After traveling for 16 days, we were all glad to be back in ZAZ, settled in one place for awhile and enjoy the comforts of eating at home, not packing/unpacking, or negotiating trains, planes and automobiles.
When we returned to ZAZ, we were struck by the intense heat which, at the end of August, was over 101 degrees. The upside was that the humidity was low but the downside was that there was minimal air flow. We quickly purchased several fans to get the air moving, and fortunately, the crazy heat wave broke not long after we returned to more reasonable levels (80s and 90s).
Beside the heat, we were eager to connect with other folks and start making a community in ZAZ. Ellen Wolff, the SYA English teacher from Exeter, her husband, Kevin King and son, Aidan King returned from their excursions in Spain a few days after we did. We invited them to dinner.
Among the 56,403 books Kelsey has read this year, is a very cute series of "Melanie Martin" books by Carol Weston. Melanie is a 10, 11 or 12 year old depending on the book who travels to Italy, Spain, Holland and a few other places. They are great books especially if you're traveling to one of those countries; even Colin has enjoyed them. With the idea of having a mini-book club with my book-loving daughter, I have also read a couple of them.
In "The Diary of Melanie Martin: or How I Survived Matt the Brat, Michelangelo, and the Leaning Tower of Pizza," Melanie writes about making homemade pizza. Ever since reading this passage, Kelsey has wanted to make pizza from stratch, which we did for our dinner with the Wolff-King family. Colin, Kelsey and I made an afternoon of the project (just getting the right ingredients at the store was an adventure!) and were proud of the result...at least the dough part. The cooking part didn't go quite as smoothly but all told, it turned out fine.
We spent the evening swapping stories and sharing bits of information we each had collected about ZAZ, SYA, Spain, and Juan de Lanuza (Colin, Kelsey, and Aidan's new school). Occasionally, we stopped to breath. We were THRILLED to have another family with whom to share our year abroad and even one who has a similar background coming from the boarding school life. Aidan is also a peer of Colin's as he turns 12 this November. While he will be 7th, Colin is going into 6th grade. Kevin is an ESL teacher and is looking for similar work in ZAZ.
After our dinner, we went over to the apartment of Griffin Morse, the director of SYA Spain, for dessert. He was passing through ZAZ for about 24 hours, and then returning to Boston to bring the SYA students to ZAZ on the night of September 3. Griffin is a lively soul and fielded the endless questions we all had for him. He provided us with additional perspective on the year ahead and some of the upcoming trips which made it all more exciting and real. We had been living in our own little family bubble for the last few weeks and connecting with the SYA folks gave an infusion of new energy and enthusiasm.
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