What's New II

The past week was full of firsts - and I suspect that might continue.

Early Morning Squinty Sun

The biggest and best 'first' was having Claire visit us for several days.  She is the younger daughter of a friend that worked with us in Haiti in the 1980s. 

Her older daughter, Annie, had visited us in Virginia to see the school where her mom absorbed an education.  It just so happened I worked there.  Both Annie and Claire are wonderful people to be with and will no doubt have many adventures in their travels.

Home for her family is Christchurch, New Zealand, and both daughters participated in a tradition called 'gap year' where on high school graduation young people are given an opportunity to gain knowledge in a non-structured way facilitated by travel.  I recall Annie going to Nepal and working at a summer camp outside NYC in addition to coming to visit us in Virginia. 

Claire did a semester of high school in France, just outside of Paris.  In addition to exploring the Paris area, she also visited The Hague, Amsterdam, and the UK during her time in Europe. Now that school is finished she is visiting a few more European spots including Italy and Spain before a time in the US with other family members.

Artist-made piments at Flores del Camino

We gave her a chance to see an area of Spain not visited by most tourists and to see how local folks live, eat, make art and are entertained. 

On the Camino

We walked a short part of the Camino de Santiago, visited a wonderful rural town, Castillo de Los Polvazares, and the artists' retreat located there, Flores del Camino.  This retreat center nurtures creativity in various historic and spiritual media.  The pigments made on-site are an example of the unique approach they share with visitors. Check out their website!

Together we shopped, cooked, ate, went to historic sites and walked, walked, walked.  It was great! We already miss her!


But next week is another first: Our first Housesitting in Spain!  Stand by for more.  We get to be with dogs again!  We miss our dog-lives.

Lessons learned?  

The relationships one builds over the years may just reward you with time engaging the next generation.  I can say for sure that Ann and I enjoyed every moment with Claire and look forward to getting the rest of her family to visit one day.  Her parents met in a special spot in Europe and we are suggesting a reunion in that place that we can participate in.

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The Other Jew of The Day is Nahmanides. He was a Spanish Talmudist, Kabbalist and biblical commentator (1194-1270), known, after the initial letters of his name, as Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman).

Within Walking Distance

Most of my friends would be hard-pressed to imagine living without a car at their disposal, instead walking everyplace close and taking public transportation for longer journies.  Walking the Camino de Santiago changed the meaning of the oft-used expression "... within walking distance" for me.  After walking across a large part of a country or two one realizes that it is possible to walk a few hundred miles.  And enjoy it.

I'd like to share a few things that walking brings to mind that seldom occurred to me while using a wheeled vehicle to travel each day in the States.

1. Walking allows one to gaze into the eyes of others: neighbors, friends, strangers, and greet them.  I have found that gazing into the eyes of others is a vital part of communications or communion.

We can ask 'How's it going?' or '¿Qué tal?' and actually be there to hear, and maybe respond to, the other person's reply.  Every day we see and hear people passing one another have a conversation started by a simple greeting.  One day we hope to actually understand what they are saying!



2. Walking alone allows one time to think about tasks, how to approach challenges, observe creation ("Look at these roses!" Ann says every day ...) and listen to that voice inside that is so often drowned out by the car audio system or thinking about the to-do list we plan to shorten at our destination. 


3. Walking together as a family or group of friends allows time to solve the problems of the world or the relationship. It lets you spend time with your kids as part of your real life.  And shopping just might include ballons for the family!



4. We find that walking, combined with healthy foods available here has resulted in weight loss.  The last time I weighed myself I was at 74.1 kg (163 pounds), just a little less than I weighed when I graduated high school in 1967.  I think I have lost about 15 pounds since getting here.  We are not on a diet! Remember, this is the chocolate capital of Spain and has great gelato along our daily walks.  It also makes one thirsty and thus increases water consumption.  Most people realize they don't drink enough water.



5. Being around the people in the community, who are also walking for daily needs lessens the feeling that 'they' are different.  People of all ages and abilities are walking with us, different speeds, toting different kinds of bags, carts, using canes, walkers, or wheelchairs.  But we all reflect upon the commonality that we carry a loaf of bread, or some flowers or a kid in our arms and we are on the way someplace necessary for life.



6. Kids see adults walking as a normal part of life.  Families walk together, hang out in the plaza, eat a snack or dinner together outside.  Kids play soccer, ride bikes and scooters or just run after one another.  There is a lot of freedom out on the plaza.  People walk their dogs to dinner too.  It is a great multi-generational experience as older family members run into younger generations and spend time chatting.

7. In our city, there are definitely more pedestrians than vehicles.  Streets are narrow and parking limited.  It is easy to get anyplace on foot. And a couple of hundred thousand pilgrims walk through town each year on their way to Santiago de Compostela about ten days away.

I invite you to visit and walk around for a week or so and see if you learn anything of value.  Or just start walking for more daily tasks and let me know if you gain any benefits.



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The Other Jew of The Day is Olympic race walker and Holocaust survivor Shaul Ladany.

"For this highly accomplished professor of industrial engineering and management, race walking has been a way of life. It is what has kept him going in spite of hardships that would have sidelined most other people. Race walking has given Ladany a way of moving past personal experience of the horrors of the Holocaust and the terrorist attack on the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. It has also helped him clear hurdles like lymphoma and skin cancer. “I believe that if I didn’t continue to engage in physical activity as I am used to, I wouldn’t be able to move,” he told The Jewish Week in a phone interview.

What's New

Since I seem to have a problem writing a long, involved post with many photos and design considerations, I am switching to one photo and a few words about a thing that is new to us living in Northern Spain. That way I might actually click PUBLISH and stay in touch with my readers.

Coffee or other drinks ordered without food always come with free tapas to snack on.  Potato chips are not common, but this place must have known Ann's heart - and that is what she got along with her Aquarius, which is sort of like a sports drink, but tastes good.

I got a little muffin, called a magdalena in Spanish, with my café con leche (coffee with milk, sort of like a flat white), a staple of my existence here.  Available wherever food is served, espresso drinks never costs more than $1.50 and are delicious.







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The Other Jew today is Historian Elliott Horowitz who documented that devout Jews appreciated the caffeine in the new drink’s stimulating quality, allowing scholars to stay up at night in order to study Torah. Early drinkers faced a range of questions, whether the new drink should be considered a food or a medicine, and what blessing should be made over the bean-infused drink. (It was determined that coffee is considered a drink, not a medicine, and the shehakol blessing is made over coffee.)

From https://www.aish.com/jw/s/Jews-and-Coffee-8-Little-Known-Facts.html where you can read more facinating facts if you are unable to sleep.