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My long overdue Easter Vacation Blog. . . which should be a fairly short one. Mom asked to see lots of pictures of the house, so I did my best.<br /><br />I spent Thursday through Monday of Easter Vacation at my Spanish family's country house located 45 minutes away in the town of Al Baida. The house is over 300 years old and Juan (my Spanish father) owns 2/3 of it and his brother the other 1/3. Marga, Juan, Sara the dog, myself and Grayson all made the trip to the country, Grayson was supposed to go to Barcelona with friends, but at the last minute changed her mind as she had a bad cold. While she was upstairs in bed, I spent my break helping Marga and Juan prune the olive, orange and almond trees they have outside their house. The first night, while they worked in the garden I was given the assignment of collecting wild asparagus which grow along the road. We then cut it up and made it into a tortilla de esparrago (asparagus omelet) for dinner. <br />

The Ku Klux Klan in Valencia?

Lisa Damico
2006-02-27 18:06:56

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My long overdue Easter Vacation Blog. . . which should be a fairly short one. Mom asked to see lots of pictures of the house, so I did my best.

I spent Thursday through Monday of Easter Vacation at my Spanish family's country house located 45 minutes away in the town of Al Baida. The house is over 300 years old and Juan (my Spanish father) owns 2/3 of it and his brother the other 1/3. Marga, Juan, Sara the dog, myself and Grayson all made the trip to the country, Grayson was supposed to go to Barcelona with friends, but at the last minute changed her mind as she had a bad cold. While she was upstairs in bed, I spent my break helping Marga and Juan prune the olive, orange and almond trees they have outside their house. The first night, while they worked in the garden I was given the assignment of collecting wild asparagus which grow along the road. We then cut it up and made it into a tortilla de esparrago (asparagus omelet) for dinner.

The days were spent outside hiking through the mountains, working on the house, doing a little sunbathing when it was warm enough
and then watching tv or playing cards next to the wood stove at night. They also told me all about the history of the house. The bottom floor used to be like the barn where they housed the animals and they still have the jars that were used to hold water from the well and that could be placed inside special baskets on a horse (now hung on the wall) so that the water could be taken on trips.

Friday night, we went down the mountain to the nearby town to watch the procession of the saints, which is a big deal in Spain, especially in Sevilla, where people cry if it's rainy and the saints can't be paraded around the city (I promise, I saw tears on tv). In one town they all play drums from 24 hours straight with bleeding hands and everything to punish themselves for sinning. The citizens of every town belong to various neighborhood organizations called cofradias (like a brotherhood) which pertain to their own neighborhood saint. They dress up in what appears to the American eye as Ku Klux Klan costumes, except of all colors, and carry the very heavy saints around the city. Grayson, Juan and I took the quick tour of the city then watched the procession through the main street.

The aunts and uncles came for a barbacoa Saturday afternoon and we ate traditional Spanish foods, like morcilla (blood sausage), chorizo (normal sausage) and pork all prepared outside on the grill, then salad, bread and red wine. We all took naps in the various 12 beds that their part of the house has. After the siesta the relatives left and everyone was just sitting around the wood stove, so I suggested we play a game or something. Juan was the only taker, so I found a deck of cards and taught him "Spit" and then he taught me a Spanish betting game called Siete y media and we used the remnants of domino pieces as the poker chips. For someone who usually sits in his chair watching tv and listening to the radio all day long, not really doing much, he really got into the cards and we ended up playing several more times the rest of the break, it was really pretty funny - I would be trying to read something for hw and he'd said "so you really like siete y media, how about a game?"

Overall it was a nice break from the city and school work as well as opportunity to catch up on sleep after Fallas, plus I got to see a part of Spain that I don't think many tourists see.