BIG DAY Build-Up, Action and Aftermath

It is interesting that in Spain, in similar fashion to the U.S., there have been a multitude of things for us to do in the days that preceded Christmas and, once Santa has come and gone, there is the usual Christmas to New Years activity void and subsequent stir-crazy-sibling cage matches. We’ll summarize the activities and leave the cage-matches to your imagination.

It started with Audrey’s 7^th birthday on the 18^th – a school day. It’s interesting that, in Spain, those having the birthday are expected to bring gifts and/or buy rounds/munchies for others. So, in addition to Audrey bringing the usual bags of sugar-laced fun for her class chica-mates, she also was expected to bring treats for her teachers (all SIX of them – chocolates were the choice – not a bad perk, we think). On the home front, we celebrated with present opening in the morning (Audrey got a mac-daddy pencil case – a MUST have at Eskibel) and dinner with a serious cake in the evening (when all the candles were lit they produced the heat of 1000 suns). She said it was a good day.

Following her birthday was the Feria de Santo Tomas on the 21^st – a fair that keeps alive the traditional trip that farmers made into San Sebastian to sells their wares on Saint Thomas Day. On this day those with Basque blood (and we think more than a few of those without) put on traditional clothing and head to the old portion of the city where farmers set up booths selling crafts and food

(1st pic shows a family dressed up and being interviewed - berets-a-plenty). We’ve read that all Basques yearn to be “down on the farm” so, from what we can gather, this is an important day. There are animal displays and traditional music and dancing performances but, from what we gathered, the focal points of the day are DRINKING AND EATING. Drinking = traditional Basque cider

(HARD cider) and eating = chistora (Basque sausage) in a corn tortilla (see people grilling tortillas in a booth in the 2nd pic). Cindy read the next day that over 9000 kilos (go ahead, do the conversion – IT’S A LOT OF MEAT) of chistora was consumed (last pic shows how crowded one of the main plazas was - and this was EARLY). The number of liters of cider consumed was not reported (go figure). The gameplan basically consisted of staking out a piece of pavement, sending someone to buy chistora and cider (the catholic school booths were typically hopping with cider purchasers – ironic), determining the best route to the john, and STAYING THERE ALL DAY (tailgating without the SUV). It was fun to experience.

On the 23^rd Tecnun had a Reyes Magos (Magi or 3 Wise Men) celebration for the employee’s children. January 6^th, the Epiphany, is the big gift exchange day in Spain (kinda makes sense) so, while many of the children know about Santa

they are more keyed into what the wise men will bring them 12 days later. Since Tecnun is not back in session on the 6^th they celebrate a bit early and, believe it or not, the Wise Men DID show up!!! Kelsey and Audrey both received some nice games, with Kelsey getting a Simpsons 3-D Chess Set (SWEEEEET) and Audrey getting a Disney Mountain Climbing game of some sort (still trying to figure it out – we lost the instructions).

The gift exchange was followed by a reception and the girls were able to run around with their best Eskibel-buds (K with Maria and A with Ana) since their parents also work at Tecnun. It was a nice night.

Finally, THE BIG DAY CAME (that’s, uh, the 25^th). Believe it or not, Santa did find our apartment and did leave gifts and, best of all, HE WAS AWARE OF THE SIZE AND WEIGHT RESTRICTIONS IMPOSED BY THE AIRLINES!!!

We were up early, opened gifts (everyone got multiple things that they appreciated – girls are shown looking at their Teeniest, Tiniest, Microscopic, Molecular-Level Pet Shop gifts) and suited up to go to southern France for the night. We went to a home in the town of Salies de Bearn, located in the Pyrenees foothills, owned by the family of the Susan that we mentioned in an earlier post.

Susan and her husband graciously invited us to spend some of the holiday with them and their 3 boys and we truly enjoyed it. The home was very nice (traditional French-Basque architecture from what we were told) and quite modern, with all the requisite toys, movies and videogames; we had the entire top floor; the food was excellent (note the tray of petit fours that one French guest brought – they did not last long) and the drinks tasty. We had a little gift exchange and we all received some great gifts (Cindy and the girls are sitting with Susan and holding the Pomme-pidou dolls that they received – dolls that are a must-have for French girls). We met some of their friends and had a great time.

It was our first and only American-Spanish-Basque-Irish-French Christmas and we felt really lucky to have the experience.

So now, we are in the midst of the post-Christmas doldrums. Fortunately, we have some more fun planned before the girls go back to school on January 8^th – visits to some local sites and a trip to Madrid/Segovia/Toledo. We’ll post our next report when we return.

We hope you had a joyous Holiday and we wish you a Happy New Year.

Feliz Navidad!!!!

We decided to post a video message to all of you from all (well, most) of us from San Sebastian:




Dan, Kelsey and Audrey are standing on the "blow holes" located adjacent to the Chillida sculptures at the entrance to the bay - when the tide is coming in every wave brings a pulse of COLD air (why Cindy smartly decided to be the paparazzi here - she's NOT just another pretty face...). In the 50's and sunny today (sorry, had to bring that up).

We hope you and yours are having a wonderful Christmas.

Bunch of Butterflies

Of the social variety, that is.

As alluded to in our earlier post, our social calendars, while not yet filled to capacity, are starting to take on a little bit of weight. We thought we’d summarize some of our recent activities.

We’ll start with our first European professional sport experience. When you think European sports, you think of the history, the pure technical skills and subtle aspects of the game that are so appreciated by the fans, and of course you can’t help but think of those fans and their loyalty to a club that goes back for generations. So that we could experience some of this history and atmosphere we went to a… basketball game (thanks Dr. Naismith and sorry to anyone that expected more from us – remember they play basketball INDOORS which is a major plus). We were able to go watch the Bruesa-Guipuzcoa Fightin’ Frogs (1st 2 words are REAL, 2nd 2 we made up, see mascot/chicas pic - Kermit on HGH) of the Spanish ACB League (the top league in Spain, unfortunately the F-Fs are NOT one of the top teams in the league) a week ago. One of Dan’s weekly basketball buds offered him 3 tickets , we purchased a 4th, followed the rules of self-improvement that are often applied at sparsely attended sporting events and sat together in reasonably decent seats. Below is a list of SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES WE NOTICED BETWEEN EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN BBALL GAMES:

• Arenas are multiuse (SIMLIARITY) but multiuse in Spain means basketball and bullfighting (DIFFERENCE - see the red bullring around the court in the pic above).
  
• Crowds are loud (SIMILARITY) but in Spain loud is CONSTANT AND LOUD (we’re talking “11, 11, 11 all the way across the board…” the whole game, freethrows, timeouts, you name it) involving a "pep" band that never stops playing (they even busted out the Looney Toons theme song), techno (Dan busted out the robot), horns and, when the team is playing badly or a ref blows a call, the requisite Euro-whistles (DIFFERENCE).
  
  
  
  
• Dance teams fill in the gaps during timeouts (SIMILARITY) but the requirements that you have rhythm, not be a nicotine fiend and that your torso stops moving when the music (which ranges from the aforementioned techno to classical) stops are definitely NOT in effect (DIFFERENCE - again, see pic).
  
  

• Showing support for your team by sporting some of their paraphernalia is popular (SIMILARITY) and, even when indoors and watching a game invented in Massachusetts, the best article to do this with is a scarf emblazed with the team name and colors (DIFFERENCE - see chicas in pic - scarves were supplied by the gracious host that Dan is chatting up in the background).

OK, OK – enough of the list. It was a good game, with each team holding and losing a lead (B-G was playing a team from Menorca led by Pooh Jeter, you know Pooh, formally of the University of Portland??). Unfortunately, both B-G bigs fouled out and their leading scorer (Andy Panko – formally of Bishop McDevitt in Harrisburg and Lebanon Valley College – he is a legitimate player in a league that includes some college names of reasonable renown - Shammond Williams/Bracey Wright/Luke Recker to name a few) was on the bench at the end nursing an injury and they lost by a point.

We’ll now move onto recent social activities taken by the leaders, nay, the ICONS of the Linzell family – the proud parents. The ‘rents actually had TWO, count ‘em, TWO semi-dates during the past few weeks. One involved eating Pintxos (pronounced PINCH-os) during an afternoon while the girls were in school and the second involved attending a Txoko (pronounced CHOKE-o) another evening while a sitter “recruited” from Dan’s class watched the chicas (don’t worry, we were told its common to use students to watch your kids, she was well paid and she and the girls really enjoyed each other). Pintxos are the Basque equivalent of Tapas (sorry but we have to go to the “Wiki well” for a definition and some pics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pincho) and just about every bar in San Sebastian offers them to customers between about 11 and 3 each day. We had tried to do Pintxos with the kids but had a bad experience (rude bartender – we found out later that they are all rude and it wasn’t just due to Dan’s cologne, Jai Karate) so this was our second official attempt since we’ve been here. We were accompanied by two friends of Dan’s from Tecnun – Jose and Susan. Jose is a younger faculty member from Venezuela that Dan also plays bball with and who, believe it or not, received his undergrad degree from Penn State. Susan is an Irish woman and friend of Jose's that teaches English to faculty and consults to the University (she is married to a Spanish Basque but their family lives in France). They are both wonderful people and Jose walked us through the whole Pintxos thing at his favorite bar – after a lot of rich food and some good wine Cindy went grocery shopping and Dan went back to work (any idea how successful those tasks were???).

A Txoko is also another eating-centered event but it typically occurs in the evening at one of the many gastronomic societies located in San Sebastian (Txoko means "cozy place" in Basque) . They act as private clubs (members pay fees + expenses), complete with kitchen, stocked bar, and dining facilities. Txoko members sign out the club for a given event and host their invitees for a meal that they or they + their guests help prepare. The emphasis is on socialization – this + Pintxos appear to be the main sources of socialization for the family-centered Basques – so we mingled with many nice people, many from Tecnun, and then had IRISH food (the aforementioned Susan held the Txoko – she wanted us to experience one - and she stayed true to her heritage). Once again, it was a great time and, as you can see from the kitchen and table photos, much food/drink was prepared and consumed and the place (actually located on the Tecnun campus) was very nice.

Enough with the folks, the MOST important social event during the past few weeks occurred last nite and focused on the chicas. They participated in Eskibel’s “La Fiesta de Navidad." Each year the school puts together a show that all students 3 or over participate in – it involves singing, dancing and acting in Spanish, Basque and English with everything focusing on the meaning of Christmas (see pic for their outfits). Kelsey was is part of a story focused on the 3 Wise Men - she was one of a group of “astronomers” looking for the Star of David and sang a song in Spanish (Kelsey is standing in next to her good friend Maria - in light blue - in the 2nd pic - sorry about the heads). Audrey, meanwhile, dressed in traditional Basque clothes (that were nicely loaned to us by another mom) and danced and sang a traditional Basque, yep Basque, holiday song (she proudly displayed her central PA "riddim" - 3rd pic). We were very proud of both of them and the entire show was great (the older students even belted out Lennon’s “Happy Christmas” - we welled up). We think their participating in this show will be one of the memories of our time here that they carry with them forever – it really was cool.

That’s it for now – we will have many things to report on over the next few weeks (including a certain blonde-girls B-day, Xmas in the Pyrenees, and some travels). We hope you all also have great holiday adventures and, as always, we miss you one and all.

NEWSFLASH!!!!!

AUDREY LOST A TOOTH!!! AUDREY LOST A TOOTH!!! Pic taken immediately after tooth removal swish and spit (note water on cheek).

We have been anxiously waiting for the tooth to drop for the last 2 weeks. This morning Dad give it a good yank and out she came. Audrey has a knack for losing teeth in Europe - she closely tracks the Euro-Dollar exchange rate and we're hearing from her that the Basque tooth fairy brings cash AND prizes...

The Holidaze Has Started

We realized that three months from TODAY we will be home – we have officially begun the portion of our adventure that leads us back to State College.



We hope you all had a safe and happy Thanksgiving surrounded by family and friends. We are writing to you after having our modified Thanksgiving pseudo-feast a day late. The Linzell’s were forced to conform to the local schedule, which required that yesterday the girls attend school (Audrey actually had a field trip) and that Dan teach (don’t worry – his first topic of discussion was “what is Thanksgiving” – (1) family, (2) fattening food, (3) plentiful libations to help with (1), and (4) watching the Lions (relax, DETROIT Lions) lose). Today the girls did not have school. It was the day when the Patron Saint of Youth Education – San Jose de Calasanz – is recognized, ironically, by giving all of the youth a day off from school. Dan still had to do his song and dance – more about that in a few. So, we ate our meal this afternoon after he got home.



Our modified Thanksgiving pseudo-feast was great – we certainly missed having family but, as the picture shows, we had a great spread. Cindy, as usual, did an excellent job cooking and Dan, as usual, did a fair job listening. The girls were great helpers too. The turkey was substituted with two smaller birds that you may have heard of – we’ll use the common phonetic spelling – chikin (thanks Chick-fil-A). Turkey is available here however it’s (a) expensive and (b) provided with a lot of undesirable “extras” (such as feet and a neck – we forgot to pack an axe in our carry-on bags). So chicken it was – we did however have stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies, fruit and a WICKED pie/cake dessert thing that we purchased from our favorite bakery and coffee hangout (called Ogi Berri, see second photo – we have no idea what it was made of but you CANNOT go wrong if the ad on the cake is made out of chocolate). We plan on following the other important Thanksgiving tradition of having leftovers tomorrow.







In addition to initiating the holiday season in Spain we recently have had an upswing in “playdate” events. Dan has been lucky enough to have his b-ball playdates with the boys every week but, until this week, they have been nonexistent for the ladies. The Spanish are VERY family oriented, especially in the north, and it is interesting how uncomfortable socializing with someone they do not “know” in a one-on-one situation can be (invitations into someone else’s home appear to be very rare). Do not get us wrong, they ARE wonderful people, but there is definitely a “get to know you” period that we are still figuring out. Cindy had coffee this past Tuesday with a mom she met at a school b-day party/insanity/anarchy event involving Audrey a few weeks ago (flash on 24 6 year olds amped up on sugar in a SMALL and LOUD room with a couple of “problem children” and some parents and you’ve got it – pics provided, one of Audrey with her best chica-friend Ana - in case you did not). Kelsey is playing with one of her best school chica-friends –Maria – this “afternoon” (afternoon in Spain starts at 4 and ends at about 8). The coffee went well – Kelsey’s report had not been received as of press time. More invitations to socialize are starting to trickle in – could be due to the holidays, we are not sure. They are welcome.










The “get to know you” period did not exist between Dan and his students, however. They were very welcoming from the start, even though confidence with their English skills was lacking (they are actually quite good). The ease with which Dan interacted with his students is probably due to a number of factors, including their age, the class size (only 8), he assigns the grades and the fact that they quickly recognized that Dan is a freak. A picture of Dan with his class after they completed a laboratory test assignment is shown here (OK, if you MUST ask the lab involved completing modal analysis of a tubular space truss).


This reminds us that we have not said much about the university facility Dan ventures to during the week. You know what it is called (Tecnun) but not much else. There are about 1500 students and 100 faculty/research associates at the campus (one of about 4 for the University of Navarra) and it consists of 6 buildings (MUCH different than Penn State – aerial pic of most of campus shown). It is supposedly the best private engineering school in Spain and 3rd or 4th among all engineering schools. It is about a 15-20 minute walk from our apartment and the University has been gracious enough to provide Dan with an office, computer and access to their structural engineering software suite and structural testing laboratories (NERVE CENTER photos shown – office and lab areas – Ikea is again the theme). He really has a great set-up that is comparable to what exists at Penn State. There are 4 faculty that teach in Dan’s area and about a half dozen graduate students from Spain and South America. They are a great bunch of people and Dan goes to coffee at the campus bar with them at 11ish everyday to ask and be asked questions related to differences between the U.S. and Spain. Research collaborations are being explored and, given the situation he is in, he thinks some good work will be done once he finishes teaching in December.

Enough with the geek stuff. We will provide a report on some more exciting items soon (such as the impending loss of one of Audrey’s front teeth – she gets EUROS from the tooth fairy) and on the Christmas season in San Sebastian soon.

Happy Holidays.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!

From the Linzells to all of you!!! We hope your holiday is fun and safe.



Our celebration will be tomorrow - girls are in school and Dan is teaching today (funny that the Spaniards do not recognize a U.S. holiday...).

Expect another post detailing our happenings soon!!!

All-skate by the Eiffel Tower

Kelsey recorded the following videos with her camera one of our nights in Paris - 1st strobes and then blue lights on the ET. We forgot to include these in our 1st Paris post - was unexpected and pretty cool and we thought we'd share them with you. If you listen close you can hear Dan birding-it in the background.

It’s been a while (weeks 6, 7, 8??? – we’ve lost track)

First and foremost, we’d like to apologize for being out of touch for a while. A lot has happened since we last provided a riveting update and we know the 3 or 4 of you that still have this site bookmarked have been trying to fill the void (possibly with coverage of a certain election – uh, YES WE CAN - or following a certain central PA collegiate team to the pinnacle and back to earth again – uh, THUD - or watching a certain movie detailing the overtly musical lives of a group of supposed-teens up to their high school graduation – uh, TROY, GABRIELLA). We know those options have paled in comparison to this web page from a literary and social value standpoint and we make a solemn promise to provide updates more frequently from here on out (unless we forget).

Enough of that – it’s time to find out what we’ve been doing since we last left you. It’s been a few weeks of visitors, weather, travel, sickness and awards – in other words, a little bit of everything.

VISITORS – Cindy’s parents left Spain this morning for their trip home after a 2 week stay. Their three-legged flight odyssey to the U S of A began at around 7am our time with an arrival in Columbus, Ohio at around 8:30pm EST (2:30am our time). Needless to say a long day for them (the trip over was long too) and, after two weeks of intense grandkid time, no doubt exhausting. We really appreciate them making this effort to come see us and we had a great time during their two week stay.

WEATHER – During Cindy’s parents time here winter definitely settled into San Sebastian with wet days and high temperatures in the 50’s – multiple umbrellas met their doom. Fortunately the end of their trip brought better weather (low to mid 60s and semi-sun) and we were able to show them some of what the city has to offer during its nicer days.

TRAVEL – We travel in all kinds of weather so the rain was but a minor speed bump for our plans with the grandparents. Cindy showed them San Sebastian and our routine during the first few days and then THE GREAT PARIS (not Hilton) ADVENTURE started.

Cindy’s mom and dad had never been to Paris and since we’d been earlier this summer we figured we’d luuuuvvvv to see Paris in the fall (we know what you’re thinking about us). So, what do good ‘ol Americans do to get from point A to point B in Europe when you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a bus or rail station?? We RENT A CAR (actually tank – similar to the one shown here but larger and heavier - called a Mercedes Vito van and, to be honest, it’s a Mercedes in name only). Actually, given our somewhat precarious Visa situation (still dealing with the paperwork) driving through the now open EU borders seemed to be the best option for THE GREAT PARIS (not Hilton) ADVENTURE. We’ve seen passports checked on trains in the not so distant past and wanted to avoid any problems.



















So, off we went on a 9 hour drive north and east through the southwest and central French countryside (which looks like Ohio and Pennsylvania – rolling hills and agriculture – but with a French feel). The trip to Paris went fine (trip home was another story – see below) and we pulled into our hotel (it was a….NOPE, Novotel) on Halloween evening. The next three days were spent seeing the main sights and basically enjoying the city – if you have not been and ever get the chance, GO. It is truly a magical city – from the Eiffel Tower (a gearhead must see) to the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay to the Champs-Elysees and Arc de Triomphe. We saw all of the major attractions, ate some great food (plenty of Nutella crepes) and the lady Linzell’s even were able to catch High School Musical III, in English (last pic of them leaving the theater - OMG OMG OOOMMMGGG!!!!!!!). It was a good time.

Then, we came back – or tried to, we should say. We walked to the garage the morning of November 4th, where our tank..er…van was parked, loaded her up, got in, turned the ignition and….nothing happened. Dead, el dead-o, les dead-les. It seems that Dan got confused between the US and Metric system when shutting off the lights and probably left either the dome or parking lights on (you see, a Metric dial is SO MUCH different than a US dial…). This created a little problem (the garage we were in was like the one from Seinfeld – you remember). After multiple trips to the hotel front desk by Cindy and a stroll Cindy and Dan took with a nice security guard who, we found out, was sending us in the direction of a place where we could buy jumper cables (we think he was pointing towards London), Jacques and Guy (garage maintenance hommes) we located and jumped ‘er right up. This would have been great IF Dan had not stalled the thing within 5 minutes of them leaving WHICH required that J and G return for a second jump session (another hour). Fortunately Dan kept his cool (anyone believe that???) and WE WERE OFF. Other than that, the trip back to San Sebastian went fine (except for some possible speeding tickets after dark near Bayonne – we’re waiting for the photos to develop and copies will be for sale in the lobby). However, this little adventure did NOT take anything (well, not too much) away from the good time we had on THE GREAT PARIS (not Hilton) ADVENTURE.










After returning from Paris, Dan and the girls went back to work and school for a few days while Cindy’s parents spent some time touring the Basque region with a local guide named Inaki (a Basque name as common as Bob in the U.S.). They visited the Pays Basque region in France with Cindy one day (Biarritz lighthouse shown) and then visited Pamplona and some local wineries the second day on their own. He was a wealth of information and they had a great time getting the local flavor from a true native – Tom, Cindy’s dad, got so caught up in the flavor that he purchased an authentic Basque beret (which is different than a French beret from what we understand – orders for these will also be taken in the lobby). So, if anyone in central Ohio sees a man wearing this hat walking along the side of the road DO NOT call the police, he’s just out struttin’ Basque-style.

















The final weekend with the grandparents was spent travelling to Bilbao –a great city architecturally (combination of old and new) and the location of the Guggenheim museum “designed” by architect Frank Gehry (remember that architects make things look pretty but its nerds like Dan that make ‘em stand up). For obvious reasons we took the bus this time (see above) and, other than having Jose Cuervo fall into the aisle a few rows behind us in a semi-catatonic state, wake up and serende the entire bus as we pulled into the Bilbao station (he could hold a note FOREVER), we had a good time. The Bilbao Guggenheim has a great resident modern art collection, which the girls loved because many of the exhibits are large enough to walk through and interact with (not much interaction allowed with the Monet’s and Van Gogh’s at the Musee D’Orsay for some unknown reason). It also was featuring exhibits by Cy Twombly and some of the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (from the House of Habsburg) which were great bonuses. As far as the Linzell chicas were concerned, the best bonus was the serious playground located just outside the museum. It is honestly one of the biggest and coolest playgrounds going and having the museum (along with an outside bar/cafe serving food and drinks for the parents) directly adjacent added to its aura FOR EVERYONE.








SICKNESS – We knew it was only a matter of time until some/everyone got sick given the new surroundings + travel and unfortunately it happened when Cindy’s parents were here. Colds were in the air and they were largely minor until Audrey got pinkeye and Dan a sinus infection (NOT a minor problem given the size of his breathing apparatus). Unfortunately Cindy was stuck accompanying both to the closest clinic (which is actually quite close) as the translator and for moral support (Dan is a wuss). While some things were certainly different, the most striking being that the Drs. office/desk and exam room were one and the same, the care was quick (never waited more than an hour), adequate meds were prescribed, and costs were not much more than would occur back home. So, while they were not welcomed experiences, they went fine and we’ll know what to do next time (hopefully there will not be a next time).

AWARDS – We have always known that our children are by far the smartest kids in the world and the Spanish agree, at least when it comes to essays written in almost-Spanish by a well-intentioned 6 year old. On our way back from Paris Dan received a call from his colleague at Tecnun who has kids at our daughter’s school. His message was that one of his daughters and Audrey had each won an award and that we were to go to the San Sebastian Aquarium the following evening for a ceremony. That was all we knew – we had no idea for what, with whom, why, what she was going to receive, if King Juan Carlos was going to be there, etc. etc. Audrey was a bit confused too (remember she’s 6). So after some further digging we found out that she had either written an essay or painted a picture on teh subject of protecting our oceans (the Aquarium runs an essay/picture contest every year for all ages – from what we were told hundreds of people enter and awards are picked for various age groups). So we went to the Aquarium auditorium and sat with other proud, but Nicotine-craving, Spanish parents as the awards were handed out. It was a nice ceremony and Audrey received a certificate and a “pluma” (ink pens used by many people here). We found out that her award was for an essay and she received special consideration since she tried so hard to write it correctly in Spanish (the first photo shows Audrey with the other award winners in the Auditorium and the last shows Audrey and Kelsey with a number of other girls from their school – seems they historically clean up at this thing). We were very, very proud of her.


It’s been a busy couple of weeks and that is enough of an update from us. Sorry the post was so long and hopefully you stuck with us to the end. We again pledge not to forsake our blogging duties in the future and, as always, we miss you one and all and hope that you are healthy and happy.

Quick Update Post - not sure if you heard of the attack in Spain - we are fine

Not sure if this was news across the pond, but a car bomb planted by the Basque Separatist group ETA (for "Basque Homeland and Freedom") detonated on the main campus of the University of Navarra (in Pamplona) this morning at around 11am local time. Tecnun, where Dan is teaching and working in San Sebastian, is the University of Navarra's engineering campus.

Details on the attack can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/30/spain.bombs.university/index.html. The prevalent thinking is that this was in response to the Spanish authorities breaking up an ETA cell headquartered in Pamplona earlier this week (story on that can be found in the sidebar of our blog). Dan's friends indicated that this is typical for ETA - when something happens in a Spanish city that is detrimental to their cause they will typically carry out an attack in that city to flex their muscles and say "your attack did nothing."

Pamplona (running of the bulls locale) is located less than an hour away from San Sebastian and there is extensive interaction between the students and faculty on both campuses. After the attack faculty and students that Dan interacted and worked with were trying to contact friends and loved ones in Pamplona - fortunately the Northern Spain winter was in full effect (rain) today and fewer people were outside when the bomb, in a parking lot directly adjacent to the main administration building, detonated. While approximately 20 people were injured, the injuries were generally minor and thankfully no one was killed. The entire University of Navarra system will be having a moment of silence at noon tomorrow to pray for the injured and for the attackers.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with ETA, Wiki (yessss Wiki) has a fairly detailed explanation of the group here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA. As the link indicates, ETA has been violently advocating for Basque independence for a number of decades. We have experienced and observed some of the separatist fervor - from being told we are not in Spain to seeing protest signs and posters prominently displayed in San Sebastian. While this activity certainly keeps us "on our toes" we have been reassured that ETA does not typically target foreigners and have also realized that San Sebastian has, for whatever reason, not been selected as a target with any significant frequency. We hope this will continue but will certainly remain vigilant.

Anyway - thought you might want to know. The other big news is that Cindy's parents arrived safely from the U.S. Tuesday for a planned 2 week stay. We are all headed to Paris tomorrow for a long weekend and will post something about that trip and the other goings-on this weekend or early next week.

We hope you are all doing well.

Sacrebleu!! Foray into France (not toooo far into France) – Week 6

Even though we are really enjoying San Sebastian the desire to travel the open road has been gnawing at us (our mode of transportation to date has been on foot or Razor with the very infrequent bus or cab ride…we needed to feel the wind in our hair AND wanted to spend $8 a gallon to do it). We toyed with taking a trip last week but put it off until yesterday, the 18th.


Accomplishing the whole mode of transpo shift thing was not the easiest, as we had to find agencies in town (there are not that many), figure out how to rent the car, figure out how to go get the car, get out of town and back in, not wreck said car (not easy since Dan would be driving), etc. We tried pepecar.com (we are NOT kidding – http://www.pepecar.com/ – appeared to be the cheapest AND we had a hankering for Pepe since, as those of you that bother to visit the website will notice all cars come with some stellar bling on the sides that lets everyone know YOU WENT TO SEE PEPE). Alas, since we decided to head just across the border to some of the French coastal towns Pepe did not want to deal with us (it appears Pepe only will rent to you if you are NOT going into France – think its related to the whole Freedom-Fries thing). Sooo, onto Option 2, Europcar, who, although a little more expensive than good ‘ol Pepe, is an agency that we had used successfully before. Now, once the agency decision was behind us we had to choose a vehicle and, since we were only going for one day, we chose the cheapest/smallest one they had and ended up with the fine looking whip shown here, known as the Fiat-errari (note the racing accents clearly demonstrated in the metallic blue paint job and aggressive tires the size of a personal pan pizza – the Linzell chicas aren’t waving, they’re begging to be released). The thing maxed out at 120 kph downhill with a solid tailwind (sounds impressive but it’s only 75 mph, which is the speed limit). Anyway, it got us there and back.

Enough about the car and more about where there was – we were told by multiple people that, if the weather was good, a nice day trip would involve heading up the interstate to the Pays Basque (an official recognition of the area by the French government) region of southwestern France – first visiting Biarritz and then driving back to San Sebastian along the coast with, at the very least, a stop in Saint Jean de Luz. So that was what we did. The trip from San Sebastian to Biarritz only took about 40 minutes and we arrived in the late morning. We navigated through the town centre, found an underground parking garage, left the Fiat-errari in a safe place (with the security system fully armed and parked diagonally so NOONE would scratch the paint) and walked out an exit from the garage literally to the picture shown here – the view was unexpected and, needless to say, amazing.





Biarritz was once a very exclusive resort (mid-19th to mid 20th century) where royalty would go to sun their crowns (a nice, although dated, article describing both places we visited can be found in the NY Times archives: query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=travel&res=9C0CE1DB143CF931A2575BC0A966958260) . As the article indicates, it all started with Napoleon III’s wife building a teeny little vacation home on the beach (now the Hotel du Palais – we got by the security and looked around – a little too pedestrian for our tastes as evidenced by the shots of the hotel and from the back of the hotel looking across the bay). As the bay pictures hopefully show you, the entire beachfront is very spectacular and the area is real popular with French surfin’ dudes (who wipeout A LOT). From what we understand there are a number of competitions in Biarritz due to the waves that can roll in.

As we have been doing in San Sebastian, we spent a lot of time poking around Biarritz and seeing the sites. There are nice footpaths along main beach and on the large rock outcroppings that surround the beach and one in particular was a lot of fun. This path takes you out to the “Virgin on the Rock” via a bridge and provided us with great views of Biarritz, Spain to the south and west (we think the far right peak is near San Sebastian in the 2nd pic) and the French Atlantic coast in the opposite direction. We had a lot of fun here since there were great places to climb and hide (Dan and the girls went up near the Virgin sculpture and Audrey found a neat little spot just her size). The Musee de la Mer (Biarritz Aquarium) was located directly adjacent to the Virgin path and we, naturally, went on in. It was a nice little aquarium that had some interesting displays on life in the Bay of Biscay and a good shark tank but by far the MOST interesting attraction was the seals/sea lions. As you can see in the pics they were some LIVELY critters (no, the underwater one was not dead, we waited to make sure). Watching them was actually pretty fun – the one lounging by the water (he's waving to all of you) was completely zonked and the youngest one in the tank was messing with him by swimming by and nudging awake. He was NOT happy about being aroused and let everyone know it – similar to some members of the Linzell family that shall remain nameless.

One other interesting aspect of the Biarritz visit was that a film was being shot there – it was one of those foreign films and, although we have no idea what the title was, we suspect it was an uplifting piece of work. The scene they were shooting when we arrived involved a group of people in full Tyvek wandering the beach carrying a bunch of post-apocalyptic equipment. Looked pretty funny given the weather (upper 60s) and surfer dudes in the background but we knew we needed to respect the director’s motivation and vision.

After having the requisite crepes (remember we were in France - crepes avec Nutella are the kids faves), lunch and poking around a bunch of shops in Biarritz we headed back to San Sebastian via Saint Jean de Luz – a beautiful and, as the Times article alludes to, much quieter place. It was obvious that, although there were some hotels and plenty of restaurants around, this village did not depend as much on tourism for its livelihood as our previous stop (the fishing wharf appeared to be quite active – hopefully you can see how the Basque fisherman paint their trawlers in bright colors and the building architecture from the wharf shot, both quite distinctive for the region we think). We wandered around, looked at the beachfront and checked some shops and, most importantly, ate dinner (restaurants in France open at 7pm which is, at least, 1 hr earlier than their counterparts 30 mins. away in Spain – we’re told this is one of the many cultural differences that happen when you cross the border). We scoped out a few places and chose one that would cook Paella for 4 – for those of you that don’t know Paella its a common Spanish dish consisting of rice, beans, vegetables, chicken and seafood. To cook Paella requires a special pan, one that we do not have back at La Casa GRANDE, and we were craving it. So, we ate a Spanish dish in France listening to reggae music and loved EVERY minute of it (sorry, no pics – too busy eating). We arrived back at la Casa late and wiped but would not have changed a thing. It truly was a great day – one of many that we have had so far during this adventure.

Hopefully you are all having great days wherever you may be as well – we continue to miss you one and all. Take care and we’ll talk to you soon.