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The Chefs
Stella, Stephan and Tommy wielding knives in the kitchen. One of our regular readers, who for purposes of privacy shall be identified only as “RV”, a law professor in Minneapolis who lives at the corner of 53rd and Logan with his 3 daughters and lovely wife, has written to us suggesting that we have not been posting enough to the blog recently. You would think that RV, who recently earned tenure, might have more important things to worry about than the volume of material posted by your humble blogger. Perhaps the administration at RV’s university should wonder whether RV is perhaps slacking off just a bit too much this summer. Or perhaps RV’s wife could come up some projects around the house to keep him occupied. In any event, in an effort to keep RV and any other under-employed readers happy, here is a recap of our lives over the last several days.
School last week seemed to go pretty well for the kids. We made an effort to get them to bed earlier, and the amount of homesickness reported is inversely proportional to the amount of sleep received. (Note to RV: that means that the more sleep they get, the less homesick they are.) The highlight of the
week was, once again, our Thursday night football game during which your humble blogger scored two goals, proving that even old, slow and uncoordinated American guys who never played much serious soccer can get lucky against younger, better players. Ole!
Friday night we were treated to a homemade dinner cooked here at our apartment by our two Swiss friends, Stella and Stephan, with an able assist by sous-chef Tommy. Stella started Spanish class here in Sevilla the same day as Angie, and the two have become fast friends. Originally from Switzerland, she now divides her time between there and California. She is a fabulous and very interesting companion who has made our lives here much more pleasant. Stephan, for his part, hails from Basil Switzerland. He is only 20 but seems much more wise and mature than that. Our boys are fascinated by him for at least three reasons: he grew up around the corner from Roger Federer; he is a very-accomplished team handball player; and he was hit from behind by a motorcycle here several weeks ago and walked away from the collision without a bruise. He’s also very good looking, so I have to keep reminding Angie that
Graeme and Sarah and the crew
Visiting with the horses in Sevilla near the cathedral. she is old enough to be his mother! In any event, Stella and Stephan collaborated on a fabulous meal, and we all had a great time. (Since all three of the Swiss people that I’ve ever met have been incredibly cool people, including our friend and neighbor Thomas Odermott, I am seriously thinking about doing my next sabbatical there.)
On Saturday, our friends Graeme and Sarah drove up from Roquetas de Mar with their children Leo and Sophie. Regular readers will recall that Graeme is from Zimbabwe and Sarah is from England, and that last year they bought a language school on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. We spent our first 10 days in Spain at their school in March, and both parents and children hit it off quite well. We had a great time this weekend, mostly just messing about (i.e. eating and drinking). We’ve also decided that when we leave Sevilla in a week, we are going to go back to Roquetas for our last week in Spain to combine the beach with a bit more language school. Graeme has promised that the weather in Roquetas will be better this time or he will refund our tuition. What
a guy!
On Sunday night, Tommy, Ryan and I attended our first Spanish football game. We watched Sevilla beat a very good team from the Basque region of Northern Spain, Zaragoza, 3-1. The game was great fun. Even though tickets are surprisingly expensive, ranging from about $70 for the cheap seats to $110 for the best ones, and didn’t start until 9pm, the stadium was full. We had good seats in the first upper level on the goal line, very close to the section where all of the loudest Sevilla fans sit. While the Metrodome can get louder at times, I have never experienced such a sustained level of noise. These fans sing and beat drums through the entire game. And instead of booing the opposing players, they emit an ear-piercing whistle that gave Ryan and me a headache. I would not wanted to have been the Zaragoza goaltender, who had to play in front of these fans during the first half. Unlike many English and Italian fans, however, the fans here were very well-behaved, due in large part to the fact that the Stadium is the only place in Sevilla where it is impossible to buy alcoholic beverages. (Even
Ryan before the big game
He's wearing a Sevilla football team banner that he bought this week. the place where we eat breakfast offers a fully-stocked bar!) With this win, Sevilla stays within two points of league-leaders Barcelona and Real Madrid with two games to go, and also assures that they will play in the European Champions League this Fall. For all the info that you would ever want about Spanish soccer, check out http://www.soccer-spain.com/
The other piece of news is that there were elections throughout Spain yesterday; as best I can tell, the conservatives got more votes than last time, but the Socialists will control more local governments. I’m not sure how that works. Everyone claimed that this was a very dirty campaign, but it all seemed fairly tame to me. The worst thing I heard was the former Prime Minister, who is conservative, claiming that voting for the socialists would be supporting the Basque terrorists and dragging the country back into civil war. If that is the best they can do, I think Karl Rove and Dick Cheney could teach these guys a thing or two. (And I apologize to both of our conservative readers for that slap; I think I’ve actually done a pretty good job keeping politics out of this blog.) For more
info: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/28/world/europe/28spain.html
That is the wrap from here. As I mentioned above, this is our last week here in Sevilla. On Sunday, we will rent a car and drive down to Roquetas for a week of language school, clothing optional beaches and garnet hunting at the dormant volcano. The following Sunday, we’ll drive up to Valencia, and then on Tuesday we’ll catch a flight across the Mediterranean to Venice, Italy, where we will meet up with my sister Kathey, her husband Dave “the candy man” Taiclet, and their delightful kids, David, Jack, Dorie and Claire. We’ll spend two nights in Venice and four nights in Rome before flying home on Monday the 18th. Note to VK: please have all the toilet paper out of our yard before then!
Ciao.
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RV
non-member comment
bravo!
That's a good start, but you still haven't touched my questions about your existential longing!