastian sort of, and anyone can come and bang their drums and just make noise in general. So, Iñaki and I took Irene her huge bass drum that her dad had given her that looked pretty official and I took a tiny drum that hangs around your neck on a chord and used pens as sticks. So Irene and I marched down the street with the huge group and Iñaki followed with his purple kazoo. A bunch of TV people stopped Irene because she had such a huge drum, so I just stood behind her and smiled awkwardly. We only walked down one street but it took nearly a half an hour. We left the crowd at that point and hit up the apartment.

I forgot to tell you all about the apartment... Iñaki's friend Eduardo has an apartment right in downtown Pamplona, on the street where the bulls run. He was out of town during the week so he gave the key to Iñaki so we could use it to eat, go to the bathroom, or watch the bulls. It was great!

So, we went to the apartment, made some rum and cokes and hit the town. The streets were jam packed, like the night before. There were people from all over the world and everyone is your best friend. Iñaki had to work the next day, so he went home and Irene and I went out. We just found a bar and hung out and danced the night away. A group of guys found out I was American and started squirting me with a squirt gun, but I took over, fought them for it and won! Mwuah ha ha ha!!

By about 6 I was all danced out and went back to the apartment to get a couple hours rest before the Encierro, running of the bulls, at 8. Irene was a trooper and stayed out all night and met me back at the apartment at about 7:30 and woke me up so I could watch. She had the TV on and was out on the balcony and said, "Darby venga, puedes dormir cuando estás muerta (you can sleep when you're dead)" or something like that. Forgetting I had taken my pants off to get into bed, I walked out on the balcony in my white tank, scarf and white undies, oops. There was a huge crowd, but I ran back in before anyone saw too much, I think. It doesn't really matter anyway because there's lots of "freedom" during the week as far as wearing clothes goes, so I was pretty well covered.

Anyhow, pants entact, I went out on the balcony again and it was amazing. The government building was right there and the street was packed with people either running or watching. We just stood there and gazed in awe. A horn sounds at 8 am and the run starts! First the 6 stronger bulls and then, a few minutes later, the weaker ones. It was crazy. We saw a guy get hit right in front of the apartment. I didn't realize how bad it was until we saw the gorings on the news a few minutes later. Yikes.

We searched different news channels after the run to find more info and saw ourselves on TV from the night before! Irene was in front with her big drum and I was right next to her with my teeny one banging away, it was hilarious. We locked up the apartment and took a leisurely walk and bus ride home and I got back to Tajonar around 10 am. I didn't get to sleep until around 11:30 because I was still all wired. I had to rest for the next two days to prepare for the final day of San Fermines, Saturday the 14th, which is a whole blog for itself. Here are some pictures from the big she-bang thus far in your blog experience...

The opening of San Fermines on the 6th in front of the goverment building. This is a view from the balcony of the apartment. People are packed in and just waiting for the government to say, "ok, now you can party."

This is how it looks for the running of the bulls. They just put fences up and about 15 minutes before 8 they let the crowd spread out a little more than this.
This is me getting dressed for my first night of San Fermin.
This is (left to right) me, Mikel, Irene (half covered by Iñaki), Iñaki and Sergio just after the fireworks on Tuesday. We were in this big carnival game area they had set up walking to the Plaza del Castillo.
This is Irene and I at the cuban pianist concert. Don't worry, that was a communal cup, not just mine ; )

This is Irene being interviewed one of many times about her drum during the midnight music parade, El Struendo.
This is Irene and I carrying our drums to the apartment. As you can see, mine was a tiny.
This was the huge drum that lead the procession and Irene made friends with the guy who guarded it, so we got to take pictures like we were going to hit it, but we weren't really allowed to. Anyway, here's mine.So, that's it until later when I will tell you all about my amazing last day of San Fermines which was enough to last me the year. Here are some more pictures you can view from one of the papers here. Check back for more!

oh what a week!

2007-07-21T05:48:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I've been a busy bee over here in Spain the last two weeks. Last week was San Fermines (the running of the bulls) and this week I've been with the kids during the day and job and apartment hunting. Yes, there has been downtime to blog, but I've been using it to catch up on my sleep.

So, this isn't going to be a spectacular post just yet, but some pics from the wedding and a few comments. The San Fermines blog is coming and it will be crazy.

I had so much fun while I was home! Thanks to everyone for all the hugs and hellos. It's making me a little homesick now to think of it. Anyhow, here are some of my favorite pictures from the wedding week. Most of you know who everyone is, so I'll just post them for your viewing and add captions if I deem necessary...

We actually look sort of alike in that one, huh Whit? Maybe it's just the same skin tint that does it.

These next few I like to call my "rosey phase" similar to Picasso's "blue phase." However, where Picasso was depressed during his blue phase, I was just a little drunk during my rosey phase, and rosey cheeked, so all the pictures have me in them next to someone as I'm holding the camera out to take the snap... it's all Darby, all the time.
My mom's so pretty!
The morning after...
This is not my best face, but Pa Pete looked so cute I just had to put it.What a great week! I think my favorite part was that we were all together all the time. Mom and Dad came out with us after all the events of the wedding and I got to talk to and get to know some of Kev's best friends from high school who I never had before. It's tough being Kevin Cave's little sister... but a little sister all grown up is a pretty good deal.

I've had a couple strong pangs of miss-age the last couple days. I was telling mom how I was watching The Big Lebowski, in English, and it made me miss home. Just watching a movie in English did it to me, and the movie has nothing to do with Oregon. I wish I could be on the Sandy River and go swimming and have BBQs and go on runs and lay out in the sun and kick it with my friends.

But, I still love my life here too. San Fermines was amazing and I had a conversation with a girl from my team in Spanish the other day who I normally can't even understand so I feel like I'm improving. Last night Luis, Iñaki and I went on a picnic. We took a wrong turn and didn't end up sitting down to eat until like 11 and wound up back in my pueblo, Tajonar. It was pitch black out by then, and cold. I just kept laughing as we ate because of the situation. Cars would drive by and there we were on the side of the road at a stone table eating rice salad and an 8/10 tortilla.

The point is, I miss home, but I am actually feeling more comfortable here as far as life goes. Before, it was so awesome and everything was new and then for a while it was just hard to understand and speak and I was being so quiet in group situations. Now, maybe not tomorrow, but now, I know that I can talk if I want and be understood and understand if I ask questions and focus (how many times have I said that in this blog...?). It's a good feeling. I had a job interview, in Spanish, the other day, and I understood pretty much and answered back. But, I'm not that great yet. As Eduardo and Pilar always say to me, poco a poco.

Send me some updates from home when you have time. Miss and love you!

Home stretch

2007-06-21T00:13:00.001-07:00

Wow, I'll be getting on a plane home in 3 days. I can't believe how quickly it's gone by.

It's strange, I'm really excited, but a little stressed to be back home again. I have lots of packing to do of course and I want to make sure I see everyone and do everything while I'm there.

I just dropped Iñaki off to catch the bus for his hoop camp this week. So, I have 3 days that will be filled with the kids and scrambling to get things together. At the same time, I wish I were leaving tomorrow. The 3 days wait, especially with the kids off of school, could be a bit of a torture.

It's interesting to think about what I've gone through to get to this point. I remember having to run away from Mom and Whit at the airport so I wouldn't break down and cry when I left on September 12th. I also remember feeling quite free as I was all alone waiting to board the plane. I was starting my adventure and it was just me.

I remember arriving in Bilbao after a bunch of flight delays and taking much longer than I should have and seeing Catherine standing outside the exit doors waiting for me in one of her smart suits. I just walked right up and gave her a hug. She's so tiny.

We got to the house at around 4 am and I just hit the sack but I couldn't sleep because it was all so strange. All the sudden I had a new home, but I didn't know where to take a shower or who my new family was yet.

The 5 or so days I had with Alicia were a huge help. She showed me everything and introduced me to people and my head wouldn't stop spinning and I couldn't imagine how I would remember all of it, but somehow, I did.

Learning the stick shift was my first big accomplishment here. Now I try to apply that experience to learning the language. I just have to keep trying and eventually it will work.

I remember meeting Lourdes for the first time and how she was so sweet, but we could barely speak. She helped me find my team and it was quite exciting to go see them play for the first time and get bothered by Iosu for the first time. I went back and met the coaches after the game and Iosu tried to speak to me in english and he introduced Iñaki and Iñaki said, "Pleased to meet you," in perfect accent and form. I remember feeling so relieved. He says my face just sort of lit up at that moment, like "thank God, a little help!"

From there everything just started rolling and suddenly I had a busy life... a busy life in Spain! I never expected it. I thought I would be in my room reading and writing a lot but as it turned out, I have been able to experience everything and have made a rule to try not to say no to invitations out or to do things with people and it's worked pretty well.

I've felt more stupid, awkward, nervous, frantic and strange here than at any other point in my life, but for some reason, I love it here. Granted, if certain people, or a certain person, hadn't come into my life, I don't know how well off I'd be. Maybe I'd be sitting here telling you about how I'd finished my 3rd childrens book of the year and am moving on to a novel. Though that would be great in its own right, I'm glad that is not at all the news I have to tell.

I'll see all of your sweet faces in a few days! I can't wait to hug and kiss you all and just sit down and chat for a while.

An ode to Dad

2007-06-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

My Dad is the best. Just like my Mom. But, I suppose many people feel that way about their parents.

One of my fave memories I have of my Dad was during college when we'd go to the Hoop together and lift weights or run and wait for a court to open. As soon as one cleared out, we'd go down and play one on one full court to like 40 or some unheard of number. He always beat me. I'd always get out of control and yell and get mad and he'd just calmly hit threes in my face. Then we'd go get a Jamba Juice. I can't remember feeling more tired and satisfied than on those days. I earned my afternoons in the sun.

One day we actually had a good game going and I may have even been ahead. I'm not sure what prompted it, but near the end of the game he got all pissed and actually yelled! I loved it, because I knew he must have been really pissed.

He sort of has a game face for life really. He never shows his emotions or gives you his opinion unless you ask for it. I admire this a lot because I can't really stop what I'm feeling from coming out on my face or in what I say. Dad always has things in perspective.

Anyhow, there's much more to him than that. He's so silly and does things like salmon dances and "pree G" and the tip toe touch down and cheerleader signals to me in the middle of bball games and gives speeches on ruffage to my little league team. Like some cheeses, he's really gotten better with age. Though he's got a great game face, sometimes he has bursts of enthusiasm and will put a sock hat on in the shape of a peter pan cap and twirl around the living room. I can't help but laugh when we're hanging out.

I love how we talk so easily. Not like hard things are easy to talk about, but when we're on the phone together I feel like we sort of slur and have an easy twang. It's strange, as I've lived in Portland all my life and shouldn't have this, but it comes out.

I think it's pretty sweet that my Dad has been at the same job for over 30 years. I know it's not his favorite thing to do, but it's allowed me to have everything I need and want. Also, he starts his day at 6. This could be becuase of the east coast market opening at that time, but it made it so he could be at home with us in the afternoon. Being in Spain with a family that has a Dad that can't be around much has really made me appreciate that my Dad was there and coached me and played with me and we did things together.

I love how he loves being with me and our family as much as we love being with him. Going over to Gramps' for BBQs with my whole family is about the best thing I've ever experienced. We just chat and laugh and watch games on TV and it's great. I can just tell that Dad loves it just as much.

I used to be so happy to see him after he came home from work during summers in college. I'd just try to be weird and make him laugh. He always would. One of our favorite things to do is hold our arms at our sides and flex our stomachs and punch eachother in the gut until we can't take it anymore. He can always take what I dish out but I'm usually out in one punch with a big, hhhuuuuhhh, outlet of breath. It's great. I love you Daddy-o! Happy F Day!

Farmer's breakfast

2007-06-09T10:17:00.000-07:00

On our way to London, Iñaki was reading a little brochure/map that Patrick had given us. One of the things it recommended we do is take the Farmer's breakfast challange. This seemed odd to me as England is not known for having very tastey food. The brochure said that some places will let you eat for free if you can finish it all. We didn't run across any offers like this and felt a little jipped out of getting the full London experience. So, this morning, we took our own Farmer's breakfast challange and just made everything the brochure said and ate it.

The meal consisted of two fried eggs, two sausage, two bacons, two pancakes, baked beans, a tomato slice and a flat mushroom (whatever that is, we just sauteed some mushrooms). You also had to drink a cup of coffee and an orange juice and wipe it all up with some toast. Here's our re-creation.
The challange wasn't as hard as it seemed. Iñaki finished way before I did and said, "easy." He also ate an extra piece of toast, because I skipped mine. We figured it was a team effort. I was going to eat an extra tomato to make up for it, but forgot, oops. Here is the aftermath.
And here is the aftermath, as it effected my girlish figure.Don't worry, this was a one time thing. See you soon!

Do you see what I see?

2007-06-07T01:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know I've dropped a few photos from London in here and there, so now I'm going to release the hounds and show you all my faves. It's a big place.

Where to begin, where to begin?... Ah, yes, on the ride to the airport. Iñaki drove, I took pictures. I think this one's funny because it looks like the last photo they might find on his camera at the site of a car crash.

This is a shot of Portobello Road, my favorite part of London. It's a huge open air market that probably runs for 30 blocks in the Notting Hill neighborhood. They have lots of antiques and t-shirts and original clothing. I almost bought another cape there, but went for a little red jacket instead.

Here are some glimpses at Hyde Park. On the lake...

Iñaki and I in Hyde Park. I think he looks like a manican and my nostrils are huge, which is an issue I had throughout the whole trip, large nostrils in pics.

Here's one of the Peter Pan Statue.

I just like this one of a sign, so I'm sharing.

Now, from the Westminster neighborhood, here's Westminster Abbey. It was already closed when we got there, so we couldn't go in and see all the cool tombs. I guess they Have Isaac Newton and Darwin in there.

And right next to this is Big Ben. I was singing "England Swings" by Roger Miller the whole time I was in this area. See and listen here. I especially like the strange girls in the background with the leotards in the video. Thank you for letting me know that song exsists Dad and Whit. If you ever get the chance, ask my Dad to sing it to you. You just can't beat his rendition. Anyhow, here's Big Ben.

Here's one of Winston Churchill looking oddly similar to Jaba the Hut.

Buckingham Palace.

Tower of London. This houses the crown jewels, oooooh.

Next I have a bridge comparison. The first one I saw was the Tower Bridge. It's pretty cool.

So, from here, we went in search of the London Bridge, which must be so amazing if this is only the Tower Bridge, right? Here is what we found.Can you see it? That's it, right in the middle of the photo. The only thing distinguishing it were the words "London Bridge" carved into the side. I suppose it really must have fallen down (yuck, yuck, yuck!).

Here's a snap of Saint Paul's Cathedral.

Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was next. Or, at least the replica. It made me feel so "Shakespeare in Love." I'm not a big fan of his actual works, but the films of today that represent them are always pretty good.

The typical American I am, I had to have this one.

At the end of this street we found a pretty sweet restaurant, check out the name, of course, we didn't eat there.If there are two things that go together, it's Texas and London... not! Texas and Paris, maybe.

We had a big English meal on our last night in London. Iñaki had the fish and chips and I had the cottage pie. It was yummy. The only thing that gave us a little pause, was that on the menu, the fish and chips had a sign next to them that said, "improved!" But, Iñaki ate it and didn't have issues.

After dinner, we visited the big finale. Well, at least it was the big finale for me. Are you a Harry Potter fan? Well, I am. And guess what? It's real...

On our way back home we had checked in at the airport and checked our bags. I happen to have a bright orangish-yellow suitcase and as we were sitting at our gate Iñaki says to me, "hey Darb, take a look out the window, can you see your suitcase?" It was sorta funny. Pic...

And here we are, all tuckered out. We came, we saw, we Londoned.

And now, a story. Each day we'd walk down to the Tube station and get our day pass and go through the gate. Each day we'd have to take the "lift" down to the train and each day an automated voice would tell us, "the doors are closing, please do not obstruct the door." Well, Iñaki really took a liking to this phrase and started immitating it each time we got in the elevator. Each time, he'd get a little louder and sound a little more Wizard of Oz. By the end, I think his line was, "Pleeeez, DO NOT STROPKT Thuh DOOOOE!"

I said, "Iñaki, what was that word in the middle, stropkt?" He said, "yes, I was trying to make it sound stronger." I said, "you can't just make up words in english just to make them sound stronger." He goes, "yes I can." So, everyone, FYI, stropkt, is now a word and it means the same thing as obstruct, but it's stronger. Iñaki, I wouldn't go on another vacation to London sintigo!

I'll be home in like 3 weeks, crazy! I'm getting so anxious. Luvins!

Tate Modern Crappola

2007-06-06T02:42:00.000-07:00

One of our stops on our trip to London was the Tate Modern Museum. Some of it was really cool and we had the chance to see some famous stuff... Picasso, Warhol and a Kandinski. My friend Stelz loves her some Kandinski. We actually had a painting of his on our wall during our senior year of college. In fact, I saw that painting in person and it was hung differently than we had it, 180 degrees to the left. The funny thing is, it was a poster and had a caption beneath it, so the poster people were way off! Anyhow, Iñaki and I, at the risk of being chewed out by a guard, took a picture of it and ran, just for Lauren...

One of the cool parts of the Tate Modern was the restaurant at the top. It was 7 floors up, right on the Thames River and you could see all of London and just sit and have a juice for a minute. Here is the view, lots of construction...

We started at the top and cruised down through actually. All the museums in London are free. By the time we got to Duchamp's "Fountain", we knew it was time to go, take a look. I'm pretty sure we saw something similar at the Whitney in NY and that was our cue to get the hell outta dodge there as well.

We needed a little pick me up before leaving, so we stopped in the coffee shop downstairs for an iced latte. They didn't have an iced latte on the menu, but they did have just a regular latte. I had been doing all the talking since english is my native language and all. I went up to the guy at the counter and said, "can you make an iced latte?" He just shook his head no and I turned to iñaki and shrugged. Iñaki turned back to the guy and said, "can you make a latte and then put it in a cup of ice?" The guy's face sort of lit up and he said, "sure we can do that."... what? Isn't that what I just asked for? Hello, McFly, is anybody in there? I think Luis said it best... the fog in London does something to effect the British brain.

Sorry for the quicky, but I have to run. More to come later on.

A word on London

2007-06-04T10:09:00.000-07:00

So, surprise, I went to London this last weekend! It was great. Pictures are to come tomorrow, but for now a few choice moments that I can't resist to share, in order.

When I first got off the plane in London, I split from Iñaki to get in the very short non-EU line and make my little declaration. As I waited, I picked up on a cell phone conversation occurring behind me. A man in a leather jacket, white colared, shirt, sunglasses and Italian leather boots, blathered into the receiver...

"Hi, it's me, I just landed and thought I'd check in and see what's going on in your world... yes, I'm about an hour late... I have a headache and I need a glass of merlot, but I'm fine, just fine... So, I was thinking about something and I just wanted to run it by you. Why are we using, "it puts the 'zing' in amazing"? I mean, I read it in the times too, but I don't even know what that means... mm hmm... yeah, I know, but what DOES that even mean? I mean, it's like we're just using words here. Can you tell me what that means? And, "putting the 'gin' in original"? What is that? I mean, what is that really? It doesn't say anything to me. It brings no image to my mind, sends no message. I mean, why are we really doing this anyway?... we need to remind ourselves why I think... ok, yes... well you do that and then you get back to me... mm hmm, bye bye."

And click, the convo was over and he walked through the gate. I thought he was some kind of play director or something. It was like watching the Isaac Mizerahi show in real life. Someone who thought that what was at the center of his world was at the center of everyone's.

I relayed the conversation to Iñaki afterwards and as we were riding an escalator up from the underground later, we saw it... a poster for the show, "The Drowsey Chaperone." And right there, in large yellow letters on a red background, gleamed the words, "putting the gin in original." I couldn't believe it. We saw them all over the tube stations after that and laughed each time.

Uff, I'm tired now and I'll share more tomorrow. Just know that there is a real platform 9 3/4 and I've been there and it really does put the zing in amazing.

Streatball

2007-05-28T02:18:00.000-07:00

This weekend I got to play in a 3 on 3 tournament in the Plaza Del Castillo called "Streetball." They had half of the plaza blocked up and 3 short courts with 6 hoops set up. It was so fun! A ton of folks from the club in Zizur were there, but I played with Irene's team. We actually went 2-3, but ended up getting 4th place. I guess you can win money and fabulous prizes if you finish in the top 3 spots and we almost had 3rd place. Next year.

I took a tumble in our second game. I was cutting across the key and got pushed, I guess. I didn't really feel it but everyone keeps telling me I should have fought the girl. Mostly I was just embarrassed and laughing. I have a sweet battle wound though. We won that game, heh heh heh. Some action shots... This was our 3rd/4th place game and here, I was cutting outside to hit a 3 I guess. I'm not sure why.

Here I'm posting up against Anna, from the regionales in Zizur. She promised me beforehand that she'd be hitting me the whole time. What do you think... a foul? Not in Spain it's not.

In this one, our little guard from my team in Zizur, Patri, is carrying the ball. What a rip off! I know she's only tiny, but I think I'll push her on Monday at the scrimmage.

So, we finished 4th, but still got trophies. Here I am going up to receive mine and kiss the president of Navarra's basketball federation. I was cold, so I needed the hat. This is actually my orphan look. When Iñaki saw it, he said, "oh look, a little orphan going up to kiss the president." Ha ha ha! Really though, it's a big orphan, not a little one.

As we inspected our trophies after receiving them, we noticed something strange... "streetball" was spelled "streatball." It just makes the trophy that much cooler in my opinion. Here's me with my team after the big finish... Me in the upper left then Maria, then Laura, Irene in the red sweatshirt and Christina to the left of her. Christina played with us in the morning, but felt pretty sick, so her twin sister, Maria played with us in the afternoon. Double trouble.

Irene and Laura and I went out after to celebrate. Irene brought her trophy, which resulted in at least 2 shots being bought for us.

But, don't worry, the shots here are more often just sweet liqueurs than hard A. We poured some of our drinks into the cup and took sips too. It was a fun time. I didn't want to stya out too late though, because Alexis had his communion on Sunday, so I headed home early. I met up with the ringer team that won the whole tourney on my walk out of the bar and chatted for a second. Nice girls, just too tall : ) Hugs hugs hugs! I'm going to see you all in less than a month, ahhhhhhhhhhh!

A series

2007-05-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

I finally have all the pictures from my trip, yay! Now I just have to adjust all the ones I want to show you... but first, here's a funny series of pics I found of me and Whit just before diving into the surf in Conil (I think that's where we were)...

We discover the Yucca plant and can't quite decide what to do with it. It looks like I've decided to poke it and Whitney is bracing me in case something poisonous shoots out...

Next, I've actually touched it and Whit moves in to inspect it a bit more closely...

Here, I think I've actually extracted some type of liquid from the spine and am doing various tests like smelling, tasting, etc. Whitney is still fascinated as am I...

Fianlly, we discover we are being watched...

A few more pictures that I think would go nicely in this blog... This is a picture of the beach in Conil. The one sunny afternoon we had and Whit and I took advantage by jumping in the waves for a while.

This is a picture of me that Whit and I both liked, but I think Iñaki was a bit grossed out by it. I put my clothes on over my swimming suit and it looked like I peed my pants. If Steph is reading this, I hope she knows this is an ode to peebutt.

This is a snail we met on the way home from the beach. I ended up picking him up, but realized that probably bothered him, so I put him back down. He just sort of rolled over and laid there for a while, poor fella.

Not much more to blog on I spose. Alexis' communion is this weekend, so we're having a big bash on Sunday. Oh, on Saturday I'm playing in a "streetball" 3 on 3 tourney in the Plaza del Castillo. I looooooove 3 on 3, so I'm really pumped. Plus, I find it hilarious that it's in the Plaza because it's such a touristy spot and all "old Pamplona" and I sort of feel like streetball is not what it was meant for. I mean, it has a gazebo. But, it's gonna be really fun. Last night I ate some really awesome food that GPJ would be proud of. Two fried eggs (which I will have to learn the technique for because they are different from home and delicious), two sausages, 3 slices of pork, tomatoe sauce and fries. Mmmmmmmmm. It's still sticking to my ribs as I write.

The actual dinner conversation was a little rough on me though. There are times when I understand and times when I don't. I understood enough last night, but I kept saying what, or huh and felt like an idiot. I dunno, writing about it now makes it seem like I was all twisted up for no reason. After all, I should just tell people to slow down a tad, but dumb old pride gets in the way and before I know it, I'm on autopilot and nodding and smiling when I don't know what to ask. I started thinking about dinner at Shari's or Red Robin with college buddies and how everything just flowed and I could talk and be funny and laugh at jokes and the fact that I was speaking in English never even crossed my mind.

But, I know I can speak and communicate and get the important parts when I need to. I wish I'd push myself a little harder though. It's my experience and I'll only get out what I put in. I'm putting in, but maybe I want to put more in. I want to be able to chat, not just speak.

Sorry, I guess that was a bit of a downer, but don't worry, I still feel happy. I'm starting to work on getting a visa for next year and find out if I can teach english here so send me good vibes as it's a lengthy process! Love you!

Tided over

2007-05-23T04:29:00.001-07:00

This entry is really mostly for aunt dona, but I thought it was funny, so I'm posting.

Last night I realized I still have the need to be tided over... I had plans to go get kebabs with Iñaki after work but we were having sidra sausage for dinner so I had some of that and some salad and an apple sauce. Catherine asked me why I wasn't eating very much and I said that I was going to eat later and she sort of laughed nervously like, "you´re having two dinners big girl?"

Just two hours later I had a full kebab to myself. Without that little "snack" beforehand, I'm sure I couldn't have held out until the kebab and may have fainted or passed out.

So, aunt Dona, Kelly and whoever else is concerned about how I'm eating, don't worry, as always, I'm well fed.

Giving the Sur a once over

2007-05-22T05:19:00.000-07:00

Over Semana Santa, basically spring break here, I headed south to find the sun, a tan and a few mojitos. Alas, all I found was a drizzle and a lot of walking. Though I wasn´t prepared for a huge site seeing vacation, it was good to see things and places in other parts of Spain.

I had some company on this trip...

Kim "The Real" McCoy and Whit "The Weige" Cave

Iñaki "Shiny happy person" Mayo

Iñigo "I don´t know your last name, sorry buddy"

Darby "Colleen" Cave

Because, of course, I am always good company when I'm with myself.

Kim and I began our journey from Pamplona during the wee hours of the morning on April 5th. We drove 11 hours, I think, to meet Iñaki and Iñigo in Gibralter that evening. We got settled in and hit the town. After some dinner, etc., part of the town´s easter week "celebration" began. These celebrations aren´t really celebrations at all, but long slow parades that trudge through the streets carrying large statues of Jesus on the cross that really creep me out. They are most famous in Seville and there is a lot of crying involved and sadness. Sort of a downer.

Whit was supposed to meet up with us, but there were complications with trains and she didn't get south until two days into the trip. During this time we checked out a really cool castle, that I still don't have pictures of because my email was too full to receive them and a town that I forget the name of but is perched on the top of a canyon and is quite gorgeous. Pictures to come.

We picked up Whitty at the train station on day 3 and started perusing various beach towns in search of sun. No such luck. We finished up in Cadiz or Conil on Whit's first night, I can't remember which one and it was actually a pretty nice day out. Whit and I dragged Iñaki down to the beach to jump in the waves for a few, even though it was pretty cold. We had to test it out, plus we're from Oregon, and if you couldn't handle the cold water, you'd never have gotten to swim when you were little. Those pictures are also to come. And possibly some video.

In the morning we drove to Seville. When we arrived, I realized I'd have to go back. It was purdy. Every building looks like a palace and from a different country. They've got an awesome cathedral and the river runs right through the center. The bull ring is a neat site to see as well. We met up with Whitney's old teammate, Lauren Surber, and her sister for lunch, found a hostel and just wandered around for the rest of the evening. We got sort of lost trying to pick up Whit's bag at Surbs' hotel, so that took up a big chunk of the evening, but, we got to walk around and see a lot in doing so! (positive spin)

Kim, Iñigo and Iñaki headed off or to do their own things the next day and Whit and I took a 9 hour bus ride to Valencia. Yikes stripes. We wanted a girly vacation with beach sitting, shopping and relaxing. But, more rain and clouds. When we got in, Whitney's current teammate, Segrin's, fiancee picked us up at the bus station and deposited us at a chinese restaurant with Segrin and Tina, another of Whit's teammates. Israel, the fiancee, is from Valencia and they were in town making wedding plans. Tina goes to school there. Israel looked into our hostel situation as we ate. Come to find out, our hostel was like an hour outside of the city! The website had a miss-print, so we didn't have to pay and cancelled. Israel found us a really cheap place with a private bathroom right downtown, so we booked it. We just got up when we pleased, wandered around each day, and came home when we wanted. Here are some pics (finally)...

This is the market we went to every morning to get dried fruit and nuts and fresh fruit and magdelenas (lemon muffins) to keep us full until dinner. It was right across from our hostel and so cheap.
The cathedral and views from the top...

This is a shot of the old city gate on one side... or maybe just a cool arch. Whit and I were just sort of our own tour guides...

Our second night in Valencia their soccer team was playing a huge match at home so we walked down to the stadium. All the bars were packed and they all had flatscreens outside broadcasting the game and people were sitting in the streets watching. Everytime something good happened we could hear the stadium erupt with shrieks and then the street dwellers would follow. Whit and I meant to find Tina and hang with her this night, but we couldn't find her. We were supposed to meet her at the burger king, but were at the wrong one. Weird. So, we parked it at a table outside, had a beer and watched the match. It was so fun!

Me being a tree... can you tell which one is the tree?

Valencia used to have a river running through the middle of it, just like all big cities. Now, they just have a river bed they dug out to create a park that runs the length of the city. It's quite a neat thing. They have soccer fields, baseball fields, playgrounds, fountains, green areas, all throughout. Whit and I walked through it one day...

This sign made us think of Mindy and perhaps J. Scott. They actually put projectile poop on there...The park ends at the City of Arts and Sciences which is a cool group of 3 or 4 buildings that are sort of a glorified OMSI. There's the oceanographic, an IMAX, the city of sciences and the opera house. The oceanographic was cool because they had belugas and a neato dolphin show but the city of sciences was a little lame. As I said to Whitney way too many times because I thought I was funnier than I am, "ok, enough of this diarama crap."

The buildings were actually quite interesting to see, very star wars helmet...

Here's a shot of Whitney inside the City of Science in this weird skeleton area we found behind a curtain that lights up when you enter. Of course, I was a little scared and didn't want to stand by it...

On our last day in V-town we headed over to the beach and The America's Cup, which turned out to be less than active, but it was nice to see the boats I spose...

I love that they have the little blue and white tents on the beach in Valencia like in a Goofy cartoon. I've never seen that in real life.

I had such fun with Whitty just hanging out for 4 days and it was interesting being on vacay before that with 5 people who know eachother at various levels. What a lucky girl I am. Whit finally got her girly vacation on her birthday, which I believe she spent in Nice, France. I'll leave you with this picture she took on her big day, I just love it...

I wish you all pink toes, rocky beaches and crystal blue seas!

Surprise, surprise

2007-05-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

Grandma Billie has a book that we loved to read when we were little called "Surprise, Surprise." That has nothing to do with this blog, but I just remembered it as I typed it.

Anyhow, on Thursday afternoon we were all outside playing PIG: Alexis, Louise and I. Alexis was kicking butt as usual and Louise was struggling to keep up. She has one great shot from the middle of the yard straight on that she always makes, so she uses it often. Usually she just gets frustrated and starts trash talking to Alexis after he gets the hang of her one and only shot. But on Thursday, she asked me if we could do an hour basketball lesson a day because she wanted to improve. I said sure, in a bit of shock that she'd actually take that initiative and disbelief that she would follow through.

But, today on our ride home in the car, she said, "wanna do the basketball thing today." Once again, I said sure. I was so excited that she was actually still thinking about it and pumped to do it. We only had a few minutes, but I taught her bounce passes, chest passes and the BEEF formation. Her shot's not actually that bad. With some work, I think she'll be fine. She kept messing up a little and saying, "oh, see, I'm terrible." I just answered, "Louise, we don't have to do this, it's up to you." So, we continued to play. It was amazing how she lit up when I told her good job and nice work. I've never seen her actually want to practice something before, it's great.

Still, she ruined it a bit... in the car on the way home from picking ip Alexis, she told him how her shot is now better than his. I've gotta get that part of her personality to go away! But, she's 12, what can you do?

My Mamá

2007-05-13T04:37:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day Mom!

I don't know about all of you out there, but I think my mom's pretty cool. Actually, I do know what you all think, because I am told often how cool my mom is.

She's one of the smartest ladies I know. Whenever I have a question, I go to her first and she always gives me 10,000 options on how to answer it or how to solve a problem. Then, I'll get an email or a call later saying, "well, I was thinking more about what we talked about earlier..." and I'll get a few more tips. I love it.

I love that she knows so much about plants and horticulture and is always changing things around in our yard and making it prettier or more peaceful. She's always doing the same for the house. We went from having carpet in the kitchen to hardwood floors in almost every room, hand done by Miss Laurette Ardel Fullerton Cave.

I love how active she is and all the little projects she always has going on or things to do. She does Yoga and bike rides with dad, she always has some party to go to with the ladies in the office, she took a Spanish class before coming to visit me in Spain... I dunno, she's just always living, not waiting around for something to happen and it's wonderful and pushes me to do the same. As I like to say, she's a doer.

I think some of my favorite moments with my family are from during the summers when I was in college. Whit and I would be home all day doing nothing and then mom would come home from work. She'd swoop in the backdoor and sing in an operetic voice, "hellllloooooooo!" Then she'd shimmy all around making a snack or hanging her things up and I'd sing back, "hiiiii moooooooom!" and come into the kitchen and just chat about her day or my day. Then Whit would mosey in at some point and then dad would get home and everyone would constantly be freaking out a little or doing some weird little dance and we'd all be cracking up just acting stupid and glad to be together I think. And it all started with the little mom opera that walked through the door an hour earlier.

Sometimes I'm in a terrible mood or being a little brat, but she doesn't care, she talks to me anyway. She takes any snide remark I make and doesn't say a word about it and continues to be my mom the next day. She used to put little notes in our lunches from time to time just to say she loved us. In fact, she made my lunch all the way through high school! Now that's love.

She loves to hear all about Spain and is always so supportive and thinks everything I'm doing is neat and cool and encourages me to continue on days when I can't understand Spanish at all.

I think a real testament to her is that often, more so in conversations at home than here because people understand more of what I say, someone would tell me a story and my first response would be, "one time, my mom..." and whatever they had said made me think of something she had done or said. And the response I almost always get is a laugh or a "really?" Not to laugh at her or to question her, more so to chuckle at the amount of joy she's getting out of whatever she's done or said or to note that what she's done is quite interesting or that it's something no one would have guessed.

Not many people can really say this, I think (and I know it sounds cheesy), but my mom really is my friend. She's my mom first, but she's a person that I choose to spend time with and enjoy spending time with more than others. Sitting in a lawn chair in my backyard with my mom and dad in the summer just chatting has got to be one of my favorite things to do in the whole world.

I love you Mamá!

No sé

2007-05-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

I dunno... I haven't blogged in a long time. Let's see how many times I can start a blog entry with that phrase using various terms... Anyhow, not much has happened that is oh so exciting. I'm working on a blog from my vacation last month. We lost another game last weekend but it was followed by a kick ass cena and a night out. Kakun told me before knocking a few back that she speaks english when she's drinking. As we walked over to The Cugar after dinner, the bar we always go to in Zizur, all 3 times I've been there, Kakun busted out some of her best english...

K: "Darby, I am a small person, yes, I am small."
D: "Yes, Kakun, that's true."
K: "And you... you are a big girl."
D: "Thanks Kakun."

And that was about it. But, I was called a big girl by a spanish person who does not speak english much, so this is a huge deal. The big girl title has just passed into a bilingual, bicultural, and international state. With the few words Kakun had, she chose to tell me about my size. I love it!

Not much else has happened lately. We have our last game this weekend which I'm excited about because I'm a little sore these days and there's a bunch of stupid drama on the team right now. After that, I can run run run with the butterflies again!

Oh, yesterday Kim and I went to San Sebastain. She has a friend who works there and drives in every morning at 9. So, we can hitch a ride with her anytime and the bus back only costs 6 euros! So, beach here we come... maybe it'll be an every Thursday thing, weather permiting.

Hmm, has anything else funny happened to me lately...? I don't remember. I'm sort of in a holding state for many aspects of my life right now. I just don't know quite which way to turn or what to do. Then again, I might just be acting a bit lazily. I hope all is well back home and I'll see you all so soon, I can't believe it. Things are going too fast! Muxu bat.

Abuela Darby

2007-04-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

Iñaki gave me a very accurate description of what my Spanish is like the other day and I have to share...

He read my blog and was a little confused about the description of his grandmother so I explained that I just loved her because she was so sweet and has the stereotypical look of what a United Statester like myself might think a Spanish abuela looks like. I felt comfortable around her because she spoke slower and louder and not as much. Iñaki laughed and said, "that´s because you´re like her." I said, "huh?" He explained, "well, she can´t hear and you can´t understand what is going on. So, both of you just sort of sit there and shrug your shoulders and smile a lot when you´re around groups."

I no longer have the Spanish level of a 2-year-old, but that of an 86-year-old abuela. Love it.

Losing effort

2007-04-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

Hiya folks. We had a big game last night. We lost. But it was a good fight. I hate that term "losing effort", don´t you? It´s like you made an effort to lose, not that you made an effort to win and then lost anyway. So, I used it as my title to address it.

The last time we played this team we lost by like 30. I wasn´t playing yet, Pau was gone for some reason and someone else wasn´t there I guess. This time we lost by like 10 I think. It was closer than that though.

This team had 3 girls over 6 feet, and not just a little. One was 6'1" and American, one was 6'2" and a big freak, and one was 6'4" plus about 3 feet worth of arms. What I mean by "a big freak" are those posts who yell all the time and try to get fouls called by talking to the refs and always fall over. I wanted to hit her. The American girl was pretty good, but didn´t play much. I said I´d trash talk her before the game, but I didn´t. After the game was over I said, "good game" to her instead of "muy bien" o algo asi. She turned around really quick all surprised. She´s from the Chicago area she said and I told her I was from Oregon and that was it. Now, I wish I´d have talked to her more and asked how she likes it here and if she was getting paid or going to school or something.

The 6'4" wasn´t a PLU big Johnson type, she was strong. Also a bit of a freak and played some super aggressive defense ala the 3rd grade when you just stick your arms out and sort of trap the girl you´re guarding between them and stare right at her, no idea where the ball is. But, thanks to my experience in the 5th grade against King Elementary School, I kept my head together and just grabbed her arms and threw them away when the refs weren´t looking ; )

We struggled in the first half and caught back up to go into the half only down 5. The thrid quarter was a battle, but we may have still been down 10 or so when we finished it. Maria drove me nuts! She was yelling at everyone to do things and would never take responsibility for the fact that she made a mistake, but justblamed it on someone else. Then, during huddles, she´d yell something and then walk away, like she was disgusted to be on the same team with the rest of us. I wanted to drop kick her to Madrid. Then after all that, as soon as the game ended, she whips out her cell phone and is totally fine. So was that just a big show? Who knows, it´s just nice to vent about things like this sometimes.

Pau was in foul trouble so I got to play a bunch, which I liked. Sara, my favorite guard, and I had a nice little 8 point run together to tighten the game up to 3. No one on the team seems to like her much, but I like her and it´s hard to deny the power of a guard/post connection where you can pass and catch without looking at eachother. It´s inherent I think. Don´t get me wrong, it´s no Fitch lob pass or "money" play, but it´s a good one. I guess I have it a bit with Pui too, but Sara always gets it to me when I´m in a good position. No sé, es especial.

The 8 point run was capped off with a putback that I hit and got fouled on (toot toot on my own horn!). It was the first time I´ve felt really jacked up here. I had to give a teeth clenched, fist pumping, gutterul, "yeah baby" as I walked up to the free throw line, slapping hands way too hard. Anyhow, it was fun even though we lost. Plus, I scored more points than their American after being told, many times, by my coach no less, that I was going to get my ass kicked by her. I didn´t really guard her much, so who knows how the one on one would have gone... whatever, shut it Iñaki!

Sorry, long basketball blog... today I went to Iñaki´s mom´s birthday party, which was also sort of a losing effort. Habla Darb, habla! It was a nice lunch at her house though, with her family. Their grandma is so cute. She looks like a flesh-toned prune, total Strega Nona, and wears long sweaters and polyester skirts that hit below the knee. All her extra wrinkly skin sort of gathers in a puddle at her ankles and spills out above her orthopedic shoes. She´s always doing wonderful things like grabbing my forearm and squeezing it just a little bit or looking at me and smiling or making a little cooing giggle like she´s just glad I´m there. Who knows if she is.

Irene and I did some dancing and singing to the Chicago soundtrack beforehand. It was great, she´s a sass-box.

Really the whole family seems quite nice. They love to talk and just be near eachother, which is nice to be around, but also makes me want to go and just be with my family. I could use a Cave family bbq or and Fullerton family brunch hosted by socialite Ky Ky today. Anyone feel like taking a quick flight over? We could have jamón...

Dori, Iñaki´s mom, has a bunch of siblings, one of which has two little boys, Itor, 5 (sp?) and Jon, 2. Itor is the bomb. He´s always trying to do something a little mischievous. Iñaki and I call him cabroncete, which literally means "tiny bastard". We´ve shortened it to "Tiny B" and it serves as a great nickname. Anyhow, I met Itor for the second time when I came for a visit the other night. Dori had the boys for the evening and I was talking to her as she changed Jon. She said, "this is Jon, and over there is Itor." I turned around and this skinny little blonde boy comes running out of the kitchen with his pants down, flashes me his butt, slaps it, and says, "hola!" and runs back into the kitchen cackling with laughter. It was pretty great.

All right, I need to call everyone at home now and catch up so my heart feels more full. Right now it feels a little dilapidated. I just miss you guys!

Group hug!

Dos Cosas: My first uff and a ponder

2007-04-17T05:46:00.000-07:00

The other day I was sitting down to a super American dinner of crappy pizza and beer and Iñaki asked me some question, I don´t remember what. But, the question perplexed me a tad, so I thought about it for a second and then started my response with the word, "uff..." which is sort of a nonsense word here that has lots of different uses. In this case it meant, "that´s a hard question to answer." Iñaki sat up all straight and opened his eyes wide and said, "wow, you said 'uff'". I had, and it was one of my first. I´d noticed it coming out of my mouth a few times before, but this was the first time someone else noticed.

The truth is, I´ve been wanting uff to be in my vocabulary for so long. Everyone here uses it and it sounds, for lack of a better term, so Spanish. Since I want to be so Spanish, this is a little step for me. I also have the word "oi" in my daily speech now. It´s used sort of like oops, or when someone misses a shot in basketball, the girls say it all deep and long, like "ooooooiiiiiiiii." Mom noticed my oi´s while she was here. She said she thought that must be Spanish too because one of our cab drivers used it. Most often, it comes out when I run into someone accidentally, as I do a lot since I´m so tall, and I say, "oi, perdon." Basically, "oops, scuse me." Anyhow, I´m excited to be saying uff and oi and I´ll keep you abreast to any other Spanish mannerisms I pick up.

Now, a short ponder for you... I was watching a bit of TV today, which I never do, but I need to listen to more Spanish. A commercial came on for a new type of beer that has tea in it. It showed a mom and a baby, like 8 months, at a pool. The mom looks at the baby then takes a big swig of this beer. The next scene is of the mom and the baby swimming together, both underwater and the baby is sort of freely floating in front of the mom. I´m not sure exactly what the tagline was, but something like, "enjoy your time."

Does anyone else think this is a bit of a WTF? I really don´t think mom should be throwing back cold ones while she´s supposed to be watching the baby. Swimming no less! I mean baby had no one to hang on to and mom was just sort of doing her own thing in the pool. Plus, the fact that mom looked at baby and then took a huge drink makes me think she should really get an au pair or be checked out by child services. I mean if the au pair gets hammered, it´s one thing, but mom, no. Jokes, bromas, chistes. Plus, what´s the deal with that tagline? Swimming with the kid is so stressful that it´s totally understandable that you need a few beers beforehand? Ha ha! I just thought it was so funny and such a strange juxtaposition of items.

It´s another pretty day here and I got in another good run. My knee is really sore for some reason, but I just have to run on days like today, so I did. We have a big game this weekend. There´s another American on the other team, la di flippin´da. She´s supposed to be pretty good. As I am not very good at the moment, we´ll see how this all goes down. I really want to win though, hopefully that counts for algo.

Kisses and hugs and love to all!

Bar-ba-qwa

2007-04-16T05:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I attended my first Spanish BBQ, pronounced bar-ba-qwa. It sounds sort of French to me with the "qwa" and all. It was pretty much just like at home but the food was different, and like most things in Spain, it was an all day event. I love that about Spain. The party never has a start and an end, you just get there when you can and stay as long as you like.

I was actually having a bit of a shy reflective day, so hanging out with a bunch of people I didn´t really know didn´t sound too appealing. But, Iñaki gave me a petite pep talk and I went. It was a post-season barbaqwa for Irene´s team and half of them were already there when I arrived. I sort of drifted right back to the corner of people I knew and some guy I didn´t know started talking to me and all I could do was give him a confused look. It did not make me feel very social, I can tell you that much.

Everyone just sort of sat around outside, drank beers and chatted. It was nice, like home. Luis was there and totally rocked my world by speaking english to me. At the same time, I was disappointed in myself for not making him speak Spanish. The big groups are when I have the most trouble because there are so many conversations going on at once and a lot of noise. I guess I have dad´s ears.

The food was really good. Irene brought out a bunch of chips and salads and stuff and the meat was a typical sausage from here, I can´t remember the name, and basically bacon steaks. We just ripped off pieces of a baguette, split them in half, stuffed some meat in and chowed down. Really yummy. At one point, we were passing around a 40 and drinking from it. This is a passtime I´d have loved to participate in at home, but haven´t until coming here. I plan on having a couch on my front porch when I get a house, just for special 40 occassions.

It got sort of cold in the shade, so the English group and Spanish group meshed at one big table in the sun and became the Spanish group. In doing so, I found out that one of the girls on Irene´s team is an English teacher! I think she was just being shy, but she didn´t really want to speak English much. But, if I get a visa, she will be a great contact in the future.

So, everyone just chatted the evening away. I understood some of what was going on, but I had to focus and wrinkle my brow to do so. Everyone must have thought I was having a terrible time or that I was mad or something, but it was just concentration. At one point, one of the player´s baby was sort of the center of attention. She was standing in the middle of a circle of chairs and the adults sitting around her were shouting out words for her to say and yelling, "muy bien," each time she succeeded. I´m guessing she couldn´t have been more than 1 and a half. Super cute too. But, like all tiny moments, it made me think. I was sort of envious of her. I wished I had a bunch of people sitting around me in a circle telling me words and shouting muy bien at me every day. Not bad for the old confianza.

Really, I guess that´s sort of what my team does anyway. They tell me some bad word, or slang term and then I say it and they all laugh. Yep, yesterday, I realized I´m 1 and a half. Just kidding. Actually, I don´t feel terrible about my Spanish, there are just bad moments. I know I need to improve though and I can be doing more.

This is shaping up to be a nice week so far. Getting back into the swing of work and hopefully the nice weather we´re having will hold out so I can run. I went today and almost got bogged down in the mud on top of the hill. I´m sure people could hear my shrieks from kilometers around.

That´s all I got, time to go take a stroll and then recoger mis niños. Kisses and llaves.

cientodoce

2007-04-15T02:46:00.000-07:00

My team scored 112 points last night! It was so fun! Everyone had a hand in it and got to score, everyone got to play a lot and, like mom said, who needs to play defense when you score 112 points? So, we didn´t.

This is just a quick note really. I have an application that needs to be postmarked by tomorrow for a job being an assistant in an english classroom over here next year. I have to send a bunch of things in triplicate and ask mom to mail it for me and lots of things.

Valencia and the rest of the south was a good time. I´ll get some pictures up for you guys when Iñaki and Whit send them to me. Speaking of Whit, today´s her birthday, happy birthday little Whitty!I think she´s either in Florence or Pisa right now. She said her plan was to stay in a nice hotel and treat herself to good things all day long. I told her to blog once to let everyone know how she is, but she hasn´t yet.

I hope all is well back home, see you in 2 and a half months!

Another moment with Alexis

2007-04-03T03:54:00.000-07:00

Last night after dinner Alexis and I went upstairs kind of early. We sat on his bed and lately he likes to just sort of chat with me and tell me a story about someone from school, that always begins, "there was a guy..." So, we´re sitting there and he says, "will you give me a massage?" Immediately, my mind goes into American mode and how that would be not ok in the States. So I said, "um, what do you mean by massage?" (keep in mind, he´s 8. I didn´t even know what a massage was when I was 8). He says, "I lay down on my stomach and you move your hands like this on my back" and he motioned like he was doing a bunch of quick karate chops up and down.

He laid down and tucked his arms under his body and I starting doing the little karate chops. His whole tiny body was moving everytime I hit, but he acted like it was the best thing in the world. It was hilarious. I only did it for about a minute and then he said, "ok, now you lay down and I´ll do it. " So he karate chopped my back and then added some rubs up and down my spine. It was so sweet and weird at teh same time. He wanted a foot massage next and I made him put socks on. It was too funny. Here´s this 8 year old treating a situation that is highly odd for me, with the utmost maturity.

Finally, we read some. Our evenings together get bette all the time.

A lot of stuff

2007-03-31T09:46:00.000-07:00

I´m not even going to apologize for not writing. So much has happened since my last blog. The biggest and saddest is that my first boyfriend/love/best friend that was a boy passed away this month. Of course, anyone who reads this blog knows him as Dave. He was only 28 years old and it is a tragedy. I can´t believe he´s gone, but at the same time, it´s hard to know he is because I haven´t been home yet. My feelings about him and how special he was are too personal to write in a blog, but I will always love him and miss him. Really, I don´t think he´d want me to write anything about him on the net, as he hated it when someone could type his name in google and get a hit, but I had to put something because it would be disrespectful to the time we spent together not to recognize it and let you all know.

Moving on, as he´d have liked... mom and dad and Whit just left from a week long visit with me. We were in Barcelona for a few days and then in Pamplona. I lost my camera just before they came, so Whit has all the pictures on her camera and I forgot to upload them. Mom took a bunch of video too. One of my favorite clips includes dad giving us a spanish lesson. It came up because before they left for Spain from Norway, dad mentioned to Whitney that he knew some spanish and remembered taking it in high school. Whit sort of laughed and said, "oh yeah? Like what?" dad says to her, "cómo está?!" And, it goes on from there.

Whitney and I also discovered that our beds were those adjustable kind with a remote when we went to sleep the first night. We had races with them and pretended to be invalids, which is also on video. We saw so many things! Here are some links for more info and pictures: Park Guell, Sagrada Familia, Mercado Boqueria, The Picasso Museum, all the Olympic stuff... I dunno, links lists are sort of lame. It was a fabulous time though.

When we got home to Pamplona, My French family met my American family and it was all wonderful. Whit and I went to practice together Monday night and left mom and dad to Catherine and her French champagne. My coaches and teammates enjoyed watching me get pissed when she´d kick my ass. Yosu wants Whit to come play here next year so he had a huge talk with us about character and good people and how the club is such a family. He must have pinched my face and grabbed the back of my neck like 5000 times! Don´t touch yoyo!

I took the folks and Whit to San Sebastian on Tuesday and we walked all over in the rain and had pinchos. It was a nice day other than the weather. Tuesday night we went out and had a beer with Kim and Iñaki and played some pool, that was fun. Wednesday was sort a late start and we mostly just shopped around the mall and had lunch. Wednesday night I had a game and everyone got to come! It was so fun and we won big time. Yosu tried to work his magic again by buying mom and Whit a tortilla at halftime and giving Whit a few armpit hugs... didn´t work. On Thursday I went to class and walked the fam all over downtown Pamplona. Mom did some mother of the groom dress shopping and we had lunch at Bar Iruña, which is a cool old one where Hemmingway used to hang. He actually mentions it in The Sun Also Rises. Thursday night we had beers at the Australian bar with alligator stools. Friday morning, it was time to get ready to go. I dropped mom and dad at the bus station at 1. I still don´t know if their travel was seamless. I dropped Whit at the train at 6:30 ish and that was that.

I was a little stressed while they were here and it made me a little grouchy. I hope they had fun even when I wasn´t being so fun. Now that they´re gone, I can´t believe it, too quick. But, it´s good to have some catch up time now.

Next week I´m heading to Cadiz, maybe a day in Sevilla and then on to Valencia, during Semana Santa. I´m hoping for lots of sun and a nice tan by the time I get back.

I hope all is well back home. Give mom and dad a call for a private viewing of our trip on mom´s new camera. Who knows, you may all be getting a DVD of it in the mail, knowing mom and her excitement for new electronic gadgets! Love, love, love you all!

Free at last! Free at last!...

2007-03-04T01:19:00.000-08:00

... Thank God almighty, I´m free at last! I, also, have a dream... anyhow, the kids are gone! I thought these last two weeks would mean more blogging because I couldn´t go out and hang at night, but no. I searched for tickets home in July and did a little research on a trip to Sevilla and Valencia, but that´s it. I had dishes to clean, snacks to make, and kids to take to school in the morning. Catherine called yesterday and said that Max (their older brother) would be taking the kids to France Saturday night for some time togetehr Sunday. I´m so glad I get a surprise day off!

Since this somewhat of a holiday for me, I decided to create the perfect Sunday morning. It all began with a great wake up on my own and feel snuggly morning. I didn´t have to get up, but I could if I wanted to. I was eventually coached out of bed by the sun and went to work in the kitchen. It must be past 10 a.m. for this too work, or it´s too early. Here is the picture of my boons first and an explanation will follow...

First, I attempted to make grandpa Jim´s potatoes, but they´re just not the same without him. I used red onions and yellow potatoes, because that´s all I had. Honestly, anything to do with potatoes, salt and oil, is usually pretty yummy in my book. I also tried to fry an egg, which I´m usually pretty good at, but I didn´t have a clean spatula and was forced to use a cake froster to try and flip. The yoke broke and I wanted it runny, so I just slapped it on my plate really fast. The color is nice though, huh? Grandpa always tells me he married grandma Mary because she can fry an egg better than anyone. I guess I´m out of luck. Next, I made up a new juice. I mixed the rest of the Sanguina with Ruby Breakfast and it was delish. I added a banana and a few handfuls of spinach for luck, and that was my meal.

As the added Oregon State created maraschino cherry on top, I watched a Las Chicas Gilmore, otherwise known as The Gilmore Girls. The sun was shining in the window and it was totally silent in the house except for the girls, me breathing and the soft clink of my fork against my plate. Lovely. Here´s how much I enjoyed it...

Not to put a damper on this highly upbeat blog, but my team lost again last night. Except, this time, we expected to lose. No details necessary, just to tell you we lost.

Right now, I´m in a wonderfully hazy state of knowing I don´t have to pick anyone up or cook any dinner or hear anyone say, "why?" or "can´t you do it?" I´ve got a lasagna luncheon at 2 to say goodbye to our friend Anna who´s heading home to Minnesota for the summer and school. Until then, I´ll be continuing my lovely Sunday with another GG, perhaps a bath, or maybe just some sitting silently time. Love you!

Siete horas

2007-02-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

Hello darlings! We lost our second game in a row tonight. Grrrr. I hate losing. It´s one thing when it´s a hard fought battle, and this was, to an extent. But, it´s another when you could have won. We just couldn´t make things work tonight. No flow on offense and the other team didn´t seem to want to miss many shots. There were moments where we didn´t block out or made stupid fouls or rushed decisions (my hand is up on that last one), but really, it just didn´t feel like we played our game tonight. There were about 6 minutes at the end of the second quarter where we went hard and came back to take the lead before halftime, but we ended losing by 6 or 8. I don´t wanna lose anymore, no fun!

The kids came to the game and Kim and Em and Jessica as well. I had quite a fan club, which was nice. Right after the game, the kids came running up to me and said, "Darby! You lost, ha ha ha!" Aren´t they precious? I think the next time Alexis has a game I´ll go and heckle him or run out and block his shot in the middle of play. Or maybe when Louise has a concert, I´ll bring some really crunchy chips and chew them while she sings or make fart noises with my hand and armpit. Seriously though, it was nice to have them there. I´m glad they got to see me play and at halftime Louise yelled down that I was doing well.

It´s been about a week alone with the kids and I have one more to go. They´ve been pretty good, but it´s draining. I never knew how much it takes out of you to tell someone to do something so many times before they actually do it. Mom, I´m sorry I didn´t rinse and load better or take my basketball bag upstairs like I was supposed to. Kim even asked them if they missed their parents today and they said no. That made me glad because I feel like I´ve been firm this time, but it sounds like they have had enough fun to forget about missing their parents too much.

The Oscars are tonight. How I will miss them! The 5 hours of red carpet interviews and the most important question of the night, "who are you wearing?" Joan and Melissa will be in my heart. Joan is such a bitch about how everyone looks and Melissa tries to be professional, but we all know she´s trashy too. I mean damn ladies, you don´t look so great yourselves. Especially Joan, her clothes always seem to be sagging off like frosting melting off of a cake. I´ll miss all the awards being handed out and the speeches and the happy faces. I hope there´s another Adrian Brody/Halle Barry moment this year, I loved that. Dip kisses are the best! I wish I could have seen more of the films this year, but it´s a small price to pay, since I´m here. I hope I can find some clips on the web. Let me know how it goes if you watch.

I have a blog I want to do on SE Navarra still, sorry it´s taking so long, but I just want to veg in my free time. Wow, I hope I´m not like this when I´m a mom... yikes stripes! Lovins all around.

Sidra: Nothing like cider

2007-02-18T11:01:00.000-08:00

Saturday night we had a basketball game. In Gernika. And no, it does not look anything like this.

I played better, so I feel better about contributing, but we lost. My first loss with this team. One of my secret goals was not to lose a game with this team and have us go undi from the time I could play. Oh well. It was a battle the whole way and really physical. The horn wasn´t working for most of the game and not going off when time ran out. It was 53 to 53 with 3 seconds left and the other team had the ball. A girl shot from the middle of the key and made one, but we have no idea if time had run out or not because the buzzer didn´t go. Lame-osa. Everyone was pretty disappointed. Here´s a blurb about it in Noticias de Navarra. We are Valsay-Ardoi under 1a Femenina on the right hand side. The article´s pretty general, so maybe not worth getting your Spanish speaking friends to translate for you.

The more important part of my night actually came after the game. I went to my first sidreria. It was up on a hilltop, away from most things, near San Sebastian. We had to walk a quarter of a mile to get there because our bus couldn´t make it up the hill. We seemed to be in a neighborhood until the street opened onto a big parking lot with a huge, stucco building in the center. All was quiet until we opened the door and light flooded out on us and the loud clanging of plates on forks and the scraping of chairs on floors greeted us. The inside of the building looked like what I imagine the mead hall in Grendel might: midevil, thick, long, wooden tables and low hung chandeliers; people laughing and hugging everywhere; costumes... the costumes were actually because it´s carnival in many pueblos around here. Anyhow, it was quite the beer hall.

The deal at sidrerias is that you pay a lump sum and get a huge meal and as much sidra as you can drink. I´ve linked to sidra before, but here´s another one to refresh you with some info. It´s basically super fermented apple juice that has a hint of olive juice, to me. But, it´s all apple. Anyhow, our table was right near the door to the sidra room, which is kept there in 20 foot high barrels and given out through a tap that shoots it across the room. Pic time...

These are the huge kegs. It was near the end of the night, so there weren´t many people back there at this point. When we first came in, we had to push and shove our way to the tap. There´s a little man who stands in there working the tap and shoots it out for you when you hold your glass up. Of course, sidra gets in your cup, on your hand and on the floor. If I was more experienced, maybe not my hand.Here´s is one of the sidra flying from the tap into the glass. As you read, it needs this air to be in fine form. I know, it looks like pee. And, I´m not sure what pee tastes like, but this might be close to that flavor. Sadly, it grows on you ; )

The meal was great too! We started off with a bacalao tortilla (basically a fish omlette) and then they brought actual fried bacalao with onions and peppers. The big part of the meal was the chuletón which is just a huge ass steak. We ate two of them between the me and the three other girls sitting near me. So delicious and the soppy was to die for. Here´s a picture of Maria getting the last few pieces of meat off for Leyre (notice: no soppy on the plate because I had already gotten it all!!!)...This next one is my favorite picture of our whole team. At the table clockwise from the left/front: Ruben (ass. coach), Edurne, Leyre, Leyre (there are actually 3, but just 2 here), Anna, Garazi, Iñaki (head coach and king of awesomeness), some girl I don´t know, Patri, Maria, me, Pui (she wasn´t ready for this one...).We had such fun! In the middle of chuletón, some of the costumed folks busted out drums and played drumline music for like a half an hour. We all went up and watched and danced around. Garazi got right in the middle and shook her thang. It was hilarious. By the end of the night Iñaki had her trying to break walnuts on the table with her forehead. I got a shot of that on my phone, but not one for the blog, sorry. But, here´s one of the drumline...

I really want to tell you all more about the night, but I´m afraid I´m going to have to stop here. I´ve been getting too many comments about being the new family drunk. Just know that I think I have a true bond with my team now and it was so much fun to hang out with them all night and get to know them better. I understood a lot of spanish and spoke a lot too. I´m not gonna curse myself by saying it´s so much better but it was a great night. Besos.

Nah much

2007-02-10T04:33:00.000-08:00

Hi fam and friends!

I´m still a little ill and have been resting up most of the week, so my posting still isn´t great. I went to the doctor and they told me to take this drug called "flutox". I´ve been on it for two days and I just feel worse: more stuffed up, achey chest. I was talking with Iñaki today and he informed me that flutox makes it so you have more mucus to clean out your system. So, that´s why I feel worse I guess. Sort of like a flu shot, huh? Well this better work.

I also bought an orange sweatshirt this week. This may seem like small potatoes to you, but when I find something in a shade of orange that I don´t own and it has a hood, I just can´t stop myself. Plus, it fits great and it makes me feel cheerful. I´m wearing it now. Dad, it´s that same color as the Starter one that you have with the pockets in it. You´ll have to bring it when you come and we can orange sweatshirt it together in Darblona. Mine has a joey pocket though and says "Amberton -99-07- Property" on it. This makes it a little extra great because that statement doesn´t really make sense. At home we´d have "Property CCHS" or something, so that´s backwards and who is at a school for 8 years except dum-dums? So, maybe they did it on purpose and it´s a sweatshirt for dumb people who can´t finish high school. I dunno. More research must be done.

I bought a bunch of OJ, some spinach and cough drops yesterday and rented a bunch of movies. Other than my game today, I´ll be here, orange sweatshirt on, drinking OJ, eating spinach, taking shots of flutox and watching flicks. A great day with or without being sick I think. Accept maybe for the flutox. Kisses!

Doo-dads and such

2007-02-05T00:19:00.000-08:00

This weekend it was just the kids and me. Emily was a saint and babysat two nights in a row so I could go to practice and then my game on Saturday in Logroño. We won (yupee!), but I´m still sort of sucking it up. All that talk about me being so good at basketball in Spain is coming back to bite me in the ass. Why must I be so high strung... WHY?! As it turns out, I´m ok at practicing basketball, but not too fabulous playing in the games. Still getting used to things.

A win is a win and I´m so glad we´re doing well. The game in Logroño was interesting. The gym was sooooooo cold. During the 3rd quarter, I looked up and saw some of our players´ breath clouds as they jogged down the court. We started off slow, but got rolling during the second quarter and held the lead for the rest of the game. At one point a girl from the other team went down with an injury (which I probably caused because I always seem to!). It wasn´t funny at the time, but when I think back about it, she was yelling, "mi culo, mi culo!" Which means, "my butt, my butt!" I think she was charlie horsed by a knee yet to be named.

Afterwards we got to go to a huge dinner. As you know, dinner is not just a quick thing over here, we were in the restaurant for almost 2 hours! We had bread with various jámons and pátes followed by a mista (I think) salad, which has tuna, an egg, tomato and white asparagus with some lettuce. It´s yummy. Then some croquettas, which are just fried things. These ones were chorizo, sort of a creamy hush puppy type thing, jámon and cheese and calamari (which, mom and Whit, are better here than at the place we had them in little Italy).

Then came the main course, which was just some type of meat with fries. I had the pork. The girls asked me how to say lomo (pork) in english and I told them. They said I sounded like I was talking with a ball in my mouth. That´s quite an accurate description I think. I sound like I have a ball in my mouth during my "r" pronunciation and they sound like their tongues are made of springs when they pronounce it. It´s so funny, when they immitate what I´m saying, I always sound a little mentally challanged from their perspective. I know they don´t know they´re doing it, but American english does sound quite clunky when you think of all the rolling "r"s and throaty "j"s they´re throwing out over here.

Anyhow, it´s still tough to follow conversations in restaurants, so my dinner was fairly quiet, but nice. Sarah´s 4-year-old sister Elena was there and I got to play with her a little bit, so that was entertaining. Kakun kept trying to get her to say "Hi, how are you?" to me and she did a few times, it was cute. But then she got comfortable with me and started talking to me in full Spanish sentences. A couple times I just had to look at her and smile widely and nod because I had no idea what she had said. How great is that? A 4-year-old would beat me in a Spanish-B. Maybe she could come to practice and we could strap her to my back and she could translate things for me before each play?

I did get to have a short little conversation with Pau, our awesome center who´s only 19 and I can´t tell if she gives a crap if she does well or not sometimes. She´s a sweet girl, but lazy and it drives me insane on the court. Especially because she´s pretty good and if she worked harder in practice, there´s no telling what she could do. But, I dunno, basketball is a whole different game in Pamplona. Hard work in practice might throw her off. Anyway, we just small talked it up. She now knows I have a brother and sister and that I´m an au pair, etc. I found out she´s actually in beauty school right now. I think that is so cool. How fun would it be to do people´s hair and chat all day? And, she´s learning massage techniques as well. I think that would be a fun job, as long as you didn´t get weirdos coming to your massage parlor, which is probably inevitable. Anyhow, I´m getting to know them one player at a time.

The rest of the weekend was spent with the kids. I was more of a hard ass this time and made the kids do the things I told them like loading their dishes and cleaning up after themselves more. Last night Alexis came up to my room, the second night in a row, saying "I had a bad dream, can you help me fix my bed?" I was terrified both times that he´d peed, but no, his covers were just messed up and he´s too small to make his bed back up again. But, last night, he came upstairs twice and the second time he was all shaky and just said, "Darby, I´m scared of something and I don´t know what." I love how he can be so honest sometimes. I made him a little bed next to mine on the floor and he slept upstairs next to me for the rest of the night. He better not get used to it though!

So, not such an exciting weekend as those passed, but that´s how it goes sometimes. I hope all is well back home. I´m thinking of you all everyday. Peace, Love, Darbo.

Make it pink... make it... red?

2007-02-04T12:32:00.000-08:00

I have a question for all you folks who sometimes peruse my blog. What color do you think the fabric in this picture is??? A simple "pink" or "red" will do. Your input is more important than you know... email me: darbycave@yahoo.com

The compliment

2007-02-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

Last night the kids and I were around the dinner table as usual. Catherine was up and about pouring, serving and making sure bellies were being filled. She said something about how the kids had to get their homework done this weekend while she and Patrick are gone. Alexis immediately said, "that means Darby too!" Catherine said, "no Alexis, Darby is an adult." Alexis said, "no, she´s a kid... in her head!"

I answered with, "well, I´m a kid in my heart," but that´s basically what he meant. Not that I have the IQ of a kid, just that I think like one. Adults have commented that I´ve got a "childlikeness" before, but I´ve never heard it from an expert, a kid himself. I´m so glad he thinks of me as one of his own, on his level. I´m in! Just wanted to share... Lovies.

Mascara

2007-02-02T05:17:00.000-08:00

For some reason the mascara here in Spain costs a million and a half dollars a tube. Since it´s pretty much the only makeup I wear, this is quite unfortunate for me. A wise old owl told me it´s because of the brand name... ie: Loreal. "It´s from France!" the makeup knowledgable said. Hmm, Loreal? Not so fancy. It doesn´t have a counter at Nordstrom I don´t think.

Well, here´s a shot of a tube of sooped up Loreal mascara from Spain...

17.25 euros translates to 22.46 dollars. Can you believe that?!? If anyone gets a chance, feel free to send me some sort of volumizing black mascara. I think I got my last tube at Target for like 4 bucks. It´s Loreal too, not this one, but Panoramic Curl.

Anyhow, I had to vent. Pics from my little trip around SE Navarra, I hope to post next week after my weekend alone with the kids, dun, dun, duh!

San Sebastian

2007-02-01T03:00:00.000-08:00

I started writing this last week...

I had a fabulous Sunday. I woke up late after a night out with some of Kim´s government friends. Great folks. I understood so much of the conversation at dinner, I was shocked at myself. And, a gal named Mercedes and I talked about old American movies for a long time... in Spanish baby, yeah. Eres muy buena Darby!

So, Sunday, we headed to San Sebastian and spent the day. They are famous for their pinchos, so we got there around 2:30 and hit the bars. The pinchos, basically fancy little snacks, are laid out across the bars and you just take what you want to eat and tell them how many you had after and pay.

They have two typical drinks there, Chacolí and Sidra. I think the Sidra tastes like olive juice and isn´t terrible. I looooooove the chacolí though. Depending on the pincho you choose, either could be great.

I´m trying to remember all the snacks we had... there were lots of slices of baguette with various fish salads on them, hot peppers with anchovis and olives on a toothpick, hushpuppies stuffed with different meat mixtures, octopus, pork and beef scewers and tiny tiny desserts that came with the tastiest little baked apple thing. It was quite an experience. Here´s a shot of me standing at one of the bars. For some reason I looked faded, but I swear, this time, I wasn´t...

Now, some pictures I took after our bellies were about to pop... this is a gazebo in town that I liked. I think making sure the purple flowers were in the shot really makes it pop, don´t you?

Here are a few of the coastline along the Bay of Biscay...

Gorgeous huh? We caught it on a grey day and I still thought it was beautiful. I´m going back this summer for sure! Here´s a shot of the city´s saint. A huge statue of Hay-soos watching over from a hilltop...

Here´s me fishing with some pros on the beach. Can´t you tell i´ve done this before? Once...

Here´s me again (wow I´m egocentric) in front of a gaggle of boats... can you imagine how pretty it would be in the summer? Well, I´ll let you know when I come back...

These little geisers you see shooting out of the ground are from the sea. There are 7 holes in the stone boardwalk (stone boardwalk, I know) and they sort of give the water a little air and a fun spritz for anyone who walks by at an opportune moment...

We also checked out a men´s professional basketball game. It was neat to see the stadium and the differences between fans here and at home. Here´s a shot from our seats...

This was way before the game even started. It was packed by gametime. It was interesting that Iñaki thought these were terrible seats because at home at a pro game, these are pretty good. I´d say the skill level was about that of a D2 college team, lower level D1.

Sorry this is mostly pictures, but I´m not my usual fast talkin´self with this damn bug in my bod. I hope you enjoyed the slide show anyway.

Alive but not well

2007-01-31T06:06:00.000-08:00

Hi folks!

I´ve been a bit under the weather since Saturday and haven´t felt much like sitting in our cold office and blogging for you, sorry. Now I´m in the computer lab at school, so I´m a bit warmer, but lacking all my pictures to post from San Sebastian.

Hence, I´m writinga note to let you know I am still here, but with a deep cough and runny nose. Alexis was sick last Friday, which is how I caught it. Then, the rest of the family came home from France sick and Alexis was getting better. Louise and Patrick have stayed home for the last two days, yikes. We are a house of ill folks. I feel more tired just being there.

Last week I got my spanish test back and received a 7. It was all because of my past tense conjugation choices, which I´ve been working on and think are getting better, but when I speak it still all goes back to thinking hard and not spitting it out fast enough. But, I feel better about spanish as a whole. I feel like it´s something I will get if I work hard, rather than this big road block in my way.

I took a little tour of SE Navarra with Iñaki and Kim on Saturday. Half way through the chills hit, but I got some pics in I think. OOOhhhh, and, last Thursday we went out to an Arabian restaurant and they had a belly dancer! She was amazing. Luis and Iñaki both got pulled out of the crowd to dance with her, it was hilarious.

We won our game on Sunday night, woo hoo! I scored a little more and feel a bit sheepish for that last blog entry. I just need to keep having fun and let things roll like water off a duck, eh? I´ve got practice tonight and a full weekend with the kids. Emily, the dear, is babysitting for me on Saturday night so I can go to the game.

So, I´m not sure when my next action packed blog will be, I just need to get totally well first. Good luck with the sick season in your neck of the woods. Kisses.

Tempest Storm the math major (ask G.P. Jim)

2007-01-23T04:34:00.000-08:00

I played in my first home game on Saturday and we won, yay! I´m still feeling a little strange in games, but it´s getting better. I think I need to get used to the team and them to me...

Ok, the more fun, less positive version: my team doesn´t like to pass to me during games! And, to be fair, it´s not just me, it´s just the post passing in general isn´t great. Rueck, get over here and do some yelling and make up some odd metaphors on the spot please!

[SIDENOTE: My favorite random Scott Rueck on the spot analogy/rhetorical question was when he asked us: "Do you think Jesus would let you just drive to the hoop if you played him one on one? Do you think he would just let you shoot?... No! Jesus would rip your freakin´ throat out!" Now that´s some motivation baby!]

Anyhow, I was told that my defense and rebounding are really going to help the team. This is a wonderful thing, yes. But seriously, isn´t that sort of an oximoron? My defense? My rebounding? Do I do that? I can equate this to someone watching Pamela Anderson (Rock?) act and saying, "Wow, she must be in this movie because she´s so smart." I always thought the jump hook was really all I had in my pocket. Apparently not. I think this will be a good life lesson for me. I´m still a total black hole in practice, don´t worry. I gotta do what the team needs and for the first time in my life, it´s not really what I want to do. But, I think it´s cool that I get to contribute in a new way. A new adventure.

Also, a classic Darby freak out. We were getting hammered inside and this damn girl wouldn´t get off me. So, a well placed elbow to the breastbone and down she went. Oops, not the right moment as we were the only two in the backcourt at the time... :) I got yanked for that one and grumbled my way to the end of the bench, in english. Can you imagine how strange that must have sounded? It´d be like hearing a chinese player get pissed off in the NBA. Sarah came down to the end of the bench and gave me a little calm down speech that I only understood 3 words of: "tranquila" and "no falta." That means, calm down, don´t foul. That´s when I had a moment... "Darb, you´re in Spain playing basketball... that´s awesome." I was pretty calm after that and hope to remain that way. But, sometimes the frustration crawls up my throat and grabs my chest and wants to bust out of my elbow on someone´s face! Tranquila, darb, tranquila.

Half the girls thought we´d lose the game beforehand and we kicked butt. We were up by 20 or so in the 4th and let them back in at the end, but won by 11 or so. Plus, one of the better teams in the league lost and we are now in 2nd place, sweet!

Afterwards, I grabbed my stuff to head home and shower. Kim and Emily were there and I needed to take Kim home I thought. Everyone else was showering at the gym and Yoyo (what I now like to call Yosu) grabbed my arm and in front of a large crowd of people scolded me for not showering. Which would be fine if I could fling it back, but he was talking in Spanish and I´m not quick enough with it yet! So I basically nodded and agreed that I was a dirty American girl and was on my way. The weirdest things stay with me and bother me sometimes.

So, that´s how it went. I´m looking forward to this weekend´s game and will be interested to see if they only want me for my "mind" again. San Sebastian entry to come soon...

All things white

2007-01-23T04:15:00.000-08:00

No. 1, Snow: Well, today a piece of Portland was sent to me right here in Pamplona, which I am believing more and more are secret sister cities. It snowed! I came down to eat breakfast before my final and there it was, pouring out of the sky like powdered sugar onto french toast. The ground wasn´t cold enough to hold it too well, but it was gorgeous. Here´s the view and a picture of my skylight when I got home from class...Can you believe that I walk out my front door and see this every day? Well, maybe not with snow, but the basics... wow.

I sat beneath it for a little while and felt snowed in. It was so cozy. Yes, I´m a tad strange, but when do most people ever get the opportunity to feel snowed in? Not this Oregonian.

No. 2, test paper: Now, back to my test this morning. I think I did ok. A big chunk of it was writing and I got a good grade on my little two page book report, so I feel ok about it. I don´t want to say good because that could be a jinx. I was wished "mucha mierda" last night ratehr than good luck. This means "much shit." Here´s the reason... back in the day when people rode horses to get to events (not too long ago in the 3rd world : ), people who worked as actors in the theatre would wish each other much shit because when you have a lot of horses parked outside you have a lot of dookie to clean up and a lot of people in the theatre watching. I think this also works in Darbonics because if you do well at something, I might call you "the shit." Don´t you love language!?

No. 3, bleach: I think that I might slowly be getting poisoned to death. Well, not death, but maybe immunity. Our dishwasher sucks and I think it´s leaving traces of bleach on the glasses. I keep tasting it in my water and smelling it when I take a sip. Blech. But, if I ever get bombed by bleach, or am tortured with drops of bleachwater on the tongue or bleachbalm I know I´ll make it.

The Pain and the Great One

2007-01-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

These are the children I live with... or at least, their archetypes.

Memories, in the corner....

2007-01-18T12:20:00.000-08:00

...of this office.

Alexis and Louise got some See´s candy suckers for Christmas. There are 4 types to choose from: Butterscotch, vanilla, chocolate and cafe latte. Every chance I get, I ask for one and the sweeties always oblige. Really I´ve only had 2 or 3.

Today, Alexis gave me a cafe latte, which he doesn´t like, and as soon as I popped it in my mouth it made me think of grandma Mary and grandpa Jim´s house. I thought of watching Rugrats on Sunday mornings or Anne of Green Gables. Fried eggs and their famous toast and potatoes suddenly sat on my tongue. Beads and needles sticking out of the couch and the huge guest bed and watching games in the basement and barbeques and the smell of dove soap in the bathroom all came to me.

I couldn´t figure out why for a minute and then I realized... grandma always had See´s cafe latte hard candies in her candy drawer and I used to eat about 10 every time I´d go over there when I was a wee teen (yes, I watched Rugrats when I was a teenageer, shut up). Isn´t that amazing. A familiar taste in my mouth makes all sorts of memories pop up and a whole time in my life jump to the foreground. A warm and fuzzy for sure. There´s something to be said for conditioning. Now, how can I use that on the kids... ; )

1st cooking class

2007-01-18T03:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was my first cooking class at CitiCan with Kim. Well, it was not what I was expecting. My ideal was I´d walk in to a bunch of squaty, loud, busty older Spanish mamas and a ton of cooking stations with food for us to work with and long chats to (attempt) have. Wrong, oh, wrong.

We´re in a basement kitchen, all white tiles and a large stainless steel cooking station in front of a few rows of desks... yes, desks. Our fancy, but sweet, chef Antonio, stands in front with a tall chef hat on and tells us about what he´s cooking, how to cook it and gives tips on how to cut things. For example, yesterday he told us not to hold a sandwich while you cut it because you might cut through it and into your palm. Big flippin´duh Tony! At the end, we get the recipe and get to taste the food.

Kim and I spent part of the time listening and part of the time discussing trips we want to plan to Morocco and London. The food was good, but not all typically Spanish or anything. Antonio kept trying to get these beans to cook and they just weren´t right for him. I said, open a can and heat the beans up in a pan! (not actually out loud, just in my brain) But, he had to add things and use a fancy pot that took 2 hours. Well, it was almost time to go and he was getting so frustrated with these beans. He grabbed the pot hastily and it tipped all over the stove and the bean goo flew everywhere.

Well, he was in the right place... immediately, two Spanish mamas jumped out of their seats and went to work. They found the paper towels, stopped the bean juice from making it to the floor, cleaned Antonio off with the magic lick the thumb and wipe combo. They fussed and fussed until I think the whole kitchen was cleaner than it had been when he started. It was adorable.

I don´t have my recipes on me, but I´ll post the names for you soon so you can check it out. I´m pondering searching for another cooking class and asking for my money back on this one because it´s just not what I want. I was thinking tortillas and pallea (sp?) and Antonio´s all about coffee custards and frufru beans.

Others... I just wrote an entire two pages in Spanish on some books I read for class. We have our final next week which I have no idea how I´ll study for yet. We´ve got a big game this weekend against a team we are tied for 3rd, I think, in league. Sunday will be my first trip to San Sebastian if all goes well.

Yesterday I had practice which was nice. At one point we were playing a game where if you get the rebound you get points as well as for scoring. So, I got a rebound and everyone sort of stood and looked at me and stopped playing. So, I just tossed the ball into the court because obviously there must be some big reason no one was moving. As soon as I did this my whole team yelled at me, "Darby, no, Leyre no está en tu equipo!" Well, I knew that Leyre was not on my team but no one was even moving. I wish I could have said to them in Spanish, "well, why´d you all stop playing? I figured we were done. I´m not a freakin´ idiot, you´re just lazy and I confused it with being done!" Anyhow, I said this in english, in not so many words, and everyone started laughing. It was weird. I know from now on if practice needs to be lightened (which it almost never does) I´ll just blurt out my true feelings in english and laugh because I could say almost anything and no one would know what I said, except maybe one person there. I wonder if they´ve ever done that to me?

Good times abound and time for a run. Loves and misses!

The bind that ties

2007-01-15T03:44:00.000-08:00

I had my first game with the first team on Saturday. It was a 2 hour trip to Getxo, which is just outside of Bilbao. If you wanna check out more on my hoops club, have a looksee, Ardoi Baloncesto.

It was an interesting first go. I haven´t been in an actual seriously comptetive game for a while. Suddenly I was putting a lot of pressure on myself. I should own this (I thought), I need to make the people who helped me get this opportunity see it was worth the work they put in, I need to represent America well!!! Ok, Darb calm down. That´s what I needed to hear.

We won our game, but it wasn´t pretty. I had a few theatrical moments that I wasn´t proud of and I was getting frustrated. The last thing I need to do is freak out. I missed some easy layups and made some crappy passes, got yelled at by a few teammates in Spanish and travelled... twice. It didn´t feel good. By the end of the game I was disappointed and embarrassed, not in my team at all, but myself.

I called mom and dad right when I got home and gave themn the low down. They said, Darb don´t be silly and have some fun. Dad said, "Darb, remember, basketball is the bind that ties..." mom and I laughed right away, because of course, he was a bit backwards. Oddly enough, it fit for this situation for the phrase to be backwards. I felt bound by the fact that I thought I should be kicking ass and it tied my hands behind my back and made me play less effectively.

By yesterday afternoon, I felt better. I had given the game more thought, rather than just how I played. We were running plays into the ground, going through one screen and quitting, not really running anything that gave me a good opportunity to score, not scoring from the outside... it was the first game back after Christmas and people were shaking the rust off. I mean the final was 51 to 43, no one was really scoring.

So, on to the next one, which I think is on Sunday. It´s supposed to be a big one. We´re tied with the team and we´ll have to go hard to win. Those are always the games that are the most fun.

Now, I must read a book in Spanish that I´ve been putting off for way too long. Sorry for the short/serious update, but I´ll send some laughs back home soon. Love you!

Whitney the Weige

2007-01-12T11:01:00.000-08:00

This entry is a late one. I visited Whit a month ago and now I´m getting some pics up for you. This is Whitney on her favorite street in Bergen. Why is it her favorite?... she doesn´t really know, she just likes it.This is my favorite street in her town. I just liked the colors. Plus, I saw that green car coming and had to get that in the shot too for some extra colorfulness.Let´s see, here are a few more details... I arrived in Bergen after a day of travelling and waiting in airports. I was so glad to see Whit waiting for me when I walked into the main part of the airport. I chatted her ear off about what I was doing and how I was and all about Spain. It felt so strange to tell her these things and not have her actually know how it is here. Hard to explain I guess, you just have to be here to know.

Anyhoo, we went back to her apartment and talked until the wee hours. We took the tram up to the top of Bergen on our first day. Whit has that story and pics in her blog. Here´s the first pic we took together for the trip.Whit had a training session with her little ones that night and I went to watch. She has 5 little girls who she says know english, but really only one does and then she translates for the rest of the team. One of them wore a skirt, one wore hiking boots and wool socks, and all had the manditory messy ponytail for that age group. A snap.It was fun to see Whit work with them. She really thinks through how to get them to have fun and still learn.

Here´s one of my favorite pictures from the trip, Whit with her confused face on.Yuck, I know I´m being so short with all these descriptions, but it was a while ago...

Fast forward to day 2 and we decided to try the salmon we´d heard so much about. Remember the guy who gave us the taste? Well, we bought his salmon and ate it with cheese and crackers for dinner. Delicious! Here´s the before picture.

And here´s the after.As you can see, we attacked it. Beer was a better match for the fish than water... or most any food really ; )

After a movie, some expenssive sushi and a trot over to the aquarium, we were off to Oslo for Whit´s games. Here is Whitney in her travelling outfit.

Holla! Está para mojar pan! This is not an optical illusion folks, Whitney´s legs do actually fit in those jeans.

You already saw her sweet game video. Oslo on our own was a bit traumatic for us, as you can also see in Whit´s blog. Here´s a picture of me imitating one of the statues in Vigeland Park.

Whit has a few more of these. The park was a highlight. The statues are beautiful. Ok, I´m off to practice. By the way, I am officially a jugadora, I can play with the team I practice with now, it´s a for sure thing. Yay!

Catching up...

2007-01-12T04:54:00.000-08:00

The most recent news in the Life of Darb is that I can now play with the first team at the club in Zizur! Each new year the board of directors, I guess, goes over old rules and modifies or changes them. The rule keeping me from playing with the good team was stretched enough so that all I have to do is prove I live here and that I take a class at UPNA. I just have to make sure I have the right paperwork to prove I´m a student and it´s a go!

I´m so excited! First game is tomorrow, hopefully, woot woot! Yikes, I need to wash my uni.

Here´s a Christmas picture I took way back when for all of you to enjoy (NOTICE: my winter attire to make things look extra Christmassy)...

That stocking I´m holding says "darby."

Also, a few weeks ago, I learned how to make a Spanish tortilla! They are soooooooo good. At first, I couldn´t tell the difference, but now my tortilla palate is quite mature and I have a favorite spot to go for them. I have a video of this, but can´t get it to upload well to youtube, so this high action shot of me slicing potatoes with this cool tool will have to do for now...

I got signed up for a cooking class with Kim on Wednesdays too, so I´ll be a professional Spanish cook by the time I get home and you will all gain 10 pounds.

Here´s a pregame photo of Alexis and I. We´ve had some epic matches of PIG and HORSE and ALEXIS in the backyard on the 6 foot hoop. He always takes the "prove it" upon himself with the final letter. I love that. And, he usually makes it. He´s a clutch baller...

Here´s an example of the awesome parking in Spain that I captured a few weeks ago. This is actually in quite a large parking lot, but I guess someone really needed to get inside the mall!

This one is a shot taken just before Christmas break. It´s of my Spanish professor (Javier), my Polish friend from class (Magda) and myself. I´m just throwing it in here because it´s a random entry...

I know, I look like crap, but it´s a 9:30 class. I know, that doesn´t seem bad, but remember my newly acquired night-time outting schedule and then look at it again. About right huh?

Last night was another wonderful Thursday night dinner for 6 followed by drinks with Luis and Iñaki. We (mostly they) got so into talking about basketball and what type of offense we might run now that I can play and me drawing up "Triple" for them (dad: it´s just a screen the screener in the middle of the key right?), that we busted out the white board in the middle of the bar. I had to capture it. I like to call it - "Brugal, Beefeater and Baloncesto"...

Honestly, these are some of my favorite times. They remind me of talking about basketball at home with the fam.

Anyhow, I gotta meet Emily for coffee and read a book... in Spanish! So, I hope to update again soon, but as you see, I´ve been a busy girl. I hope everyone at home is well. Give me an update when you can. Loves!

An Ode to Alexis

2007-01-07T12:38:00.000-08:00

Alexis is 8 and also a boy. Sometimes, he puts on footie pajamas that are a bit too small for him and get all tight like a tent when zipped up. He does little acrobatic break dance moves and spins around and pauses on the floor, just to make me laugh.

After school everyday he has to take a poop. If you don´t know where Alexis is and you call out his name, usually you´ll here a muffled, high pitched "yes?" from behind a bathroom door. When you ask, "what are you doing?" he´ll shriek back, "pooping!"

Sometimes, Alexis fakes a poop. Yes, he FAKES a poop. There are lots of comic books in the bathroom and he loves to read them. He´ll jump around and hold his butt and say, "ooooh, ugh, I gotta poop, I gotta poop!" He´s realized that no one can deny you a poop. So, we let him go. 15 minutes later, we say, "Alexis, hurry up." And he responds, "I´m pooping."

Catherine has to bust the door open sometimes and Alexis will be sitting on the toilet, seat down, and reading a comic book. When he sees her he screams and she starts yelling at him in French. It´s hilarious.

Once I called him out when Catherine was gone because he was taking so long. I said, "Alexis, hurry up!" He said, "just a sec!" When he came out a few minutes later, I said, "You weren´t really pooping were you?" He said, "Yes!" I said, "No!" he said, "Yes! Then how come it smells so bad?"... : D

He always wants to win. When we play ping pong he always says, "but I´m to small to reach that," or he´ll botch the score. I taught him the "our team is boom, dynamite!" cheer and he sings, "Alexis is boom, dynamite!" all the time. I also taught him the Muhammad Ali quote, "I´m so fast, and you know I´m so pretty." So now, I´ll say the first part and he, in his best husky Ali voice says, "and you know I´m so pretty."

Once Louise was writing with a marker on some paper and the sound of it drove him nuts. All the sudden he yelled, "Louise, stop! Stop, stop, stop!" I said, "Alexis, relax, she can write if she wants," and he eyed her nervously as she put pen back to paper and the noise started again. Again he yelled out, "stop, no, stop!" I said again, "Alexis, she´s just writing," So he yells, with a look of complete desperation on his face, "no, no, mom doesn´t let me!" Apparently, the noise really bugged him. We all started cracking up because of course, Catherine has never said to me, "oh, and Darb, please don´t let Alexis listen to Louise writen with markers on paper."

On Saturday I took the kids ice skating and after about 15 minutes, Alexis skated right up to me and said, "Darby, thank you so much for bringing us here." Like he´d just realized this was the best day of his life or something. My heart smiled.

One of my favorite moments with him of all time occurred about two weeks ago...

We were driving back to Tajonar from school, just the two of us, I don´t remember where Louise was. Alexis asked me to put in a tape that a past au pair had made with Eminem on it. He loves Eminem. I always thought it was because of his older brother Max, but it turns out that´s only part of it.

As the song played, he piped up from the back seat, "Darby..."

"Yes, Alexis," I answered.

"Darby," he continued, "do you know what I asked for for Los Reyes?"

"No Alexis, what do you want?"

"I asked for the Sean Paul CD and the Eminem CD."

"Oh really? I knew you liked Eminem, but Sean Paul too, how come?"

"I just do," he said softly, like there was a bit more to it.

"Do you like to rock out when you hear them? I know I do to my favorite songs."

"Well," he started shyly, "when I hear their songs, I feel like I´m on stage, like it´s a dream and I´m singing on stage like them."

How do you respond to that? I think that´s one of the best things that´s ever come out of his mouth. I just said, "That´s awesome."

He got both CDs for Los Reyes and last night he asked me to sit in his room with him and listened to Sean Paul as he tried to learn the words and rap softly to himself. I think the story of a poor white boy growing up in Detroit trying to make it as a rapper is just as inspirational as a rich French boy trying to rap in another language in Tajonar. We could call the movie "8 Kilometer." Alexis is boom, dynamite!

Felíz Año!

2007-01-04T08:49:00.000-08:00

This was without a doubt the best New year´s celebration of my life! It was crazy, pandimonium, out of control, wild, good old fashioned fun. Kim and Emily and I got together before hand at my house for some black eyed peas. I wanted a little of my American tradition to be involved. For those of you back home who don´t know this one, black eyed peas on New Year´s ensures good luck. We had some champagne and Emily painted Kim´s face and we were ready to go. A tradition here is to dress in costume on New Year´s Eve when you go out. So, here we are at about 11:00 Sunday night...I was a "Super Pear" with Iñaki and Irene who were a Super Tomatoe and another Super Pear. It has to do with some joke I´ve been told a couple of times, but still don´t understand. But, the pear part works in english as a joke for me, as Mom and Kev pointed out, because I´m a Super Au Pair, hardy har. Anyhow, we headed over to Iñaki´s to work on my costume and partake in some Spanish traditions.

New Year´s here is more of a family affair and Iñaki, Irene, their mom Dori and their abuela were finishing up a dinner together when we got there. We attempted to chat for a bit, until midnight when twelve gongs could be heard on the TV, similar to something that might happen on Dick Clark´s Rockin´Eve, and we ate one grape with each gong. We had to go fast, but got more good luck for the year by chowing down. Red underwear also helps I´m told.

Irene, Iñaki and I all worked on our costumes and got them ready to go. The result at about 2:30 A.M. was this fabulous fruit basket...

From there, Dori dropped us all off downtown and we were off. It was crazy! Everyone´s your best friend. Here are a bunch of folks we met...

These next two guys were two of whom I seem to always meet on nights out in some form or other. They hear me speaking english and somehow are drawn to me and want to test their lingual skills. I wasn´t so into it... However, these guys were much nicer than one I´d met earlier. A big group of men were dressed as nuns and they´d put balloons up the fronts of their skin-tight habits to look like huge boobs. I decided it´d be a great idea to cop a feel. To my shock and awe, the man I felt up turned around and grabbed my boob too! I was so surprised I didn´t know what to do. It was hilarious. Serves me right for being a pervert. He confessed (pardon the pun) later that he thought I was a man. Pear shaped costumes don´t exactly show off my figure I guess. Anyhow, a hilarious memory.

Just Look at how packed it was in Lo Viejo... wall to wall people all decked out.This is the last bar we attended at 8 A.M. As you can see, the party was still jumping and when we walked outside it was dawning.From there we just roamed around for a little while until we met up with Irene again, trying to find a place to grab breakfast. But, everything was closed. A buddy Irene had brought along had a golden volleyball and we decided it would be a great idea to start playing a game in the street. A few guys in bird costumes walked by and they joined in. Good times.

We were sick of that by about 9 A.M. and mosied down a few blocks to the little snack area. With the booze still wearing off, we decided to dance to the music of the popcorn machine... I have a video of this but it´s taking forever to finalize on YouTube. By 9:30 we were back on the road to Iñaki´s. We were probably 15 minutes away from his house, but it took us like an hour to get there. We danced, we sang, Irene and Iñaki attempted to teach me songs in Spanish... it was great. Here´s the final picture of the last partiers standing on the walk home...

I love this picture because it´s so joyful. We´re all dead tired, have been on our feet all night, it´s freezing cold outside, but we´re still dancing and celebrating.

When we got back to the Mayo abode, Iñaki whipped up some brunch and then we all took naps. Dori invited me to stay for lunch at 3, but there was no way. I thanked her kindly and headed home. I didn´t sleep for the rest of the day because I didn´t want my sleep pattern to be off. I slept from midnight on New Year´s day to 2 on the 2nd. It was marvelous. If I were you, I´d seriously consider coming to Pamplona for New Year´s next year.

If you want to see more pictures, hit up Iñaki´s blog here: http://elqa.livejournal.com/42644.html

I hope you all had happy New Year´s too! I´ve got a scrimmage game thing tonight, but it´s with the good team and we get to wear uniforms. The sad part is I tweaked my ankle yesterday so I´m hoping they have some tape at the game I can do a make shift wrap with. I´ll never forget the many figure eights and stirrups that Karen Hostetter lovingly bestowed upon my ankles. Dar-dar, where are you when I need you my small small friend!?!

Feliz Navidad in France: The Day food

2007-01-03T09:48:00.000-08:00

The first thing I ingested on Christmas day was a chocolate truffle followed closely by a glass of champagne. Not a good start. I´m sorry all these Christmas blogs are all drunken, but I was just being polite ; )

I woke up at 11:00, with no time to eat, I got dressed and we went to see a couple properties that Papi, Patrick´s father owns. Yes, I have to call him Papi (pronounced "poppy"). The first was an apartment he´s fixing up for his sister and the second was one that he´s moving into. Both with gorgeous views of the beach. I hope we get to go to La Baule this summer! It´s such a cute beach town.

We arrived at Papi´s girlfriend´s, Michelle (mee-shell), house around 1 and that´s when I had my aforementioned "breakfast." The kids tore into their presents and the adults sat down to lunch. I believe we had 4 glasses set in front of us here, which was not a good sign. I could sense that my liver might be a foie gras on it´s own by the end of the day. Anyhow, champagne glass full and wine bottles open in front of us, we commenced.

Oysters were passed out to all of us in special oyster plates. They are so pretty in their shells. Usually, I don´t like them, but they were fine in France. They were accompanied by a sort of vinegar onion sauce, which made the texture more acceptable to me. Everyone at the table was quite impressed that I ate them, saying usually the au pair´s aren´t too into them. I had my game face on baby!

Next up was some lightly smoked salmon, almost raw, with a creamy dill dipping sauce. I think it had whole peppercorns in it. Very yummy. Along with these two dishjes came different wines of course. And I wanted to try them, but not full glasses! No such luck. To try, means to drink a full portion to these gorgeous people. Had I felt totally comfortable there, this would have been awesome, but not when there was so much silverware and glass near me and my long arms. I drank up nonetheless.

By the next set of plates, actual shell´s filled with scallops and crab in a cream sauce and then breaded, I was having a bit of trouble passing the platters around. Patrick asked me to hand him my champagne glass to be refilled and, though I was staring at his hand and fully focused on making the hand off, I dropped it before he had a good hold of it... he caught it! Sadly, everyone saw it and laughed and cheered. From then on, Patrick decided to hold the platters for me and let me serve myself before passing the food directly on to the person next to me. Damn it, I´m not a lush, just a lightweight!

Though I was a bit embarrassed, at least I didn´t have to talk. I thought I could make it. Once we hit the foie gras and the bread came out, I grabbed like 3 slices and started stuffing my face. I actually liked Michelle´s foie gras better than the day before´s. It tasted like a melt away mint to me, yum.

Just as I seemed to be straightening up a little and refocusing, actually seeing my 4 glasses, rather than 8, I caught the word "vodka" in the air. Michelle got up from the table and left for a second, returning with some Polish vodka. It came in a little fur-lined sleeping bag, which I hoped was all we were looking at. Oh how cute, now put that thing away... please! Nope.

Glass number 5, a shot glass, was placed in front of me. As the bottle was pointed at me, I shrugged and chuckled. At least everyone laughed at this rather than sending me to the kids´ table. Polish vodka all around folks! A piece of grass had been flavoring it for a while, quite interesting. As Patrick held up his glass to cheers me, I attempted to pour some of my vodka into his glass, but he pulled away and laughed. How could he do this to me? He knew I was suffering... maybe he was in the same boat. Down the hatch, zip! Ouch, that burned just a tad. I was hoping I could sneak out with the tiny sleeping bag the vodka came in, it was so cute! But, Michelle had a grip on it.

However, I did get a nice souvenir... there was this flower arrangement on the table that I would try to focus on to steady my brain and hand. I noticed an adorable little knome who lived in it and I knew I had to have it, as my girl Amelie certainly would have. When no one was looking, I reached out and grabbed it out of the flowers and shoved it in my pocket. He´s up in my room now and I´m not quite sure what to do with him. Maybe I´ll take him on my travels and take pics of him just like Miss Poulin did for her dad.

Anyhow, back to France. I believe the next thing we ate was wild duck. Patrick said it was so wild that his dad had to chase it and we should watch out for buckshot still in it... hmm, I don´t really think Papi should be chasing things. It was a bit hard to cut off the bone without using my hands, but I did it. A dry red wine came with this and by now I had 6 glasses in front of me because I couldn´t finish the wine from the earlier dish. My hand was in slow motion as I grabbed various goblets and I was determined not to make loud clinks. Finally, someone brought out the best part of the night... some water! It had gas and I didn´t even care, it was the most refreshing drink of agua that has ever entered my bod. It was like I was on a desert, dehydrated to mirage level and this water was my savior.

After the duck came the cheeses of various types and bread. I guess this is sort of a finale to French meals, the cheese. It always comes before the dessert, which was made up of various mouse-y cakes. One was a chocolate raspberry, one was vanilla orange and one was just sort of sweet and tan colored with a sugary cracker crumbled and rolled within it. Patrick said that last one was quite typical of the area and told me the name, but I don´t remember it. Grandma Mary, does this dessert sound familiar to you? Email me if you know what it is, or anyone else for that matter.

By dessert´s end, I had my legs back under me and didn´t fall asleep at the table or fall over or anything. I think I was tested out at one point though. Catherine asked me to go tell Louise to do something and I thought she must be upstairs because why wouldn´t Catherine just ask her if she was nearby? So I walked upstairs and she was actually downstairs just a room away from us. I hope I at least walked straight when I went to the complete wrong area of the house!

I helped clear the dishes and had one last glass of champagne in the kitchen while the ladies chatted. I couldn´t understand them, but it did feel like home, a familiar situation. When we were done Catherine and I staked out one of the couches and immediately passed out asleep for like an hour. It was hilarious. My chin was on my chest and Catherine was sprawled out over the arm cushion. I really hope someone got a picture of that!

Two hours later, we had a light dinner of salad and some of the leftover cheese and bread.

We kissed everyone 2 times on each cheek and headed out at about midnight. Patrick and Catherine dropped me off at Luic´s house, where I would wait for a day until it was time for Max to give me a ride home. That was one of the most awkward experiences of my life, being somewhere I know no one and can´t speak too well with them. Sadly, I ate skittles for dinner that night. I´m so silly sometimes.

So there you have it, the French Christmas experience. I loved all the food and getting to see all the homes and meet the family. I only wish I spoke French! Los Reyes is this weekend at Patxoula, Catherine and Patrick´s home in France and I´ll be heading up there with Max I think sometime Friday. This is the day of the year they open lots of presents, so it´ll be a fun new experience too. More on that one next week. Lovins!

Feliz Navidad in France: The Eve food

2007-01-01T11:57:00.000-08:00

After arriving at Patrick´s brother´s home on Sunday, we headed out to lunch at a local bistro just off the beach. They had all sorts of food from pizza to seafood. I was attempting to try as much French cuisine as I could while there, so I ordered what Catherine ordered. I had an appetizer of medium sized shrimp cooked in a garlic tomato sauce with an oil base. It was delish! The shrimp didn´t taste fishy at all and you know how I love a good garlic mouth.

Next came the main course, which we ate with champagne, naturally. Every time a glass got low, a man came around and refilled it. Mine didn´t get low as I knew more drinking was to come. My lunch was a tuna steak just barely cooked with gray outside edges and a pink center. It was encrusted with black and white sesame seeds and had some odd straw type things laid across it, which I promptly laid across the side of my plate. It came with some cooked veggies. So yummy! The tuna was so tender and the seeds added a nice crunch to it. The veggies were quite fresh, many different types, and had a lovely tomato basil sauce on them. So good.

We topped it off with a little espresso and headed out the door. I still think the coffee in Spain is the best.

The afternoon meant a bit of babysitting for me and some awkwardness followed by a little uncomfortable language barrier. The kids went swimming, so I sat next to the pool and read, to make sure no one slipped and cracked their head open. Alexis and I played some foosball and a bunch of pool after that, which passed the time nicely.

Everyone changed for dinner at around 9:30, before which we had a glass of champagne with grape flavoring, yummo! From here, I didn´t know where to go, what to do, how to stand, sit, nod... Everyone sort of mosied on over to the bar, so I stood around for a while and got a glass of champagne, but everyone was going on in French and I didn´t want to intrude by yelling, "could someone speak english please? Or even Spanish perhaps?" Marie Claire and I (She´s Luic´s wife) actually communicated ok in Spanish. She spoke so slow that I could understand her perfectly. But she was busy setting the table and getting all the food ready. Really, many of them spoke english, but it´s the only time of year they get to be with their family, so I wasn´t really a priority on the get to know you list, which was fine and expected.

After about 5 minutes of standing with the group and looking at people who were talking who took that to mean I understood, I slowly stepped back and became one with the wall and my champagne flute. I missed home. Not bad, but it was there. I decided to hang out with Alexis a little more and play pool until I was called back to be with the adults. They must have thought I assumed I was supposed to be with the kids at all times, which was not the case, I preferred it.

Just as we were called to the table for dinner, I finished my second glass of champagne and decided a few more wouldn´t hurt me. Everyone was taking their sweet time getting to the table and since Catherine is usually my champagne pourer, I took it upon myself to grab the open bottle on the table and get the job done myself. Big mistake. What I poured into my champagne flute was actually a very sweet, very flat white wine. Normally, this would not worry me, but I was in France where I´d been warned that everyone has perfect table manners and ettiquete and if someone noticed that my champagne wasn´t bubbling, I´d be a little embarrassed that I was so desperate for more that I neglected to read the label on what I was pouring.

As everyone took their seats, people started looking at the wine on the table. The one in front of me was the only one with any gone and I was praying no one would put two and two together. We settled in and the first course was served: a mixture of fresh tuna chunks, olive oil, cilantro, lime juice and red pepper I think. It was just sort of in a clump on each plate and we ate it with a fork, so good. Patrick´s nephew, Nathan I think, made it.

On my second bite Nathan´s father offered me some of the sweet wine and I started to blush before I could even answer. I couldn´t understand his words, but the questioning look on his face added to the way he held the bottle at me tipped me off. Thankfully Nathan said something that made him put the bottle down and look the other way, but not before he made a comment that everyone laughed at. Later Nathan said to me he told him I was drinking champagne and his father answered, "but we want her drunk." Nathan´s dad would get his Christmas wish : )

The second course was another little clump... this time white fish with similar other ingredients as the first, but I don´t remember (sorry gramma M). By the time I was done with this one, my glass had been emptied of the sweet wine and refilled with champagne, phew. My other two cups had also been filled with a red wine and another white wine. I had to try everything, remember.

The third course was something I usually don´t like. Just the thought of what it´s made from and how it´s made makes my tummy turn: foie gras. But, this one was deliscious. Patrick´s sister made it and it went great with the wheat toast provided. If I got a large bite by accident, there was just a bit too much richness, but I quite enjoyed it. Plus, there was no way I was gonna say it was gross because typically Americans don´t like it and I wasn´t about to be stereotyped. I liked it though, so no lies. More sweet wine with that puppy.

Next was something a bit more typical to America even. It was a sort of shepherd´s pie made with duck meat on the bottom and mashed potatoes sprinkled with parsley or something green on the top. Really yummy.

It took a while to get the fifth course out because we had to clear the plates and clean them. Sadly, this was the job of all the women, which I find wrong on lots of levels, but I don´t live here and their way is my way while I´m here. Extra sadly, I was a little tipsy when called upon to handle the expensive china and I really had to focus. I took each plate into the kitchen with two hands, watched the floor as I walked and went slowly. Nothing broke or chipped, but I was a little nervous and made a few unnecessary clangs. I tried really hard not to hit anyone in the back of the head with the dishes as I set them back on the table. I think I was successful, but who knows.

The final course was a very tender white fish prepared in a sort of tomato gravy. Simple and tasty. I headed upstairs as soon as I was done eating because I didn´t want to have to clear anymore plates. I needed an english fix as well, so I called KT and we chatted for an hour or so. All in all it was a nice Christmas Eve and a food experience that not many Americans would ever get. I am so appreciative of all the newness that has come my way and the new customs and cultures I am learning about!

Feliz Navidad in France: The homes

2006-12-31T06:25:00.000-08:00

We arrived at Patrick´s brother Luic´s home in La Baule around 2 pm on Christmas Eve. Luic picked us up in a Hummer H2. It´s about the hugest car I´ve ever ridden in. Max got to drive it home and I got to sit in the front. He tried to make it peel out for me, but a car that size just can´t. Luckily, the round abouts in France are mostly made of cement, otherwise the car would have driven over various plants and animals as we went around (over) them.

Luic´s home is gorgeous! Everything in it was art. Every room had a theme, every color complimented each stained piece of oak floor. You walk in through the kitchen, which was relatively plain. It had white tiles, basic granite countertops. One wall was painted with old European looking apartments. The hall you enter from here runs down the length of the house. It was painted a goldish-yellow and had 4 foot jewel encrusted lizards placed along either side, made to look like they were crawling at you. On the other side of the hallway is the dining room. It had lush green carpet and a long dining table that must have seated 30. One wall had a buffet on it the other was all windows, looking out onto the yard that was obviously being worked on. To the right of the dining room is sort of a nicer living area, all these spaces are quite open and one whole side of the house is basically windows. In the living area, there´s a set of pastel apolstered chairs with a coffee table. Behind it sits a round table with a large, round, domed skylight directly above. There´s a sort of glass partition that separates this table area from the hall. After the table area, there are a few more comfy chairs and then you hit the game room. All dark and manly looking, a foosball table sits on a dark wood floor, sort of a left turn from the hallway and there´s a sitting area and pool table in front of that. To the left of the game area was the door to the INDOOR pool, complete with it´s own bathroom, sauna, etc. To the right of the game room and at the end of the hallway is a sunken living room for movies and family time with a big wrap around couch and an open fire pit, inside, yes. There´s also a bar tucked back in the corner. So, that´s the downstairs...

You get upstairs through two different taircases in the main hallway. The first is just before the bar in the hallway, a large dark wood staircase, walls painted in bright colors, lots of shapes all over. Sort of a collage wall. The second staircase is almost at the beginning of the hall, which is where I walked up mostly, so I´ll start the description from there. At teh top of the stairs, if you turned left there would be 3 doors. The floor was a dark hardwood also, with bright yellow, green and red mosaic tiles inlaid as a sort of border. My room was on teh left side at the end of the hall. It had a sun theme. There was a little sitting area a huge bed, my own wading pool sixed bathtub... it was awesome and perfect for the day I spent in it alone waiting for my ride home : ) On the right side of the hall was Gail´s (Luic´s son´s) room and a bathroom. I never went into Gail´s room, but it seemed to go quite far back into the house. To the right side of the hall were 2 more bedrooms: Luic and Marie Claire´s and one that seemed to be sort of red themed, where Max stayed. If you continued up the stairs there was one more bedroom that belonged to a daughter who´s moved out. It was all sort of Indian themed with tan walls and dark purple, orange and green stensiling.

On the other side of the hallway upstairs was the main bathroom to the right and a wall of windows opposite. Just before the staircase on the right side (the big staircase) was a room sort of tucked off to the side. It hade a door with a rounded frame at the top and looked quite mythical, similar to something from the movie Nanny McPhee. There was one larger bed and bunch little ones, no doubt a spot for a family to bunk. On teh otehr side of the staircase there was another room on the end of the house with more crazy bright colors and lots of beds. Further along that was was the library, which was just a plain room with books. In the far left corner of the hallway upstairs was a sliding glass door that lead into an upperdeck of the pool where a bunch of workout equipment was situated.

So, that was where I stayed.

On Christmas day we had lunch with Papi (Patrick´s father) at his girlfriends home. It was gogeous too, in a different way. Right on a cliff overlooking the beach. It reminded me of a much more homey version of Anne Bancrofts home in Great Expectations. The backyard was large and green with a stone patio in the corner to sit and watch the waves. A spiral staircase ran up throught the house to 2 more levels. The hallways were tiny and just let you right into each room. So Triplets of Belleville, I guess too. There were large paintings on every wall and little statues on every table. Just enchanting.

Those were the homes we visited. Sorry if it´s a bit boring, but I want to remember them. I didn´t take any pics because that´s a bit of a privacy invasion I think. But, my next blog should be more exciting when I talk about food and handling your alcohol. Kisses!

For my GF Bruins

2006-12-28T20:16:00.000-08:00

It´s 5:15 a.m. in Tajonar, Pamplona, España, Europe, World, Universe. I can´t sleep. You know how sometimes your mind just won´t turn off... yeah. I was perusing myspace and discovered Fitch had put together a little slide show. It really made me miss my friends from home. Let me share a few of the pics that pinged my heart strings...

In the first one we´ve got Team Tina with Lizzo behind the camara. God I love those gals! It was the best weekend of forfeits ever. I still haven´t heard back from that damn tourney director. "Tina comin´through" homeslices. I have never seen another ponytail bounce quite like Shai´s. I was telling Em here about the "softball card" today and how I used to give shimmy the shout out "Shaiiii" and she´d holla back, "heeeeyyyyy." And there´s the ever sweating Fitch-meister past yours truly and my mean mug. Remember our accordian parties at the old A.P.T.? And "Thunder clap, thunder thigh"? We are so weird. How about when you mysteriously showed up and started playing basketball freshman year. I don´t even remember how we became friends, I think it just was. And who could forget Liz´s choice phrases, "my fave-reet color iz nee-on yella," or that kick ass Ali impersonation. Or possibly when she decided to do an interpretive dance for devotion and practically gave Christine a lap dance? Priceless, I´m laughing out loud.

The next pic just makes me think of friends in general. Liz has a weird left eye, possibly a sprained face from an open mouth smile. Kimbo is attempting the open mouth smile, but a little late, so looks more like a turtle mouth. Tiniest mouth ever! Shai, as always, just happy to be in the picture and being all beautiful and photogenic.

Now the last one is the toughest to look at. I believe this was my junior year of hoops. I think that was the "bangs" era anyway. I think we´re at the original Fitcherosa, before the big move into town. S and T Fitch always knew how to treat us when we came through town. I think I´ve had a heart to heart with Scott Fitch everytime I´m in Ritzville. Of course, who knows if he´s actually heard me or if he´s just nodding to move things along ; ) I´m rockin´the Ritzville sweats from my first visit here in Spain. Who´d a thunk it, the Broncos runnin´ with the bulls?

Was our team really that small or was someone missing from this picture? Either way it makes me want to be there, right there, right now. All of us together, just hanging out, maybe a hug here or there. I can actually feel being in a picture with you girls. We had one almost every pre-game meal: shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. I could just tuck you all in for a signature Darby bosom hug right now. Sigh, croon.

Sorry this is a bit sentimental and a little focused to certain people, but it´s my blog dern it.

Otras... I´m back in Spain for New Years, woot woot. I´ll get a Christmas blog up tomorrow hopefully, but right now my hands are too cold. No pictures really for the next blog, but lots of food to describe for good G-ma Mary and tales of my attempts not to get drunk but still try everything. Rough duty...

Have fun during the holiday basketball season and go to the LSI for me and ask whoever´s blogging why I´m not there, he he he. Lemme know how all the teams are and which fancy name coaches come. Fill me in on the L.O. tourney also and how the girls are shaping up this year for H.S. Did someone take Kevin Love´s knee out yet? Oh yeah, it´s the Singler/Love Sr. year, keep me posted on that. Any personal updates on GFU ball are most fabulous of course. Peace in the middle east!

Ireland: Day 3

2006-12-22T04:18:00.000-08:00

I was pretty tuckered out by Monday morning in Ireland. It´s funny though, when you have no one to complain to, you just don´t do it. I suppose I must have called Em or texted Iñaki a few times or emailed home saying how cold it was, but for the most part, my mood was good.

I wanted to go to the Guinness Brewery and Kilmainham Jail for day 3 and possibly hit up a concert Liz recommended. The two sites are in the same area of Dublin, so I started walking... and I walked... and I walked... and couldn´t seem to get where I wanted to go. I kept pulling out my map and checking streets and I seemed to be on the right path. Finally, after passing through a neighborhood and an industrial district, I hit the Guinness Brewery headquarters. Then and there, I decided I don´t give a crap about how beer is made and just took a picture of the outside. Oddly enough, I asked Whitney a beer brewing question once I got to Norway and you know what she said... "you should have gone on the Guinness Tour." Anyhow, here´s a picture...

A short tale... The tour guide at the castle told us that Guinness´s symbol, the harp, is also the sort of mascot of Ireland. When Guinness wanted to use it as well, the government said no thanks. So, Guinness got all clever and mearly turned the harp to face in the opposite direction of the government symbol and there you have it.

Directly across the street from the headquarters, on the window sill of a ramshackle old home, I found this photo opp, which I find funny on so many levels and I hope you do too...

So, I trudged along looking for Kilmainham Jail, and found it about 20 minutes later way on the edge of town. It´s most famous for having many political prisoners and executing them during the time of the Irish uprising from England. One of the most famous is Charles Parnell, who was said to be "the un-crowned king of Ireland", for his popular political opinions. Also, another interesting fact: during the "potato famine", this jail was incredibly crowded. And, not because the level of crime went up, because people were hungry. Jail was the only place you could get 3 meals a day. Small crimes would be commited and people would go to jail on purpose. Not that it was a picnic, but better than the outside world. A picture from the front...

Here is what a corridor of cells looks like...

Here´s one of the main halls that has been used in various films throughout the years. The large window at the top is due to the fact that at the time it was built, psychologists felt sunlight helped to cure prisoners of their mental illness of crime. It made for a pretty picture anyway...

And now, a love story... Joseph Plunkett was a famous political prisoner who was executed in Kilmainham. Before he was arrested, he was engaged to be married to Grace Gifford. On the day of his execution, the prison allowed her to come to the jail´s chapel, Plunkett was waiting at the alter and they got married, had a few minutes alone and then he was taken to be executed. Tear, sniff, honk! Years later, good ól Grace did some political uprising of her own and found herself landed in a cell as well. She was quite an artist and painted this on her cell wall during her imprisonment...

I finished up there around 1 or so and headed back into town, by bus, and wound up at Yamamouri, an excellent Japanese restaurant. I got the best ramen of all time and some green tea ice cream, yay!

Another movie was in order and I saw "Breaking and Entering" with Jude Law, Robin Wright Penn and Julliete B... the lady from Chocolate. It was ok, sort of a downer. Not recommended necessarily.

I was off from my hostel at 4:30 the next morning and on my way to see little Whitty, in her little town, wearing her very little jeans. ; )

The Harlem ARC Choir

2006-12-18T04:14:00.000-08:00

Last night Kim took me to see the Harlem ARC Choir at the Baluarte, like Keller at home, but a bit smaller. I didn´t quite know what to expect because she wasn´t sure if she had tickets to the ballet or a concert or what. We just went...

It was awesome! I couldn´t find site about the group online, but it was just as you might picture it. About 10 people from Harlem and their choir director just standing on stage singing their hearts out. They wore maroon and gold colored robes, many of which were a little too small for the ladies. They´d start singing and every once in a while, someone from the group would walk out and take the mic for a solo. It was all in english too!

Well, all except for a few feeble attempts. I think my favorite part of the night was when an older gentleman took the song home and when it finished he yelled, gracias into the mic with his lovely accent, making it sound like Graw-see-us. And then, another member of the group was singing her praises and sort of improvising and sang, "I don´t care if you call him Hay-soos, I call him Gee-zus, amen, amen, amen."

Dad, I almost ran up on stage and shouted, "I woan be a preacher!" just for you!

There was also a Jaleel White look alike who was quite good. More of a Stephan than a Steve Urkell though. He got done singing once, passed the mic and did a little jig with his fast little feet. It sort of got me feeling Christmassy.

Alas, today I sent a package and some letters home and listened to the Cinnamon Bear and now I´m a bit down. I came to the university to get some work done and forgot my password, so now I´m blogging. I better go get that password.

Ireland: Day 2

2006-12-17T13:58:00.000-08:00

This entry will be mostly photos because I have tons and want you all to see them. I´m still working on getting the videos to show up directly in my blog, and have another one to link to for ya. Anyhow, let´s commence...

My second day in the land of green clovers, purple hearts and blue diamonds began with some instant coffee and piece of bread at the hostel. I quickly decided that breakfast there was not safe. I headed out at about 10 am Sunday morning and walked everywhere.

My first stop was Trinity College to check out The Book of Kells. No pictures allowed of the book, but here is a shot of my favorite building on campus...

Here is a shot of the school crest and I don´t know what it means, but maybe you can find it here.

Next stop was Grafton Street for a bit of shopping. It was all decked out for Christmas and had some music going on as well. Here´s a link to my video of some of the music I heard while walking down the street.

At the end of that street lies a large park called St. Stephen´s Green. Here is a shot from outside...

And one from inside...

At this point it started to rain... a lot. So, I headed back to my hostel to take cover and on my way, it stopped. I got a couple pictures on O´Connel Street, right by my hostel, at that point. Here´s the fancy looking post office...

This shot is a huge pilar that stands in the middle of teh street on a median. There wasn´t much of a plaque, but it seemed to be donated by someone and people were touching it as they passed, so maybe it´s good luck? Anyhow, I like the picture...

Did you know they have Quiznos in Ireland? Well, they do. And, since I thought it might not be anotehr 8 months until I´d get a Turkey Ranch and Swiss on wheat, I was lame and got one instead of testing out Irish food.

After lunch came more sites, like Dublin castle...

I took the tour, which was cheap and OK. The building is still used for government functions and is pretty modern on the inside. The original was midevil, but burnt down, so this new one is largely Georgian in style. There are still some remains of the old castle, but just foundation and they look like a pile of rocks to me.

I took a pic from outside the Christ Church Cathedral because Rick Steves said the inside wasn´t worth it...

And here´s a picture of St. Patrick´s Cathedral, which I wanted to go in, but it was closed...

Finally, I was cold, wet and hungry, so I grabbed a snack and headed back to the movie theatre. I saw "The Departed", which was awesome. But, I thought Jack Nicholson was bad, which is rare for me. The young ones, especially Leo carried it (I have a new found love for him now) and Mark Walburg and Alec Baldwin should be nominated for their supporting roles, so funny!

On a side note, today was such a fun day! Iñaki and I drove all over NE Navarra and I got tons of great pictures. Then I met up with Kim and we went to the Harlem ARC choir, performing at the Baluarte in town. It was awesome. I´ll have to do more of a literary entry on that tomorrow.

I hope all is well at home. I miss you!

Whit´s got skills

2006-12-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

So, I couldn´t quite figure out how to embed a video in my blog, but they are uploaded to Youtube and you can view them at their respective URLs.

I wanted to give everyone a first hand account of how Whitney is doing in Norway on her team. This first video is of her excellent offenssive kills and then a play of the team on D. Gotta love the right handed jump hook big sissy handed down, eh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAlfAl-KvuY

This second video really shows how Whitney has improved this year and how much this experience is helping her grow as a player...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVVx8ASuTmg

A chip off the old wobbly block! I´ll post more on Ireland now soon : )

Hostel take over

2006-12-14T03:15:00.000-08:00

As you already read, I had quite an introduction to Dublin with Angus and the fanny slappers. Now, I want to give you the full picture as far as my hostel goes. So, to begin this long journey that is blogging... my journey, here is a picture from the street outside Brown´s Hostel...That´s me in the corner, or my shadow rather, taking the picture. Next up is the inside of my hostel. Oddly enough, though my dorm was called "Carrick", I think it was secretly the "Scarface Room." I slept with a huge poster of Al Pacino next to my head and there was another poster of the film on the right as you walk into the room. It´s very welcoming when you think about it. Tony Montana was a very giving man... sharing his cocaine, protecting his sister from men because he secretly loved her, smacking Michelle around a little, oh and only kicking your ass if you really owed him money. Afterall, his most memorable line is, "say hello to my little friend." Hello Tony, hello. Pics...

This bottom one is the view from my bed, number 819 (top bunk, yessss!) towards the front door.

My bed was just fine. And, other than the putrid smell in the lobby, and the water being shut off for 3 days, and my scary Russian roommates who would wake up crying and shrieking odd things in Russian, it was a dandy stay!

All right, I´ll address these things. The putrid smell reminded me of (disgusting description coming...) what a casserole of roquefort cheese, sweatsocks and puke might make a home smell like after baking for 2 hours and then being left on the table for an hour. I literally had to hold my breath in certain areas of the hostel so I wouldn´t dry heave. That was mostly downstairs though. My dorm smelled fine, until the water was shut off. This left us no option but to "do our business", myself and 15 other girls that is, and leave it until the toilet was able to flush again. I think I brushed my teeth like 4 times in 3 days. I didn´t take a shower until I got to Whit, so from Saturday morning to Tuesday night. I could literally take my ponytail out and it would stay in the shape of a ponytail, sans hair tie. It was gross. And then there were the odd roommates. They would speak in Russian sometimes and english others, but one of them woke up screaming and crying in the middle of the night, yelling in Russian. It was a bit scary the first night, but I got used to it.

I was a little nervous to be out too late at night on my own, so no bar scene for this gal. But, in hind sight, I don´t think anyone would have bothered me, but rather, may have thought I was homeless or about to mug them. Here´s what I wore almost the whole time in Dublin... I know, red snowflake gloves just scream badass!

I was going for an "Ashlee Simpson, I don´t care how I look, I´m fabulous because I´m me" kind of look. I think I pulled it off.

My first night was fairly uneventful, but nice. I started out at about 5, walking all over my area, getting a tourist map and checking things out. I was located about 5 blocks off the main drag, O´Connel Street, and within a 15 minute walk of all the good shopping and some cool sites. I got to go to an english movie! I ended up going every night, but the first one I saw was Stranger than Fiction. I really liked it. A nice branch out for Will Ferrel and I always love Maggie Gyllenhal.

Here´s a nice pic from the O´Connel bridge looking down the River Liffey on my first night...

DublinDoesn´t it just make you want to hug a leprechaun and drink some Guinness? I love this picture! I really lucked out because I didn´t use the flash and all the right things are in focus I think.

Anyhoo, that was my first night. I´ll post day 2 later, but I need to get some Christmas shopping done and unplug the drain in my bathroom. The sink is so clogged that the standing water doesn´t even drain after I wait a while. Lets hope I got mom´s genes as far as being handy goes. Dad can certainly run a 10k, but making things work is not his strong suit. Love you!

Back and in effect

2006-12-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

Hola folks! I´m home in Spain, yay! I have soooooooo many blogs to write. So, be patient with me, they will come. Meantime, maybe Whits is going to blog a few... her link is in my new links section to the right. Love to all!

A quick note from Norge

2006-12-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Hi friends and fams! Whit's at practice right now, so I thought I'd drop everyone a line from Norway. The weather is pretty crummy, but Whit and I have had a few events each day, so we're not doing too bad. Mostly, it's just nice to be with my sister for a little while so close to Christmas.

Yesterday we had a hilarious experience, or at least we thought it was... we strolled down to the fish market to sample some of the excellent Norwegian salmon we've been hearing about. We get down there and step up to the counter, finding a man who speaks english. We chose a chunk of smoked salmon and he wrapped it up for us. When he returned, he asked us, in his nice Norwegian accent, "Where you from?" Whit answered, "The states." The man nodded and asked us, "I have some salmon I smoke for myself and you can have a taste." He went behind an island in the center of the fish pavillion and pulled out his special smoked salmon and sliced off a couple of tastes for us. Then we tried to say bye and thanks, but he just went on his merry way and forgot about us.

It was so funny. Why did he even ask us where we were from if all he wanted to do was give us a taste of his salmon? Maybe you had to be there, but it was all quite odd. So, we got our chunk of salmon and a taste of his and were on our way back into the cold, laughing our asses off.

Tomorrow we're going to Oslo with the team. I'm so excited to see Whit play! I'm going to try to take some video with my camera and post it, but who knows how that will go. She'll probably get to stay in Oslo with me until Monday too, the rest of the team leaves Sunday. So, that'll be nice, maybe we'll get to do something cool there, or get more tastes of old fishermen's salmon. Ha ha ha!

I've got lots of pics and stories from Dublin and some from here that I'll post and blog about when I get home to Spain.

I hope everyone's holiday seasons are going well. I'm starting to miss home a bit, since it's this time of year and all. So, know you're missed and thought of daily. Love to ya!

Darby Cave and the Fanny Slappers

2006-12-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

I realize I'm supposed to be on vacation right now and having a blast and soaking up Irish culture, but I have a story that I just can't let pass me by. Since I packed almost nothing, a pen and paper are not at hand and I have to blog this. It could rival my "luggage store" story, but since this is a first draft, it may be a bit weak. With time, I may embellish it enough to send to my girl Tina Fey.

I arrived at Brown's Hostel this afternoon around 3:15, Ireland time, an hour earlier than in Spain. I found it fairly easily and pushed the creaky glass paned door open to have a putrid smell fill my sensitive nose. I figured that might just be the smell of most hostels, as this is my first one. A group of Spanish tourists, 5 of them, were ahead of me to check in. They spoke broken english with the clerk, and I thought about translating, but lacked the courage.

A girl named Maria kept saying, "we paid two, 9 for 1 18 for 2..." The clerk kept saying, "oh I know you're fucking me over so bad right now..." in his lovely Irish accent. As I stood in line behind the group, two girls walk in from inside the hostel. One was shorter, with a ponytail and a smile, the second was tall with a trucker's hat and a spike sticking out of the left side of her lower lip. Both held mugs filled with wine and had purple teeth.

The tall one says, "hey Angus, how's it going up here?" The clerk looks up and tells her to, "shut the fuck up." This sends both girls into hysterics and they settle in on the table with all the maps in the corner to further comment on the clerk's situation. Angus asks, "so, did you find out what that smell is?" (Ah, so it doesn't usually smell like this...). The short one answered, "yes, it's the roof." "What?" says Angus. "Yes, the roof," says the tall one, "I was sure you'd have seen us, I positioned my ass just so in fromt of the camera for you," as she bends over and shows him. Both the girls giggled, and Angus frantically tries to get the Spanish tourists checked in, rolling his eyes at the girls.

It takes another 10 minutes or so to get everything figured out and Angus gets up to show the group to their room. The girls say, "Angus, you have customers waiting," referring to me. Angus walks up to me and grabs my shoulders, squeezes them, and strokes my face twice with his right hand, sayimg, "thank you for waiting loyal customer," then turns and walks away. I laughed nervously and started talking to the girls, as they laughed at Angus' gesture. "So, how long have you two been here?" The short one says 3 weeks and the tall one 5 months. They both work in Dublin and live at the hostel because it's so cheap.

Angus returns... "Ok, who's next?" He says, though I'm the only person at the desk. He takes my info and starts searching for my name. "Darby," he says, "Darby Cave? Wow, you're parents sure didn't like you." I said, "What, I like my name." Of course, he busts out, "Darby O'Gill and the Little People, I love that movie, toy tah tah toy." The girls say, "what? That's a movie?" And Angus explains it. "What's your last name Angus?" the tall one asks. "O'Donnel" he answers. Angus decides to use my full name at all times at this point and tries to say it a lot, "Darby Cave, here's your room number, Darby Cave, and breakfast, Darby Cave, is served at 8 until 10, Darby Cave, accept on Sundays, Darby Cave, it's 9-11, Darby Cave, because God was a lazy bastard..." and on and on.

"Darby Cave huh?" The tall one chimes, "That sounds like a singer's name." A new customer walks in and she turns to him and says, "Hi, this is Darby Cave, she's debuting tonight and will be here all week." Angus starts describing to me that I'm in the Carrick dorm and the girls squeel, "oh that's where we are, it's a good one!" Angus cuts in, "watch out though, these two are fanny slappers." We all laugh. Another customer walks in and Angus says, "Hello, I'm Angus O'Donnel and this is Darby Cave and the Fanny Slappers, they'll be here all week."

That's all I can remember of the dialogue now... hopefully more hilarity will come to me as I sleep in my top bunk in the back of the Carrick dorm at Brown's Hostel tonight. I left there at about 5 tonight and walked around downtown and got a toursits map. I also got to see an english movie, yay! There aint no dubbin' in Dublin. Stranger than Fiction. I really liked it. I'll probably go see another tomorrow night. Thanks to my GFU student ID with no date on it, I can get in for 6 Euros, yesssssss! I've got to get them in when I can, I sure do miss going to movies. Spanish ones are good too, but I usually get sleepy trying so hard to understand.

I'm not sure what's on tap for tomorrow, but I want to see the book of Kells and go to the Guiness Brewery at some point. I'll blog more when I get home, or maybe tomorrow, who knows. Kiss me, I'm Irish!

Being a doer

2006-12-01T03:40:00.000-08:00

I´ve spent the last week being more of a doer than a stop and tell everyone about it... er. So, the blog has been really lame lately. But, I still have pictures to post from Vitoria and an awesome dinner of Spanish-Mexican food. That will all have to wait, unfortunately, until I get back from Dublin/Norway, on the 12th. We´re heading to France tonight to spend the night and I leave from Biarritz at 1 pm. 2 days on my own in Ireland and then I head to Norway on the 5th to see little Whitty. I´m so excited! Wish me luck, though I know I´ll be in the land of clovers and Lepprachans (how do you spell that?). Have a great weekend, week and weekend everyone! Tootles.

Africa, NOT my Africa

2006-11-28T07:17:00.000-08:00

My newest news is that I am not going to Africa after all for Christmas. The family will be visiting folks in France for the two week break at the end of the month and I´ll get the first week of January, or maybe more, off to do what I want. I was really pumped to get all tan at Christmas, so maybe I´ll try to plan a trip to somewhere warm. I´m going to be in Spain for New Year though because people dress up in costumes and that will be sweet. Maybe Whit can come visit then, yesssssss!

Almost time to go hang with her, how fun! She says we´re going to watch Christmas movies and eat baked apples and ice cream one night. Sounds awesome to the naked ear, but we are far from home and I just don´t know how my little heart will handle Christmas in a far off place yet. I was just sort of planning on skipping it this year because it might be too painful to think about. I guess with Whit there it will be good. We´ll probably just hug for about the frist half an hour we are together.

Lately, I´ve been a bad student. It´s really frustrating me because I think that getting to know people while I´m here is the most important thing, but it´s putting me a little behind in my studies. Really though, I´m just being lazy. I have the time and i´m just not setting it aside. Just thought I´d vent that to you all back home so you can flood my inbox with messages saying, "it´s ok Darb, you´re doing great!" Yes, please coddle me.

Basketball Sunday went well, and resulted in lots of pictures from downtown Vitoria and Estella, etc, at night. I´ll post them soon. Many are blurry, but pretty and I got to take a sweet night time rodeo around the area. The team I played with won, the team I practice with lost (tear), and the team we wanted to win in Vitoria won. Good stuff.

I hope all is well back home! Send me an update on you when you get a chance. Lovin´s.

Thanksgiving in Spain

2006-11-25T09:41:00.000-08:00

Here I am, 6:30 pm, still in my gnome pajamas and bathrobe. My weekends have truly become weekends. At home I still had tons of things to get done before the next week began. Here, I can just be lazy all day. I need to catch up on my sleep anyway. Lets just say I´m soaking up the culture.

So, Thanksgiving. I got home after class and Emily had whipped up some stuffing, parsnips and was thinking creatively about using some lovely green apples we bought for dessert. Kim, the American Au Pair who works for the mayor, and just got here a couple weeks ago, also joined in. We bought a pre-made chicken, boiled corn, made mashed potatoes, bought an apple thing that was supposed to resemble a pie but didn´t. Don´t worry, I had a supervisor for all my cooking endeavors. I made the potatoes, mashed some squash and started the gravy, Em finished it. We had quite a spread.
I think I must have my camera on a weird setting because my pictures are more blue these days. Anyhow, Catherine and Patrick came home to celebrate with us, which was nice. We had tons of food and good chat time. And when all was said and done, Emily left the house looking like a homeless person, as Catherine said, with her bottle of wine and broiled apple. That´s what she decided to do with the apples, broil them with brown sugar and white wine inside. Sooooooooo yummy. Here´s Em being homeless...

Not much else is new here in Pamp-town. tomorrow will be basketball day extrordinaire. I´m playing in a game at 10, watching anotehr one at 12, the team I practice with, and going to one in Vitoria after that. So fun! I miss watching games and knowing people on teams and being a fan.

I´ll try to blog more soon. It´s a lazy day here and I need to go wake myself up with a dance workout. Speaking of, Emily is on the dance workout wagon. She loves them. I´m telling you folks, try them, you´ll like them. We could all use more dancing in our lives. Happy feet, yay!

And the winner is...

2006-11-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

Me! Based on the votes I got in, which were not many, I beat Whit in the big body contest. Crazy. I guess my best insult is no longer usable and the tables have now turned.

I´ll blog tomorrow on my first Spanish Thanksgiving, "accion de gracias." It was a good one. I hope everyone had a good time with friends and family back home!

Pasta Sandwich

2006-11-22T04:39:00.000-08:00

Have you ever heard of a pasta sandwich? In fact, have you ever heard of a condiment called pasta sandwich? An American condiment called pasta sandwich made by the Heinz company? Well, it exists.

Yesterday Em and I were in EleClerc shopping for our super-fantastic-spanish-american Thanksgiving celebration, which we´ll be having tomorrow and I´ll blog about later. Anyhow, we hit the condiments aisle to see if we could find gravy and Emily started looking over the various mustards trying to figure out which one had the least amount of artificial ingredients. I waited patiently, but sometimes have a hard time standing still, so I started looking at various jars, almost dropping some, almost opening some, and suddenly, a label popped out at me like a jack in the box.

"What´s this?" I thought. "A jar that reads ´pasta sandwich´ that is neither pasta nor a sandwich. How can this be? There must be a mistake..." So, I took a picture...

I´m sorry, but every time I look at this, I start laughing histarically. What the hell is it? It´s not a pasta, it´s not a sandwich, yet, based on the label, it´s the original pasta sandwich. The original... I guess there must be other types? Maybe alfredo pasta sandwich, or pasta sandwich meaty? Ha ha ha!

To make matters worse, or better, it´s by Heinz! Yes, an American company! Yes, a former presidential candidate´s wife is hooked to the name on this label! Yes, her family speaks Spanish and should be able to translate this thing appropriately! Pasta Sandwich, ha ha ha, I can´t stop saying it. Que ridiculo.

La Borracha

2006-11-19T08:27:00.000-08:00

If you would like to keep a high opinion of me, if you had one to begin with, please do not continue reading this entry. I have given this much thought and the pictures that resulted from last night, though incredibly embarrassing, are just too funny not to share. I feel it´s my duty as a blogger to entertain and inform, therefore, I am about to completely deface myself for your enjoyment.

It was Emily´s first night out in Spain. I´m not going to explain many details of the night, but let the pictures speak mostly for themselves.

1. The tale begins on a lovely night in Pamplona...

2. The night began harmlessly. Here, Emily tastes a vinegar pickled onion for the first time with Iñaki´s friend Montxo (the "tx" here makes a "ch" sound, it´s very Navarra). Everyone was sober, everyone was nice, it was great.

3. After a couple hours of chatting, we all decided to go out, Em Iñaki, Montxo and I. Here is a picture of Em and I at her first bar in Pamplona.
4. Montxo got a little silly and put Emily´s tie on his head. What good ól fashioned fun! Keep in mind the rum and cokes are beginning to flow...
5. More silliness as I put on Em´s glasses. My cheeks are beginning to redden a tad here.
6. Here´s a shot of everyone in the group. I guess a big gust of wind must have come along, because we all seem to be tipping over to one side, like we weren´t on steady ground... a curious thing, the ground.
7. This is the next group shot we attempted. As you can see, a failure.
8. I took this picture myself, quite a steady hand with all that rum in me. I even had Em´s glasses on. Em´s getting happy!
9. Sadly, all good things come to an end. We headed to another bar and for some reason, when I arrived, I became quite tired. I just couldn´t seem to stand very well and the wall in the bathroom was so cozy, so I decided to take a nap.
10. From there, things went down hill. When your tummy hurts, you must get whatever is making it hurt out. So... I did...
11. The night finished with a classic, I just puked and feel much better picture, not to mention a long walk.

Coincidentally, this all occurred just across the street from my main man Hemmingway´s statue. I´m hoping this gets me some brownie points in my whole "statue to Darby" pursuit. I came, I drank, I left it all in the streets of Pamplona.

Once again, sorry to the family members who may now feel your relative is a big fat drunk. Well, rest assurred, I´m not. Just having a hell of a good time!

Who´s the bigger body?

2006-11-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

Back when Whit and I were playing college basketball, we noticed that many a time our coaches would hand us scouting reports on which the description "big body" was used for certain players. We came to realize that this may be the universal description for posts and that we might also be described as such to other teams. Hence, the term "big body" was brought into our regular vocabulary and, when used, is often followed by a punch to the arm or the explitive, "shut up!"

Now that we are both back in the game (she more than me certainly) we are comparing to see who has the biggest of all big bodies. We can´t decide for ourselves, so we´re putting it to a vote. Here are two pictures of us in our uniforms, Whit´s is in a practice uni. Take a look and email me your vote, who´s the big body champion? darbycave@yahoo.com ... I´ll post the results next week.

Joder! (Ho-dare!) (@#¬€%$!!!)

2006-11-16T04:01:00.000-08:00

Last night was supposed to be my coming out party, my debut on "the good team". It was their preseason championship and they were playing the Public University, where I go to school. I was so pumped up! I knew I´d be late, but Emily came over about 20 minutes into the game, so I was making good time. Catherine and Patrick are gone, so I´m lucky Em agreed to babysit...

9:15, I got in the car... game time was 8:45. By 9:20 I was on the byway, very quick for me. I was taking the round abouts in 3rd gear, a rarity. I hit Cicur aound 9:30 and parked outside the gym by 9:35. I ran and started tearing off my sweats, turning off my iPod... I flung the front doors to the gym open and stopped... There were girls in the gym, but none had uniforms and the formation seemed quite casual, like a practice... hmm. Oh and no one from "the good team" was in the gym. "Mierda!" I thought. My front desk buddy, who always tells me the locker room to go to without using words, informed me that the game was actually at the university, which happens to be 5 minutes from my house!

By the time I got home, it was 9:50. I figured it was too late to go, so Em and I had a couple glasses of wine as I whined about missing the game. I didn´t want to go so late and give the impression that I felt I could just walk in and play. "Ooooh wow, big American girl thinks she´s the bomb..." I know that´s what they would have thought : )

As it turns out, that´s exactly what I could have done. It was a close game and they ended up losing by 10. It was explained to me before the game, that though I was so excited, the game didn´t mean much and was more like a practice game really. So, I assumed it wasn´t going to be much of a match. Damn it! Oh well, it´s in the past. Hopefully there will be another one I can play in. Tear, cough, sigh.

Em and I had a bunch of fun chatting though and a lovely product of our good times is this fabulous picture of us. Em wanted to make mean faces, but started laughing as I snapped it. So, she looks cute and I look like a monkey, but what else is new. She´s here now and we´re about to go robe shopping and are currently discussing how stumpy the bananas are here at my house and how long and nice they are at hers. Anyhow, the picture...

I love it! We are the funnest!

On a side note, my room is the place where all the flies from the summer come to die during the winter. I have about 15 fly corpses on the floor outside my door. They´re just in regular fly position and I keep trying to smash them because I think they´re alive, but then they don´t move and I have at least killed them further. It´s sort of a sad game because I always win. Anyway, I need to sweep those flies up.

And, I´m off...

A time out

2006-11-14T04:20:00.000-08:00

I apologize for my 4 day hiatus from the blogosphere. I had a weekend alone with the kids and some reflecting on life to do, so that took up most of my time. Other than eating lots and lots of cookies with Emily of course. We are trying to keep each other thin on this trip by constantly offering the last of whatever we have to the other. One of us always ends up eating it though.

I haven´t taken many pictures lately. I need to take a weekend excursion or day trip to San Sabastian or Vitoria soon. Ireland/Norway is almost here, so I need to finish planning that first. Thanksgiving is almost here as well and Em and I are thinking hard on how to find turkey and corn and stuffing and all that great stuff. Thank you America for having binge eating holidays!

This morning I took the kids to school and the hills around Tajonar were peaking up through clouds of fog. I took a couple snaps...
The second one´s a little blurry, but I thought it still captured the moment. So pretty!

Last week, I was showing Emily around a little, the very little that I know, and making up history about Pamplona that I think is true, but possibly not as well. I finally got to take a picture of the Ernest Hemmingway statue in the Plaza del Torros. The inscription on it basically says "thanks for the party!" I think that´s incredible. The man has a statue in honor of how much of a kick ass time he had in Pamplona. Well, that´s my new goal, to have a statue next to Ernie saying, "you rock too Darbo!" Here´s the picture...
Literally translated in my broken Spanish, sans diccionario, the inscription reads: "Ernest Hemmingway: Premiere noble of literature, friend of this town and admirer of our parties... (que supo?) to describe and to spread the city of Pamplona, San Fermin."

Very cool.

Let´s see... another picture that I like is of me from last week exploring the various parks in Pamplona at night. I´m quite good at riding dogs with springs for legs...
Tomorrow it is possible that I´ll be able to play in a game with the better team in Navarra. I first have to bribe Emily to be here with the kids while I´m gone because Catherine and Patrick are out for the rest of the week. I hope she´ll babysit! Also, I need to ask Catherine if it´s ok. She´d just have to be here with them while they sleep, no real interaction necessary. I hope it works out because I really want to play.

Ohhhhhhhh, also... the other night I met Nicole Kidman... Iñaki´s friend Luis attempted to translate their conversations on movies and kept saying, "I am Nicole Kidman." It was really quite hilarious. I also found out that in Spain, Burt Reynolds is known as Bart Rain-yols and Tom Cruise is Tom Crew-iz. They´d keep saying to me, "You don´t know Bart Rain-yols? He´s an American actor!" Luis later told me that I need to work on my pronunciation in English. A funny man, that one. Seriously though, I can´t believe how hard people try to accomodate me here. It´s so nice. I don´t expect it and they really try to make sure I understand and include me. It´s pretty great. At the same time, it makes me feel like a jack ass for not knowing their language very well yet. But, I´m still working hard-ish on it and new things are making sense more often.

I have no real plans for the week other than to stay here this weekend for some Darb-time and work on achieving hemmingway status. I´ll keep you posted. Love to ya!

PS - Check out my cousin Kelly´s blog on helping out in N.O., http://360.yahoo.com/kellylynnfullerton. Quite interesting...

Best fight ever

2006-11-08T04:49:00.000-08:00

Last night at dinner the kids and I chowed down while Catherine watched the news in the other room. Scratch that... I chowed down as the kids did the best they could to avoid eating. In trying to divert my attention from the food she had not ingested, Louise began to sing a bit. Alexis was not pleased with this and said, "Weez, no singing at the table!" Louise continued to sing. Alexis yelled to Catherine in French and Catherine yelled back in French.

I can only guess that Catherine told her to stop because she then began to mouth the words to the song very dramatically. Alexis stared at her for a moment, fork in mid-air, and began to do the same, while pretending to sing the song into the sausage on the end of his fork. They literally did this for about a minute and a half, closing their eyes so one could not see the other. Because, I´m guessing the rational was, that if you looked at the other person, you "lost." But this was unspoken and just sort of an inherant rule between siblings. I enjoyed it.

Más vocabulario

2006-11-07T03:35:00.000-08:00

Today I was working on a tema for Spanish class and had to look up a couple words. In hanging out with folks lately, I´d been hearing a certain word often and decided to look that up as well, since it was on my mind. Dumdidum, I gently thumbed through the dictionary, birds chirpping around me, butterflies on my shoulders, my bright eyes sparkling with the thought of learning a new word, a bit of knowledge for my sweet little mind so I could further communicate with my new fellow countrymen... thunder roared, the birds fainted and the butterflies died when I came to the "J" section of my Collins Pocket Plus and my eyes scanned the definition for (Grandma Billie, DO NOT click on this link!) joder.

The link I found only has the one definition, but my dictionary has many more. My favorite part is that it is first and foremost a verb, ha! (Update, Iñaki reminded me that he actually told me this before, the verb thing). So, being the lover of language that I am, I had to look the english word up in an english dictionary too. Yep, it´s a verb. Interesting to know. Sorry if you´re not on my wavelength here, but I think this is hilarious. There I was trying to expand my vocabulary and either hit the jackpot of Spanish expletives or the exact word I should not know in case I accidentally use it in the wrong situation. I´m a glass half full kind of girl, so I´m gonna say it´s a good one to know.

In case you haven´t heard through my mom and dad, Whit the Weege is doing better. She got a phone today and is charging it. She relayed to me that beer is really expenssive in Norway, so I should buy a bunch at the duty free shop when my plane lands, a very important part of my trip to see her. She´ll be taking the "big body" photo for a vote from you all this weekend, so I´ll post that for a fun change soon. She´s written a bunch of blog entries but hasn´t a blog. I told her what to do, since I was once the blog bitch of OregonLive (sorry for the language today GMB, I´m feeling saucy). I won´t tell you much more in case she gets her blog rolling soon and can tell you herself.

Today I´m heading home to hang with Emily. I´ve made her into a Dawson´s Creek fan, and I think she best described it when she said, "it´s so terrible, but I can´t stop watching it." I also need to finish my laundry, which takes days to dry now that it´s colder outside, hence, in the garage where there isn´t a working dryer but a place to hang my clothes out. I sort of like hung dried clothes though. Hmmm, I´ve got a scarf on today, ala Dan and cara last Christmas, which is awesome and I may bust out my Saturday Market knit cap later. My life is so exciting! Well, I´m enjoying it anyway. I´ll keep you posted, until then, I´ll be kickin´ it Darb Style.

Fall in Tajonar

2006-11-06T07:33:00.000-08:00

It´s such a pretty day today! The sky is blue, there´s a touch of wind and crisp air all around. I love it. I wore a hat and boots and one of my shirts with the hand cuffs, which I love because they make me feel like a ninja.

Crispy leaves are starting to appear all over Tajonar. I walked down to our little park today and sat on a bench with my iPod and some vocab to study. It was lovely. On my way back I went out of my way to step on every dry leaf I found. It´s so satisfying when you get a good one that makes a solid crunch. Don´t you love that noise/feeling? Or am I just a bit crazy... maybe both.

I guess I just wanted to share my autumn mood really quick. Now it´s time tah teach dem kiddies some well english!

Portland, Pamplona, what´s the dif?

2006-11-06T02:40:00.000-08:00

There´s a new au pair in town and she just happens to live right nextdoor to me. She also happens to have lived some of her life in Oregon. She also happens to be a super cool party person (which you would not get unless you watch season 6 of the Gilmore Girls). As well, she is named Emily. She looks a lot like one Erin Smith, who I know some of you folks remember from CCHS.

Anyhow, she´s really nice and I´ve shown her around a little bit and she went to a vineyard with her family yesterday and told me all about it. So cool, I´m gonna have to set up a trip like that for myself. I´ll wait until it´s actually from my own experience to tell you about it.

We had a super-American time the other day as we attempted to order some food on a walk around Pamplona. All was going fairly smoothly, until I placed my coffee too close to an elbow and that elbow belonged to a woman, who turned around rapidly and spilled the coffee all over my shoe, herself and the floor. The cup also shattered on the lenoleum. Now, I take full responsibility for the fact that I placed it too close to her, but Emily informed me later that the lady kept glaring at me as we picked things up. All I have to say to that is that I am in perfect control of my elbows at all times and other people should be the same.

Oh, I also have a fun night to share about! My first movie night in Spain! I watched my first spanish film, Tesis, by Alejandro Amenábar. He also did "The Others," as an American reference for you. Anyhow, it was really good. I could follow for the most part, but that was because the filming was well done. I think a good film should be something that is understandable without dialogue. But, I´m going to watch it with english subtitles so I can make sure, later : ) It´s about a girl who does her thesis in film school on violence in film. She gets a hold of a very violent video, finds out who the camera man was, or so we think, and may be his next victim... ooooooh. Then we watched Dr. Strangelove in Spanish. Better in english I´d say. I was a bit sleepy, so it was hard to stay focused. When it got over, we weren´t really tired, second wind, and Iñaki attempted to teach me to salsa, but I sort of sucked at it. This was disappointing because I´m such a Dancing Queen back home, but he´s got quick little feet!

That´s about it though. Practice tonight and class tomorrow. I better get some vocab. Later taters!

Cheesecake, the dinner of champions!

2006-11-05T00:40:00.000-08:00

I had a round, individual sized cheesecake for dinner Saturday night. It was really yummy and just my size. The perfect pre-game snackaroo. My first bball game here was last night at 8:15, with the team that is described to me as "just for friends", meaning not so good as the team I practice with. But, just for friends means anyone can play and the level is good for me, as I just want to have fun. I even have a uniform. I may not be supposed to, but I´m totally bringing it home because it´s the best souvenir ever.

We played at a school called San Cermin in downtown Pamplona that has a large gym with a green floor. Basically the same set up as the sports pavillion in Cizur, but not as nice a floor. But just fine for my taste. The girls on this team are just as nice as the others. One in particular, Beatriz, kept coming up to me and trying to get me pumped up during warmups, saying, "vamos!" and giving me high tens or patting me on the back.

The game began and I sat for the first 6 minutes or so. A few differences from the states... we have the triangle shaped key, which is actually good for me because it sets up my hook... the shot clock is 24 seconds... and 10 minute quarters rather than a 20 half. 3 in the key and fouls are the same, unfortunately. Anyhow, not a good start. I was a bit nervous because I really wanted to play, but didn´t think I´d get much time because I was new.

I subbed in and started a little slow, shaking the game-time rust off. The other team was in a zone, which is tough to score against for me. As time passed I realized I was about 6 inches or more taller than everyone on their team, our opponents. Also, the fact that girls kept running into me and making a loud groaning noise, sometimes falling to the floor, lead me to believe I was also stronger than most of them : ). So, I just started to post up as much as possible and shoot, shoot, shoot!

The plan worked! I scored more than I ever have in a game, 31 points´, and I didn´t sub out for the rest of the game. And every single one was either a right hook shot or a right handed layup. Great passes from my teammates. I guess that´s not much different than at home, but I have a left hook too, I swear, and, I also don´t score this much. A moral to this story - eat cheesecake for dinner more often!

I had a lot of fun, obviously, and I´ll be back next week if they´ll have me. Here´s a picture of me in my uniform. Love it! I´m a "big body", huh Whit? You send me a pic of you in your uni and we´ll do a comparison. I´ll post a pic of me and one of you next to it and then I´ll have people vote. Waddaya say ya big Weege?

Los Delinquentes

2006-11-03T02:58:00.000-08:00

My voice has dropped an octave due to lack of sleep and my eyes are puffy. My hair still smells like smoke after showering off the sweat from at least 20 different people. I have a deep smokey feeling in my chest from all the secondhand I inhailed and sore hips from the push and shove. All in all, a fabulous night!

I went to the Los Delinquentes concert last night with Inaki, his sister Irene and their cousin. I can´t remember the cousin´s name though, I´m a jerk. Here we are... (l to r, cousin, Irene, me Inaki).It was so fun! It was in a little club outside of Pamplona. Inaki said there were supposed to be 380 people there and it felt like it, which made it all more awesome. Here are a couple snaps from inside...
Packed! We got there sort of early and staked out a good spot. We had to hold our ground as more people started piling in, but used our excellent basketball skills and survived. And look how close we were.

Anyhow, Los Delinquentes seem like sort of a rastafarian meets folk music group. But there´s some rock in there too, pretty upbeat. Their lead singer is a tiny little afroed guy with a high pitched voice, but it works with the sound. At times he played a kazoo and it was actually quite similar to the sound of his voice. The crowd had great energy and sang half the songs for the group.

Culturally, it was just like home! The band came out, people freaked out, pushed and shoved to get to the front, sang, danced if they had room... etc. (I think you all know what that "etc." stands for).

At one point, the band was waving a huge pirate flag around the stage. The group got in a big circle for the finale and a few jumped in the middle and did little dances. Then they all put their arms around eachother and sort of mumbled a loud drunken sounding tune and shimmied off the stage. Good one. Inaki is a self-proclaimed expert at one armed picture taking (watch out Liz, you have some competition) and here´s one of me being really happy to be there, the typical Darby smile really...
Things wrapped up at about midnight, early, so we went into Old Town Pamplona and danced around at a couple bars for a while. Irene and I decided at the first bar, that though we can´t speak to eachother much, we know the other is nice. Yeah... I don´t know. The bar was a really long room with sort of a dance area in the back. This seems to be the typical set up for bars in Old Town. It´s pretty cool, the streets are pretty much deserted and quiet and you can look up at all the old buildings. Suddenly a door will open and music blares out at you and it´s packed inside.

Irene and her wiley ways figured out where the band was hanging out after the show, which happened to be right across the street from the firstbar we went to. The first one was called "Garazi" and the 2nd, "Terminal", just for my own memory, no story enhancement really. So, we walked across the street to Terminal and Irene basically went up to the band members and started making friends. She´s one of those gals who is always making friends. I just love that about her.

More pictures... The first is Irene and I dancing at Garazi (I think I look a lot like Kevin in this picture and it also looks like the girl behind us is very tiny and I´m punding her on the head) and the second is a sweet picture from Terminal. None of us are really doing anything, but I really like the picture.
Sorry the writing for this entry is a little lame. I´m still pretty sleepy. But, at least you have some pictures and a basic idea of my night. If I get anymore inspiration, I´ll share a tall tale. Now, I´m going to go shower again : )

El Doctor: My first experience with rubber ankle bands

2006-11-02T02:50:00.000-08:00

I had to go to the doctor for a check up in order to play on the hoop team that I can´t really play on... hmm, that makes sense. Inaki showed me twice how to get there, but I still got lost. I left at 3:30 for a 4:00 appointment and finally figured out where I was at about 4 and found a parking spot at 4:15. I´ve heard it´s culturally ok to be late in Spain, so I wasn´t too worried. But when I got there, the doctor called the sports pavillion to tell them I made it, meaning he had called to say I was late earlier! Oops.

But, I´m getting ahead of myself. Just getting into the building was a rough one for me. I pushed the little buzzer outside the tall building that looks like an apartment complex. The doctor answered, in Spanish. At that point I was all worked up because I was more than 15 minutes late and wasn´t understanding much Spanish, let alone english. I told the doctor who I was and he buzzed me in. I couldn´t tell where his office was, based on the buzzer, so I had to go back out and ask. He buzzed me back in and waited in teh hallway for me. In Spain the floor numbering is different from home. What we would call the 1st floor is the 2nd, etc.

Anyhow, I found doc and then he made the A-OK call. Like every doctor´s appointment, first thing´s first. He had to interview me on my medical history. I think I understood what he was saying for the most part. I either told him I was completely healthy, or that I have cancer, respiritory problems and a history of heart disease in my family. He nodded and smiled, so I figured I was good to go. At a few key moments I misunderstood him. Have you ever been in a foreign country and had the word menstration yelled at you repeatedly? That´s yet another new experience I´m crossing off my¨"to do" list.

Next came the physical. He sort of pointed into a back room and motioned which clothes I needed to remove and which could stay on. This could have been a highly embarrassing moment also. So I figured I´d just leave more on than I´d take off and let him tell me again if I needed to remove more.

First, I took off my shoes and stood on a glass plate about a foot off the ground and he turned on a light beneath my feet for a few seconds. I´ve never done that at home. Then I touched my toes, tested how hard I could breath into a tube, the usual. Next came the really odd part. He had me lay down on the table and strapped rubber bands to my ankles and writsts and then attached dull metal spikes to the rubber which were attached to a machine through a cord. Then he took more cords and attached them to my stomach and chest with little air suction thingys. It was all quite a mad scientist situation really. I don´t really remember what happened next... hopefully not a Seinfeld at the dentist moment. I think the machine was turned on and I laid there for a minute or two.

Post-machine was the skin fold test, which I´d never had, but made me feel quite fat. I rode and exercise bike for 10 minutes and had more little suction things on me and doc gradually upped the resistence. By the end it was pretty hard and I kind of wanted to push him away from the damn knob! But, I made it, harm free. He gave me a note to give to the sports club, who knows what it says. I guess I should read it. And that´s it, I´m cleared to play for my team, but I can´t really play. This is a true test of making every practice a game situation. Scott, you should really use that psychology. Tell half the team they aren´t going to play Friday and see how they do in practice. They´ll be animals I tell you!

Quite an experience. And now, not one I will forget because it has been immortalized ala blog. Tonight´s the Los Delincuentes concert, yay! That´ll be blogged tomorrow. This weekend I get to play in a game Saturday night with the not so good team from the club. Hoops are hoops though. Yesterday I took Alexis to one of the Navarra games, the team I practice with. He had a lot of fun and so did I, explaining things to him and such. And that´s about it. I better get a tema session done and get a run in because it´s pretty out again. Word.

A mouse in my shoe

2006-10-31T00:58:00.000-08:00

I think I have the noisiest shoes known to man. The moment my foot makes contact with the lenoleum halls of the public university, a squeek can be heard each time I step, each time the sole of my shoe rubs on the floor, each time I lift a toe. The halls are for the most part empty when I arrive so just a few folks, quietly chatting near the walls are disrrupted. I´m not sure what it is, but it´s sooooo squeeky. I feel like Larry David in the episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" when he ruins the tooth fairy for the daughter of his friend because he has squeeky orthodics. I´ve really gotta get these things under control. Maybe some WD-40?

Not to mention, I have very cracky ankles. I´ll get home late each night from practice, or what not, and the house is dark. The kitchen door is very loud on it´s own, but then I try to tiptoe upstairs and stay silent. The first few steps are fine but then an ankle will sound like it´s a branch snapping. Then my knee joins in and it´s a one woman crackalackin´band all the way up two flights of stairs to my studio where I then proceed to do noisy things like take showers at 12:30 am.

I´m not sure why I´m writing all this in my blog, but it was on my mind, class was cancelled, and I felt like writing it. anyhow, happy Halloween to all you United Statesters over there! We don´t have it over here. Just a holiday tomorrow that´s more like Memorial Day. The kids don´t have school, so tonight we´re planning a few fun adventures. I was going to pick up the kids from school in costume, but Catherine kicked that idea out. It would be considered quite strange here. There´s gotta be something cool I can plan for the kids, but I´m not sure what. Louise said they do a candy hunt at home. Maybe I´ll just get them some candy and a card, I dunno.

Have a safe and a happy!

Biarritz

2006-10-30T02:06:00.000-08:00

As previously stated, I got to take a jaunt over to Biarritz, a short 20 minute drive from the house in France. It is gorgeous! Have you seen the move "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels"? Well, that film is set mostly in a little town on the French Riviera called Beaumont Sur Mere (who knows if that´s the right spelling). Anyhow, it is quite similar to Biarritz. Catherine said they hold a world famous surfing competition there every year. For more info, here´s the website. It´s in French, but cool pictures.

So, Louise and I left in the afternoon around 3 and got there around 3:30. The beach was crawling with people and there´s a wide boardwalk to stroll along. We got some ice cream and set up camp in the sand. There´s a large palace looking building on either side of the beach and classy little shops all along the boardwalk. It was probably 75 degrees out and the end of October, unheard of.

I wish I´d had more time to take pictures, but being with an 11 year old who´s been there tons of times just doesn´t allow a girl the priviledge. Here are the few pics I did snap...

This is a shot to the right of where we sat on the beach. The building you can see to the far right is where, Louise said, her parents had their wedding reception! Holy cow.

This shady lane was to the left of the ice cream stand we visited right on the boardwalk. These old buildings were the norm on each tiny street.

Though slightly over explosed, this is a picture to the left of where we sat on the beach. Thinking back, I really should have gotten a picture of the water! Duh!

So, it was a nice little afternoon trip. As far as the rest of the weekend goes, I know I´m ruined for champagne for the rest of my life. Not that I drank it before coming here much, but this is good stuff. Catherine had the line of the weekend when she said, "even if I´m starving and dying of thirst, just tell me one thing... where´s the champagne?" Ha ha ha, she´s a card.

My weekly plans aren´t too special. Pretty much regular, but I´m going to a Los Delinquentes concert on Thursday, which I think I already mentioned. But, I´m excited. They´re on the CD that Inaki gave me, so I´ve been listening to them so I can sing all the songs at the concert, yesssss!

There´s a holiday Wednesday and the kids have no school, so who knows what´s on tap. Darby out of the house on her own hopefully. My team has a game that night at 5 so maybe I can go watch. I´m really sucking at speaking spanish with people and usually they end up catering to my needs and using a bit of english. I need to get strickter about that. My ears always seem to reject the spanish they hear. It´s like they fold right up into my head and won´t listen, which, as many of you know, is quite possible since the cartiledge in my ears is so flexible.

The rest of today will be a trip to the university, home for lunch and an afternoon of who knows. It´s really nice right now, I may need to go on a jog. I have practice tonight though and am not as young as I used to be. The hills call me, I´m off! Lovins all around.

Still here

2006-10-29T15:02:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack in blogs lately folks. I guess not much went on this week worth talking about. But, I went to france this weekend and Louise and I got to go to Biarritz for an afternoon. It was a nice day and we actually got to swim. Going with and 11 year old has it´s ups and downs though. It was great to have a little girl time, but not much time for me to take pictures or exploring. It was so beautiful! But, I´ll post pictures and more description tomorrow.

For now it´s off to bed for me, as it´s 1 o´clock. Thanks to daylight savings time, it´s midnight, so that´s nice, but my bod feels like it´s 1. Don´t forget to "turn back tiiiii-uuuummm!" (For all you Will and Grace fans out there, I hope you got that joke).

The Caves do Europe

2006-10-26T04:20:00.000-07:00

I´m sure my family have all heard by now, but my friends don´t know yet... Whit´s on the team in Norway for sure! I mean really, was there any doubt? I´m planning a trip to Ireland and Norway for the first week of December, which I´m sure I´ve mentioned, but if you have tips please send them. I don´t have a way from ireland to Norway yet, but I´m thinking by boat. I really have no idea how much it would be or anything, so if you know, tell me, but I´ll do research too.

In other news, I understood a lot of what went on in Spanish class today! I also had a language share with my amigo Gus who I met through the university language share system. He can´t even thoroughly explain the different past tense verbs to me, so I feel better about them now. It´s just tough, especially when I´m talking. All good things.

Sadly, I had to say goodbye to a friend today. My little German gal Annika who is 20 and had a very bad experience as an au pair, is leaving after 2 months. I hear many girls are treated more like a housekeeper and babysitter than part of the family as au pairs in Spain, so I am quite fortunate. Annika is going back home to Germany Friday and back to school. I am happy for her but sad to lose such a wonderful shopping accomplice. She gave me the best compliment... she said she is always so stressed out and worried and I always seem so chill and go with the flow. She said when she gets panicked, she will just tell herself, "ok, be like Darby." Ha ha! I loved it! Especially since I feel like I´m the one freaking out all the time and other people have it under control. Anyway, I have a new place to visit in Germany any time I like, which is great! And she in Portland!

Happily, I think I made a new friend yesterday, a real friend. Not like hi, how are you, see ya later crap. I talked with Inaki, my coach, not the old guy, after practice yesterday and we actually had a conversation on movies, American ones! So, of course, this drew me right in. He didn´t know some of the real names of movies in english because the names are all jacked up over here, so he´d describe the plot and I´d get the name. It´s my new favorite game. Plus, he speaks pretty good english, so it was like hanging out with my good buddy Ky Jo and just shooting the breeze on cinematic everything. I´m going to a concert with his sister and he next week, which is soooooo awesome. Live spanish music, how fun! I can´t wait to see what concerts are like here, a whole new part of the culture to explore.

Long story short, I´m jacked! Whit´s gone Euro, I have a new friend who knows the city and speaks english, I´m understanding slowly but surely, and Pamplona is a sweet place to be. It lets me stay down just long enough to appreciate my situation and then it builds me back up, 2 fold. I probably shouldn´t have said that, because I´m a big believer in people eating their words, but I don´t care. It´s cloudy out, but warm, I´m gonna go bounce around the trails in Tajonar for a while and get a sweat up. Love to ya.

My own, private Pamplona

2006-10-22T13:29:00.000-07:00

Weekend no. 2 alone was interesting. The new has rubbed off of a few things and being on my own feels more alone now. Driving somewhere used to be a big accomplishment and now it´s same ól, shopping at H&M is losing its luster and I don´t get paid til the end of the month anyway.

I had practice Friday night, which was nice. I was on time and everything. The scrimmages were awesome and I felt like I had a great workout. But, no new friends, and I got a little depressed in the car on the way home.

I woke up late Saturday, quite sore, got up, ate, computed and went back to bed to watch A League of Their Own. A great film. I enjoyed it a little extra this time I think because I´m away from home. Baseball=America, so there´s that. Also, it´s a sister story and I have a sister who I´m away from. I had a new incite into Kit actually. Ususally, she annoys the hell out of me, but this time I empathized with her. It must be tough not to evert be noticed and everyone deserves to have a stadium of folks chanting their name once in a while. So I just wanted to say, I may not be a stadium, but I think about all my peeps back home all the time and am chanting your name in my heart when I do.

I took a little adventure to downtown Pamplona to try to run in Yamaguchi Park, but missed it and ended up at another one. It was a nice run, right after the rain, in and out of old stone walls, which I´ll have to look up in my Pamplona book to tell you what they are. But, I got home afterwards, was sorer and only had a movie with Annika to look forward to. I like hanging out with her, but movies I can´t understand don´t appeal to me.

I went though, and we ended up watching a fashion show the mall had instead. Sorta lame and I was home by 9. I had texted Esti, a friend of Alicia´s, earlier in the week about naging out this weekend. She didn´t reply, so I thought nothing was going on. She texted me right as I got home from the mall and said she´d be over in 5 minutes to pick me up. Arantsa was with her and Esti dropped us at a friend of Arantsa´s, Manu (pronounced like "nanoo, nanoo, from Mork), I think, and she had made dinner and we ate shrimp, we had to shell on our own, which I never had. So good! But ripping the heads off and having goo come out was gross. There was also bread and a mixed salad, which is a hardboiled egg, tuna, tomatoe, white asparagas and maybe some greens, with olive oil. Then she pulls out some Spanish fried chicken which was amazing! Crusted in a type of brown sauce, very garlicy and salty, it pulled right off the bone. Mmm!

From there, we went out to 3 differnt bars then a disco and I got home at 5 am! Crazy! I love it! I´m really tired and on my way to cancer from the second hand smoke, but gosh, the folks here in Pamplona know how to treat a girl. Just when I was bummed, I got a pick me up.

Today I went to Alexis´s sort of pre-catechism thing at church. He just read one line in front of the congregation. It was adorable and he did awesome. We went out to lunch afterwards and then I was off to the game in Vitoria. I didn´t get to see the pretty parts of the town, but we won! I still haven´t broken into chatting with the girls yet, because I´m not too confident in my spanish and don´t know how to break the ice. It was sorta weird going with them and then not playing. I think I´d cut of my pinkie toes right now if they healed in a week and I could play.

However, I do get to play in one game in November. I´m not sure why I get to, but I´m so excited! For one, I love basketball. Two, who I am will come through on the court and we won´t need so many words. It´s a good thing. I´ve got a dr.´s apt. on Tuesday, something I need to be able to practice. Maybe they´ll find enough Spanish blood in me so I can play all the time. Can you test for that? I think not.

Well, hopefully I´ll take a weekend trip sometime soon and have more pictures for everyone! Write more soon!

A moment with Darby

2006-10-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

I was thinking today... when I first got here and started kissing people hello (one on each cheek), I would make sort of a "mwa" sound when I did it. I would meet someone, walk up and say, "mwa" to one cheek as I kissed and "mwa" to the other cheek, like I was really enjoying it or something. I´m a sick weirdo I guess. I told catehrine and the kids about it the other day and they laughed pretty hard. Now I just kiss, sans noise, and it´s much more natural. Really though, kissing people on the cheeks reminds me of Vince in Wedding Crashers telling the preist to "get in here for the real thing." Maybe I´ll say that the next time I meet someone.

An incident also occurred today, that I now find funny... I was walking, sort of hopping, up the stone/wood stairs in the house. We wear slippers in the house here, it´s a cultural thing, never shoes. Mine are cheap and stretched out, so I have a hard time keeping them on my feet. One slipped off and tripped me and I fell up the stairs in the house, all alone. I banged the front tendon of my foot pretty hard and my knee. I had to sit there on the stairs, all alone, and pull myself back together. Grabbing my foot, rocking back and forth, all by myself, please just think of the visual... funny, huh? I think so. My dad said it sounded like a Dave move, so true (all said in love D). Though, I doubt my grandparents or relatives will think so, I think Abby and Fitch, maybe Finley will get a kick out of it.

That´s all I got. Just home alone on a Friday night and waiting to get tired. I hope everyone at home is great and that the lovely Oregon fall has kicked in and that you receive a "boquet of newly sharpened pencils..." Can you guess which movie that´s from? I´ll leave you with that.

Bonn Baskets

2006-10-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

The rest of my trip to Germany pretty much revolved around basketball. Saturday night Liz wanted to head to the Hartsberg Sportshalle to see the Bonnmen´s team play. There are 7 Americans on the team and one from PLU, but he doesn´t play much. Liz wanted to meet them, so she could have some buddies who speak more english, which is a great idea.

We headed out from the bus station, as her coach had told us to, getting off at the Hartsberg Halle stop. I´m not sure if my spelling is correct, sorry Liz. We jumped off the bus and as it pulled away, we realized we were in the middle of a neighborhood. We knew the gym might be pretty small, but we had no idea it would be residential. So, we asked a lady at the bus stop, in the dark at around 8:00 pm. Liz said, "Telecom Baskets", which is the team name because Telecom sponsers them. The lady pointed up the street and we turned around to see 3 Telecom phone booths behind us, guessing that she thought Liz meant the telephone.

We walked in the direction she pointed though, since we didn´t see any other Hartsberg stop on the bus map. About a block down there was a sign that said "Sportshalle", which means Sports Hall, I think. So we followed the sign, onto a street with few streetlights and buildings on either side of us that looked like dormrooms. We were a bit skeptical, but had no other lead on where to go. A few blocks up, we hit another Sportshalle sign and turned right... more residences, fewer lights.

Finally, the street opened onto a small intersection and we saw what looked like a high school gym, without the school attached, to our left. We could hear cheerinf and people were walking in and out. We couldn´t believe how small the gym was. As we walked through the doors, two men in white shirts met us at a card table. They didn´t speak any english, but we paid for our tickets somehow, and walked through the main doors. People were smoking in the lobby and drinking, but we didn´t think too much of it, until... we saw two large bald men, wearing singlets, in the center of the gym. Locked upright in some type of hold, they were westling. At this point Liz said to me, "Um, Darby, where the hell are we?"

Liz and I, of course, started laughing our asses off and more people staired at us, like usual. As Liz found some english speakers to redirect us, I snapped a quick shot. It took quite a while longer to find the right Sportshalle, but it was worth it. A crappy game, but the stadium was packed and the team´s colors are pink and white because Telecom is their sponsor. I got a sweet hot pink scarf and a couple pics... A good night all in all.

Next up was a bit of a lazy day, but worth it. I got to see Liz play basketball in Germany. We drove about 6 hours each way to the town of Halle in Eastern Germany. I didn´t take any pictures for a reason... it was not pretty. I got some good ones of the gym though...

The girls on Liz´s team said the building used to be used for training horses. Well, it smelled like it. Sadly, the girls lost. I attribute it partly to the fact that Liz didn´t shoot in the whole first half, and not because she let chances go by, but because they didn´t get her the ball. I think it will take some time for them to get used to her and her to them, but when they do, she´ll be a major factor. I sat in the stands and thought at times, "girls, just give the ball to Liz and she´ll hit a shot," but they just don´t know her game yet. I hope I get to see a game at the end of the year to see the difference. Here are a couple action shots of our girl...

Sorry for the shortness and lack of sassyness in this entry, but I´m sleepy today and I gotta go to practice. Love to ya!