La Aljafería Castle

On the second weekend of Geoff's visit, we toured the Aljafería castle in Zaragoza. While we have explored some of Zaragoza, we've left most of the museums to times when we can enjoy them with visitors.

Photo: In front of Aljaferia castle in Zaragoza


A great example of Zaragoza's rich history, Aljafería was built by the Moors (Muslims) in the 11th century, but was later occupied by Christians. In fact, the notorious King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel lived here. The Romans, Muslims, and Christians have all had their turn in the Aragón region of which Zaragoza is a part. The back part of Aljafería is now home to the Aragón parliament.


Photo: Parker and Geoff inside the castle. Aljafería's inside is ornate and clearly reflects the both Muslim and Christian influences



















Photo: Colin and Celia in inside doorway


La Aljafería holds unique importance in that it is the only preserved building that demonstrates Spanish Islamic architecture from the era of the Taifas (independent kingdoms). The city of Zaragoza has done a fantastic job of restoring and preserving the castle as it has done similar historical structures such as the Museo del Foro de Caesaraugusta (or Casear Augustus Forum).



Photo: Area that used to be a large moat protecting the castle

















After the capture of Zaragoza in 1118 by Alfonso I of Aragon, the Aljafería became the residence of the Christian kings of the Kingdom of Aragon. It was the birthplace of Saint Isabel of Portugal in the year 1271 and later used as the royal residence by Peter IV of Aragon and other Catholic Kings.



Photo: Walking around the castle via 'the moat'

In 1593, Aljafería was converted into a military base, first according to Renaissance designs (such as the moat and gardens) and later as military quarters. Over the years, the building suffered damage and deterioration until it was finally restored in the second half of the 20th century.

Bull Fight

Photo: Outside the Zaragoza bullring

When you think of Spain, you think of bull fights, and no wonder since its origins date back to 711 A.D. As part of our year abroad, we wanted to see one, even it was something we wouldn't necessarily love. The Zaragoza bullring is only open from the end of September to about the third week of October to coincide with the Pilar festivities.

Although bullfighting is synonymous with Spain, not all Spaniards agree with it. Bullfighting has been banned in the Catalonia region (Barcelona area), and many anticipate that other regions will follow in the near future.



Photo: The beginning of the show with the picadors entering the ring


Children under 16 years of age are supposedly not allowed to attend but we were surprised to see several children at the arena, some of whom were well under eight years of age. When Colin heard that, he was particularly disappointed as he had really wanted to see a bullfight while we were in Spain.





Photo: The matadors enter the ring and pay tribute to the crowd and President











Photo: Matador starting his dance with the bull


What happens during a bullfight?
First, the bull is let into the ring. The Matador's assistants wave a bright yellow and magenta cape in front of the bull to make it charge as the Matador watches and determines the bull's qualities and mood, before taking over himself. After a trumpet is sounded, the Picadores enter to weaken the bull by placing spears into its shoulders. This whole segment takes around 10 minutes.


Next comes the faena or the "dance with death." Many consider the faena the most skillful section of the fight and the part where matador proves his courage and artistry. During the faena, the bull runs at the Matador, who's carrying a muleta, a piece of thick crimson cloth draped over a short stick, along with the espada or the killing sword. At this stage, the matador gets the bull into a trance-like state, and seemingly lures the bull around with his cape. If there's a artistic piece of bullfighting, it's during the portion where the Matador seems to have complete control of the bull. The faena continues until the Matador has demonstrated his superiority over the bull. Once the president indicates the Matador has achieved dominance, the bull can be killed. The Matador then aims the sword between the bull's shoulder blades.

Photo: The Matador during the faena.
















Photos: Matadors with killing swords. The Picadors spears are hanging off the side of the bull

































Photo: The bull never wins






According to the Matador's demonstrated skill, he may be awarded trophies by the president, which can include one or two of the bull's ears, the tail, and/or the hoof. The crowd may encourage the president to award the trophies by waving white handkerchiefs, and, in turn, the crowd may continued waving their handkerchiefs with the hope that the Matador will throw his trophies into the crowd. In return, the crowd may hurl flowers. None of the matadors we saw were considered skilled enough to receive awards.

While watching the first fight, we felt disturbed. However, a complete event consists of 3 matadors each working with 2 bulls for a total of six fights. Every one has the same pattern of activity described here, and the predictability of it can desensitize you to what's actually happening to the poor bulls. Yet, upon waking the next morning and having then had a chance to digest it all, our discomfort had returned, and we felt as if bull fighting was/is brutal. Essentially, the bull is tortured for 10-15 minutes and then ultimately killed.

Pilar Festival

From Bilbao and San Sebastian, we returned to Zaragoza for the Pilar holiday, a national day of observance on October 12 in honor of the Virgin of Pilar. Every year, the complete Pilar Festival is a giant Spanish fiesta which runs over the course of 10 days and is filled with concerts, dancing, street vendors, hoards of visitors, and more...at all hours of the day and night. For instance, this video of the David Guetta concert, which started at 4:30AM, was one example of the ongoing activities just minutes from our apartment. A 9 a.m. bedtime was not unusual for many folks during Pilar and some of the participates were kids not much older than Colin.

Photo: Basilica del Pilar


The festival has its origins back in 40 AD when St. James the Apostle came to Aragon to spread Christianity to the mostly Pagan population. On his journey, the Virgin Mary is supposed to have appeared to him on a marble pillar and asked him to build a church on the land. Initially, a chapel was built around the pillar followed by grander churches over the centuries. Today, the enormous Basilica del Pilar stands on this location.

Photo: Parade procession, bringing flowers to Pilar


Throughout the day, the 'bringing of flowers to Pilar' parade took place. A mountain of roses, lillies, orchids, and gladiolus found their way to the Plaza de Pilar as an offering to the Virgin and ultimately, they sat at the bottom of her 'skirt.' For the festivities, women, men and children wore beautiful traditional costumes that varied in color and style. We wished we had known the origination of the different styles of dress. When we asked some locals we were told that while many of them reflected other parts of Spain including Andalucia or Valencia, most of them were from Zaragoza and the Aragon region.

Photos: More parade












Video: Traditional dance frequently seen during the Pilar Week


















Photos: Pilar and the flower skirt in the background

































Photos: Women spontaneously dancing flamenco style to festival music


We enjoyed the Pilar holiday but were also relieved when the festivities came to a close on October 17. Our apartment is less than a block from all the action, and it was humming for 10 days; our street was filled with vans that doubled as the street vendors' homes and the noxious smells were almost unbearable by the end of it all.



Photo: Don Jaime street (the street where Ellen Wolff and Kevin King live) during Pilar

Bilbao and San Sebastian with Geoffrey

Photo: Colin and Parker at dinner at El Perro Chico (the boy dog) restaurante, our first night in Bilbao



We were delighted to have Celia's Dad, Geoff Winkler, come visit for 10 days starting on October 8. He landed early in the morning in Madrid and took the fast train to Zaragoza. Before he barely had time to adjust, we had him off and traveling to Bilbao and San Sebastian the day after he arrived.

In honor of the Pilar holiday and festival, Colin and Kelsey had a 5 day weekend. Pilar is the patron saint of all the Hispanic people, and loads of visitors travel to Zaragoza from all over Spain and beyond for the 10 (yes, 10) day festival. With the extended holiday and much of the festival action happening in our backyard (including concerts, fireworks, street shows and more), we took the opportunity to get out of town for a few days and head north to the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and then on to the equally notorious beaches of San Sebastian.


Photo: Back view of the Guggenheim facing the river













Photo: Outside the front entrance of the Guggenheim with 'The Puppy' in the background by Jeff Koons


For us, the most interesting part of the Guggenheim was the architecture. Designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry, it was built as a revival of Bilbao and Spain's Basque Country. It sits alongside the Nervion River, which runs through the city of Bilbao. It opened its doors in October 2007, has welcomed over 10 million visitors, and boasts that it's one of the most successful museums to date.

While impressive, it's modern style was occassionally humorous to our untrained eye with some exhibits including art work that we were pretty sure Kelsey could have created a few years ago. In particular, the flagship artist, Anish Kapoor tickled our funny bones. Kapoor has some impressive works to his name including "The Bean" in Millenium Park in Chicago among others, but the focus of his work at the Guggenheim are red wax creations. Kapoor explained in the audiotour, "I like using red because red is redder than blue is blue or black is black." Huh?

Photo: Work by Anish Kapoor. Canisters of red wax are shot against the wall every 30 minutes



















Photos: Geoff, Celia, Colin and Kelsey outside the back of the Guggenheim












































Photo: Richard Serra's The Matter of Time (this labyrinth-like exhibit was very interesting)

















Photo: Outisde El Perro Chico where we had a fabulous dinner the night we arrived in Bilbao





Unfortunately, during this time, Parker was fighting a rough intestinal bug. It finally got the better of him and he wound up heading back to Zaragoza on his own via train. Celia stayed with her Dad and the kids and took a day trip to San Sebastian. SS is in the northern Basque Country, on the southern coast of the Bay of Biscay and its picturesque coastline makes it a popular beach resort town.

After spending the previous day touring the museum, the kids were eager to have more freedom and play on the beach. The weather was a bit wet and chilly but that didn't stop Kelsey from putting on her suit and swimming. Colin had a fantastic time playing in the sand writing the names of the various places we call "home", Zargoza, New Hampshire, California... The beach had a fabulous display of sand art.

Spaniards don't like to go barefoot as they see it as unhygenic and somewhat crude. When I took off my boots to walk the beach and then continued to roam the area with barefeet, I received many stares and strange looks. Most of the beachcombers were walking in their fashionable boots.



Photos: San Sebastian and the famous, La Concha Beach










































After the beach romp, we toured around the old part of the city (Casco Viajo) and enjoyed the fabulous tapas in San Sebastian. The tapas at this restaurant were like art work (may be better than some things we saw at the Guggenheim!)

Lisa and Cliff Visit Zaragoza

Parker's cousin, Lisa Heinz and her friend, Cliff Leong visited us the weekend of October 1. They live in the San Diego, California area and were on a 3 week tour of Spain, primarily to hike the Pyrenees. We were fortunate to have them stop in Zaragoza.

Photo: At Valor, the best chocolatier in Zaragoza, dipping churros (fried dough sticks) and fruit in chocolate fondue. This place is a favorite of Colin and Kelsey's.


















Video: Traditional Spanish dancers in costume on the streets of Zaragoza



We spent most of the weekend stuffing ourselves with good food and wine but in between meals, we managed to show them the sites of Zaragoza and catch a Real Zaragoza vs. Sporting Gijon futbol (soccer) game. While chatting with Zaragozians sitting next to us during the game, Lisa garnered a list of Spanish soccer terminology for Colin. He's learned some of it on his own at school but the more detailed information will be helpful as he starts playing weekly games with his school team on the weekend of October 22.

Photos and Video: Real Zaragoza vs Sporting Gijon Soccer Game. Although they are the two worst teams in the league, they put on a pretty good show with an especially exciting second half. The game ended in a 2-2 tie with no overtime or shoot out.

The stadium holds roughly 25,000 and is about 1/3 the size of the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona. You can only buy the tickets in person and must pay in cash. It's no wonder that the stadium was only 2/3 full.

















Lisa and Cliff were easy guests; they jumped right into the household routines, cooking us an amazing, pasta dinner on the Sunday night. Lisa was kind enough to do our laundry and diligent enough to clear the basket which is a feat.








Photo: Gellato at Amorino, another favorite sweet spot for the kids

Las Reuniones -- Parent-Teacher Nights, and School Update

Colin and Kelsey recently each had their Las Reuniones or Parent-Teacher nights at their school, Juan de Lanuza (JDL) (for more information on JDL see blog post First Week of School for Colin and Kelsey ). In both cases, the parents gathered in the students' classroom, and sat in a circle while their two primary instructors, the Spanish and English teachers, gave an overview of the classroom happenings and what to anticipate for the coming year. Of course, the sessions were in Spanish; even the English teachers gave their presentations in Spanish.

For Colin's session, we took it in stride and thought we got the gist of what they were saying. When the parents started discussing the school lunch program and how their children were complaining that the food was awful, they started getting feisty. We understood it when one Spanish father said that the food was "letales" (lethal), and that the lunch crew was exceptionally grumpy (see blog post on Colin vs. the Lunch Ladies).

Parker and I found the whole scene quite humorous. It was sort of like being at a party when everyone else is having cocktails and you're bowing out for the night. By our standards, the parents were yelling, passionately throwing their arms around with just about every parent chiming in with a comment. If this had been in the U.S., we would have anticipated that these folks were really ticked off, and that none of them would be talking to each other after it was all said and done. In Spain, they probably all went out for a glass of wine and tapas afterward.

After the general session, we met 1:1 with Colin's English teacher, Kathy. Kathy is a Massachusetts native but has worked, lived, and raised a family in Spain for the last 25 years. Our discussion began with Kathy definitively annoyed. She had been told by Sofia, the Dean of Studies that we wanted Colin to have more work. In kind, she had responded by giving him a couple of extra projects, one of which was writing a daily journal on the differences between Spanish and American life. For his journal, Colin had fallen a few days behind. Kathy was irked that we had apparently asked for him to have extra work, yet he wasn't staying on top of it, and she thought that we should be assuring that he did.

Talk about 'lost in translation!' A couple of weeks earlier, Colin had mentioned to us that he was doing English at the same level as his Spanish classmates and it was pretty basic for him -- understandably. While speaking to Sofia in English, we had requested that he receive work that's more appropriate for a native English speaker and would continue to challenge or develop Colin's skills. Once we explained the misunderstanding to Kathy (and that we didn't realize the journal was a daily activity), she relaxed and warmed up to us. Phew! Close one.

In 6th grade at JDL, in addition to Spanish and English, the students usually start a 3rd language by choosing either French or German. Before Colin started his year, we talked with Sofia about Colin getting additional Spanish support while the others were taking their French or German. However, this year, JDL didn't have any peers for Colin to make a separate Spanish group. For the past month or more, Colin has been flipping back and forth between French and German. JDL proposed that Colin take French since he 'seems to enjoy himself so much' and he 'gets on with the other students so well.' Yet, one of the primary reasons we came to Spain was for the kids to become competent in Spanish! When we asked Colin if he preferred to stay in French (or take German), he said that since they teach the French class in Spanish, he didn't actually know when they were learning French, or when they were just explaining something in Spanish. After several email exchanges and a couple of conversations, Sofia was able to work it out such that Colin will now be getting additional Spanish support through computer-based sessions, worksheets, and teacher tutoring. Yeah!

For Kelsey's la reunión, Parker wasn't able to make it due to SYA commitments. Thankfully, hers was much less eventful especially after the push-back we received from JDL before Kelsey started school. I was fortunate to have Isabel, the mother of one of Kelsey's friends who teaches English in one of the local Spanish schools, translate the key points for me. Starting the second week of school, Kelsey's teachers started using the FM system we purchased in New Hampshire which has been helpful for her. The loud environment has continued to be a challenge for Kelsey as the acoustics in the environment are not designed to buffer sounds. At Kimball, Kelsey's accommodations had included sound boards that help absorb reverberation and reduce the classroom noise; JDL doesn't have anything similar. Additionally, the Spanish culture is just plain loud.

Kelsey's teachers focused on discussing JDL's teaching style which is based on the multiple intelligences model of Howard Gardner; they emphasis the child's way of learning rather than the content of what they are learning. This gave me the opportunity to chime in with reinforcing Kelsey's instructions with visual supports such as the white board (which they use/have at JDL), and written materials rather than just giving her directions verbally.

Beyond academics, at the beginning of October, the kids started their school activities which means that during the ~2 hour break from about 1-3pm, they partake in activities of their choice. Kelsey is taking art, gymnastics, dance, and yoga. Colin is participating in soccer and basketball. Colin has his first weekend games on October 23 and is looking forward to them! It's such a change to not run around after school like we do back at home. The schedule is nice in many respects although the kids' days are long, and they do get fatigued from being out of the house from 9-6 p.m.

SYA Trip to Monastery and Olite

For our second SYA excursion, on September 30, we took a day trip to Monastery de Leyre and the town of Olite both of which are in Navarra, a province north of Zaragoza. We appreciated the opportunity to spend time with Parker's colleagues and get to know them better while learning more about the history and sites of Spain.

Photo: SYA Colleagues and Spouses -- Antonio, Diana, Angeles, Ellen, Kevin, Celia and Parker in front of the Monastery de Leyre


We first toured the monastery where the original abbey was founded in the 11th century and became the burial-place of the kings of Navarra. A chapel in the north aisle contains the tombs of the early kings of Navarra. The undecorated crypt is the oldest part of the church.





Photo: Beautiful view from the monastery. The reservoir in the background is Zaragoza's water source even though it's over an hour outside of Z-town







Photo: Griffin, Angelica, Chi Chi, Chanel outside of the monastery with Parker, Kelsey and Celia. The sculptures on archway represent the seven deadly sins.



















Photo: Colin, Parker, and Celia with SYA students, Danielle (Parker's advisee from Mississippi) and social butterfly, Jacob (from Hawaii)
















Photo: Parker and Griffin inside the monastery






Boondoggle. That's what some may have called the 2 hour, lavish lunch the adults had after the tour while the kids and the students had a picnic and played outside.

Good manners are very important to the Spanish. Toward the end of lunch, when the waiter asked Antonio, a pretty relaxed person, if he was finished before he had completed his meal, Antonio quickly became edgy toward the waiter in response to his inappropriate pushiness. The waiter exclaimed, "tranquilo' (calm down)." And Antonio snapped, "Sí, soy tranquilo (yes, I'm calm)," as he held out his hand demonstrating that he it wasn't shaking.


Photo: Inside the monastery where we had lunch










Photo: Colin and Aidan playing football with the SYA students outside the monastery














After the Monastery, we hopped back on the bus and headed to see the Olite castle. The former Kingdom of Navarra has had a very turbulent past. The area used to be inhabited by the Vascons but they were driven northwards by the Moors and are the ancestors of the present day Basques.



Photo: Town of Olite














Photos: Views of the castle









Charlemagne drove out the Moors in the year 778. The three hundred years from 1234 were particularly turbulent as the Navarrese noblemen tried to regain independence. The French were finally defeated with the help of the King of Castile in 1512 when it became part of Spain. The castle was rebuilt by King Carlos III of Navarra and was made his summer residence until his death in 1425. Not a bad view for a 'summer place.' Later his grandson, the Prince of Viana, lived in the castle. During the Napoleonic wars it suffered sever damage but was restored to its former glory about one hundred years ago.



















Photo: Kelsey with her SYA 'girlfriends.' Kelsey has had a blast chatting with all the SYA (female) students



Despite the extensive bus time, it was a fun day exploring the Spanish countryside and sites and spending time with the SYA students and faculty. And, uh, yes this was the 3rd day of school the kids missed this week but we figured these trips were a big part of the experience and alas, we'd soon get back to normal the following week.