London Town

Since we are not likely to get tickets to 2012, we decidednto pay an advance visit to her Majesty the Queen in the UK.  We got ourselves some very affordable Ryanair tickets from Zaragoza and went for a little tourist action in London.  (To see pictures from our trip, just click on the Big Ben)

Itinerary

Friday, March 11
Left Zaragoza mid afternoon and got to London at about 4 pm.
Got to our Marriott hotel to relax in a very spacious, by London standards, room.  The hotel  is located in Swiss Cottage, has a very nice pool and must have been renovated in the last few years. Very nice.

Auntie Glenda was waiting for us at the hotel already.  She got to the UK a few days earlier so we planned to spend a bit of time together.  We had dinner together at the hotel (menus in english! And dinner served at 6!) and made plans for the next day.  Of course, much of the evening we spent watching TV about the Japan earthquake, horrible, horrible situation.  Having lived very close to the Chernobyl disaster in 86, I could imagine the stress everyone was under to fix the nuclear situation.  Still to be continued...

March 12
We got up really early (not because we did not want to sleep in, but because the girls were demonstrating the reality of 1 hour difference between Spain and the UK), went for a swim in the hotel pool and took the subway to the Parliament buildings.  It was a beautiful sunny day, so our tourist expedition was to be marvelous.  We stopped by the Westminster Abbey (did not go inside), had some breakfast at PRET (coffee shop chain with amazing quality products and brownies) and then we went to the South Kensington station to the Natural History museum.

The lineup was decent and the museum - fabulous.  Best of all, it is free.  We saw dinosaurs, live animal show about animal sight, mammal exhibit and, of course, the gift shop where Auntie Glenda treated the girls to a keepsake.

After the museum we met my boss Brian, went for a walk to the Prince Albert monument, which was newly restored, and then for a fab lunch at the Whole Foods.

By that time we had done plenty of walking and were getting quite tired, but given the weather was very nice, we decided to go to the London Eye ferris wheel.

We were lucky with a short lineup, so we got our tickets, saw a 4 D show of the eye (it was a short movie with 3 D glasses and real snow) and then we went onto the eye.  The eye rotates every 30 minutes - enough time to get a fantastic view of London.  All of us loved the experience and the 52£ was worth it.  After the 360 panoramic overview of the city, we had about 0 energy left and kids, having done amazing, were ready to turn into pumpkins. We stopped at Tesco for some groceries, said good bye to Glenda and took the tube home.

We even did not go for dinner, as this would have required walking, which was unthinkable.  So with a bottle of wine, grapes, cheese and a few drumsticks from KFC we celebrated our evening #2 in London.  Cathy and the kids went to sleep, while I decided to maximize the day and do additional stress-test on my feet and took the tube to the Tate Modern museum.  I had 1.5 hours there, which was amazing.  Some big names at the museum: Kandinsky, Monet, Pollock, Rothko and many others.  And lots and lots of modern exhibits, which always inspires me to do some more painting.  I got home about 11:30pm and went into a coma.

March 13
We started the day with our traditional swim in the hotel pool.  By 9am we were on the tube heading back to town, starting at Bond and Oxford street, where we handily got ourselves a Starbucks and some light breakfast.  After that, we headed off to the Tower of London.  By that time it started raining, so the mood for the tour was set.  We started with Yeoman telling all the wonderful stories of the fortunate guests of the castle and their unfortunate endings.  Made us appreciate the more civilized times we live in...

The Crown Jewels were AMAZING! We did a couple of rounds to see them.  Kids were in awe, so were the adults.  The masterpieces, the wealth, the craftsmanship and all the tradition on display.  Nice to see that some of such old traditions are still well in use.

After we checked out the vistas of the London Bridge with the girls singing the "London bridge is falling down", we could not resist a quick Subway lunch. It still tasted the same, and, given it was my staple food for the last number of years in Canada, I must say I miss it.  So it was a treat.

After the Tower we took the tube to the Victoria & Albert museum.  We did not spend much time there, but did stop in their tea room.

A special note of apology to Glenda.  Glenda suggested that the dining room at the V&A was excellent, which I readily dismissed and said it could not be better than cafeteria food, but that indeed was not true.  They had a full spread, which all looked marvelous.  We had afternoon tea with scones and clotted cream, preserves and tea.  Thanks Glenda for your great advice.

Next, off to the Science Museum, which was also free.  We spent time in the hands-on experiments area for kids.  A bit similar to the science world in Vancouver, just much larger.  They had a whole section on space exploration, similar to the Smithsonian exhibit in DC.  I went on a 4D simulator ride to the moon, which was quite fun.

After the museums, the family headed back to the hotel and I went for a bit of shopping down Oxford street.  We met back at the hotel and had dinner at the restaurant there.  My first steak in 5 months... So enjoyed every bite.  Wine, on the other hand, more expensive and less variety.  So guinness was the order of the day.  The kids had nice kids meals which came with very nice chocolate deserts, which adults enjoyed just as much.

That night we watched a bit more news on Japan and off to bed.

March 14
We got an early sub and train to Stansted airport.  The day was sunny and warm.  We landed in Zaragoza a few hours later to a cloudy and rainy day.  The whole week after our trip was windy, rainy and relatively cold.  But the sun is now out and temperatures are back to the Spanish standard.

We loved our trip and surely will visit the Queen again.  After 2012 rush is over.

P.s. Lots of public works on the subway, many stations closed due to improvements.  You can surely see London getting ready for the games.

Anatolijus and family

Food, glorious food!

It is the second week in a row that we have allowed ourselves to indulge in the art of Spanish cooking.  It is a lot of fun.  So here it is, the menu:

Salt cod cakes with properly paired wine.  The result: yummmmmmyyyyyy!

Click on the picture above to see what I am talking about...

We went shopping for the cod only to realize that there is about the same amount of different varieties of salt cod as there is of salt!  But the lady in the store was very helpful and suggested to cut our cooking time by about 24 hours and try using fresh cod.  I have to say, the results were not disappointing.  It took about 1.5 hours of prep, with Grace being the best helper and Cathy mixing our first ever aioli in Spain, we sat down to a wonderful and flavorful meal.

Couple of thoughts that came to my mind while cooking.  At one point, the recipe called to fill the frying pan with about 3 inches of olive oil to fry the cakes.  I know that we are all health conscious in Canada....  I was thinking more about the cost of all that virgin olive oil I am about to pour into the pan....  So, compromising my recipe and staying true to my frugal nature (not) I poured about 1 CM of oil into the pan (good oil, too) and got the things cooking.  It worked out just great.  In fact, I am not sure what the point of the 3 cm was.

Anyway.  The taste of the cakes with aioli and the wonderful 2009 Chardonnay from Carinena (90 points by Penin guide) was MARVELOUS!  Grace enjoyed the food also, and she is not a big fish fan.

We made enough mix to have some again tomorrow, so off we go to sleep and dream about something with less calories from Canada :)

Anatolijus

Pictures, Pictures!!!

We have added quite a few pictures to our blog.  To find them in the future, just click on to title picture on this page and it will take you to our photo albums.  If that does not work, click on the link below or copy and paste this link into your browser:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aragon-adventures/sets/
Isn't technology wonderful!

Picture Perfect Pyrenees

We are sitting in a guest room of hotel Vicente, built in 1877 and run by a family for 5 generations.  It is 10 am on Sunday, January 30 th.  The sun just peaked from behind the mountain and the church bell chimed 10.  We are in the Pyrenees!

We came here Friday night after a 2 hour drive from Zaragoza.  Funnily enough, it was pouring in Zaragoza, which never happens and as we drove into the mountains it was snowing.  Needless to say, there were at least 3 bad accidents we passed.

Before we left, people at my work told me I needed to get chains for the vehicle.  Seems they are all very serious about them.  I figured that living in the dessert and not ever having snow would make you worried about the white stuff.  Just to entertain myself, I went and bought synthetic wheel socks (which are quite neat and take no time to put on) and figured: I will show them some Canadian driving and bring the chains back for refund once we return.

When we got to the mountains, it was snowing so hard that everyone was putting chains on.  You could not drive anymore because these roads were not being plowed.

With my Canadian ego slightly dented, off I went and put the snow socks onto the tires.  5 minutes later we were chugging along, no slip and slide.  They are truly an amazing feature.

We got into town - Panticosa, which is right in the Tena valley, surrounded by the mountains.  We checked into the hotel, which is at the very top of the village, with spectacular views of the valley, the village and the mountains.

We checked in and went for a walk into the town centre, with the snow quietly falling.  It was so quiet and peaceful, with the only thing disturbing this idyllic scene was the explosion of the snowballs manufactured by daddy and thrown by Tessa, afterwards retaliated by Grace and mommy.

We could not have picked a better weekend to be here: it snowed the first time in 2011 and first snow since early December.  Everyone was excited about the snow, whole 30 centimeters, or one foot of new powder.

The next morning we got into our snow gear and off to the mountain.  While there is absolutely nothing in English here, we found our way to the gondola and bout tickets.  I was off for some snowboarding and Cathy with the girls were chilling and signed up for some sleigh riding (which unfortunately was not anywhere as exciting as the o-zone at mount Washington).  

Snowboarding was great fun, I was able to go on some untrimmed runs with about 3-4 feet of powder.  Very fun feeling!  After about 5 hours I was very tired, but enjoyed every minute of the sunny sunny day and perfect conditions surrounded by spectacular, sharply ridged mountains.

All equipment, services and staff were top notch.  The ski resorts in Spain are run by a joint venture between Spanish government and private company Aramon.  

After skiing, we went to visit a local, brand new, rec centre, called La Paul, which has a huge pool, jacuzzi, sauna and Turkish baths.  We also got a discount because of the affiliation with the hotel.  What we did not know is:
- you must wear a rubber cap
- you must have slippers
- you cannot have kids in jacuzzi
- several other rules they quickly explained to us
conveniently we could purchase caps and slippers, so we were in luck. After a day in the mountain, we were really looking forward to the jacuzzi.  But wait!  The jacuzzi was only 37.5 degrees Celsius!  Isn't that the body temperature?  We had to make due with a few minutes in the sauna, which wasn't as fun as sitting in a hot tub.

At the end of the day we had a nice dinner at the hotel, some wine and off to sleep.

We are all packed and ready to go back to Zaragoza and this experience will stay with us forever.  We will surely be back.

Is there first class on Ryanair?

Remember Titanic (the movie)?  All those posh people in first class?  Yes, you get what you pay for.  So we booked our first-time trip to Ireland on Ryanair.  Of course we knew it was no Titanic and that steerage was what is being provided by this fine Irish airline, so we booked our tickets with the plan to leave Spain on the 21^st of December and spend 10 days in Greystones, south of Dublin, with friends. 

Due to a few issues at work, we had to reschedule our trip (which eventually proved to be a wonderful thing: we avoided all the crazy snowstorms and airport shutdowns), so we left Barcelona on the 30^th of December to spend the New Years with our friends. 

When rebooking my airline tickets, I was intrigued and seduced by an offer of a 4 Euro “Priority” boarding pass.  I thought: if that gets me on the plane first and ability to pick seats – great!  Especially travelling with 2 kids.  Off we go to Barcelona and to the airport. 

We got to Terminal 2 (the old terminal) and went to the check in.  First, anyone not with an EU passport has to get a stamp in their passport (this is one of very few times where my Lithuanian passport is a gem – I don’t have to do this!), then we have to get our luggage checked in.

Wait a minute: you said luggage?!  Any Ryanair-ite would know that Ryanair is designed for cheap flights with no bells and whistles.  And, if you still want the comfort of steerage, but the price of a regular airline, then you must purchase luggage allowance.  What is better yet: how about paying for some baby car seats that you later decide not to take with you anyway?  This guarantees that (with not extra service and a huge amount of extra cost) the check in lady will be looking at you as if you were truly from another planet.  Especially because this must have been the first time in the history of the airline that the Ryanair passenger paid for cargo that they did not intend to carry!  She had trouble figuring out the procedure of indicating this on the boarding pass…

Luggage checked in (now the tickets likely very close to Economy+ on Air Canada), we went through security and started walking to the gate.  This is where you quickly realize what you don’t pay for (or rather what you take for granted when you do not fly on a budget airline).  We walked, and walked and walked…. And walked a bit more to realize that the gate from which we were boarding was the very last one: a brisk 20 minute walk.  I suppose it is cheaper for the Airline to park further in the fields.  We get to the boarding area and the lady takes our boarding passes and carefully examines them.  “Hmmm…PRIORITY boarding” she says.  “Good.  Would everyone please form 2 lines: PRIORITY boarding and OTHER”.  We go to the PRIORITY line.  There is a whole 4 of us in the PRIORITY line.  Might as well rename the line “suckers: we paid 4 Euros each to stand in this line!”.  Needless to say that was a bit embarrassing.  But the kids loved it!

Guess what: this was not the gate to board the plane.  Oh no, this was the place to board the shuttle.  See, what you don’t realize is that the airline does not want to pay for one of those walkways that attaches to the plane.  Instead we take a shuttle to the plane.  And, you guessed it: we are the first on the bus, which is very exciting.  They even made sure we were on before they released the steerage passengers.  The shuttle goes for a 10 minute drive and gets us to the plane.  The doors open (the other side from where we are sitting) and the passengers disembark.  We get off the shuttle, looking for the “suckers” line, but…. We appear to be the last in the line to board the plane!  And believe it or not, we get on to the aircraft last L!  Even when we showed our PRIORITY boarding passes, the crew courteously point out that we are not allowed to sit in the first 4 rows.  So we find some seats (luckily the plane was not totally full) and enjoy our short lived experience of the 1^st class on the airport shuttle.

Ireland was great!  Weather was nice: no rain, relatively mild and no wind.  Our Friends Gwen and Monty hosted us at their home, where we greeted New Year’s and enjoyed wonderful company, excellent home cooked food and London fireworks over the TV.  I even managed to handle a couple of pints of Guinness at a local Greystones Irish pub.  Here is a little lesson for anyone who has not handled Guinness in its birthplace.  The lady at the bar poured the pint and put it beside my friend’s pint of cider.  So, without thinking twice, I grab the two and to the table.  Shortly (more like 2 seconds later) I hear the lady screaming across the hall: “the pint not FINISHED!”  I look at my friend in bewilderment, question in my eyes whether I should duck or run.  He kindly explains to me that the pint must be properly finished before it is allowed to be removed (ouch, like getting your knuckles hit with a ruler).  I did not repeat the same mistake on the second pint (pain is a wonderful motivator; I think this was a negative reinforcement schedule, if I remember correctly from my Psych 101 classes).

Greystones is a nice little community.  By many standards, quite posh, with lots of sweet high end shops and pubs.  You can tell that economy is not doing well at all, which is reflected in businesses closing.  We took some nice walks along the Irish Sea on the cliffs, walked to Bray and saw the New Year’s swim and even enjoyed a latte (which are not available in Spain, only coffee con leche).  Girls enjoyed our train ride back from Bray.

It was very nice to visit with our friends, drink some tea in between wine and eat lots of sweets.  As always Ireland is a very nice and green place to visit.  It was our 15^th year anniversary of visiting Ireland together in 1995.

But just as in the Bible, there is a redemption story after all.  As we get to the airport and embark on our epic journey to the end of the middle earth (aka Ryanair gate) we get to the gate quite late: the passengers are about to start boarding.  And guess what!?  They have 2 lines for boarding: not for the shuttle, but for the plane itself!!!  We get into the PRIORITY line and are the first ones to get on (with some 30 other non-suckers).  This was a much better end to the story. 

Moral of the story: while the first class may not exist on Ryanair, by buying your PRIORITY passes you will get a 50-50 chance of riding airport shuttle shotgun or boarding the plane first.  The choice is yours. 

Merry Christmas!!!!!

It is Christmas Day and I am sitting in our apartment as the sun shines in and the cold north wind from the Pyrenees howls outside.  It has been a very different but lovely Christmas for us here in Spain.  Some of you may know we were planning on being in Ireland with friends for Christmas but due to work issues for Anatolijus we needed to rebook that trip so will be spending from Dec 30 –Jan 4^th with Gwen and Monty in Greystones.  At first we were very disappointed and in the end everything has worked out for the best, more on that later.  Christmas Eve was a quiet day with Anatolijus getting home from work at 3:30pm and we enjoyed  a lovely candlelight dinner of marinated roasted pork and a spectacular red wine.  The part that has been missing is being apart of any community activities, carol singing etc.., just as I was really feeling this Grace and Tessa appeared in the kitchen with red ´song books´ and began singing all our favourite Christmas carols.  It warmed my heart and all of a sudden it really felt like Christmas had come.  This is the first time it has been just the four of us and, although quieter, it has felt special and has been a bonding time.  We are thinking of all our friends and family in Canada and elsewhere and wish you a very merry Christmas.

The Container is coming!  The Container is coming!

The other big event this week is that after sitting in customs in Valencia for 3 weeks we were notified that our container would be delivered to us at 10:00am Thursday Dec 23^rd.  The big hold up was that all of Anatolijus´ identification and documentation are under his Lithuanian EU passport.  This has been very helpful for his work status, getting a Spanish ID card etc…, however the problem was that they wanted to charge us tax on our belongings because it was a Lithuanian importing a container from Canada into Spain.  It took some convincing to prove that for the past 14 years Anatolijus has lived in Canada and is a citizen.  The timing of this wasn’t ideal, however it was great confirmation that our trip to Ireland would have been ill timed.  The two men unloading the truck took 2 hours to get all our belongings into the apartment and everything has arrived in good shape.  It is strange to see all our things again and although we gave away lots and put more in storage we are still unpacking things and wondering why we brought it.  This ´downsizing´ has felt great and in fact living with a few basics these last 5 weeks has been very refreshing.

We bought a Picasso!!!!

                   

Yes it is true: our family is the proud owner of a Picasso, not the ones you hang on the wall but a lovely new 2011 Citroen Picasso C3 car!  In an earlier blog Anatolijus described our experience with our car shopping, but we are happy to report that the salesperson at Citroen was very helpful and we were able to get the car two days after having to return our rental vehicle.  One advantage of Anatolijus´ client being Barclay’s bank is there is a bank right out at his office and he now has a personal banker.  Just as with everything in Spain, it takes lots of signatures and stamps to get things done, and, given nobody knows our Canadian history, companies are not prepared to provide discounts based on your past.  For example, insurance quotes for the car ranged from 1K to 1.5K € per year!  Fortunately a coworker of Anatolijus, who just returned to Spain after working in Britain for years, was able to hook us up with his insurance provider and with a translation of our ICBC good driver reports we were able to get a 50% discount, which was wonderful.  As a side note, one evening Anatolijus and I were looking at the ICBC website wondering how we could get a hold of our good drivers discount info, and saw there was a number to call.  We called and talked to Michael who was very helpful and friendly and he emailed us the info as we spoke (no stamps and signatures required!) – what great customer service and all from our apartment in Zaragoza.

Our Spanish Niños

On November 30^th both Grace and Tessa began school at Colegio Jesus Maria El-Salvador.  Tessa is in Infantile 2 and her wonderful teacher is Marta.  She has made some good friends already and, aside from a very difficult first day, is settling in much better than we could have imagined.  She gets lots of hugs and Spanish kisses and somehow she has responded to all of this very positively.  Her class did a Christmas presentation for all the parents and with 40 strangers in the room Tessa was very uncomfortable, but, to her credit, she stayed apart of the circle and if you looked closely you could see her saying the Spanish words.  Since then she hasn’t stopped singing the Spanish songs at home and it is wonderful to hear.

Grace is in Primaria 2 and also has a very special teacher Paloma.  The children in the class have welcomed Grace with open arms and when she arrives 3-4 girls come running to greet her.  On the first day the English teacher was there to greet her and in class Grace got to show where she was from and how she traveled to Spain.  It is hard for her to not be able to communicate very much but playing doesn’t  seem to need words.  On the last day of school Grace’s class along with the other primary classes did presentations for each other.  Grace’s class dressed up like pirates and did a song and dance routine.  Again it has been wonderful to hear her singing her song in Spanish and practicing the dancing.  Grace still misses her friends and says she would prefer to be in Canada and yet is doing a marvelous job at adapting and opening to new experiences.  The schedule for the girls for the first week was to go to school 9-12:30pm and then come home.  They then started going 9-12:30pm come home for lunch and then go back from 3:30-5:00pm.  All the other children stay for the whole day having a hot lunch, extra-curricular activities and play time.  In January the girls will try to stay for a full day 1-2 times a week.  The school is a semi-private Jesuit-Catholic school that is well respected for offering excellent education and we have been totally impressed with the teachers, admin and curriculum.  The school is a 20 min walk so the girls and I are enjoying this new experience.  The thing we were most concerned about in moving to Spain was how the girls would feel and especially what would happen with school, so we are thrilled that they are happy and are having such a positive experience.

Crisis! What crisis?!

When one thinks of crisis, words like "desperation", "need", "loss" and "necessity" come to mind.  I may have mentioned in one of my previous posts that it is hard to see the signs of this "crisis" here, lest the ghosts of semi constructed apartment buildings and ghostly cranes watching peacefully over them, as if to awake one day and complete the things once started.

So we went car shopping, to further test the laws of macro-economics during the "crisis" period.  We went to a few dealerships and the first signs were somewhat encouraging: the dealers were open on a Saturday: an excellent start.  But that is where the expectations of a car shopper should be kept to a minimum.  After an hour at a KIA dealer, we decided to visit Skoda dealer (made by VW).  One small Skoda dealership told us to drive to another and, since dealerships close at 1pm on Saturday! (and don't open on Sunday), they asked the other dealer to wait a few minutes.  We got there, to find quite an unhappy dealer: we were interfering with his plans of duing something else during this cricis of a recession vs selling a car.  In fact there were a few other people that came to the dealership 5 minutes later and he did't even want to let them in (he did let them in after they promised not to stay for more than 5 minutes).

After viewing the car, we arranged for a test drive for next Saturday at 10am at Skoda dealer and then at 11am at KIA (all this time we have a wonderful Spanish speaking friend helping us).  We get to Skoda to find that nobody is there at 10am.  The people show up at 10:15am, but they don't really want to talk to us.  Instead, they choose to talk to another couple who wanted to test drive a car.  After about 45 minutes, we decided that maybe the whole concept of crisis is just a figment of Western Society and not applicable to our locale, because there was certainly no desire to sell anything.  At one point I did ask about trying a different model, to which the dealer briefly (in broken English) replied "I do not recommend it" (not sure what that meant; maybe cars are just bad for your health, or something).

We were bewildered, puzzled, amazed, frustrated and determined not to ever come back to this dealership again.  So no Skoda for us (nothing against the cars, they are actually quite good).

So on we go looking for a car, hoping that just maybe there is a dealer around that is a little bit more worried about the current financial situation of this wonderful country. 

A