A street vendor was selling freshly grilled chorizo and morcilla (blood sausage).

My wife and I shared a piece of chorizo.

Looking for the next bar.

This bar was tiny and absolutely packed. And for good reason.

The skewing of these tapas photos was a complete accident, but I like it.

Our choice. Serrano ham with goat cheese with Modena vinegar, and a meat and tomato stew with a pheasant egg on top. With a beer and a wine, of course.

Apparently this bear drew some chalk art on the street. The sardine escaping its can to eat a dangling worm was the official logo of the 2012 festival.

Ice cream with my girls.

Eating ice cream down by the water.

Just as we can see Santoña from Colindres, you can see Colindres from Santoña. My house is over there somewhere.

One of my favorite things about Santoña is that they have several monuments to canines, I assume to the dogs that keep fishermen company on long fishing voyages.

A monument to Juan de la Cosa, a native of Santoña who was the captain of the Santa Maria and sailed with Columbus on that infamous 1492 voyage.

The sunset was lovely, over Santoña’s little beach.

Bollard and boats.

Nora’s Spanish grandparents showed up late in the day.

Nora had fun climbing these granite benches.

And jumping off them. See all those benches vanishing off into the distance? She climbed up and jumped off every single one. That’ll burn off a scoop of ice cream in no time.

A lone sailboat.

The same boat, coming into harbor, with Colindres in the background.

The giant sardine that initiated the costume parade. It got pretty cold, and I was underdressed, and the music was too loud, so I didn’t enjoy the actual parade all that much. I much preferred seeing all the people dressed up walking around the street earlier in the day.

This was the very last of 24 groups dressed up for the costume competition, and it was the only one that inspired me to take a photograph. It was men carrying faux bullfighters on their shoulders like what happens after a successful bullfight.

And the bulls followed after. Ha!

Overall, it was a very successful day out. Nora wore high heels (willingly!) for six hours and several ambulatory kilometers. She took them off for a couple hours after a bit of an ankle twist, but then demanded to put them back on.

My little Sevillana. ¡Olé!

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Last night, when I was putting Nora into her pajamas, I was hyping today’s parade, telling her that we were going to get up early to go to daycare and put on costumes and parade around town. She was very excited, but then she blew my mind. She said, “You’re not going to leave, right? When we went to see the Belén, you took pictures and left, and I cried.” The accuracy of her long term memory, and emotional sensitivity, continues to amaze me. I told her that no, I wouldn’t leave, and that we would come home for lunch afterwards, but that, after lunch, she had to go to daycare while I worked like normal. She agreed.

All 207 of my photos are available in this Flickr set. Another parent urged me to also create a Flickr group that he can add to, so I’ve created Carnaval en Colindres for that purpose. To heck with the Spanish law prohibiting the unauthorized publication of photos of children. No one seemed to mind last year.

Things were pretty hectic getting about forty kids into plastic costumes, but the daycare workers managed admirably.

Eventually Nora spotted me peeking through the classroom windows taking photos.

Her favorite comfort toy that she demands every day upon being dropped off is this little worm that lights up when you hug it, called Gusiluz.

Adela, the daycare boss, as the evil stepmother. She said she would’ve carried around a hand mirror as well, but she needed a free hand.

Yours truly, Prince Charming. It’s tricky designing a costume that can be worn on the outside of a bulky winter coat.

This particular dwarf followed me around town, holding my hand, and clutching around my leg when I pulled my hand away to take a photo.

This year, as a senior at the daycare for 0 – 3 year olds, Nora had graduated from the push cart to the rope, except that she didn’t stand for that long. That’s her on the far right. The only way I got her to hold anyone else’s hand was to threaten to leave if she didn’t.

The kids from another school were dressed all as pirates.

Another school were hippies.

Some older kids were dressed as African tribesmen. It’s a shock to my American racial sensibilities every time I see how acceptable blackface is in Spain.

A band of big dwarves and little dwarves paraded around town.

At some point, Nora figured out that the one year olds in the pull cart had snacks, and actually managed to convince them to hand her some. She never left the side of the cart after that.

Five Snow Whites, an evil stepmother, and a prince. A couple times I asked if there would be any kissing, to which I responded that my resuscitation services were available should a Snow White lose consciousness, but luckily none did.

Just like last year, I was astonished at the work and planning and creativity that went into the costumes. I was very impressed and had a good time.

After doffing our fantastical plastic overgarments, Nora and I headed to the grocery store for our normal daily bread and food purchases. She demanded to ride on my shoulders the whole way there, and then, when we got inside, insisted that she was tired. I said, “Well sit down, then,” and she began demanding a place to sit down, but I ignored her, figuring the floor was sufficient, and went about my shopping. When she switched to Spanish, another shopper pulled out a crate of milk for her to sit on. Rather than sitting on it, however, she expressed just how exhausted she was by trying to use it as a pillow, as if she was unable to hold up her own head. When we got home, however, she ate all her lunch but finally succumbed to exhaustion on the stroller ride to daycare.

Sooo…sleepy…

Prince Charming and his favorite dwarf.

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Desayuno

The first meal of the day. i.e. breakfast. It’s even a compound word, like “breakfast”, since ayuno means “fast” (as in not eating), and des- is a negating prefix, so you’re literally “un-fasting”. Unlike the US or the UK, the typical Spanish breakfast is very light and completely devoid of protein. The most common breakfast is a café con leche with some type of pastry or cookies.

I always assumed that Spanish farmers or other people that do long hours of manual labor in the mornings probably eat a heartier breakfast, but I know a few of them and they don’t.

A typical Spanish breakfast: coffee with milk and a pastry.

Almuerzo

This one is complicated. The dictionary says it’s “food eaten in the morning or midday”. Spanish-to-English dictionaries always translate it to “lunch” and there are those who use it synonymously with comida, but I think the best English translation would be “brunch”. The few times I’ve had one, it was more substantial than a simple snack or tapa, and left me with no desire to have lunch afterwards. It’s normally served at around noon, or just before.

Interestingly, almuerzo breaks the etymological rule of thumb that most Spanish words starting with al- came from Arabic. This word comes from the Latin word for “bite”.

A typical Spanish almuerzo: a concoction of fried eggs, bacon in a tomato sauce, served at noon with plenty of wine.

Comida

Translating best to “lunch”, this is the primary, and largest, meal of the day, eaten at midday. However, what the Spanish call “midday” is not what an American would call “midday”. In Spain, they eat their lunch between 2:00 PM and 4:00 PM. Most shops are closed during this time and reopen at 5:00 PM until about 8:00 PM. While the noun comida and verb comer mean “lunch” and “to have lunch”, they are also more generally used to mean “food” and “to eat”, and there is rarely any confusion.

Traditionally the midday meal consists of two courses, one of which normally requires a spoon to eat, like a soup or legume stew, the other is usually rice (e.g. paella), pasta or a small serving of meat. All restaurants assume that you will be having two courses. In daily home cooked practice, however, one course is all we ever eat.

Last time I checked, nutritionists and dietitians agree that it’s healthiest to have your biggest meal in the middle of the day like the Spaniards, rather than at the end as the Americans do. It may be healthier, but it can make it difficult to become productive again in the afternoon, especially if there was any wine involved.

A typical Spanish lunch: beans with wild boar, followed by…

…a steak with fried potatoes.

Merienda

This is another in-between meal – like the almuerzo – and best translates to “afternoon snack”. I never really heard it used until I became a parent and saw that every Spanish child has an afternoon snack of some sort, be it a piece of fruit or a small sandwich. From what I can tell, most adults don’t eat the merienda, but I suppose the word could be used for some British-style tea and cookies.

A typical Spanish merienda: a small serrano ham sandwich.

Cena

The final meal of the day is strangely similar to the US or UK breakfast: high in protein. Eggs are a common ingredient, often in a tortilla de patata (Spanish omelet). Meats and cheeses are often included. If you go out to a restaurant, sandwiches and hamburgers are a common supper.

A typical Spanish dinner: tortilla de patata.

If there’s one thing Spaniards love, it’s food, and I think it shows in their language. Of course no one ever eats all five meals, but no matter what time of the day you get hungry, you’ve got a Spanish noun and verb to use.

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…and for any catalog modeling scouts that may stop by.

Hands up! This is a robbery!

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She talks about taking her computer (she mispronounces ordenador as denador) to work, and also staying home to work like I do. She also mentions the “Mommy took a big bag of money from work!” allegation that I mentioned earlier, adding the spurious claim that her mother “hides her money on the floor under her computer”. I did search for said treasure, but in the end, I had to conclude: Myth BUSTED. Her abuela playfully tries to get her to give up some of the riches, but Nora counters with evidence that her abuela already has money in her wallet.

Let me provide some context for the second video. Nora’s abuela is currently out of work on medical leave because she has a problem with her knee, and she has to go to physical rehabilitation a couple times a week. Also, Nora went to the doctor yesterday with her mother because her mother’s got an ear ache, so a lot of their conversation is about doctors and medicine.

They discuss las barracas, general term for carnival rides or booths that trucked into small towns in Spain during that town’s holiday week. Nora remembers them well from the time she spent with her Spanish grandparents over the winter solstice holidays. Sometimes she likes to ride them, but she has a very low tolerance for noise and centripetal force.

At one point she switches gears to talk about Parchís, a Spanish board game that is a cousin of the game I know as Parcheesi™ (they share a common Indian ancestor), that Nora and her abuela like to play together.

Her gestures are so hilarious in this video. I’m sorry it’s so long, but the cuteness refused to wane enough for me to stop recording or make an editing cut.

What blows me away most about the current stage of my daughter’s mental development is just how observant she is at noticing causes and effects and intuiting the motivations behind the agents in her world. Of course she probably asked her mother “Why are we at a the doctor?” about seven hundred times when they were there, but she has understood the reasoning and generalized it to “when someone is sick or part of them hurts, they go to the doctor to get cured”. The daycare workers tell us that her verbal and reasoning skills are considerably more advanced than her peers. And yet, her ability to identify colors, numbers or letters are at about the level of a sleepy dachshund. No doubt those abilities will arrive soon, but it’s truly fascinating watching her develop. I’m enjoying every minute of it.

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‘bow in the forest.

‘bow on the rocks.

The outer rainbow has its colors reversed.

Then, as I was transferring the above photos to my computer to upload, the western horizon turned gorgeous with a big mushroom-cloud-looking sunset formation, with some crepuscular ray action.

Have a great final weekend of January! It feels like it’s almost 2013 already!

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It’s Leslie Nielsen!

With their eyes aligned, Romney’s mouth is much, much lower than Newt’s, leaving very little chin on one image…

…and a Jay Leno-esque chin on the other.

As I said…they’re just so different!

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Our town church doesn’t play that Big Ben tune, but it does chime once at the quarter hour, twice at the half hour, thrice at three quarters of an hour, and four times on the hour, followed by a longer note played a certain number of times to indicate what hour of the day it is (five times for 5 o’clock, etc.). There are more noisy displays when it’s time for Sunday mass.

I used to think that this was somewhat handy to be aurally reminded of the time throughout the day, sort of a service to keep the townsfolk on their schedules. I still do, but I thought that was really the only purpose the hourly chimes served. Then I watched a TED Talk…

In his talk, Atheism 2.0, Alain de Botton suggests that, by rejecting superstitious dogma, atheists have historically been throwing the baby out with the bathwater. He makes some interesting points, and I’m not sure I agree with all of it, but it did get me thinking, particularly his reference to church calendars. At various times of the year, church sermons discuss different Biblical stories, and a good priest will explain how the ancient story applies to modern life. Clearly the same could be done in a secular environment very easily, e.g. “It’s autumn again, so let’s reread The Ant and the Grasshopper.” What religion accomplishes by assigning lessons to specific dates of the calendar is that, for a regular church attendee, the memories of all the teachings are less than a year old. It’s a bit like taking the same course every single semester for your entire life. You will learn it!

Religions, in general, are experts of sociology and psychology; they must be to have survived millennia into our present-day meme pool. They are clearly providing something that humans desire. If we’re going to make it past the first verse of John Lennon’s Imagine, we’ve got to figure out how to fill those needs another way, and we still have a lot to learn about how to push those psychosocial buttons.

DING! Back to the church bells. DONG!

Historically, Christian churches have had bells to inform monks and the general townsfolk when it was time to come and worship. This was back before we all had mobile phones with push notifications, mind you. In medieval times, it’s pretty easy to imagine that the church bells telling the monks when to pray could be quite handy to remind the other residents of the time of day, e.g. when to get up, or come in from the field, or whatever. Now, however, we have more advanced technology for that purpose.

When followers of more oriental religions are meditating, they will sometimes use what is called a mindfulness bell, which will ring every so often to remind the meditator to focus. If you’ve ever attempted meditation, you’ll understand why a bell could be useful – yes, there’s an app for that.

So why do church bells chime every hour or sometimes every fifteen minutes?

Part of it is tradition and fondness of said tradition, but I’d like to propose that one of the reasons is to remind everyone, especially subconsciously, that God is there, not necessarily in a “Big Brother is watching!” sort of way, but just to remind the public of church teachings, doctrinal and otherwise, like a mindfulness bell. It’s more about piety than punctuality.

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