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...