Poney Pisador & Brunch

A couple weekends ago we went back to the Lord of the Rings bar in Ciudad Real. They call it the Poney Pisador, which (roughly) translated means "The Prancing Pony". It is hard to fully appreciate this bar from just a few photos, but at least you'll get to see a little bit of the themed awesomeness/dorkiness. 

On the left is the door into the bar, the outline of the door that the LOTR crew used to enter the Mines of Moria. Remember when Gandalf was trying to open it and the hobbits were getting into trouble with a big octopus monster? (In the movie that's how it went anyways, can't remember this specific part of the book). On the right you can see how the inside has a textured ceiling and fake cobwebs everywhere, making it feel like the Mines. 

Ciudad Real has a surprising number of themed bars and cafes, usually revolving around movies and TV shows. We haven't been to all of them, but so far in addition to Poney Pisador we've seen Flux Capacitor (Back to the Future themed bar), Fraggle Rock (like the TV show of the same name), at least two different Disney/Winnie the Pooh themed daycare places and corner stores, and of course, Disco Pub Seaquest (which is painted to look like a submarine but sadly, does not contain any photos of Jonathan Brandis):

In a couple weeks all the Semana Santa (Easter Week) celebrations will begin around Spain, and Ciudad Real is no exception. From what I know about it groups in most towns in Spain get together and organize processions to and from different churches. Some of the people will be holding elaborate floats with Biblical scenes depicted on the top. While out at Poney Pisador the other night we saw this group doing a practice run of carrying their float. They go very slowly and try to step in unison to successfully get their float through the town. You can see they have their actual items on top covered with sheets so as not to ruin the surprise. I'm thinking that one in the back looks a lot like an angel though...

We're looking forward to seeing some of the real processions when my Dad, Ann and Emily are in town for Semana Santa! 

As if going to Poney Pisador wasn't enough to make a great weekend, we also had our Ciudad Real friends over for a Pancake Brunch. Brunch is a term we use pretty loosely though, since we got together at 2pm and ended up hanging out till midnight - it was the best-ever never-ending brunch. 

Here's John opening a bottle of cava for some mimosas:

Here's a photo of Marie, Jessica and Jenna hanging out on the little couch: 

And Ben and WP talking it up: 

And here's the whole crew, back at the beginning of brunch when it was still light outside!

After eating pancakes, mimosas, Bloody Marys, fruit salad, scrambled eggs, and even some chocolate Rice Krispie treats I thought we would never need to eat again. However, after several hours of chatting in our living room we ended up heading out to one of the (pretty bad, as we found out) Tex-Mex restaurants and then coming back to the apartment to watch The Artist.  Oof, what a fun Sunday! 

Mama and Papa Payne: thank you for the supply of Aunt Jemima Maple Syrup and thanks for bringing enough for us to share! Our friends were VERY excited to have some American maple syrup to eat with the pancakes! 

Right now Camille is visiting and we're heading out tomorrow for a road trip to Cuenca and Valencia. We're getting another batch of rainy cold weather this week - thanks a lot, Spring.  More photos and stories coming soon. 

Campo de Criptana - More Windmills!

Way back in January we went on a fun little day trip with one of the Spanish teachers I work with at school. Fran (Francisca), her husband Miguel Angel, and their four-year old Claudia took us along to see the windmills in Campo de Criptana, a town a little over an hour drive from Ciudad Real.  Here's a photo of Fran and her family. Claudia was more interested in throwing rocks around than posing for a photo:

I help out for two hours a week in Fran's class, which is called F.O.L. and is basically a business skills class. Lately we've been teaching the students about writing cover letters in English, perfecting their resumes and doing mock interviews in English.  F.O.L. is my only class with second-year students in the International Business program. The rest of my classes are with first-years, who are pretty much still learning English basics. The second-years have pretty good English and since some of them are about to head out to internships in England and Ireland, they always have questions for me about what to expect, what kind of clothes to bring, etc. They are probably my favorite group to work with, so I'll be a little sad when I have to say goodbye in a few weeks when they go to their internships! Since they are leaving it also means I won't have a class with Fran anymore, but I'll still see her around at school.

Near the windmills there is a fancy (and touristy) restaurant called Las Musas (The Muses), and this is a painting of a couple of nice old ladies (muses? don't look like Greek goddesses, but whatever) on one of the outside walls of the restaurant:

Here we are enjoying the windmills and blue sky: 

As usual, there were lots of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza tourist attractions around for us to play with: 

I really liked the crisp white and blue paint jobs on most the buildings in town.  Seeing a town all painted white and blue makes me think of Greece or something, like we should be in an ocean side village, not landlocked 4 hours from the sea.  Fran and Miguel Angel told us that in the recent past (maybe 20 years ago or so) all the buildings in this part of Spain were painted blue and white, especially in the smaller towns in the country. During summer it gets well into triple digits in these parts and the white paint helps keep the inside of the houses cool. 

Fran and Miguel Angel took us out to a lovely lunch in town and on the way back to the car we had to stop to take a couple more photos. Notice how different the weather is - it started off a beautiful sunny day with bright blue skies and by the afternoon it was windy and bordering on rain. 

These are a couple photos taken from the top of the hill where the majority of windmills sit looking back at the town below: 

After a sleepy drive back to Ciudad Real, Fran and her family dropped us off at our apartment. It was a pretty fun day hanging out with some Spaniards and getting to see another part of La Mancha! Plus, Claudia was a pretty cute kid to hang out with; though even by the end of the day she was too shy to actually talk directly to us (this is why I have no photos of her facing me). I think she thought the windmills were cool for about 30 seconds, and then started busying herself with the rocks:

Carnaval!

After getting home from London the day after Fat Tuesday, we thought that maybe we missed Carnaval (Carnival, the same holiday as Mardi Gras in New Orleans) celebrations in Spain. But of course, the celebrations last for more than a week, so we lucked out! One of the most popular places to go to celebrate in our area is the neighboring pueblo (town) of Miguelturra. Miguelturra is just a couple kilometers down the road from Ciudad Real and has a population of about 14,000 (versus the about 70,000 in Ciudad Real). 

Last Saturday night we threw together some last-minute costumes and headed out to join the party with some other teachers from my program. We ended up being four dominoes, two Rosie the Riveters (which was a chance to teach Spaniards a little U.S. history), and two mimes.  

Here's the domino (or dominó, en español) contingent of the group: 

We decided that with the blazer and hat Will should go by "Mr. Domino". It fits, doesn't it?

Here are our friends Marie and Jenna in Miguelturra. You can see a bonfire in the background and a bunch of other people around. The main plaza was pretty crowded despite the cold! 

And Mariana and Marie are mime-pushing us dominoes down: 

Another group in the plaza was dressed up as sharks attacking people. They put socks on their hands to make it look like someone went in head first. Hilarious! 

Here we are being silly and getting some stomach jumps in: 

One of our friends wanted a photo with some people from this group (who we thought were Game of Thrones characters, but weren't). When they saw my fancy camera they thought I was a photographer from a publication and that there might be a prize for best costume. That's when everyone nearby started running to make it in the photo! So silly. 

This group had some of the best costumes we saw - they are Russian nesting dolls! When we asked to take a photo, they got in formation from biggest to smallest and even jumped out one at a time to line up and show how each one got smaller! 

Here's another picture with them: 

Us dominoes headed home around 4am when we started to get pretty cold and tired. The rest of our crew stayed out till around 6am.  I'd like to say it is rare to be up that late, but 4am is kind of a standard weekend night out for most Spaniards (and visitors).  On the way home we spotted this awesome cafe - OBAMA II Copas! The boys are representing for Barack in small town Spain:

The next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed in time to see the Carnaval parade in Ciudad Real, the "official" end of the celebrations. Though some of my students were still having some trouble making it to class Monday morning... so I'm not sure the Sunday morning parade is the end for everyone. 

Since CR is the provincial capital, the parade includes groups from a lot of the small towns outside Ciudad Real. Each group chooses a theme and makes elaborate costumes and floats and usually has some sort of choreographed dance to take them through the parade route. 

A lot of the groups blast their music from giant speakers on their floats but some of the groups also had drumlines and marching bands. Shortly after arriving at the parade this group came through. I am not sure if they were part of the Lion King group or part of the "Africa" group, but they were fun: 

There were actually three Lion King themed groups that came through, all of them different and pretty cool. Here's a giraffe from one: 

And Pumba from a different group: 

And Rafiki holding up baby Simba to the Circle of Life song in Spanish: 

I got a real kick out of them doing the song "Be Prepared!", or in Spanish "¡Preparar!". You remember, the one Scar sings with all the hyenas? After the first choreographed part it turns into a techno hyena dance party. Awesome. Check out the video: 

Another group that came through was "Russia"-themed. They started off pretty offensive with some guys wearing fur caps holding bottles of vodka, but then they moved on to little kids dressed in furs and  looking like the stereotypes we have of Alaska. One of their floats was even a dogsled! 

These little babies were participating too, though all three were asleep: 

Here's one of the bird-themed floats. I forget what theme this group had, but they may have been trying to mimic the Brazilian Carnaval look with lots of skimpy outfits and bright colors. These girls lucked out that we had a warm day in the low 70s, otherwise these outfits would have been pretty chilly. 

This dragon float was pretty cool and was part of a "Magical World" theme that included a lot of fairies and playful looking Peter Pan types. 

These fairies were also part of the Magical World group. At the end of their choreographed danced they all fell on the ground and then got awakened by the girls with the rainbow flags. 

The parade lasted more than four hours and by then end we were ready to go home and take a little (and by little I mean 4-hour) siesta. We were very excited to get to see (and participate in) Carnaval in our area! Some of the more famous celebrations are in Cadiz in the south of Spain and in the Canary Islands, but I'm happy we got to see what our students, friends and teachers do to celebrate Carnaval. After all, when you live in the campo (countryside), your holidays better be fun! 

English Adventures

Last week we had a great trip to England. We spent the first few nights in London before heading up to see my friend Aly and her boyfriend Mike in Norwich.  It was so fun to start the trip in a big city and get to do things like see movies in English and eat different kinds of foods! We've been missing big city things since leaving SF, and London gave us a healthy dose to keep us going till we get back home! Or at least till we take the next trip this spring...

The weather seemed pretty cold to me while we were there, but for the English apparently it was pretty warm for this time of year. We had mostly highs in the mid-40s (Fahrenheit) and some pretty low lows. They got a bunch of snow in London and Norwich a couple weeks before our trip, so I think they were happy to be above freezing! 

After a delayed trip from Gatwick Airport into London (the EasyBus we already had tickets for never showed up, so we had to talk our way onto the next bus!) we met our friend Paoli at a pub near our hotel. Paoli took us to one of the historic local places where Jack the Ripper apparently used to find his victims. Charming, indeed! But seriously, it was a fun spot and it was great to catch up with Paoli and hear about his program at the London School of Economics, as well as some of his adventures in Europe. 

Here are the boys enjoying pints: 

We stayed at a hilarious little place called Tune Hotel. London is super expensive, so we wanted to stay some place affordable but still clean, safe, and well-located, so the Tune it was! One way the hotel makes money (and you potentially save money) is by having guests pay for additional amenities. For example, we had to pay a pound for the hairdryer and opted not to pay the 10 pound fee for the TV.  I have to include a photo of the room because it was just so teeny! From where I was standing taking the photo there were about a couple inches to my right before you hit the door to the bathroom and a couple feet behind me to the door out of the room. We actually ended up liking the hotel a lot - it was clean, everything was brand new, the bed was really comfy, and since we were so busy being out of the room the size ended up not bothering us. 

On our first day in London, we decided to explore in a few neighborhoods around our hotel. We were staying near Liverpool Street in a part of town called Shoreditch. There were a ton of cutesy little shops and boutiques - plenty of things to keep us busy. Here's a business park-type plaza near where we stayed. You can see the famous "Gherkin" skyscraper in the background! 

Along the way we stopped to get some fancy coffee (thanks for the tip, Paoli) and around the corner saw some pretty cool street art, including one of Banksy's pieces and this SCARY wall: 

For lunch we made the trek to Islington to go to the restaurant Ottolenghi. The food was amazing and the feel of the restaurant was very San Francisco (maybe they should expand there someday). They have a mostly vegetarian menu, good prices and a fun atmosphere. I swear they didn't pay me to say that, I really loved it! 

The way ordering works you get to choose either 3 or 4 of the salads and can either eat them alone or with an entree of various types of meat. The salads were so delicious and hearty, and were definitely a big enough meal for me! Here's the display of all the salads and vegetables: 

Since we were so happy with lunch, the waiter convinced us to order dessert too. WP got a passion fruit tart and I got this gigantic raspberry meringue!

Here's the window display of all the other desserts we didn't try: 

After lunch we headed over to the British Library, which is basically their version of the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. The library has an awesome collection of old books and art, including lots of religious manuscripts and the Magna Carta. Here's WP in front of one of the special collections that lives in the center of the library sealed in this room. 

The library also had some hilarious leaning "chairs"; we had to try one:

After hanging out some more at the library, we headed over towards the theater district in the West End, where we met one of Will's old friends for dinner. Will's friend David and his wife Sarah live in London now, but are from Texas originally. David and Will went to school together when Will lived in England with his family, and they hadn't seen each other in 12 years! Needless to say there was plenty to catch up about. We ended up meeting them for dinner at one of the very few Chipotle locations outside the U.S. (so exciting!), and since the restaurant's computers were down we got dinner for free! Best. Day. Ever. In all the excitement we forgot to take a group photo though. It was great to meet David and Sarah, and hopefully we will get to see those two again soon. 

After dinner we went down to the Criterion theater to see the play The 39 Steps. The play is a comedy loosely based on the Hitchcock thriller of the same name (and originally on a novel by John Buchan), and is performed by only four cast members who sometimes changed roles by pulling on a hat or hurriedly changing jackets along with accents. The cast was hilarious, and the play was also pretty funny. They made a lot of references to other Hitchcock movies and didn't take themselves too seriously; it was a hoot! 

The next day we set out to explore Will's family's old neighborhoods in London. They lived in two houses in London and one outside the city before moving to the Boston area for Will's sophomore year of high school.

Here's Will at his old Tube stop, Belsize Park Station:

Here we are at the Payne's first house in London - 42 Glenloch Road! It looked pretty much the same as he remembered.  

On our way to the second Payne house, we wanted to stop at one of the family's favorite restaurants from the old days. The first one we went to check out was ASK Pizza & Pasta. Unfortunately, this ASK location is closed and has been replaced with a new place called Prezzo (the menu looked pretty similar, but not quite the same). 

Good news though, the family favorite Chinese restaurant Weng Wah House is still around and thriving! 

We ate a delicious meal here and Will even got to order one of his childhood favorites - the crispy seaweed with dried scallops on top. He says that as a kid he didn't know they were dried scallops he was eating! 

After Weng Wah, we headed on a rainy walk through the neighborhood to the second Payne house in London. Will was saying the cloudy, wet London weather was just as he remembered it!

The neighborhood was beautiful, with lots of old brick houses and big trees. Down the street a short walk from the house, we got to see Southbank International School, which Campbell and Will attended for three years. Will commented that all the walks between houses and restaurants seem shorter and the buildings seem smaller. I guess that's what happens when you grow up! I can't believe this beautiful building is a school: 

Unfortunately the day we chose to check out the neighborhood was the only day of our trip that it rained. It was getting pretty soggy and cold outside so we made an escape into a nearby mall, one that Will remembered from his time living here. This place saved our lives! We had a pint of delicious real ale, saw a movie, and waited out the worst part of the storm. By the time we left, it was barely drizzling. 

On our last full day in London, we packed a lot in. First off, we went to Brick Lane to check out the Sunday Market. They have a bunch of vintage clothes, food, records and pretty much everything else for sale. Plus they have some old school Jewish bagel shops so that was fun for us (can't wait to go to be in the NY area this summer and get some real bagels though!). On the way there we came across this sign, and then its pair pointing left 100 meters later. Ha. 

Here is a part of the Brick Lane market that was pretty chill. You can see some food stands leading into a building that had booths for craft sellers. Most of the market was super crowded, and I decided I should keep my camera safely in my purse while making our way through the throngs of people. Maybe I've been in Ciudad Real too long... People from Ciudad Real and surrounding small towns are always telling me "be careful, watch your purse" every time I tell them I'm going to Madrid or any other big city. Ah, the country life.

After the market we headed over to Kensington and ended up finding the new Whole Foods Market in London! It's funny how something as simple as a grocery store can be so familiar and fun. We got some healthy smoothies, and tried free samples of cheese and wine (the wine was left out unattended, which would probably never happen in the U.S. given the strictness of liquor laws), and got back on our way. Here's WP in the market: 

Then we took a very chilly (but beautiful) walk through Hyde Park. 

We came out of the park just in time to make it to the Natural History Museum before it closed! As a kid Will remembers taking trips to this museum, so it was fun to go back and see it again. Here's the main hall and Will with the big dino lit up in red.

This is the history of space part of the museum and clearly, one of my favorite parts. I've always been a space nerd, so this was pretty awesome for me: 

We were also impressed with the giant ground sloth skeletons. What?! How have I not heard more about these guys?

And of course, we had to go to the dinosaur area. This animatronic T-Rex was pretty silly, but worth the wait in line if for nothing else than to see the reactions of all the little kids around us.

Early Monday morning we hopped on a train leaving Liverpool Street to head up to Norwich to visit my high school friend Aly and her boyfriend Mike. The train ride took about two and a half hours and we got to witness the most polite "argument" between two passengers about one man's use of his cell phone in the "quiet coach." Oh man, British people are so polite and/or passive-agressive. The conversation they had is very different from what would have happened in Spain or the U.S.  if someone started loudly talking on their cell in a designated quiet area. This nice fight, coupled with the very apologetic train conductor (we were running a few minutes behind, but every announcement started with "This is the DELAYED train to Norwich, we do apologize...") made our train ride very entertaining.   

Once we met up with Aly, we headed over to her place for lunch and then walked to the University of East Anglia, where both she and Mike studied and now work. Here's a big field and protected wildlife area on the campus: 

We even got to see where the magic happens! Aly is a biologist and is working on a project about beetle sex. The photo fogged up a bit because we were in the "hot room" that is kept at 30 degrees celsius (86 fahrenheit) and high humidity to keep those beetles alive.

It was fun to walk around the campus, and to see where Aly and Mike work. We were fortunate enough to have Aly as a tour guide the following day as well (thanks for taking the day off work!) to see more of the sights in Norwich. 

Here's a cool building in the main square and an historic arcade (covered area with shops, kind of like an ancestor of the shopping mall). 

Norwich also has a crazy amount of churches and not one but two cathedrals! Here's a photo of WP and Aly in front of one of the churches. 

And here's the inside of the city's main cathedral (the Anglican one, not the Catholic one): 

The cathedral had some really cool (some would say pagan) faces carved into the ceilings. Inside the main building they even have a mirror set up so you can get a look at the ceiling without craning your neck. Here's one "green man" up close who we spotted outside in the cloister: 

And here we are in the cloister looking happy and a little cold: 

Aly also showed us some really adorable shops in downtown Norwich. Here's me in the candy shop, feeling like I should be getting a visit from Willy Wonka (or 50 Cent): 

And here's the amazing TEA shop! They had so many yummy types of tea to choose from. We ended up getting three different types to take home to Spain, including some lapsang souchong, which Will likes but basically tastes like a burned pine tree (it's smoked over pine wood).

Our last night in England was Fat Tuesday, and we went to a pub with Aly and Mike's friends to have dinner and participate in the pub's quiz night. Our team came in third, and we had a great time trying to come up with trivia answers; luckily only a few were UK-specific. We were so thankful to get to stay with Aly and Mike (and their cat Ewan) for a couple nights. It was a fun look into what life is like for a Gilroyan in Norwich. Pretty great from what we saw! 

Since we got home from the trip we've been busy celebrating Carnaval (Spanish Mardi Gras) with friends here in the CR and have been lucky enough to get some warm weather for the first time since the fall. Over the weekend it got into the 70s, yay!  I'll have a ton of hilarious and ridiculous photos to post and stories to tell from Carnaval, so stay tuned.