El Día De Acción De Gracias x2 (Thanksgiving)

Although we missed our families back in the US, we once again had an excellent Thanksgiving in Spain. We ordered a Turkey from our favorite stands at the market, made stuffing from scratch, and baked an apple pie. We invited some friends over to join in the festivities and asked everyone to bring something to share. We had a truly international Thanksgiving with traditional dishes like homemade guacamole and gorditas (from the Mexicans), Greek salad (from the Greek), panipuri (crazy Indian street food from the Indian), and chocolate mouse cake (from the Spaniard and Catalan). We spent the day with good friends, ate delicious food, and even watched football! (Too bad Barça didn't win).

The turkey came with a couple feathers still attached.

Max patiently waiting for any food to fall on the floor.

Stuffed and ready to go in the oven.

Done!

Dave carving the turkey.

Traditional Thanksgiving Greek salad.

Mar and Elias are ready to eat.

Sameer explaining panipuri to everyone.

Dave and Max watching the Barça game
and digesting after the big meal.

Perusing Pamplona

It has been a quiet fall here in Barcelona, but we have done some traveling. Back in October we were invited to the house of our good friend Mar's parents in Etxauri near Pamplona. We were given a place to stay, great hospitality, and were fed very well. All we had to do was help cut and stack a little firewood.

One of the best parts of visiting with Mar's family was finally understanding how Spaniards eat during the day. We had been told that there is el desayuno (9:00h), el almuerzo (11:00h), la comida (2:00h), la merienda (17:30h), and la cena (21:00h). Five meals! And we have finally experienced the correct way to eat all of these meals. We enjoyed delicious Spanish ham, fried eggs, the best tomatoes ever, and grilled lamb ribs. We were even sent home with apple custard pie!

After chopping and stacking wood (there was a lot of wood) we adventured into Pamplona to see the city known for the "Running of the Bulls." Pamplona is a walled city founded during Roman times, is filled with beautiful architecture, and has a park filled with live animals. In addition to exploring Pamplona, we also toured around Etxauri, a beautiful small town with amazing views and vineyards.

Firewood and Food 

One load of wood chopped and ready to stack.

Check out our tractor driver!

Mar, stacking some wood.

Done!

Dave slicing some ham
after a hard day's work.

This is where we got our eggs.

Pamplona

Welcome to Pamplona.

In Spanish a peacock is called
a "turkey royal" (without cheese...)

Is that a black swan?
Or did Nessie leave Scotland and move to Spain?

The one of the bell towers
of the cathedral.

Chandelier.

In the church.

The gazebo in the main square, lit up at night.

Etxauri

Windmills!

Mar's home in Etxauri.
The grapes from the
vine over the door were amazing!

A castle hiding in the countryside...

with a cool sculpture.

Wine to be, from a nearby vineyard.

Dave's Appraisals - The Bad Elf and City Maps 2Go

Hello.  Dave here.  Being a famous internet superstar and international jet-setter isn't all fun and games.  Sometimes even yours truly loses his way in a foreign land and doesn't know which way to go.  Luckily I have a cool new gadget to help out.  A good friend of mine works for a company that makes accessories for Apple products (iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad) that adds GPS support to devices that don't have it by default, and that can improve the accuracy of GPS data for those that do.  I've been testing out the device over here in Europe, and will occasionally be writing some reviews of some GPS-enabled Apps (get it, Appraisals???) I use on my travels that take advantage of my new-found GPS capabilites.

Bad Elf GPS

First, a bit more about the device.  It is called the Bad Elf GPS, and you can visit the official website by clicking on the image right here:

 
As you can see, it is a little widget that plugs directly into the standard dock connector on Apple products, and there is even a micro USB port on it so you can connect to your PC without removing it.

From my testing, you can typically get a GPS lock within around 30 seconds, of say, exiting a metro stop, and then you are good to go with whatever GPS-enabled App you are using.  I have been testing it on the iPod touch, a wireless-only device, and the really nice thing is that I don't need to have wireless access for the GPS device to function. I have found this very useful when traveling around different cities.

Of course, this means that GPS-enabled Apps that don't require a wireless connection are a must.  There are a number of such Apps listed on the Bad Elf website.  Below, and in some future blogs, I'll be reviewing some that I have found useful.

CityMaps2Go

One of the leading offline map Apps is City Maps 2Go.  It has high-quality vector maps, the ability to search for specific addresses, and to find places of interest near your current location.  Once the App is purchased, you can download maps directly to your mobile device.  After the maps are downloaded, they can be used without any WiFi connection, which is nice for roaming around the city.

The Bad Elf GPS device integrates seamlessly with the App.  Just click on a little arrow button to update your location as you would with any GPS-enabled device.

One trick I've found useful is to use City Maps 2Go along with the built-in Maps App from Google.  The problem with Maps is that it requires an internet connection to function.  However, it has nice features such as giving directions from one location to another, and from my experience has a larger database of restaurants, businesses, and other places of interest than City Maps 2Go (mostly tested in Barcelona--other maps may vary).  I therefore usually search for the area I plan on being in with Maps, and zoom in to an appropriate level of detail for whatever my activity is going to be.  Then when out and about, my current location can be updated via the Bad Elf in both Maps and City Maps 2Go, and I can use the static map information currently loaded on Maps along with dynamically zooming in and out with City Maps 2Go.

I recently used this trick to get around in London while I was there on business, and I found it extremely helpful when stepping out of the London Metro for directing me to my meeting place with no problem.

So, to break it down,

Pros:

• Nice vector maps
• Lots of downloadable maps
• Find places of interest near current location
• Maps are fully navigable without a WiFi connection

Cons:

• No direction-finding capability
• Not as many restaurants and businesses as with the built-in Maps App

So while it doesn't have all of the features of the built-in Maps App, I find it quite useful, and would recommend it for your GPS-enabled mapping needs.

A Very Maxy Adventure

One day a few weeks ago we decided to take Max out for a little adventure around town.  Our two major destinations were the Parc de la Cuitadella, a very nice and green(!) area that we hadn't explored very well yet (and where we had a picnic including burgers from our favorite burger joint in Barcelona, Pim Pam!), and the beach, to see how Max would handle seeing such a vast quantity of his most-hated substance, water.  Along the way, we also stopped by the Iglesia Santa Maria del Mar, a beautiful church in the El Born neighborhood of Barcelona quite close to the park.

Inside the Santa Maria del Mar.  The church has a long history,
although much of it was damaged by anti-facists due to
Franco's allegiance with the Catholic Church. 
Max waited outside.

An eternal flame (a little hard to see in this photo)
sits on top of the red sculpture, commemorating
those that fought for Catalan Independence.

These cannonballs are found in various parts of  El Born,
commemorating the area's destruction after the
War of Spanish succession defeat in 1714.

Carrer de les Mosques,
the narrowest street in Barcelona.

The wonderful fountain in the Parc de la Ciutadella. 
The Ciutadella (Citadel) was formerly a military base before
becoming the first park in Barcelona. 
The zoo is also located there.

Max looking longingly at some ducks...

Another view of the centerpiece
of the fountain.

In case you didn't know,
Tabitha is somewhat fond of elephants,
and Dave is somewhat fond of Mastodon.

Max sees his enemy, as he has never seen it before,
while Dave enjoys tormenting him.

Max politely declined to enter the water with Dave,
instead deciding to view the fun from afar.

Castellers

The fiesta de Gracia also had amazing Castells (Castles), traditional Catalan human towers. We only brought our small point-and-shoot camera, but we made movies out of the images so that you could get an idea of the magnificence of the building of the Castells by the Castellers. However, these movies do not capture the solemn beauty of the castle building and we highly recommend that if you ever have a chance to see these artists in person, it is well worth it.

Wikipedia has a great explanation of the event: 

A castell is considered a success when stages of its assembling and disassembling, can be done in complete succession. The assembly is complete once all castellers have climbed into their designated places, and the enxaneta climbs into place at the top and raises one hand with four fingers erect, in a gesture said to symbolize the stripes of the Catalan flag. The enxaneta then climbs down the other side of the castell, after which the remaining levels of castellers descend in highest-to-lowest order until all have reached safety.

Aside from the people who climb to form the upper parts of the tower, others are needed to form the pinya, or bottom base of thecastell, to sustain its weight. Members of the pinya (most often men) also act as a 'safety net' if the tower structure collapses, cushioning the fall of people from the upper levels.

The castell is built in two phases. First, the pinya the base of the tower is formed. People forming higher levels of the tower move to a position from which they can easily get to their place in the tower. This is done slowly and carefully, and as subsequent base levels are completed the castellers in the pinya determine if their base is solid enough for construction to continue. Then, when the signal to proceed is given, bands begin to play the traditional Toc de Castells music as a hush comes over spectators of the event. The upper layers of the tower are built as quickly as possible in order to put minimal strain on the lower castellers, who bear most of the weight of the castell. The disassembly of the castell, done amidst the cheering of the crowd, is often the most treacherous stage of the event.

Fiestas de Gracia - You Won't Believe What You Are Seeing

For one week in August the neighborhood of Gracia (where we lived for the first few weeks in Barcelona) throws an amazing street party. Various streets in the neighborhood get together in January to start preparing the elaborate decorations. Streets host dinners, have live bands, puzzle competitions, activities for kids, and of course, outside bars that server beer and mojitos. The decorations cover the ENTIRE street and are so spectacular that you have to see them to believe them. So without further ado (sorry there are so many pictures)...

(The next post will include the famous Castellers--human towers--from the fiesta and is not to be missed!)

Welcome to the great fiestas of Gracia.

Into the sea with fishermen and mermaids

A fisherman and a mermaid 

Mozart Street! (Tabitha's favorite)

Mozart's orchestra.

They made a papier mache piano!

Opera ghosts

Music notes floating in the air.

More awesome ghosts.

And fabulous masks.

Some of the balconies were also decorated.

Into the jungle.

A wild jungle animal?

Keebler elves?

One of the many live bands.

Amazing!

The whole street felt like you were walking through a
mystical flower garden.

More amazing.

A Catalan donkey?

Coffee anyone?

The Jungle Book jungle.

King Louie.

Gob's street (for the Arrested Development fans out there).

Apparently "farts" in Catalan means "tired"

This street received the 1st place award and told the story
 of Peter pan as you walked down the street.
Here Peter and the kids are flying off to Neverland.

Transitioning into Neverland. 

Tinkerbell!

And the big fight.

Aliens!