10 FEET IN THE ALMOST SKIABLE PYRENEES! november 2007

November 3, 2007 to … December 2, 2007

~Lauren is due to move in for the holidays! How awesome it is to be looking forward to spending time with my kid. Seems like only yesterday I was counting the days till she matured!

~Speaking of Lauren, at Thanksgiving, she and 3 fellow homeless travellers prepared a complete Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, a first for Lauren. She wrote to tell me of her experience and proceeded to “thank” me for ALL the turkey dinners I have created in her history…wow…she’s growing up!

~Have I told you about “the Cave” yet! The Cave is the name I relegated to my downstairs bedroom. You enter via a curved stone stairway. Stone walls, clay floors, exposed beamed ceiling the height of exactly me, spot lighting…everyone thinks it’s the highlight of my piso! I’m afraid to share it’s alleged history for fear of disillusioning potential visitors! Apparently, this building is situated on a river…should I have suspected something by the name of my street, Calle Del Barco = Street of the Boat! But worse than the running rio beneath the room is that the renovators discovered “the Cave” occupied by sheep skulls! It’s very curious…Gas has a daily morning ritual of “demanding” I open the Cave door, he then proceeds to sit on the second stair down with his face only millimetres from the wall, staring, for indefinite periods of time! Do sheep have spirits or is Gas simply retarded?

~On my street, it’s not customary or necessary to have a doorbell! Visitors simply stand on the street and SCREAM the sought after’s name, LOUDLY, until someone answers or they give up realizing no one’s home! I now know the name of every resident on my street!

~After 3 month’s growth, most people’s normal volume of hair, I finally figured out all the Spanish words to make a hair appointment to get my hair cut. Walked away from the salon after making the appointment feeling p-r-e-t-t-y proud of myself, and my growing command of the language, till I realized the time I had arranged coincided with my work schedule! So, next day, with the help of my diccionario, reworked my vocab so I could reschedule my appointment…told the girl I had to rebook because of a funeral! I now have a Spanish hairstyle (No, Lauren, not a Mullet!) and I still don’t look Spanish!

~Things I’ve noticed about Spanish women’s hair:
~few wear it short
~The Mullet forgot to go out of style here
~no one is grey
~some really bad dye jobs goin’ on in Jaca

~Thing I’ve noticed about South American men’s hair:
~the Mushroom cut…see Mullet above!

~I don’t know why the Spanish think it necessary to complicate a language with 15 different tenses (7 simple, 7 compound, plus the imperative). I’m operating in 2 and managing just fine!

~So I’m working with nuns! They’re grey. My favourite one is the short, plump, happy one who guards the front door…not really security material. She’s actually the only consistent daily contact I have in Jaca. I gave her some “Canada” Ginger Ale can earrings and an “I am Canadian” Beer lighter in my first week of teaching, as gifts, she was ecstatic, and now we must be best buddies because she’s forever presenting me with little Spanish pocket versions of bibles and religion related stuff…either that or she’s figured out the Pop and Beer themes of my gifts and she’s attempting to save me! While working at Colegio Santa Maria, I have this overwhelming feeling that I have to behave myself at school!

~Carb and Gas have never had such variety in their diet! Ultima “crunchies” are available in beef, chicken, salmon and turkey flavours! Plus, they make special mixtures for hairball or urinary tract repair work. Unfortunately they haven’t come out with Ultima Light, a weight watcher’s variety. How will I ever convince these cats to leave Spanish Ultima for Canadian Medical!

~I really like that every weekend for me is a 3 day weekend…but I just had a 4 day weekend…and I REALLY liked that!

~Coffee and Siestas have the same effect on me! Although one is a stimulant and the other is a relaxant, and I love them both equally, if I do either one too late in the day…I have difficulties getting my 12 hours of sleep at night!

~Gas is the only one of us who doesn’t mind that radiator-installer-guy still hasn’t shown up, but then we’ve only been waiting a few months, which is more than a couple. There’s supposed to be a radiator in every room. As the evenings have become brisk, Carb and I huddle around our sole living room heater, while Gas derives great satisfaction basking on the cool clay floor in any of the above mentioned non-heated rooms…a true Canadian he is! So, unless we start keeping the butter in the living room…there’ll be no soft butter in this casa…until summer!

~While “Visado” to most Spaniards means “a Visa”, the Asturians of Northern Spain know that it actually means “leftovers”…because the word VI-SA-DO contains the first 2 letters of VIernes/Friday, SAbado/Saturday and DOmingo/Sunday! I love rule breakers who play with language and their food!

~Gas has taken up the sport of shadow chasing, fulltime. Our smooth clay floors provide the perfect surface for doing donuts and major skidding! Neither Carb nor the furniture really like it, but I think he’s hilarious.

~Mind my tears…I just started and finished Anne of Green Gables, an evening’s indulgence to what I belief is THE classic Canadian Fairytale. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this story, and I’m still in love with Anne, Matthew, Marilla and Avonlea. I have always admired Anne and while my childhood peers wanted to be princesses and knights, I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables! I have also been echoing Lucy Maude Montgomery’s words since I was Anne’s initial age, 11. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said to myself, “Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet”, since living in Jaca!

~When the Spanish greet on the street, dicen “Adios” or “Hasta luego”…instead of hello! The first time I encountered this, I thought the guy was being rude by replying goodbye to my hello! Evidently, it simply means, “No time to talk”…so why not just say “No time to talk”!

~Gas has started to talk in his sleep! I’ve watched these guys twitch and vibrate while dreaming…but never before have I heard them talk…not sure in what language!

~Just bought some tampons labelled “Normal”…so what do abnormal tampons look like?

Happy almost Christmas shopping… Amor y Besos, Dana, Carb, Gas and almost Lauren xoxo