New Vocab and a Visit to the Spanish National Museum

  • Filed under Spain

  • September 13, 2021

Well, it’s looking like our furniture and household goods won’t get here until mid-October at the earliest. So, onto more adventures!

One of the things about living in another country whose language is different is that you have to learn a lot of vocabulary. I’m fortunate in that I learned Spanish quite well when I lived here for 11 years before. But every now and again I encounter voids of vocabulary words and phrases that are revealed by my sudden necessity for these, and which allow me to therefore increase my fluency. This past week, for example, a sharp pain in my mouth presented me with an opportunity to expand my repertoire to include phrases such as canal radicular (root canal), corona dental (crown), dientes quebradizas (brittle teeth) and so on.

I was really frightened of going to the dentist—it frightens me in the US too, but even more so when I also don’t have the tools with which to express the matices, the subtleties, of what I want to say. But circumstances being what they are, I was forced to make an appointment.

The nice thing about Tres Cantos is that nothing is really that far away, and the super nice thing about where we live is that the dentist’s office is literally a four-minute walk from my front door. And I got really lucky—my new dentist is wonderful! We had a nice chat, she took some all-around X-rays and got to the root of the matter, pun intended, so wish me well with the endodontista tomorrow as we discuss the impending extracción and implante.

Meanwhile, let’s talk about my weekend jaunt into Madrid to explore the MADbird fair, (MAD being short for Madrid, haha!) The annual 3-day fair was about nature tourism throughout Spain showcased in a series of about 20 wooden stalls. Most had representatives from different provinces in Spain who highlighted why birding in their province was the coolest thing ever. They had detailed maps of where to go and brochures on lodgings and other fun outdoor activities. Soon, my husband and I were laden with pamphlets about places we can’t wait to explore!

Standing on Paseo de Recoletos with a large tree frog in the background.

SEO, the Spanish Ornithological Society, (like the National Audubon Society and the American Birding Conservancy and the American Birding Association, all rolled into one) was one of the event sponsors, and they are the ones who sent us information about this fair. They also showcased pelagic (ocean) birds and told of their troubles as they get ensnared in fishing nets and get killed, thus raising the public’s awareness so that we can demand more safeguards. They had a wonderful photographic display of the beautiful birds that can be found on, or just off, the Spanish coasts.

There were also a few stands with bird and nature gifts, and we got some really cool bird mugs!

Bird mugs with both the Spanish common name and the Latin name of the birds.

The MADbird fair was set up on a street called Paseo de Recoletos, just outside the National Library of Spain, a truly impressive building which we decided to explore. Guarding the entrance of the library are five humongous stone statues, each a literary (and literal) giant, many of whom are holding enormous books.

Looking up at the National Library of Spain as it is guarded by large stone literary giants and defenders of literary knowledge
King Alfonso the Wise, with a huge book tucked under his seat

One of the five guardian dudes was none other than Miguel de Cervantes, dressed in his ruff and tights! Very cool.

I gotta say, it’s not a bad look. Do you think tights for men will ever come back into fashion?

The statue of Lope de Vega, another hugely important Spanish author, stands in the center of the doorway, and I am going to have to learn who the other three people in the statues are.

Robes that must be clutched do seem hazardous to wear.

The Spanish National Library houses over 30 million texts, mostly from the 1700s on, but its collection also includes books from much earlier. Some of these rare and very old, hand-written and illustrated books, called incunables, are on display, in cases that are climate-controlled and tamper-resistant, and you can get quite close to admire them and stare in wonder. In the picture below is a tiny example. It’s about 2 inches wide and 3 inches tall, and its a book of poetry, written in the 1300s, and transcribed and illustrated in the 1400s, before Columbus discovered America.

This tiny book has been around for over 600 years ago, and contains poetry written 700 years ago.

Hand-transcribed and drawn–isn’t that awe-inspiring?

And there is also a reproduction of a letter Cervantes wrote.

To see the writing of such a great author is so interesting

The library houses rotating exhibits focusing on different authors from around the world. The exhibit that just finished was on Emilia Pardo Bazan (1851-1921), a woman who wrote more than 500 stories, poems and novels in the late 1800s and early 1900s, many focusing on women’s rights and the societal problem of violence against women. She lived in and set most of her stories in Madrid. I had never heard of this literary giant, but I bought one of her books and so far, it’s very good.

The current exhibit is of Dante (1265-1321). In it I learned that, unlike other authors from his time-period, we do not have originals of his writings, but rather only copies and translations, made over the centuries, and stored in at least 19 different museums around the globe. The thing about Dante was that, living in Italy, he refused to write his later works in Latin which was the standard language for scholars at that time, and this made his contemporary intellects and the powers that be, very angry. At that time, Italy was not a united country (neither was Spain or Germany, for that matter) but rather a series of kingdoms, each with its own language. Dante was trying to reach the common people, (and he was involved in a lot of political uprisings to unite Italy, for which he was ultimately exiled) so he chose the language of one of the kingdoms to write in, and this later (and partly because of his writings) evolved into the main Italian language. But because of his struggles with the established rulers, he got in a lot of trouble and his works were destroyed and/or lost. Different researchers have made it their life’s work to try to read the earliest documented copies and translations of his writings to see if they can get as close as possible to what Dante’s original words and meanings were. Anyway, I’ve glossed over a fascinating history and hopefully this is enough to get you interested in learning more about this amazing writer.

Inside the National Library of Spain, this was the entrance to the Dante exhibit. Menendez y Pelayo is another great Spanish author.

So many books, so little time!

Anyway, what was your favorite part of our visit?

And as always, if you like my writing, please check out (and tell someone about) my novels here.

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Visiting Colmenar Viejo

  • Filed under Spain

  • September 7, 2021

I’m dedicating this post to the memory of Al Gilmore, the husband of a dear friend from Austin who passed away this past week. May his memory be a blessing and a comfort to his wife, Diane, and their two children.

When we lived in Austin, we were about 10 miles away from Old Bee Caves Road. And now that we live in Tres Cantos, we are about 10 miles away from a small city called Colmenar Viejo (Old Beehives.) Being so close, it was easy-peasy and fast to get there by bus. The city is on a small hill, nestled at the feet of the majestic mountains called Sierra de Guadarrama.

Photo by Nachosan – Trabajo propio, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9555039

Last week I talked about our trip to Segovia and how impressed I was that the city had been inhabited for the last 60,000 years. Well, Colmenar Viejo tops that. Archaeologists have found “abundant” flint stone tools in digs throughout the city that indicate that Paleolithic people inhabited that land from 140,000 to 100,000 years ago! If you think about it, modern humans have only been around for about 20,000 to 40,000 years, so those people were early, early humans, probably pre-Neanderthals! (Here you can see a picture of one of the stone tools found )

Archaeologists have also found ceramic shards from the Bronze Age there.

Nonetheless, settlements came and went in Colmenar Viejo, and it’s not until the 6th and 7th centuries CE that there are a lot of ruins, including foundations of buildings, a small street, and even a cemetery. Then, since the 9th century CE, Colmenar Viejo has been continually inhabited.

Whew!! I’m blown away, wondering if there are families living in this small town who can trace their lineage back thousands (or tens of thousands) of years? I mean, sure, eventually all of us MUST have come from ancient ancestors, but the idea of a land inhabited a hundred thousand years ago is amazing!

Later, in the 13th century a university was established there, with Latin studies, humanities, etc., and it is still standing in a small plaza. We didn’t get a picture of it, though.

Silliness with a bronze statue, downtown Colmenar Viejo

But switching gears to the present, one of the things my husband and I enjoy doing when we arrive in a new city is stopping at a café. Here most cafés  are called “bars” but it’s not at all the type of bar you typically think of in the US. For one thing, they serve tea and coffee and are open all day. (Yes, you could also get a beer or alcoholic drink if you wanted, but it’s not something most people do.) And second, there’s no age limit for going into the bar, as there is in the US. So, you could just as easily see a group of teens having a soft drink or some elderly folks having a glass of wine, or young parents enjoying a cup of coffee while their child clambers between them.

As soon as we got off the bus, we found a tiny little café/bar and sat down for warm drinks, which in this case were served in small glasses! Cute but rather uncomfortable to drink from as there were no handles, and our fingers became quite tingly if we dawdled with our drinks in our hands.

Coffee in a glass, along with some morning cake at a local bar in Colmenar Viejo

Then we strolled through the city, stopping at the different parks along the way to check out the local birds. There were quite a few parks, and many, like the one below, had impressive children’s playgrounds, as well as dog playgrounds, which I’ll discuss in a later blog post.

Children’s playground in one of the parks where we birded in Colmenar Viejo

At ~53,000 inhabitants, Colmenar Viejo is larger than Tres Cantos, and it has a bull-fighting ring, which TC does not have. The buildings were also, as we expected, much older, and eventually we stumbled upon the old cathedral in the city center called Basílica de la Asunción de Nuestra Señora. It was built in the mid to late 1500s, and as you can see, parts of it were undergoing renovations.

And of course, it was topped with the obligatory stork nests.

Stork’s nest on a church in Colmenar Viejo. Look at those unevenly hewn rocks and that thick mortar!

The yearly celebrations of the city were happening the weekend we visited, but due to Covid restrictions, things were very toned down. Nonetheless, for a few fun photos of the celebrations from past years check out this site.

So, from Old Bee Caves to Old Beehives–coincidence? Or is the Universe telling us how sweet our surroundings are, both here and there?

In any case, since it’s that time of the year again, wishing all my Jewish friends a honied, happy and healthy New Year!

What do you think? Which part of the visit was your favorite ?

And as always, if you like my writing, please check out my novels here.

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A trip to Segovia

  • Filed under Spain

  • August 30, 2021

While our belongings continue to enjoy the warm weather in Houston, we decided to celebrate my husband’s birthday with a day trip to Segovia.  (With about 70% of Spain’s population fully vaccinated, and close to 80% at least partially vaccinated, and everyone wearing masks, travelling is pretty safe.)

A view of the Aqueduct from a couple of blocks away.

Segovia lies northwest of Madrid and Tres Cantos, but on the other side of several mountain ranges. As I was figuring out how to get there, Google Maps helpfully informed me that were we to walk the roughly 90 Km that separate us, it would take just over 15 hours. So, we decided to take a train instead. The AVE (a cool acronym which means bird, but is actually short for alta velocidad, high-speed) train ride was a short 27-minute ride from Madrid to Segovia. Of course, we had to get to Madrid, which added another 20 minutes or so, but still, very doable.

Boarding the AVE

The train was clean and smooth and comfortable, and in no time at all we were arriving in Segovia, a city whose origins go back, I kid you not, sixty-thousand years! Yes! They have found Neanderthal remains in the heart of the city. Like I said, I love living here where history just jumps out at you when you wander around!

A 360 view from a park on the outskirts of Segovia, overlooking the surrounding countryside. Can you hear the Jackdaws calling in the background?

The biggest attraction in Segovia is the humongous aqueduct, built by the Romans nearly two thousand years ago, and the most in-tact Roman ruin of the entire Iberian Peninsula. It was made to bring fresh water from a far-away spring to the city and it is 15 Km long (10 miles) before it reaches the city. Once it enters the city, it leaps onto stone arcs, and then double arcs that eventually soar far above.

Most amazingly, it was built from large granite stones hewn to fit perfectly together and placed exactly in the correct positions without any mortar between the stones. Imagine that! And it was used until the 1950s to bring water to the city. It’s a mesmerizing site!

Aqueduct on the left–look how there really is no mortar between the stones!

Segovia’s streets are mostly cobblestone, and they wind up from the aqueduct to the city center, and then down on the other end to a castle known as the Alcazar of Segovia. Built at the beginning of the 12th century, it’s an amazingly well-preserved and fascinating castle that looks like somewhere Cinderella might have lived.

A partial view of the Alcazar of Segovia, constructed 800 years ago.

Between the aqueduct and the Alcazar, the rest of Segovia is also very interesting. We visited the old Jewish quarters and saw ancient synagogues upon which churches were built, many hundreds of years ago. There is a Jewish museum and a Jewish cemetery that show traces of the rich life that existed before the tragic expulsion of the Jews in 1492.

A plaque indicating the extent of the Old Jewish Neighborhood that once graced this part of Segovia.
A panoramic view of the Old Jewish Neighborhood. Hopefully you can read the legend in English in the middle.

For lunch we went to a small restaurant and ordered a pitcher of sangria, to celebrate my hubby’s birthday. It took a long time since they made it from scratch, and it was the best I’ve ever had. The fresh lemon and orange slices were lovely, but we could not convince the waiter to disclose any of secret recipe.

A toast of fruity wine with the birthday boy!

The rest of the afternoon we spent meandering the streets. We saw the cathedral up in the Plaza Mayor, the main square that was lined with outdoor terraces on which to have a cool drink.

The cathedral and the Plaza Mayor behind us.

We wandered into shops and bought some cookies made by cloistered nuns in the convent and some locally made fig jam. And then we just did the touristy thing of walking around, exclaiming at the wonders we saw on every corner.

I’m not sure who this dude in the statue is, but, ahem, nice legs!

Oh, look at that coat of arms over the door!

Many buildings sport crests of arms. This one looked to be recently remodeled (in the last hundred years or so!)

And that spiky facade!  

This may be a church, though I’m not too sure.

And the stork nests high above!

I can’t get enough of the huge stork’s nests on old buildings in Spain!

All too soon evening fell and it was time to catch the train back to Madrid. We did so with the promise to come back and see some more museums next time!

A view of the non-touristy part of Segovia, with the mountains in the distance.

What do you think? Which part of the visit was your favorite ?

And as always, if you like my writing, please check out my novels here.

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Tres Cantos–Spanish Breakfasts

  • Filed under Spain

  • August 24, 2021

This week marks five weeks of “camping” in our home while our furniture and stuff remains firmly lodged in a warehouse in Houston. So, I thought I’d talk about one of the main reasons we moved to Spain, and that is FOOD. To misquote Shakespeare, “How do I love Spanish food, let me count the ways!”

If you think of types of foods as different colors, say, if Italian food were yellow and Chinese was green and Mexican was blue and Indian was purple, Spanish food would be its own color, say red. In this classification scheme, countries with similar foods would have different shades of the same color, so food from different Latin American countries would be different shades of blue, and Portuguese food, which is very similar to Spanish food, would maybe be pink or some derivative of red. My point is, Spanish food is nothing like Latin American food, a fact I did not know when I first moved to Spain 35 years ago.

So, let’s start with breakfasts, and I’m going to speak in general terms, since of course, in any situation there were will always be exceptions to the rule. But in general, breakfast is a small meal (other than for children.) And breakfast cereal is not a regular part of Spanish breakfasts, though you can find cereals at grocery stores, just not in the quantities we’re used to seeing in the US. Most adults barely have much of a breakfast at all, and it’s more often a savory one than a sweet one.

The exception is my all-time most favorite breakfast food: chocolate con churros. (Pronounced chōh-cōh-lah-teh cōn chū-rrōs.)

Chocolate con Churros

We’ll start with the churros, which are made from a dough that does not contain sugar and is pressed out of a machine into little grooved rods, which are immediately deep fried. Yeah, not super-healthy, but for a treat every few weeks, unbeatable! Since the churros are not sweet, I sprinkle sugar over them, but many Spanish people do not. Churros are very often dipped in chocolate, which is basically a melted chocolate bar, so thick you can stand a churro up in it. It’s basically hot chocolate pudding. Heaven!

Here in Madrid the churros are typically tear-drop shaped, and this past weekend, I finally figured out why that’s such a good idea: it allows you to hold the loop-end and dip the two tips, take a bite, and then dip them again, squeezing them together as you eat your way to the end. Mmmm!!!

There are also big, fat churros called porras, literally, “large sticks”, but to my taste they are a bit too oily, so we don’t order those.

Where do you get churros? There are usually churrerias, restaurants that specialize in making churros, in any Spanish city—there are two in Tres Cantos—and these are the places one should go to have them. Many cafeterias will also have them, but those are usually not as fresh, and I don’t recommend them.

For everyday breakfasts, my favorite thing to do is to walk to the nearest bakery—I have 3 within a four-minute walk from my front door—and buy a bar of freshly baked bread, kind of like a baguette, but (my apologies to the French) in my opinion the Spanish make better bread. (The Portuguese also make fantastic bread. I’m not really sure why the French seem to have cornered the bar-of-bread market in the US!)

Barra de pan artesanal

Anyway, the first day I went to the bakery five weeks ago I asked for a bar of white bread. (I wasn’t in the mood for wholegrain, of which they also have a lovely variety.) “What kind?” she asked. “We have six different types of white bar-breads.” So, to my delight, I’ve been trying different types and learning their names as I go. The shopkeepers (all of them, as a matter of fact) have been wonderfully friendly, helpful and patient when I ask questions. And since I taught for many years and always told my students that there was no such thing as a dumb question, I now find myself practicing that philosophy from the other end, peppering shopkeepers with questions as I explore my new surroundings.

So, for breakfast I have a piece of fresh bread with a satisfyingly crunchy crust and warm, tender, tasty center, spread with butter and jam. It’s so, so good that I don’t get tired of it! (I bought maple syrup to make pancakes but haven’t yet felt like them. And my husband does eat cereals for breakfast, but then he has a small slice of crusty bread too!) When they don’t have the fresh, crusty bread with butter and jam, the Spanish will often drizzle it with olive oil and spread it with a freshly pureed ripe tomato. This is, I think, originally from the Catalonian region (where Barcelona is) though it’s now eaten all over Spain as a typical breakfast. It’s called pan con tomaca. Healthy and yummy!

Pan con tomaca

And, sometimes, we splurge and get a small pastry too, to have with our tea or coffee. Today it was buttery croissants dipped in chocolate.

Chocolate dipped croissants

What do you think? Would you get tired of the same breakfast every day? Or would you want to just keep repeating if it were so yummy?

And as always, if you like my writing, please check out my novels here.

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Tres Cantos–Easy Birds

  • Filed under Spain

  • August 16, 2021

Being bird lovers, my hubby and I can’t help but relish viewing all the new species we’re finding in Tres Cantos and other places in Spain. But learning their calls and physical characteristics of all the new birds is a daunting task. Some birds, however, are old friends.

Two dove fountain in Tres Cantos (photo by Christy Esmahan)

For starters, there’s the ubiquitous House Sparrow. Being a birder from the US, I was used to looking at these birds a bit disdainfully. Invasives, was the word that would come to mind when I saw them. But really, it’s not their fault that we brought them to the US, either intentionally (take the story of Eugene Schieffelin who, in 1890, wanted to populate the New World with all the bird species mentioned by Shakespeare so he had crates of different bird species shipped over) or unintentionally, when, hundreds of years ago, we docked ships in ports for weeks at a time and the enterprising little birds built nests on the wooden mast poles. It’s not their fault that these “trees” moved slowly across the ocean and landed in fresh new habitats. They are survivors. Yes, they are able to more successfully compete for food and resources than the native North American birds, but again, our fault for taking them there.

Even the House Sparrows think tapas are a good idea! This cheeky little guy was unceremoniously chased from our table, right after I took the picture. (photo by Christy Esmahan)

Anyway, now that I’m living in Europe, I’m learning to look at House Sparrows differently since I’m on their territory. And the fact they were so common in the US meant that I already knew their call. So, I can quickly pick out their chattering voices from the leafy branches overhead as I walk past.

Starlings are also in that category of “don’t-think-of-them-as-invasives-any-more!” One slight twist: in the US we have the Eurasian Starling, and here in central Spain it’s the Spotless Starling. They are the same size and shape, and their dark, glossy feathers and chattery, raspy calls are, to my inexpert ear, practically the same, so they are another easy species to identify.

The third, formerly thought of as “invasive” but now seen in new light bird species is the Eurasian Collared Dove, cooing “One more, please! One more, please!” And, where in Austin these doves were pretty large compared to the native American species, here they seem positively tiny compared to the Common Wood Pigeon, a dove that seems to be at least twice as large the Eurasian Collared Doves or the pervasive Rock Pigeons.

Another “old friend” from Austin, which is also an introduced species here in Madrid, is the Monk Parakeet. It’s not its fault that we hunted this South American species and took it to the markets all over the world for the pet trade. And then several decades ago, some individuals either got loose or were freed and figured out how to make a decent living in another part of the globe, setting up noisy colonies of glossy blue-green birds. Yes, these gregarious feathered friends make large nests with lots of sticks, and yes, cellphone and electric towers are their favorite locations for these nests, as it’s easy to spy enemies coming from a distance when you’re up there, but again, not their fault for being resourceful survivors. I love these birds! Madrid is simply teeming with them! (For an interesting podcast on parrots who have figured out how to live all over the world, listen to the August 12th, 2021 episode of the American Birding Association podcast with Nate Swick—easily my all-time favorite podcast!)

Monk Parakeet at a park in Madrid (photo by Christy Esmahan)

Then there are some new bird species that are so similar to US birds, that they have not been difficult to learn. There’s the European Blackbird. It looks just like an American Robin, if that robin had been dipped in pure black ink, except for its bright orange beak and orange eye ring. (Females are more brown, to protect them in their nests.) This bird is a thrush, just like our robin, and it acts just like the robin too, hopping around in the grass and hunting up worms. The calls are different though, melodic and lovely, and I’m still learning them.

You also have the Eurasian Magpies, which look just like the Black-billed Magpies you can see in the Western US. Urracas, they are called in Spanish, and their very loud, chattering calls, which sound like a box of castanets being shaken, can be heard all over Tres Cantos as they majestically glide down from branches on wide, outstretched wings. Great birds!

Eurasian Magpie in front of my home in Tres Cantos. Those blue feathers are so cool! (photo by Christy Esmahan)

I’ll end with the chickadees, which in Europe are all called tits, probably because of the tit-tit-tit sounds they make. (Chickadees and Titmice are also in the tit group in the US, but here none are called Chickadees.) So, in the group of mitos, as they are called in Spanish, you have the Great Tit, which looks like a Carolina or Black-Capped Chickadee but with an olive colored back, a yellowish chest, and a black line that extends from its black bib, down the length of its chest. You also have the Eurasian Blue Tit, which is a gorgeous chickadee with a blue black, a shorter blue cap on its head that lets a white line show above the black eye stripe, and a yellow chest with no line down the middle.

Eurasian Blue Tit (photo by Francis C. Franklin)

And, finally, you have the Long-tailed Tit, which is the strangest-looking one, to my eye, because of its white cap (in my head, all chickadees should have black caps) and its gorgeous, very long, tail. I’ve seen very few of these here in Madrid, but probably because they are shier, and I don’t know their calls well enough.

Long-tailed Tit (photo by Andreas Trepte)

That’s the roundup of easy birds, but of course, there are many more different species around. I’ll be posting more blogs about Spanish birds, so stay tuned!

What do you think so far? Is there anything about our adventures in Spain or Tres Cantos you’d like me to discuss in a future blog post? Let me know!

And as always, if you like my writing, please check out my novels here.

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Tres Cantos–A foray into the Spanish capital

  • Filed under Spain

  • August 9, 2021

The weather has been lovely, highs in the mid-80s and lows in the 60s (though it sometimes creeps into the nineties for a few hours, then retreats for several days) so we decided to head into Madrid to explore a bit. Tres Cantos, where we live, is about 13 miles north of Madrid, and if we had a car, we’d be downtown in about 15 or 20 minutes. But we’ve decided not to buy a car for now.

So, we’re getting to know our way around the public transport system, which is clean, safe and very pleasant to ride in.

There are several buses and a cercanias (commuter) train that will take us south to Madrid, all for under $3.00 per person. But Madrid is such a big city that sometimes we add another metro ride once we are in town. Compared to parking and all the hassles associated with owning a car, we think it’s well worth it.

The metro in Madrid is a pleasant experience

Seeing as my hubby and I are both avid birders, we checked our favorite app (eBird) and found a park that looked good.

We got off the metro and walked down the narrow city streets, well off the beaten path, toward the park, with half an eye out for a place to have breakfast. Within a few minutes we happened on this amazing little hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Matilda.

Matilda was tiny and eclectic, and the food was delicious!

We later found out that it had excellent ratings in Trip Advisor, but at the time, we just saw that the three outdoor tables were crowded with locals and we decided to stay. We were not disappointed. The food was really good and the waiters were in high spirits as it was the last day the restaurant would be open until the end of August. Este año tocan vacaciones, (this year we get a vacation) I heard one waiter comment to a patron. “Last year was awful but this year we’re headed to the beach for a month! Can’t wait!”

And that’s one of the things I love about Spain. People consider it their natural right to have 3-4 weeks of paid vacation. Entire stores close and everyone leaves. It’s a quality-of-life thing. I couldn’t agree more!

After breakfast we walked to the Real Jardín Botánico (the Royal Botanical Gardens.) Admission was only €4 and the gardens were stunning. It turns out that when early Spanish explorers were first in Latin America, all the seeds and plantings they gathered to take back to the Old World were brought to this very park. (This tingly feeling, this sensation that history is leaping out of the books to greet you in the modern day–this is another thing I love about Spain.)

These dahlias remind of the artist Dale Chihuly’s gorgeous glass sculptures. Dahlia seeds collected from Mexico, where they are native plants, were brought to these very gardens 500 years ago!

The park was awesome! Huge trees that looked like skyscrapers, some with multiple stems jumbled together to form thick trunks, flowering plants and bushes of all kinds, a rock and succulent display, at least 50 very elegant bonsais, a sizeable tropical lily pond, a rose garden set in concentric circles, a dahlia garden with more varieties than I’ve ever seen before, cactuses in a greenhouse, a tropical garden, and myriad of paths winding around in mazes.

One of the many marvelous bonsais in the Royal Botanical Gardens of Madrid. Don’t you just love the twisted bark on the trunk?

And there were birds too! We had our bins and saw several lifers there. More on them in another post.

After wandering about blissfully for several hours, we sat down at an outdoor café in the park for some cool glasses of white wine and some olives (5 Euros for all that) and then left the park to find “lunch” at about 2:30pm—just the right time for eating the main meal of the day, called comida here in Spain.

What do you think so far? Is there anything about our adventures in Spain or Tres Cantos you’d like me to discuss in a future blog post? Let me know!

And as always, if you like my writing, please check out my novels here.

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Tres Cantos–our arrival

  • Filed under Spain

  • August 3, 2021

A fountain near the hotel

On Thursday it will be four weeks since we made our dream of moving to Spain a reality! I’m happy to report that we arrived safely, and have officially become empadronados, which means domiciled, in our new hometown of Tres Cantos.

When we first arrived at 9:00 a.m. to the Madrid Barajas airport, bleary-eyed with exhaustion and the time change, we had no trouble claiming our bags and catching a taxi. “We’re going to Tres Cantos,” I told the taxi driver in Spanish. I had dreamed of saying this for 22 long months, and at times had despaired that our dream would ever come to fruition.

“Vale, está bien,” (“OK, good”) said the driver, and off we went.

Tres Cantos is a suburb of Madrid, about 25 minutes in taxi from the airport. That was one of the criteria I had used to choose Tres Cantos as our landing point, since we wanted to have a reasonable commute to the airport.

Neither my husband nor I had ever been to Tres Cantos, so our most burning question was whether we would like it there. If it didn’t feel right, for whatever reason, I had a Plan B and a Plan C for other suburbs to look at.

The taxi driver took the highway north, passing swaths of golden sunbaked fields and scrubby oak and pine trees before exiting toward Tres Cantos. We held our breath as the city revealed itself: five and six story-high red-bricked apartment buildings, wide, tree-lined avenues, fountains, rust-colored statues, people of all ages strolling under flowering lilac bushes draped in arches over walk-ways, colorful sidewalks under a perfect blue sky… “It’s beautiful,” I whispered, feeling teary-eyed.  

A 360 view from in front of the hotel

I had booked the hotel in advance, but for just one week—long enough to not have to worry about it right away, but short enough to change to another hotel if this one, or Tres Cantos in general, was not to our liking. Fortunately, the reviews were accurate and the hotel, VP Jardin Tres Cantos, was a nice place. The staff were super-friendly, the restaurant served good food, there were other restaurants and shops in walking distance, a bus stop right in front, and a large metropolitan park right across the street.

That first day we didn’t get much done as sleep overcame us. The hotel had allowed us to take our rooms as soon as we got there, so we lay down and then only got up close to 3pm, by which time it was time to get some lunch, or as the Spanish call their mid-afternoon main meal, comida.

My hubby and I one one of those lovely avenues

Over the next few days, we scheduled times to see homes, and within a week we found a place we loved. The landlady was still having some painting done to it, so it took another week to be ready for us, and then almost 2 weeks ago, we moved in.

I had planned to get an apartment, but the ones we saw (and granted, July is not the best time of the year to try to rent an apartment in Spain) were either too small or were located too far away from the city life. And as we are planning not to buy a car, this was a deal-breaker. So, we ended up with a cute townhouse located just a hop, skip and a jump from a bustling street.

More on that in my next blog post. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of those funky sidewalks around the Central Park.

What do you think so far? Is there anything about Tres Cantos you’d like me to discuss in a future blog post? Let me know!

And as always, if you like my writing, please check out my novels here.

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The Cobra Effect Vignette 3

A Song Sparrow foraging in a drying creek bed in Austin, TX.

When I was writing The Cobra Effect, which is about #plastic pollution, I wrote a series of vignettes to present some ideas of how we sometimes unconsciously/unintentionally contribute to the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean. My original plan was to put one of these little stories at the start of each chapter, but my editor said that they made the book too long and distracted from the plot. I’m sure she was right, but nonetheless, I feel these snippets are important, so I’ve decided to publish one of them every once in a while. Here’s the third one:

Shelley and Megan were up early, meeting in the chilly pre-dawn darkness. It was the day they had been anticipating for months: the marathon.

As the sun peeked hesitantly through the morning fog, they joined the growing throng of runners, bouncing, stretching and calming nerves before the run.

Before they knew it, the whistle sounded and the race began. At first there were so many people that it was difficult to feel comfortable, all those elbows and knees, but as the miles eased past, the two friends found their stride and their long legs settled into an easy rhythm. Three miles, four, seven, ten, all passed with no problems.

As they ran, they gratefully accepted plastic cups half filled with water, handed to them by marathon volunteers. The girls quickly slurped them down, and kept running.

At fifteen miles they saw the Elvis impersonator holding up a sign (“ONLY 11 MORE MILES TO GO!”) and they laughed, perhaps a bit nervously. Eleven more miles. They could do it, right?

At nineteen miles Shelley’s right leg began to cramp badly. She had been ignoring it for a while, but now she slowed her pace and Megan passed her by. As she gritted her teeth and tried to force her leg to cooperate, searing pain ran down the side of her calf and up her thigh. She stepped off to the side of the road to massage her painful muscles.

A young volunteer ran up and handed Shelley another cup of water which she greedily accepted. As she stretched and kicked a bit, the pain throbbed again, worse than before. Sullenly, she sat down and absently noticed the clumps of Solo cups blowing and rolling into the street gutters. 

After a moment a shadow fell over her and she looked up to see Megan’s sweaty face.

“There you are,” Megan exclaimed.

“I think I’m done,” said Shelley.

“Nope, c’mon! We’ll go slower, but we’ll make it.” And with that, still panting, Megan helped Shelley back to her feet, and in another minute Shelley was able to jog on.

“Did you see,” said Shelley as they jogged along, “all those cups and water bottles on the side of the road?”

“Someone will pick them up,” said Megan.

And someone did—many someones. Volunteers hauling black plastic bags scooped up the assorted trash that lined the roads where the runners had trod and their friends and families had stood cheering. But not before the bayou had swallowed quite a few of the discarded vessels, sending them bobbing on their way down into the gulf.

With Megan’s coaxing, Shelley finished the race. But, hundreds of years after this marathon is forgotten, those plastic water bottles and cups will still be floating in the ocean, poisoning aquatic life.

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Nurdles

One particularly egregious way that we contaminate our oceans is with nurdle spills. Nurdles are tiny pellets of hard plastic, about a ¼ inch in diameter, (the size of a lentil) that are fed into machines that create plastic objects, from bags to toys to water bottles and the millions of other things we make out of plastic. Nurdles are shipped in huge bags from the factories where they are produced to manufacturing companies all over the globe. And all too often, there are accidents—trains are derailed and lose their cargo, 18-wheeler trucks flip over, boats crash or sink, and millions of nurdles are cast into the environment, often ending up in rivers or the ocean.

Tragically, nurdles look like eggs, and so they are greedily eaten by fish, turtles, birds and even whales. And since plastics in the ocean absorb toxic chemicals, not only do nurdles physically make small fish sick by taking up space in their intestines and providing no nutritional value, but they also serve as chemical poison pills, and the toxins they have absorbed are then absorbed by the fish and collected, accumulated, into fish tissues. When a bigger fish eats a smaller fish, that bigger fish then gets all those toxins and accumulates them, in turn.

Thus, keeping nurdles out of our waterways is essential. And more and more, companies that have nurdle spills are being sued. The Post and Courier updated an article just last week about a Charleston plastic company that had been citied for a nurdle spill. You can read that article here.

Unfortunately, the Charleston spill is not an isolated incident. In 2017 a ship off the coast of South Africa spilled 2.25 billion nurdles into the ocean, a billion of which later washed up on the shores of Australia.  And there are dozens of smaller spills every month of the year.

As a matter of fact, according to a CBS article published December 14, 2019, 250,000 tons of nurdles are added to our oceans every year. Astounding.

Obviously, no company intentionally loses its nurdles. But accidents happen frequently. And there is also negligence, like when nurdles are lost as they are being on- or off—loaded to trucks or trains. These nurdles cannot be used once they are dirty, so they are simply left to wash away.

So what can be done? If we collectively consumed less plastic, companies would create fewer nurdles and that would help reduce pollution. So, take a look at the plastics you’ve used today, this week, and this month. Can you re-use, reduce or recycle more of it?

And the next time you’re on the beach of an ocean, a Great Lake, or even a river bank, look for nurdles. I find them everywhere. Then report your findings on the Great Nurdle Hunt website. There is also a Facebook page where you can report any nurdles found in the Gulf Coast, between Florida and Texas (Nurdle Patrol).

Further Reading:

Virgin plastic pellets are the biggest pollution disaster you’ve never heard of

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The Cobra Effect Vignette 2

When I was writing The Cobra Effect, which is about #plastic pollution, I wrote a series of vignettes to present some ideas of how we sometimes unconsciously/unintentionally contribute to the problem of plastic pollution in the ocean. My original plan was to put one of these little stories at the start of each chapter, but my editor said that they made the book too long and distracted from the plot. I’m sure she was right, but nonetheless, I feel these snippets are important, so I’ve decided to publish one each week for a few weeks.

The vignettes are based on situations I’ve seen or experienced, and I’ve expanded all of them for the purposes of the blog. What do you think? Have you had an experience like this?

A day at the island

“So, what do you think of it? She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” asks Jack, as the salty water sloshes noisily around the edge of the boat.

Meg and Greg nod vigorously, their bodies rocking with the waves while Jane turns a few knobs, cranking up the music.

“It’s totally awesome,” says Meg. “Thanks so much for taking us out.”

“We’re just so glad the weather held out and you two could make it,” says Jane. “Jack and I have been wanting to have you guys out for like forever!”

“I know,” says Greg, “our schedules just never seem to work. I’ve been traveling so much.”

“But at least we’re out here now,” says Jack. A gull flies over, scolding loudly, and the salty tang of the bay fills their nostrils. Jack opens the blue cooler and reaches into the icy slurry, withdrawing a couple of plastic bottles of water.

“Thanks,” says Meg, accepting them and handing one to Greg. Something about being out on the water has made her very thirsty. When she finishes it, she replaces the lid and places it on the low bench, next to Greg’s empty one.

“How far to the island?” asks Greg.

“Oh, about 30 minutes. There, we’re out of the no-wake zone. Hold onto your hats, we’re going to kick this baby into gear here.”

The motor cranks into higher gear and soon everyone is grasping their sun visors with both hands, hair whipping around their smiling faces. As the boat picks up speed, the loose water bottles suddenly take flight, and before anyone can grab them, they are lifted up, out of the boat and deposited onto the surface of the water, where they bob in the wake of the widening wake of the boat.

Now the ocean owns them, even if it is tired of receiving so many of these “gifts.” 60 million water bottles are used each day, and only about half of these are recycled. Some of the rest make it to landfills, but many, thousands and thousands, are added to the ocean, often through negligence.

A plastic bottle takes 450 years to decompose.

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