Surviving Semana Blanca (or how to get thru February Vacation and live to tell the tale)

This week was February vacation for Aidan. At home I would have some options for him. A camp at the Y, friends in the neighborhood, etc etc. Here right now, I have pretty much nothing but we are going to make the best of what we've got this week. We are going to go to the aquarium one day and the zoo another. That leaves 3 days of what to do.  Thankfully the weather was just gorgeous this week - pretty much every day hit 60 with at least partial sun. 

It’s Monday and they started off the day before 6AM which is early even for them these days. They normally are up around 6:30. I have to say, not a great start.  However, the day turned out fine and while we didn’t really go anywhere other than the DeliStore (where we can buy American food products - yay!) and the bakery, it ended on a good note.  Alefiya came to watch the kids for 2 hours and during that time she also helped me call the doctor's office for the kids again.  Thank god she did because she spoke to several different people, all in rapid fire Spanish and she got the kids appointments for May.  So while my goal was accomplished, I'm disappointed that I had to outsource the job - a task that should be simple but just is not.  Josh said I should feel good that I got it done but I say the fact that I needed help to make a simple doctor's appointment is frustrating.  But I understand his view too and need to learn to cut myself some slack - the job got done and that's all that matters.  Just a day in the life I suppose...

Tuesday we had a fantastic day. Off to the zoo! And my goal, a zoo membership. For 70€ a year we can become members. Why is this a good deal? Because I went once with Liam which cost me 26€, once as a family for over 35€ and once more today. So with just three visits it will pay for itself. I managed to make it happen too which was a huge accomplishment on my part. And the bonus is I can use the pass at other places (weird that we each get our own pass and need to add photos to them after the fact) for discounts. I don’t know where those places are but good to know!

Left: Checking out the crocodiles - yes gators with an "s" - there is one on top of the other...

Right:  Liam is very close to the crocodile... a little too close...

 

Liam is looking at the turtle swimming on the surface.  Then watching the dolphins - they are awesome!

Liam climbing the "mountain" at the zoo.  And then Aidan on the zip line at the playground at the zoo.  He could ride this thing all day if I let him!

After a fantastic day at the zoo we went over to Ciutudella Parc for a little schmooze along the paths. The kids played on a really cool tree and then on the life size mammoth (Liam was a little scared of the mammoth even though Aidan kept reassuring him it wasn’t real) before we headed to another playground there.

Climbing the crazy looking tree.

Aidan is doing "fins" and Liam runs away from the huge mammoth!

Climbing up the fountain at Ciutadella Parc.  It was a lot of steps!  The picture of the left is actually Liam dropping his bag of potato sticks into a big, fresh pile of bird poop.  He was not thrilled when I took the bag away and threw it out.  The pic on the right is the view from the stairs.  Identical stairs are on the other side as you can kind of see.

There are very old fountains like this all around the city.  I see most people filling water bottles at them or rinsing things out in them, dogs drinking from them.  Lots of uses.  Don't love my kids drinking right from the tap as they always touch their mouths to them - yuck!

I was very surprised at how the local kids played at this little playground. It was a strange little playground with one swing, a slide, a bunch of picnic tables and a monument in the middle. The kids were primarily all playing on the monument. Jumping off, pushing each other off, etc. They were incredibly rough actually and I was a little fearful for Aidan who wanted to climb with the rest. What it reminded me of, and this may not be a bad thing –  the way we used to play as kids in the 70s/80s – without supervision and making our own rules. No one to tell us how to play or how rough to play. We used our imagination and did what we wanted to do. This is a good and bad thing because this is a good sized cement statue and if you are pushed from the top, you are landing on cement and potentially cracking your head open. I do believe we can be a bit overprotective in the US, but this was almost a bit underprotective – the parents could have cared less. But I watched Aidan (and Liam who was in the queue for the slide) like a hawk. But he’s a smart kid and he realized himself when they were getting too rough and joined us at the slide. One of the kids seemed to realize we spoke English and came over to chat with us using his one word “hello”. I introduced Aidan and Liam to him and asked his age (all in Spanish – good to know I can chat with a 6 year old at least!). Aidan just had no interest though and then shortly thereafter we headed for home.

The day was a fantastic one, til the trek home. The kids were overtired. Liam fell asleep in the stroller. And Aidan had a small breakdown. He told me he wanted to go “home home” to Attleboro. He started to cry and said how much he missed his friends from home. I told him I miss my friends too. Thankfully the meltdown was fairly short but that doesn’t mean it didn’t have an impact on me. It does. The rest of the day we went thru without issue. Loved that!!

Wednesday was supposed to be my morning with just Aidan and then lunch with all 4 of us at Josh’s office. But I forgot that our heat was being fixed! We now have heat in our room and the kids room – sweet!! And it only took 2 months to get fixed (still need the ceiling repaired though from them drilling holes in it to fix the heat).  Aidan decided that he didn’t really want to go do anything like ride his bike or anything like that so he just came with me to the Merkat and then to the grocery store. At least we got some bonding time in and just got to hang out.

We did end up making it to lunch with Josh – though all we ended up having time for since he was late and had to be back by 3 was McDonalds. Though not my particular favorite, I will say I thoroughly enjoyed it mainly for it’s American-ism. I almost even asked for a 2nd cheeseburger, but it is McDonalds and I will suffer the consequences for it later as it is.  Picture on the left is of the boys waiting for Josh at the Vistaprint office.

Thursday our plan was to visit the Barcelona Aquarium which we haven’t been to before. Cristy joined us for the morning as we made our way down to Barceloneta / Port Vell for our journey under the sea. It’s a beautiful aquarium – parts of it I liked better than New England Aquarium and parts of it not as much. I definitely think that NEAQ has a better selection of species but the Barcelona one had a better layout and had the cool tunnel you go thru so that the sharks and fish are all swimming around you. That was definitely a cool feature.

Aidan at Port Vell when we arrive.  The boys in the shark at the entrance .

Checking out some fish and a cool ray against the glass.

This is the cool tunnel area where you can see the sea animals all around you!

Liam during a meltdown.  Aidan and Cristy waiting for Liam to stop freaking out.

The boys checking out the sub and the kids play area.

Cristy also got to experience my life with children. She’s met the kids before but hadn’t seen them in a few weeks and when she’s seen them for some reason they’ve been really well behaved. Well, welcome to my life. They were terrors today. Listening ears? What listening ears? When I would reprimand them, they would smile at me which just angers me all the more. Overall I would say I kept my cool but they are now without tv or the wii for the next two days. However, I do think they enjoyed the aquarium regardless of their impending punishment. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the frustration today was from me being tired too! I noticed that when I took them to get lunch today I couldn’t even muster the strength to attempt Spanish which made me feel badly (though it was McDonalds again so that was a short lived feeling) that I didn’t even try. But I think I’m just emotionally and physically exhausted from constantly processing everything in Spanish that I just couldn’t do one more thing. I think they are overtired from the last few days of busyness as well – even Aidan took a nap and he never naps anymore. As a matter of fact, as I orginally started to write this it was 6PM on Thurs and he was still sleeping!! He actually ended up out for the day/night - we woke him to pee and he slept thru til 5:30 the next morning. Naps for all!!

Friday was a no good, very bad, horrible day - at least the daytime portion… And I think it’s because I just fed off the negativity from the end of Thursday. It could be also that the kids started the day at 5:30AM. That certainly didn’t help. And my shower was interrupted by Aidan – “Mommy, you know that chocolate stuff you like on your ice cream but I don’t really like?” “You mean Nutella, Aidan?” “Yeah, Nutella… well Liam climbed on the counter and is eating it”. Seriously?? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. I go downstairs and yes, Liam has gotten into the Nutella – his face is covered in chocolate as are his hands because he was scooping out the Nutella with his hands of course. 8AM and he’s already on a chocolate high. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the day has in store for me! Yeah, it only got progressively worse but I do think it’s because I was already in the mood and the kids feed off of that – I can’t say I blame them but they did still drive me crazy all day.   I had a total breakdown on the phone with my mom, crying about how I want to come home.  Mom, you'll be happy to know that I had a great night Friday night and a wonderful day Sat and while I'm still struggling to adjust everyday, I'm feeling significantly better now.  Thanks for listening to me though...

On the bright side, I found a second babysitter. Ananya is only 14 but seems years older. She happens to be from not only the US but from Massachusetts too which is great – a nice connection to home while here. The kids were very needy during her visit to meet them and yet she still wants to babysit them, so I love her already. She’s coming over on Sunday to watch them for a few hours. Hopefully after she leaves she will still want to watch them again!

And I have to say Friday night helped to improve my last day and a half as well.  Friday night Josh and I went to a wine tasting at my friend Kara's bar here in Barcelona.  I've mentioned Kara before in the blog - she's from RI but has lived here for 10 years with her husband and her son (who's the same exact age as Liam).  They own this great little bar, O-Bar, not that far from here so Josh and I hopped on the metro Friday night and headed over.  We got to listen to the person running the wine tasting explain all of the wines to us in Spanish.  My head hurt within minutes.  As Kara said to me, when you are just learning you pick up on one word but by the time you interpret that they are already on word 15 and you've missed the middle.  That was definitely the case.  And more often than not I'd say, "ok, did he say xyz?"  and she'd say, "no, he said abc".  Ok, so my interpretation has further to go than I'd realized.  But that's ok.  I think it's because it wasn't a necessity that I understand him unlike when I actually need to find a way to get somewhere or try to make a doctor's appt - that kind of thing.  We met some very interesting people most of which did speak some English and it also gave us a chance to try to practice some Spanish.  It was a bit of an informal intercambio.  For those not in the know, an intercambio is basically a meeting of people who want to improve their language skills.  Kara's bar actually does an English intercambio on Thursday nights which I'm planning to attend in the near future.  Yes Kara, I promise! 

Feeling the negativity of the end of the week has now but put aside, we started the weekend on a high note with our wine tasting on Friday night.  On Saturday, we took the kids to CosmoCaixa which is the Science Museum here. It was a pretty cool place I have to say.  Though it looks bigger than it is, we still managed to entertain the children for several hours and still need to go back at some point and hit the planetarium which we didn't do while there (kids were hitting a wall at that point).  The great thing is the signs were all in English too so we could actually describe intelligently what the kids were actually doing or looking at.  The only thing they didn't label was anything about the creatures that were alive - yes alive in the science museum (it was almost like part aquarium) - so we didn't know what types of fish were there or birds or turtles... not the end of the world but would have been nice to know. 

Left:  Best buddies...for now.  Right:  Entrance to the science museum.  It was a combination of very new and very old buildings.

Left:  view of very cool mansion/castle/chalet type building on Tibidabo Mountain.  Right:  Upon entering the museum you trek down 5 stories of ramps to the bottom of the museum.  Hanging down the middle is a tree from the Amazon.

Left:  The boys watching the pendulum swing and knock down the metal bands based on the time of day.  On the right is Aidan checking out giant catfish in the aquarium part of the museum.

Left: weird creature not marked of course.  Right:  This is compressed salt - it was an entire wall of the museum.  I thought it was a type of granite but no, it's salt!

The kids had a blast and we stopped for some tapas on the way home.  Made it back here around 3:30 and just chilled for the rest of the day.  I lost 2 hours of my life on Sat night watching Evolution with Josh - got under a 6 on IMDB... don't bother wasting your time on this flick.  Josh, I still want my two hours back!!! 

Left:  Walking back to the train station we came upon this amazingly beautiful house - check out all the frescos (must give Josh credit here - did not know they were frescos til Josh pointed it out to me).  On the right, Aidan took my picture citing that he wanted to get the background in the picture too.  Budding photographer perhaps?

Walked thru the Merkat in Gracia and came across goat brains - Aidan had to take a picture...

Today, Sunday, is the final day of Semana Blanca.  I can say that I (and the kids) survived this week on our own.  I am definitely going to need to be resourceful this summer on things to do and finding kids for Aidan and Liam to play with.  Thankfully Michelle is planning to come for hopefully the month of July so that will be a huge help for me!!!  Fingers crossed we can find a good flight!  Our new sitter, Ananya came over this afternoon for her first time to watch the boys.  Liam will be napping (hopefully) and so it will likely be just Aidan.  Josh and I started off by wandering the city during the daylight hours which we hadn't done sin ninos.  In the end we made an impromteu call to Cristy and Shawn and met them for a "late" lunch...late for me since it was after 2 but normal in Spanish time.  It ended up being an awesome time with fantastic new friends - a great way to end a great weekend!  And something we will definitely do more often now that we have not just one but two sitters!  Things are looking up.  Oh and not to rub it in my friends, but it was 60 and sunny here today! 

Love to you all!!

Julie

Aidan's Carnaval, meeting new people & Josh eats pigeon (yes pigeon).

I just realized it’s been over a week since I last posted. I can’t say that anything very exciting has happened which leads me to believe we are starting to settle in. Now that doesn’t mean we are actually feeling settled, just that the chaos of life and change has started to become the norm.

Last Friday Liam and I went to Aidan’s Carnaval parade which included the entire elementary school. I honestly teared up because I thought it was so wonderful to see the school, parents and kids all coming together for a community activity. They even had drummers come in from another school to perform with the children. All in all a festive time! Aidan's class was dressed as Franklin the Turtle as they had just finished a Franklin section in school.  I had a few minutes to chat with Aidan’s teacher and with some other parents that I had met once or twice. A very nice couple who has been doing international relocations for 15 years now (god love em) started at the school at the same time we did and we were chatting again and it turns out they live near my friend Brenda.  They said that perhaps during Semana Blanca (Feb vacation) we could all get together for a bbq at their house (FYI I have yet to hear from them beyond their intro email and then my response back). Soooo nice of them! And it would be nice to see what the suburbs are like since we have yet to see them. I also ended up meeting Max’s mother – Max is a little boy that Aidan had some slight conflict with a few weeks ago, a misunderstanding between the two. I didn’t make the connection til I had been talking to his mum for a good 15 mins. Very very sweet woman who has been here for 3 ½ years and before that Paris (which is where they are from originally) and before that NYC. We exchanged numbers and Aidan and Max had a blast playing while we waited for the bus.

One of the cool things about the buses for BFIS is that the parents get to ride them. I had not gone on the bus til now primarily because I don’t want to encourage Aidan who once he knows I can ride it will want me on it every day which isn’t reasonable. But also because the driver and the monitor speak only Spanish and I didn’t know how to ask if it was ok since sometimes the seats fill up. But the monitor saw me and motioned me over so instead of taking the looooong way home (3 different forms of transit – 1 hr) we hopped on the bus. There I met another mom, who turns out to be the mom of the boy who punched Aidan in the penis in his second week of school. Nice huh? She was very nice though and so it made me a bit sad that her kid is a bully – even she admitted that he can be a trouble maker on the bus! I have to say the one thing that made me sad about the bus ride was I found that the kids were very disrespectful to Conchi who is he bus monitor. They would say things to her in English that she wouldn’t understand or kind of push her a little if they didn’t like what she said to them. I can only hope that Aidan realizes that that kind of behavior is unacceptable and I was very tempted to say something to these kids but I also have no idea where my boundaries are in this situation.

Saturday night was a treat here.  We went to the Hard Rock Cafe down in Placa de Catalunya.  It was a treat mainly because (a) it was American food and we've been craving it and (b) the prices are ridiculous for things such as a burger at 16€ each.  However, we all thoroughly enjoyed our meals and it was nice to just eat something from home!!  The picture below is of Liam checking out the drink menu - he seemed quite engrossed in it.  Hmmm...this child bears some watching apparently...


Valentines Day was on Sunday and I feel terrible that I didn't do anything for the boys (or for Josh). I just didn't have it in me I guess. I don't think it would have mattered except that Josh surprised me with a beautiful flower arrangement and so of course Aidan said, "where's my gift?". Sorry buddy!!


As is the norm for us here, it rained a lot this week and so Liam and I didn’t venture out that much anything on Monday or Tuesday during the day. On Monday, Josh was out and we had a power outage and this one was not caused by me running the washer and dryer at the same time. This is a perfect example of how something that is not a big deal at home in my comfort zone can completely throw me off to the point of an almost paralyzing fear. The first outage was only about 10 mins (by the way this was around 9PM so pretty dark out and rainy). I didn’t realize that I was not the cause of the outage and when I saw that I hadn’t tripped a circuit I started to freak out about how to get the power back on. I tried to call Josh…no answer. I tried to call Cristy figuring maybe her husband would know what to do…no answer. So now I have no power and no one to call to see if I’m the only one with an outage and no way to get it back on. The hallway outside our apartment had lights on, though they were dim – down the street had lights. Finally they went back on. However, the second outage was for 40 mins. I honestly couldn’t really move from the couch once I realized it wasn’t something I could fix. Freaked me out a bit. I wouldn’t call it a meltdown – there were no tears or absolute freak outs or need to go home (want not need) but just an emptiness of what I’ve left behind and what I’ve got to slowly progress thru here.

I went out on Tuesday night with Cristy and got saw her new apartment which is beautiful and would absolutely not fit our needs – tiny elevator, one bathroom, no outdoor space… but for the two of them it’s perfect. It has old style Catalan ceilings and huge gorgeous windows and an amazing view of Rambla Catalunya. Feeling emotionally exhausted from the funk I was in on Monday and Tuesday, we went out for pizza (again) and it was soooo good. My funk for the last few days is now over.

I do think the weather plays a role in my moods here just like it does at home. The winter blahs. While the winter here is nothing like the winter at home, you can only do so many days of rain before you just get bummed out. I’d feel the same way at home with the cold and snow but at least at home I’d be able to get together with people more often and the kids would have playmates and we could jump in the car and just go somewhere, anywhere. I don’t have that here yet and I think that makes it a bit harder, getting out is a struggle in the crappy weather since we have to walk everywhere.

Wednesday I met up with Kara, a new friend of mine that I have been emailing with for the last month or so but had yet to meet. It’s really funny how we met. My father-in-law, who is a textile/fabric rep, knows her best friend. He happened to mention to her friend that we were all moving to Barcelona and she said, “oh my best friend has lived there for 10 years, let me give you her info”. My father-in-law gave me her info and I emailed her. But that’s not the funny part. I’ve also gotten to be friendly with a co-worker of Josh’s wife who just left Barcelona not that long ago. Her name is Wendy. So I email Kara introducing myself and she said, “I feel like I know you, Wendy Habeski has already sent me your info”. Talk about your small world! So I’ve met Kara thru two connections and she is awesome. She’s a wealth of info and has been here for 10 years (originally from RI so a fellow New Englander) and has a son exactly Liam’s age. She and her husband own a bar here that Josh and I are going to next week for a wine tasting / tapas event. I’ll let you know how it goes! Anyways, I had my sitter and so I ended up having coffee with Kara for 3 hrs and it flew by. I really felt that we connected well and I look forward to getting together again and at some point would love for the boys to meet as well.

Thurs was an amazingly gorgeous day which we desperately needed. Met up with my new friend Leigh whom I’ve been emailing with (she and her husband are from the US but were living in Ireland the last 2 ½ years) and her 6 month old Emma. Adorable! We met up at the Arc de Triomf since she was coming from out of the city and there was a commuter rail stop there.

We walked all around Ciutadella Parc which I had only walked the outskirts of – it’s a beautiful park and really the most green area I’ve seen in the city so far and you can actually walk on the grass which you can’t do in most areas (I know, who would think there could be sooo many areas where you CANNOT walk on the grass). It was a perfect day for a walk and so Liam and I did the long walk home as well instead of hitting the metro.

I’m glad we walked because, Friday it rained… again. Liam and I hit the Merkat de Gracia, our local market, for some fruits and veggies and then a little toy store near by. At the market I’ve found that they recognize me at my favorite fruit and vegetable stand. I’m even able to say a few things above and beyond my needs. Poco a poco – little by little. I’ve noticed, mainly because I happened to love a good puzzle…that they are EXTREMELY popular here and every toy store has a huge selection of them. Perhaps it’s because everything moves at a slower pace here and a puzzle is the perfect slower pace form of entertainment?? But it’s a puzzle mecca!

Friday afternoon I tried to call a doctor to make an appt for a physical for the boys. This doctor was recommended to us thru a co-worker of Josh’s that had lived in our area and had a child. Supposedly this doctor speaks English, however, the support staff apparently does not. I am near tears as I write this because all I want is to make an appointment and I can’t even do that. I google translated ahead of time what it was that I needed – a physical for my children. I managed to get transferred a few times and finally ended up in the doctor’s office that I needed, I believe. And NO ONE spoke English. Though I think I understood that on Monday someone will be there after 4 that speaks English. Fingers crossed as I will have to go thru this painful process again on Monday. It made for a messy Friday evening since I was now in a mood. The good news is that we got our first big care package on Friday and the kids were thrilled at the stash they got! Thanks Granny and Papa! And we know there is another one on it’s way from Nana and Papa – can’t wait!

Saturday we went to go check out a sports club up in the Sarria area near Aidan’s school. The school counselor had recommended it to me because a lot of families from the school go there and that she believed they spoke English AND they have tennis. We figured that even though this place is a haul, it appears that they have many activities here including a full gym, pools, playground, soccer fields, tennis courts, etc. And it’s close to Aidan’s school so we could go once or twice a week and hit the ball around a bit after school. The bonus as I saw it is that if there are families from the school that go there, we could make some “crossover” friends for Aidan that he would see at school and at the club. Win win. So armed with our info, we took the hour long ride up to the club…only to find out that the contact there does not speak English. And when I tried to ask if we could come after school and play tennis just the two of us, she said no. Now I don’t think that is necessarily the case but I’m not spending 80€ a month plus 20€ a month for his tennis lessons and not be able to just hit the ball around with him when I feel like it. And I need to look more into the daycare situation there because if I could use the gym while Liam plays that would be great. Regardless we left there without a membership because we just didn’t feel we got the information we needed. Back to square one on that which was very frustrating.

On the way home from the sport complex we took a long walk thru Gracia and happened upon another open market – it’s about another 10 minutes past ours and a bit smaller. But it was different too – it had a supermarket inside it and more fish than any other offerings. Aidan was especially entranced with the swordfish head and the fish tank. (Aidan took the pics to the left).

Saturday night was date night!! Woo hoo! Alefiya came around 6:30 and Aidan seems to take to her right away which was reassuring for us. We had no specific plan in mind other than to just walk until we found something. We walked around Gracia and went into a bar called Mr. Browns. It was really nice out the outside and we figured it would be equally nice on the inside. Wrong! A haze of smoke welcomed us upon entering. We figured we couldn’t turn back and so sat down at the bar on the torn stools for a quick drink. I will just say that the wine kind of burned going down. That was Mr. Browns.

We passed by a cute looking Italian restaurant during our walk and figured it could be a good option but they weren’t open yet. We continued on for another 15 mins and then decided to turn back to the Italian place. And I’m glad we did. The restaurant, Specchio Magico Barcelona, was fabulous! The service was wonderful and one of the owners waited on us and spoke fantastic English. He was from Italy and had lived in England before settling down in Barcelona 17 years ago. And the food, well the food was wonderful! I had a caprese salad which is one of my favorites – and the mozzarella was very fresh (as it should be in a good Italian restaurant) and for dinner I had the pasta purses filled with cheese and pears in a walnut gorgonzola sauce. Yum!! Josh, had cured ox meat as an appetizer (which he said was fabulous, I passed on tasting) and then he had pigeon, yes you read it correctly. I think he just wanted to have pigeon so he could tell Aidan he ate it. Of course as delicious as it was, Josh has been suffering the consequences of it this AM – no more needs to be said there. Though I do question where they get the pigeons in these restaurants. There are pigeons everywhere in this city – do they pluck them off the street or are they “farm raised” pigeons? Sorry, just have to ask. I’m going to say since this was a reputable place that they were probably farm raised. Two hours later and a great bottle of Syrah later, we were on our way back home feeling much more relaxed. Looking forward to date night for next week too!

All in all, a good week. Today is Sunday, a day of rest here. The only thing open on Sunday is restaurants. We’re trying to convince the kids that we should go out for lunch. So far we are not winning the battle so it may be a day of puzzles, video games, books and toys. Not a bad way to end the week.

Julie