November 28, 2007. I studied Spanish this morning before going to my lesson. It’s a long process. When I got back, Anne and I went to lunch and then by the local cheese and ham store. We were looking around and the store is very high end (we ate there last week). It’s a special place where they only serve the very best of specialty foods and charge accordingly. I asked about the ham and they said they only carry Iberic ham; that’s one type of Jamon Serrano, the dry, cured stuff. It’s sliced very thin and vacuum packed and costs a fortune, so we bought some to try to see what the big deal is. Anyway, Iberic ham is only five percent of all Jamon Serrano in Spain and it’s free-range, feed only acorns (20 pounds a day!). Then there is a slow process of curing the stuff. The Iberic hams are raised in the south near Portugal and are black. The other 95 percent of pigs are white. Sort of a reverse prejudice. At Christmas there are all sorts of treats and gift baskets about, and you see a lot of these legs sticking out of them. Hey, look what Santa brought. Actually, they don’t have Santa, they have three kings. More on that later.
November 29, 2007. After our Spanish classes Anne and I met for lunch in a downtown eatery we thought we’d try. It was fancy and very old feeling, but not what we like in terms of local. The food was all right — it was Thursday, Piella Day. Anywho, we were on the metro coming back and I farted, silently, but it really stank up the entire place. Luckily, there was a fat guy sitting across from us, so I just looked at him, along with everyone else. I mean, of course the fat guy was the farter. Then Anne, knowing the sweet smell likely eminated from me, started laughing. It reminded us of a Saturday Night Live skit where Chris Farley is in a hot tub, bubbles rise up and of course everyone looks at him… you have to see it. It was funny.
November 30, 2007. David had a soccer game tonight and scored their only goal. Their team lost 3 to 1. It takes five to make a team and it appears there are only five of the 8 or 9 players who regularly show up for games. The other teams have up to 10 players so our team gets no rests. If you’re a glass half full guy, like me, the players get lots of playing time. Anywho, we got a ride home (it was a 45 minute bus ride in heavy traffic to get there) from one of the moms, who also gave the coach, Freddy, a ride. She is American and spoke amazing Spanish, which only took her 15 years, so there is hope. I found a hotel in France for us, near some ruins, and was told that, oh, by the way, there is construction in the hotel. Good news since we can’t seem to live without it.
December 1, 2007. Joshua had his seventh birthday party today. About ten kids came to our place and Anne organized some art projects that she learned about in Aspen. It was a challenge to deal with that many six-year-olds (they are all younger than Joshua with one exception because the cut off here follows calendar year, unlike the US, so kids are younger in their grades). In any case, they seemed to have a good time and Joshua was super excited to have a birthday party. He made a beach scene out of molding clay, including a non-smoking and smoking sections!
One of the mothers was very nice, but a very stressed German, whose kid was threatening to either throw himself or someone else down the nine floors from our balcony to the street. She, predictably, didn’t want the kid on the balcony and I assented. She was a bit stressed, though, and I felt like I was dealing with another kid i.e. a situation. She invited us to join her in her Chalet in Gstaad, which is tempting if she would promise not to be there at that time. Gstaad is a very chic destination and in fact, in the movie trading places, Dan Akroid tries to palm his Pateck Phillip watch, which tells time simultaneously in Paris, New York and “staad.” I didn’t tell her about the joke.
Our poor dog is such a mess with scabs on his neck and the side of his face, which he has scratched and made bloody. We bought him a lamp shade and now he’s all depressed.
December 2, 2007. Anne took the dog on a long walk today to try to cheer him up. I hung out with the kids who are perfectly happy not leaving the house. I guess that’s the way it is. When Anne got back I went on a long 1:45 run and ran a race course where they had a race today — that I considered doing but since I didn’t run all week as a result of my cold and it isn’t quit over, I gave it a miss. It was a course on dirt and looked pretty good. Then I planned our trip to France for next week (rented a car, mapped the route, tried to find some stuff to interest the kids…).
I’ve been thinking about the pricing here. Why are things so ridiculously expensive, sometimes twice what they cost in the US. One glaring example of commodities gone wild are running shoes. The same shoes that I get in the US cost twice what they cost stateside, sometimes more. Books are another thing that is much more expensive than in the US for the same book. I don’t think this is explained by duties; it’s a problem in the system since if it’s easy to open a business, then someone would have and underpriced the few stores that have the high prices. I’ll work on finding the answer but according to some quick research, books are free of duty and athletic shoes are subject to an 8 percent duty. Stay tuned.
December 3, 2007. Did you know that it’s polluted around here — really polluted? I didn’t but this morning’s newspaper made that clear. Listen, it’s nice here in a lot of ways — there is a way about this place that makes it a friendly city and certainly one that is beautiful and worth spending time in — but quality of life is another question.
Unless you are willing to really throw serious money at the issue, like who knows how much but let’s call it Russian mafia money, it’s not even close to what we have in Aspen. We have a lot of the European experience to experience, for both ourselves and the boys, but here’s what we know so far: learn Spanish, small check, get a European experience, check (it’s very much like and reminds me of Europe), bath like a European (small check since we can’t take long showers), frustrated with the ability (inability) to wash clothes (check), far too much traffic, check, critical mass of people check, other physical activities (check — running for long times).
The dog turned out not only to have fleas (nice) but also allergies to food and whatever else. I feel for the little critter; he’s miserable but has been diagnosed and will be better soon enough.
Another thing, our blog stats look terrible. We just seem to be uninteresting, unknown, or both. Here are the stats from the last months but they are going the wrong way. 92 visits two weeks ago, 52 visits last week, and zero this week. I’m not hurt, well that much, I mean, even Anne doesn’t read it!
December 4, 2007. I have a theory about the sexes here — by sexes I mean Men and Women. The women here are hard and the men are soft, almost like the traditional role of the sexes is reversed. I think that this may be the prevelant situation throughout Europe. I’ve developed my theory over the last few months but it seems clear that the women over 20 or 25 are very hard, and generally don’t seem that attrative. Anne told me they aren’t supposed to be attrative to me, but I’m not sure that she’s correct. I’m not saying I’m going to fool around, obviously I wouldn’t since I have Anne to fool around with; I’m just saying that you would expect women to want to be attractive; men too. I guess the men are attractive in a soft, unthreatening, mamma’s boy, cuddly way — I’m not being gay here. The women, however, seem to take some pride in having hard hairstyles, hard sunglasses, hard “perscription” glasses, hard boots, hard clothes and a hard, unattractive, almost agressive look and attitude. I guess they just boss their men around and it’s good with everyone.
We had considered staying for two years over the last few months and even went to the trouble of getting German passports into process. The idea would have been to go to Aspen over summer and return here for the next school year but we’ve nixed that idea. We don’t want to be away from home for that much time and don’t think that the additional year is worth it.