Now, it was time to get settled and do the everyday stuff. With our internal clocks flip flopped, we slept until 10:30, and Colin slept till noon. When I woke him, he was so out of it that he couldn't understand why I was bothering him so early.
Zaragoza has few English speakers, and our Spanish speaking skills are pretty lightweight so we will have to improve quickly. Our foray into grocery shopping was a minor feat, navigating a new store and language. When I asked for assistance, the response didn't help since I couldn't understand it. Colin and I searched the store for some time on a hunt for milk and eggs, only to find that they don't refrigerate either of them.
For the first couple of nights in Zaragoza, we had nice dinners out on the town. The warm summer evenings and lively energy make the historic district (close to our apartment) a lovely part of the city to walk around especially at night. Zaragoza prides itself on an old and rich history. The Basilica Cathedral of "Our Lady of the Pilar" is the primary attraction in honor of the Virgin Mary, and is part of the Roman Catholic church; Pilar was deemed the Mother of the Hispanic People by Pope John Paul II. We ate gelato at almost midnight, and already found a favorite spot, Amorino (recommended by the previous SYA family).
The kids have been great and are most excited for our upcoming travels to Italy next week. The plan is to hit Rome, Venice, Cinque Terre, Florence, and Pisa – in that order.
August is a relatively quiet time in Zaragoza. The Director and all the School Year Abroad staff are on vacation. We have been able to navigate a new country, city, and home fairly well on our own although on one of our first nights, after returning late from dinner and walking the city, we realized that neither Parker nor I had brought the keys. Our many years at St. Paul's has made us soft. We haven't had to consistently lock doors or carry keys in years. It was after 11pm and we had to wake Tomas the friendly but exclusively Spanish-speaking doorman, to let us into the building, hoping that he would have a master key to all the apartments. No such luck. We were locked out, and were struggling to communicate with Tomas. After much to-do, a call to Ana (the SYA secretary who was on vacation), and embarrassment on our part, Tomas called a locksmith who was able to get us into our apartment.
Prior to our little snafu with the lacking keys, we had witnessed an interesting situation on the street. A poorly dressed street musician playing the accordion was being aggressively yelled at and threatened by another, professional and nicely dressed man. The man who was yelling wouldn't let up and finally held up his fist as if to strike the accordion player. The accordion player ran away and escaped the situation. At the time, we didn't know what this was all about but a few nights later, we saw the nicely dressed man from earlier playing an accordion in another part of the city...so we realized that the tangle we had witnessed had just been a turf war! It turns out that Zaragoza is big on street accordion players -- we have seen many since that time.
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