victoriagoestoengland
Seeking A Room With A View
In which a 21 year old history major ventures abroad.
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A Glance Back, a Look Ahead, and a Healing Inner Child Tarot Spread
How curious it is that time on a blog can freeze, can pass yet not pass. Just shy of two years have passed since my last post, which was itself a revival after a long hiatus. Every new start representing a new intention. But I will say that 11 months of live-in home renovation while also working and trying to maintain some kind of social life left me with very little in the creative tank.
Then,…
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New adventures appear on the horizon
We’ve done a crazy thing. Or perhaps a daring thing. Or perhaps we are just trying to live it up before our 30s and all of the ensuing responsibilities catch up to us.
Regardless of the why, here is the what: we have bought (ok, made a downpayment on) a motorhome! It’s a french model, one of the last remaining available units in Spain during the Great Motorhome Shortage of 2021-2022 (more on…
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New Rooms, New Views
New Rooms, New Views
Last weekend, the last weekend of May, Maria and I officially moved from our beloved yet tiny home (41 m2) to a new apartment, a ten minute walk from the old place down Passeig de Sant Joan. This was all only four weeks after we first had the opportunity to move present itself, which came only days after I had been talking to Maria about needing more space, and separate spaces for us to pursue…
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This fall I have been in Barcelona, and won’t be leaving until after the new year. I haven’t spent a full fall/winter season here yet, so I’m definitely enjoying the longitudinal perspective. After finally getting a charger for my camera’s batteries, I have some new pictures of what’s going on that I get to share here!
I am in the midst of planning Thanksgiving now, with Maria’s birthday in the rear-view mirror and Christmas just around the corner. It will be my first Christmas since 2012 without my family, which will definitely be an emotionally taxing experience, but on the other hand it will be Maria’s and my first Christmas with just us together which I am sure will have its own sweetness.
T-Day Prep
For now, my focus is on Thanksgiving, for oh what a task it is! This year I will recommence the affair, my first being 2015. Last year I did the Christmas dinner for Maria’s family, which is a similar number of people, but with Catalan recipes. Thanksgiving is a menu of my own choosing, generously funded and housed by Maria’s mom, for the same family, but this time we have opened up the invitations to Maria and her brother’s childhood “cangur” (nanny), and a dear friend of Maria’s and mine. The organization required for this event is something else: as I will be cooking all the dishes myself, divided between a tiny kitchen upstairs and a tiny oven-less kitchen downstairs. I transcribed all the recipes I’ll be using into a notebook, and I am making a spreadsheet to keep all the cooking spaces and food timelines organized! My number two goal, after “Get all dishes cooked and on the table and kept hot by 3:30pm”, is “Stay calm and collected” followed closely by “Find time to change clothes before eating”. Goals #2 and #3 were not achieved last time I did this, and I ended up in all the pictures wearing an old sports jersey with my hair in a distressingly greasy and stringy ponytail.
In order to achieve another, less important goal that I missed out on last year, I did a trial run of some dinner rolls to test their re-heatablity. I was unsure if I would be able to find instant bread yeast, as I have never seen it in a shop here before. Then, lo and behold, I chanced upon a packet of instant yeast in the new supermarket that opened near us.
I literally did a little happy dance in the isle, confusing everyone including Maria (“But don’t you see, it’s INSTANT!!”). Making the rolls was easier than I expected, having never worked with instant yeast before. They were billed as “One Hour Dinner Rolls”, and I got them out of the oven in about 1h 15m, which honestly exceeded my expectations!
20 minutes proof in a warm oven
Fluffy and golden-brown rolls!
Grocery shopping in Barcelona
While there are staples available at every shop, I find a great degree of variance in certain goods depending on the shop size, location, and brand name. Baking goods are especially variable, and it turns out our new Sorli, a mid-level grocery store, has the best baking section of the shops near us. They also have an american shelf and an asian shelf, where I can get stuff for american pancakes, mac and cheese, tacos, pad thai, and tika masala, among other things. For certain specific Thanksgiving items, I skip the Catalan shops and go straight to Taste of America, the edible home-away-from-home that serves us expats from the US. I do choose to buy my turkey from a “Pollasteria” (poultry stall in the market), as I think I am getting a better price, and at the same time am supporting local business and local agriculture.
Taste of America’s staple goods for Thanksgiving
Family visit
Yesterday Maria and I drove out to Sant Feliu to visit her cousins who just had a baby. He is adorable, tiny, the newest sweetheart of the family. The little guy is three weeks old, and he and his parents make the cutest little family. Maria’s cousin F., the dad, has a month of parental leave, while M. would have a whole four months maternity leave (she lost her job a little before getting pregnant). Coming from a country that has no protected parental leave, I find the system here so family-centered and heartwarming. F. and M. told us that the Spanish law is actually beginning to change in January, adding time to the paternity leave bit by bit until they will actually have access to the same four months that mothers receive. My favorite thing about paternity leave is that new mothers aren’t left alone the first weeks home with their new babies, and that a family unit can be formed all together.
The happy mama
Me and Maria getting some cuddles
I made some tiny baby booties for our new baby cousin, but they ended up being too tiny for his big baby feet! Apparently he has the foot size of a couple month old baby, so that was a dud-gift. If any of my friends end up with these little booties as a newborn gift, I apologize for this preview!
It’s been a whirlwind of a season so far, and I hope to find time to upload more updates. It’s nice to share what I’m up to here, so far from my family and friends back home, and now that I have my camera up and at’em I’m hoping to keep up with this a bit more than I have these last few years.
Thanksgiving in Barcelona This fall I have been in Barcelona, and won't be leaving until after the new year. I haven't spent a full fall/winter season here yet, so I'm definitely enjoying the longitudinal perspective.
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Setting Our Sights on a Cabin, 1
Setting Our Sights on a Cabin, 1
In a flurry of cleaning out the barn and storage shed at my family’s farm in central Texas, Maria and Mom and I have also been in a flurry of planning a guest cabin to be built out here. Or rather, for me and Maria to build out here with the help of our neighbor J. This has long been a dream of mine, as the main farmhouse is too small to accomodate more than a couple extra guests, and the trip…
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(back-posting from June, 2016) winter-spring-summer
It is with some reluctance that I realize in less than two weeks I will once again be transplanting myself. I’ll be returning to the flat shores of the third coast, to spend two months in my native Houston. There’s much to look forward to: joining with family and friends to celebrate the wedding of one of my closest friends; spending face-to-face time with loved ones, who I usually only see…
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(Back-posting from May, 2016) It's hard to be H(appy/onest/opeful)
(Back-posting from May, 2016) It’s hard to be H(appy/onest/opeful)
I’m hoping May is a month that brings absolutely no surprises into my life. Since my dad got cancer in October, and especially since I returned to Barcelona in Janurary, it feels like things have been coming out of nowhere, and frankly some of them have been difficult-to-extremely difficult to handle. For me at least. From being kicked out, then semi-un-kicked out, to suddenly needing to house…
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Coming to Terms with the Terms (August 2, 2016)
Coming to Terms with the Terms (August 2, 2016)
Watching a family member suffer is surely one of the most painful emotional experiences one can go through. Seeing a life full of Watching a family member suffer is surely one of the most painful emotional experiences one can go through. Seeing a life full of activity and curiosity, and perhaps most importantly a life full of potential, be sapped of its vitality is difficult, unpleasant. My…
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Thoughts from a Cancer Hospital
It’s funny. It’s funny how sometimes all it takes is a coffee stain to break down the wall of control you have over everything. One burning sip, one jerk of reaction to show you how you don’t have control, you don’t get to even keep your damn white shirt stain-free much less your family held together, or your father alive. And then you are crying in the hospital over a tee-shirt coffee stain, and…
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Autumn updates
On Mondays and Wednesday’s between Catalan class and one of several jobs I’ve picked up this semester I have an hour and a half break. Today, I opted to have a café at a cafeteria (not the same as a cafeteria in North America! Pretty much synonymous with coffee and sandwich shop) on Avinguda del Bogatell. I walk by here when I take the metro from class to Marina, in the 10 minute trek from the…
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Maria and I had a few days off after her finals and before I started my Catalan course, and we wanted to have a little holiday. After scouring for deals on Groupalia.com (no endorsement, just a useful sight for deals here in Spain!), we finally settled on a two-night hotel/spa deal in Zaragoza. As Maria’s parents were spending the same weekend in Portugal, we had the car – which was a perfect opportunity to drive to Zaragoza, three hours west of Barcelona.
On our way there, I kept a lookout for interesting sights, and after driving through Aragón for a while I pointed out a looming castle ruin atop one of the hills that flanked the northern side of the highway. So we pulled off the road and picked our way through a tiny village at the foot of the castle-hill, asking for directions from several different villagers out on a morning stroll.
the village church, with distinct moorish influence in the decorative brickwork.
the ancient city gate, through which all traffic entered and exited the town’s walls
view of the village church from the castle hill.
After a quick drive up a steep and winding road, we found ourselves on a promontory cliff, with softly austere hills rolling away to the north and a deep flat plane extending to the south.
Then it was on to the castle itself, which shared the hill-top with a much newer church, built in the shadow of its hulking mass. There was literally zero information concerning the castle, except a sign indicating that a restorative renovation was taking place. Otherwise, it was left up to the imagination (and the combined knowledge of an historian and a building architect) to piece together what the heap of ruins and rubble might have once functioned as.
the castle’s destroyed walls made for a peculiar silhouette
Unfortunately, the castle was not as photogenic up close as it had been from a distance – the interior was a confusion of filled in rooms and strange lumpy ground, marked here and there with understandable components of the original structure.
subterranean suite of two (at least) rooms, with high arching ceilings still visible at both ends.
the other end of the subterranean room, showing the high vaulted ceiling
a tunnel passageway into the subterranean roon
the second subterranean room, visible through a small window-like opening through the rocks
Our guess for the subterranean rooms was kitchen (the open-ceiling’d one) and a storage or preparation room (the second room). There were chimney-like openings through the sides of what was left of the vaulted ceiling, and its size and shape suggested kitchen to me. Incidentally, this open pit of a room seemed almost comically dangerous, lacking guardrails around the uneven edge.
nice example of brick-work, showing the lasting impact of roman rule in hispania
one of those tiny slit-windows typical to castles in the age of seige, which can be seen in the previous picture from the outside.
the façade, including tower and crumbling wall
gateway in the northern wall
just outside the gateway of the northern wall
We poked around, scrambling up rocky bits to get a look at every side of the castle. The more I saw of it, the more precariously perched it seemed to be, with sheer drops in nearly every direction.
One wall had a row of square holes in it about one meter up. These are a common feature of old buildings, showing where the ceiling beams were once secured. This told us that the floor level was several meters below the current ground level. This in turn verified our guess that the subterranean rooms were not originally underground.
row of beam holes
tiny windows capturing a snippet of the brilliant blue sky
view of the church through the eastern entrance
the outer wall, northern side, through an arched doorway
After about half an hour clambering about on the castle ruins, we walked around the church below. Its lumpy structural supports along each side (one of which I am standing on in the picture) are a cruder version of the buttresses which support famous cathedrals such as the Notre Dame.
Then, we took in one final view from our superior vantage point – the magnificent torro displayed on the distant hill. This was the fourth we had seen so far after entering Aragón, a rather prominent reminder that we had passed over into Spanish nationals’ territory.
Up next….. Zaragoza itself!
On the road to Zaragoza Maria and I had a few days off after her finals and before I started my Catalan course, and we wanted to have a little holiday.
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Three Weeks of Christmas...
Two Weeks of Christmas in Barcelona
…in Texas and Barcleona!
I spent Christmas this year at the family farm, as I have all Christmases but one since 1998. It was lovely, full of the traditions my family has built up over the years, and a lot of good food and cheer.
Two short days later, I was packed and ready to jet off to my new life in Barcelona!
The first leg of my flight to Barcelona (Houston – Paris) was two hours delayed.…
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Two and a half months after the death of Harper Lee’s sister (and lawyer) and 55 years since the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird, HarperCollins has announced the summer release of Go Set a Watchman, the elusive author’s second novel.
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Postcards from Texas
This post is really just to catch this up, media-wise, with the last two months. There’s a load of stuff missing, but here is just a few of the things I want to remember from my winter at home.
Went to see the Blue Angels practicing before their performance at Wings over Houston. Here, one flies close to the sun.
Dad and I trying out the East Coast delicacy, Rita’s Italian Ice that has recently…
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Coming Home
A week and a half ago my visitor’s visa to Spain ran out, and I flew home to Houston. I’ve been living with my mom, but today I headed west with my dad to the farm house I grew up in. At the end of a winding red dirt road, the little blue house is surrounded by trees in an open field. We brought our dog, Selkie, who leapt out of the window as soon as the truck was parked, and scampered off to…
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life goes on in Barcelona
As of last Friday, I’ve finished my CELTA certification course and resumed life as a normal person. Student life is much more stimulating, that’s for sure! But having time to go places, make dinners, fold laundry, and knit teeny tiny baby socks is definitely something to appreciate! The socks are for my friend Adrienne’s baby, due in early January! Baby socks are my new favorite knitting project,…
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