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Saturday, January 6th, Badalona, Spain
Our long trip home
ended with a New Years' Eve flight across the Atlantic
back to the Madrid airport. I was a little
apprehensive about flying on New Years'. I had
visions of passengers getting totally wasted on the
plane, partying and talking in loud voices and making it
nearly impossible for anyone who wasn't ringing in the
New Year with abandon to sleep or even relax.
Luckily, this didn't happen and we all got some sleep on
the overnight flight, arriving in Madrid at 8:30am and
relatively alert for the six hour drive back to
Barcelona.
I'm sure you all heard
about the bombing at the Madrid Airport on December
30th. The radical ETA party of Basque separatists
set off a car bomb in the parking structure of Terminal
4. They gave a 15 minute warning and luckily the
authorities managed to clear the area in time so the
injuries were minimal. Although the airport was
closed down for the day, it was back to normal by the
time we arrived two days later, on the first. We
did see the destruction caused by the bomb and it was
quite impressive. A large section of the four
story parking garage was completely collapsed and huge
windows several hundred yards away were shattered.
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Thanks to our long
travel day on Monday, we arrived back at Zia in the late
afternoon, ready for an easy dinner and bed. We
did nap a little in the car but not enough to negate our
need for sleep that night. We all had a relatively
restful night and after a second such night, we felt
totally back on local time. I'm also pleased to
report that Zia survived just fine without us for five
and a half weeks. Although covered in a thick
layer of dirt, she was otherwise as we left her.
It felt good to be back.
Although we were home
for Christmas, we have returned to Spain in time for
their big Christmas celebration. In Spain,
December 25th is a day for family, church, and small
gifts, but the big gift giving day of the holiday is on
January 6th, the Epifanía Del Señor,
or el Dia de los Tres Reyes
(Three Kings Day). The Bible story is the same,
but instead of Santa Claus bringing the gifts to the
children on the night of Christ's birth, the Three Kings
bring the gifts on the twelfth day of Christmas, the day
they presented the baby Jesus with offerings of gold,
frankincense and myrrh in the manger in Bethlehem.
Every town and city in Spain will have a big procession
on the 5th, where the Three Kings arrive and parade
through the town, throwing candy to the children.
In Badalona, the Three Kings arrived by boat right here
at the marina. Hundreds turned out to greet them
and they had a band playing "three kings carols" and
orchestrating games for the children.
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The
children are given an opportunity to present their gift
requests to the Three Kings and go home after the
parade, hoping not to wake up to a lump of coal the next
morning. After gift giving and a big meal,
families break out the traditional desert of
Roscón de los Reyes or
King Cake, a ring shaped cake decorated with candied
fruits, representing the emeralds and rubies that
adorned the robes of the three kings. Inside the
cake a small treat is hidden and whoever gets the piece
with it inside is the king or queen for the day.
Other
Christmas traditions we have discovered are unique to
Catalunya, the
region of Spain, along the Mediterranean coast south of
France, where Barcelona is located. On Christmas
Day, the small gifts that are given are not placed under
the Christmas tree by Santa Claus. Children are
given a stick with which to beat a hollow log that is
stuffed with goodies. They have to whack the
tió, singing a
song urging it to "shit" their presents. No joke.
As if this weren't enough, the Catalán nativity scenes
which are hugely popular have an extra little attraction
aside from the traditional kings, baby Jesus, the Virgin
and Joseph, angels and animals. Just outside the
manger squats el caganer
or "the crapper." Typically a peasant, the fellow
is bare-assed and in the midst of laying a steaming pile
of poo. Apparently, the reasoning behind this is
fertility. The caganer's
"product" enriches the soil and ensures a good harvest
for the coming year. Perhaps a little extreme, but
in ancient rural Catalunya,
successful farming was, obviously, everything.
We
are gearing up for the big first day of school on
Monday. I'll keep you all posted on how that goes.
Our internet connection has been very weak, but once the
marina's wireless is repaired, I'll post a bunch of
photos from our trip home.
It
was so great to see so many of you on our visit home.
It was very special for us.
Love
and best wishes for the New Year,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
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Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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