Category Archives: Our Foreign Adventures

Fire!

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fireplace at Casa Emilio

fireplace at Casa Emilio

I love a fireplace on a cool autumn evening. We don’t have either in Florida (a fireplace or a cool autumn evening!), so this is a real departure for us. Makes us miss our days in Connecticut with the wood stove.

Marcus is back in his element. After Christian checked him out on the intricacies of this airtight fireplace insert, we were toasty right up to the sleeping loft. The only thing missing is the apple crisp – a family tradition on the first night we lit the wood stove.

Casares

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Casares, a pueblo blanco in Andalucía

Casares, a pueblo blanco in Andalucía

The cottage we’re renting this week is outside the town of Casares, a beautiful pueblo blanco (white town) in the Sierra Bermeja mountains. The magic of these villages is their sudden appearance on the hillside in front of you as you drive ‘round a bend on a mountainside road. Looming before you is a brilliant-white cluster of buildings literally hanging off the dusky green hills. They are so characteristic of sunny Andalucía, and they take my breath away every time one appears before us.

love these winding passages in the town

love these winding passages in the town

There is a prevalent theory that the pueblos blancos inspired Pablo Picasso cubism style. He was born and raised in Andalucía amongst these little villages stacked up like so many sugar cubes on the hillside, so it just might be true.

climbing up to the Moorish castle ruins

climbing up to the Moorish castle ruins

We had lunch in a little bar on the main square of Casares, then climbed the hill for the views. We are in love with this little town!

mosaic in the town center

mosaic in the town center

¡Qué lástima!

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Chestnuts on the ground:

Chestnuts on the ground: ¡Qué lástima!

Marcus was researching something about fallen fruit online (I know! Where does he come up with these things?), and he asked me what ¡Qué lástima! means. “It means ‘What a shame!'” I said. “Why? How did you come across it?”

“In Spain, that’s what they call fruit or nuts that have fallen off the tree,” he explained. “According to what I’m reading, what’s fallen on the ground is free for the taking.”

I love this clever name for fallen fruit. I can just imagine someone happening upon a windfall under an apple tree, filling a bag with the proceeds, and serving up a delicious pie to her family later that evening. As each family member receives a piece, fragrant with cinnamon, I’m sure they shake their heads mournfully and say ¡Qué lástima!

Finca Mosca

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view of the Mediterranean from Casa Emilio

view of the Mediterranean from Casa Emilio

Every accommodation we have stayed in in Spain has been an apartment in a city, until now. Last spring, when I was booking apartments, I was looking for something near the Costa del Sol, but not on it. I didn’t want to stay in a high-rise condo with a bunch of ex-pats. I’m always surprised that so many ex-pats, people who choose to live in a foreign country, make such an effort to re-create their own country within their adopted home. If they want to eat foods and shop for groceries from home, why don’t they just stay home? To shy away from the foreignness of a culture defeats the purpose of living there, in my opinion.

casa emilioSo I was searching for something a bit inland from the coast when Casa Emilio popped up on Airbnb. (You have to love a cottage with a name!) I took one look at the photos of the tiled terrace overlooking the Mediterranean Sea from a hillside of the Sierra Bermeja mountains and I was smitten. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since.

the casita (little house)

the casita (little house)

Casa Emilio is a guest house on Finca Mosca, property owned by a wonderful couple from Belgium who moved to Spain part-time sixteen years ago. They are now full-time. Her nickname is Mouche, which means “fly” in French, so they named their property Finca Mosca; mosca means “fly” in Spanish.

persimmons, figs, and olives

persimmons, figs, and olives

When I was taking Spanish in school many years ago, my teacher, La Señora Jones, loved to play jokes on us. We had been practicing a dialog about ordering food in a restaurant for what seemed like months – until we knew it forwards and backwards. One of the objectives of the dialog was to teach the verb gustarse, a very important verb in Spanish. They have no verb meaning “to like;” they use gustarse, which translates literally to “to be pleased.” So instead of saying “I would like the chicken with rice,” one would say “The chicken and rice would please me.” It’s a difficult concept for beginning Spanish students, so Señora Jones drilled us.

Sra. Jones: ¿Te gustan albóndigas? Literally: Do meatballs please you? In other words, Do you like meatballs?

Student: ¡Si, me gustan albóndigas! Literally: Yes, meatballs please me!; or Yes, I like meatballs!

Sra. Jones: ¿Te gustan papas fritas? Do you like fried potatoes?

Student: ¡Si, me gustan papas fritas! Yes, I like fried potatoes!

Sra. Jones: ¿Te gustan moscas fritas? Do you like fried ???

Silence.

Student, thinking frantically: [This word moscas was not in the dialog. What the hell is a mosca? Well, I like everything fried.] ¡Si, me gustan moscas fritas! Yes, I like fried [whatever]!

Sra. Jones: ¿¿¿Te gustan moscas fritas??? ¡Jajajaja! You like fried flies??? Hahahaha!

a cork oak is stripped of its bark every 7 years

a cork oak is stripped of its bark every 7 years

Ha, ha, indeed! My first introduction to the Spanish word mosca and I haven’t forgotten it 45 years later, when most of the useful vocabulary I learned has gone out the window. La Señora Jones was a wonderful teacher; we loved her class.

snailSo here we are at the incredible Finca Mosca. Besides the fabulous view, there is an abundance of flora and fauna: fig trees (Mouche gave us fig jam!); lemons the size of softballs; orange, grapefruit, and persimmon (caqui) trees; olive, chestnut, and avocado trees; cork oaks; goats; chickens; horses; dogs; cats (Mouche and Christian have fourteen!); wild pigs; snakes; snails; slugs; and an assortment of insects that don’t deserve mention – and yes, moscas too!

Pela, a free-range horse

Pela, a free-range horse

Flamenco nights

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Please allow time for the video frame to load.

I didn’t want my first flamenco experience to be a tourist experience. There are plenty of places that will charge tourists 50€ to attend a prepared show. I wanted to see everyday flamenco in a local bar with locals who go there to enjoy the good food and local talent. Thanks to our friends Cordula and Gernot, we found that place at Rincón de Chinitas in Málaga. And we had the additional pleasure of getting to see Gernot show his talent! Fun evening with a great couple!

Das erste Mal

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Cordula & Gernot

I was just lamenting that it’s been a long time since we’ve experienced serendipity on this trip. Segovia. León. Santiago. They were weeks ago. And then it happened again. Málaga. It was as simple as lending a pen to someone in a café. I didn’t even notice the couple had sat down two tables away until Marcus was handing over his pen. Kismet.

Gernot returned the pen, and we began talking. This and that. We are retired Americans traveling in Spain for three months. They are Austrians, just a bit older than our children, in Málaga for a weekend away from jobs and children. We so enjoyed talking with them. We discussed Austria and the EU. We discussed American politics and next year’s presidential election. We discussed immigration – an important topic for both countries. We talked and we talked.

Cordula told us about a flamenco performance they chanced upon earlier in the day at a nondescript bar. She said the woman would perform again at 8:00 or so. We should join them. They couldn’t remember the name of bar. It was next to Casa Diego. Calle Santa María, Gernot said. We continued to talk. We missed the Picasso Museum. We didn’t care.

We met them later at flamenco bar Rincón de Chinitas, a hole-in-the-wall that took three inquiries in the neighboring shops to find. My kind of place – discreet and not for the easily discouraged!

We had a wonderful evening – worth a blog in itself.

Cordula emailed me today, something that brought tears to my eyes. “In Austria we say ‘Man sieht sich immer zwei Mal im Leben’ – which means that people always meet twice. So let’s hope that this saying comes true and we meet again one day.” What a beautiful thought. What a beautiful couple. I also hope it comes true.

Ignore the Terribles

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the ambassador's entrance to Madinat al-Zahra

the ambassador’s entrance to Madinat al-Zahra

I couldn’t decide whether to make the trip to Madinat al-Zahra, the 10th-century summer palace of the caliph of Córdoba. Once a spectacular city of 25,000 built by Abd ar-Rahman III for his favorite concubine, now it is not much more than a footprint of stone. I turned to TripAdvisor to help me decide.

A popular destination in TripAdvisor may have hundreds of reviews. It’s not possible to read them all, nor is it worth it. Many contribute nothing. Most of the “Excellent” reviews are uninformative and repetitive, so I start with the “Terrible” reviews.

Review: The video presentation at the Visitor Center is very well done, but then you go to the archaeological site and don’t see anything resembling what you saw in the video.

Reaction: Either the archaeological site is a pile of rubble, or this person has no imagination.

Review: They have reconstructed the buildings at the site; you can’t tell what is original and what was created.

Reaction: Okay, so there’s more than a pile of rubble, but it’s either all fake or this person can’t tell the difference.

Review: We refused to pay 2,10€ to ride the bus to the archaeological site because they wouldn’t let us drive our own car.

Reaction: Cheap bastards with an axe to grind!

By now, I was hopelessly confused, so I turned to Marcus. “Let’s just go,” he said. Quite right. Why am I wasting all this time with people I don’t know when I can just ask the one I know best?

animated view of the Caliph receiving foreign dignitaries

animated view of the Caliph receiving foreign dignitaries

We went; we loved it! The video presentation at the Visitor Center was amazing – the best I have ever seen at an historic sight. They not only used computer animation to show what the 1100-year-old ruins most likely looked like in their magnificence, but they also used animated people to show how they most likely lived. The most remarkable example of this showed ambassadors from foreign countries visiting the city. The entire entourage (maybe twenty people) would ride their horses through the fabulous entrance arches into a maze of ramps up to the Caliph’s reception area. The path twisted and turned, designed to give the impression that the reception must be just around the corner. Corner after corner was negotiated only to reveal another ramp. Visiting dignitaries could only imagine the enormity of the palace. Then, when they finally arrived at the reception room, they had to wait for hours to be received – all designed to impress upon them the Caliph’s importance.

actual reception hall

actual reception hall

partially reconstructed arch

partially reconstructed arch

After the video, we were thrilled to go to the actual site to see these same arches and ramps. If I hadn’t seen the film, I wouldn’t have had any idea what I was looking at. And, yes, it was obvious what was original construction and what was not. They intentionally used concrete alongside the original stone to show how it had been reconstructed. One of my favorite exhibits showed the reconstruction of an arch from the few original pieces they had found. Made me want to run right out and become an archaeologist!

Can you tell which is original construction and which is new?

Can you tell which is original construction and which is new?

One of the Terribles commented that the archaeological site at Madinat al-Zahra was a travesty, like reconstructing the Colosseum. Nonsense! They have created the perfect balance between displaying the ruins as they were unearthed, and allowing us to imagine what this phenomenon was like at its pinnacle. Don’t bother with the Terribles; just go and enjoy!