According to the news, Costa Blanca region received twice the rainfall in 2 days of October 11 and 12th as the average yearly rainfall (cifres de record). 50 years ago on October 14th, 1957, the rain caused Rio Turia flood and Valencia ended up submersed under water! The scenes from El Verger and Els Poblets near Denia were reminiscence of New Orleans after Katrina: water up to the second floors of the houses, cars floating in the water like boats, bridges falling, and people being rescued by helicopters. The area was designated as zona catastrofica (ground zero) and Francesc Camps, President de la Generalidad Valenciana (president of Valencia province) arrived to the ground zero on Friday and stayed there for couple of days for damage assessment. In addition to financial damage, one person, a 89-year old lady, died in the ordeal. The extend of the damage was nothing comparable to Katrina but burden on affected people must be the same; however, the people's attitude towards how to handle the aftermath looked differently. The first sunny day after disaster, people were working together helping neighbors. An elderly lady, whose house got completely flooded, was sweeping muddy water out as a matter of fact without a complaint. The bulldozers were demolishing the houses that were irreparably damaged. I am not sure how these people, who are left without a home, are helped. I heard that because most people live near their close families, they help each other in addition to the government.
Here Gandia, we did not even notice the calamity of the situation. The only main change due to the rain was water in the Rio Serpis - and few garbage bins flown to the bike path and sights of broken umbrellas that were leisurely disposed of at wherever they reached their demise! If you had heard a crazy lady walking on the streets of Gandia under heavy rain in her Shamu poncho from Sea World, you would have guessed who that is, right? Since we don't have a dryer at home, it takes us much longer to dry the laundry inside the house during the rainy days. However, I really enjoy sun-dried, crispy laundry (the kids finally got used to the starchy feeling of their clothes, too).
On Saturday October 12th, everything was back to normal again. We went to the beach in the afternoon where Yunus and Dilara built a castle composed of washed bamboo sticks and sand, which attracted admiration from some spectators – note to myself: I must carry a camera at all times. I missed so many photo opportunities that day. A beautiful sailboat was docking into the port while we were there. It had a red body and two large old-fashioned sails. It sailed elegantly into the port. At the same time, the little kids began returning from their sailing lessons in the boats in size of a half – bathtub with sails in size of a beach towel. The contrast of these little tubs with the red sailboat was spectacular! Inspired by our surrounding, we felt urged to collect the information for sailing lessons and realized that it is a possibility when we are not traveling around. I, though, was more intrigued by the rowing lessons. They offer lessons 8-10 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 55 euros per 6 sessions. One of the British local newspapers here, Costa Levante News, reports that Gandia's women's rowing team came runners-up (losing to Alicante's team) among 54 teams in a recent Spanish Rowing Championships - men's team placed 10th.
The most exciting news of the week is we finally have a tutor and started the Spanish lessons on Monday October 15th. One of my e-mail inquiries brought a fruitful response and we found a lovely British friend Rachel who owns a language school, Advantage (http://advantagesite.no-ip.com/DefaultEnglish.htm), teaching English and Spanish. It all began with Rachel’s inviting us to a benefit tea party at her school for cancer research and support group in the area! Now! What are the chances of my finding a group involved in such topic…? Apparently, one of the English teachers at school is involved selling Christmas cards for a UK based cancer research organization. The cancer support group center is located in Javea (about 28 miles south of Gandia) and offers services to the area around Javea all the way to Gandia in the north and to Alicante in the south. They provide assistance by phone or in person with answering questions, transportation etc. The group has a very interesting concept here. Apparently, Spanish people are not used to receiving help in this context from strangers so they approach it a bit suspiciously. Its services are utilized mostly the region's German and British citizens. I did not have the time to look into this more in depth but it is one of my projects to find out what kinds of cancer related services are provided in Gandia for instance, is there a treatment facility? I have seen so many dentistry, ophthalmology, orthopedics and plastic surgery private offices (even veterinary clinics) but have not seen any other medical specialty signs. Sigh; there is much to learn, not enough life times….
Lovely Rachel
VicenteAt the party, I met with Rachel’s parents, Merry and David, who are from England, purchased an old property at the footsteps of one of the mountains in the backdrops of Gandia and have been renovating it for the last four years. Long time ago, they had an opportunity to take a job in Alberta but they decided to settle in Scotland instead.
MerryWe finally began our Spanish classes and I realized the limitations of my age! I don’t seem to learn as quickly as once I used to. The amount of material I need to master to gain proficiency in this language is insurmountable and I am not learning and retaining the new knowledge as easily any more – well, you cannot teach new tricks to an old dog, ey ;=), but I must endure because without language, no higher thinking can exist (no, I won't delve into Wittgenstein logic now). Our teacher’s name is Vicente (nuestro llama de profesor es Vicente). I take lessons for 2 hours 5 days a week and the kids for 1 hour 3 days a week (because they already have a basic knowledge). After I catch up to them (hopefully), we will continue together. My lessons are 10 am – 12 pm and kids’ lessons are 12:30 – 1 pm on Mon/Tue/Fri. This Monday, the kids took the bus to downtown, where the school is located, and found school all by themselves – I am so proud of them. They ride their bikes to swimming everyday rain or shine - they have not missed one practice, yet since the beginning. This has been such a liberating experience for them for they had to be driven everywhere in CDA.
The basics in Spanish so far: I have learned that in Spain you pronounce letter v as b and you definitely need to get that th sound for z and c (that is followed by i, e). Boy, do I ever have a hard time making this sound! My teacher says that the reason South American Hispanics don't have this sound is because when the Spaniards traveled from Spain to Americas, they took a long stay at Canaries where they acquired a different dialect. In the meantime, we are also learning to pick out Valencian words from Castilian. Valencian is a language of its own respect and as far as I can understand it is combination of French and Spanish. Anyway, the amount of homework that my teacher assigns every day, I will have a hard time keeping up with my blog entries.
After the first lesson, I was able to place a food order at a restaurant. To celebrate the beginning of the new adventure, we had lunch (dinner for here) at the Alameda Prado. I ordered tapas salad with feta, fish croquette and clams, Yunus had beef steak with potatoes and Dilara had battered cheese/chicken stick with fries. They were all very tasty – I was beginning to get a bit worried with the prospects of my cooking the same kinds of food that we ate back home every day for 6 months (which is so far what I have been doing). So now when our friends come to visit, we will have a collection of places to eat good food. By the way, Valencia oranges presently are being sold in the stores but we have not tried it, yet. In addition to bananas and oranges, I also spotted a pomegranate tree near our apartment. Fascinatingly, fruit trees grow wild in public lands here. I also noticed that cyclamen is planted in public parks as geraniums we have in ours. I would have thought that delicate cyclamen plant would wilt under Mediterranean sun - maybe the famous Moorish irrigation system enables the plants remain properly hydrated.
You do not see very many ethnic food offerings here (found American, Japanese and Middle East food at the shopping mall Vidal) but guess what ethnic restaurants you will find (American fast food does not count)? Yes, Chinese! They have several Chinese restaurants offering buffet style food. Additionally, you do not need to look at the labels to see if things are made in China here; there are China Bazaars at every corner you turn and they are very popular; we have one by our Mercadona – I wonder why there are so many Chinese here! I realized that I brought so much unnecessary stuff from US for here there is everything one would possibly need - and inexpensive at the China Bazaars!. I even found California raisins at Carrefour and apparently, Pantene is number 1 selling shampoo in Spain (I had brought some from home).
Another exciting event of this weekend (10/14) was the first of our possibly many excursions to Valencia. We ended up going there on Sunday because we were at the tea party on Saturday. Consequently, everywhere was closed again!! Even the tourist information was closed at 1 pm. When we, along with a Chinese couple, knocked at the door at 1:05 to get the attention of people inside, they waved their hands in angry gestures suggesting that they were closed and we should not bother… we all laughed with disbelief! Anyway, we decided to eat before beginning our city tour and I found the only street that did not have any decent restaurants open. We found a Cafe & Te (almost like Starbucks here, you find one at every corner) and ended up ordering pizza that was prepared from frozen. With the kids’ obvious discontent, we did the most unbelievable: we went to a McDonald’s! More than four years later, we came all the way to Spain to eat chicken nuggets and French fries at McDonald's…. That day, I was officially deemed to be never trusted with picking out restaurants and the times of the day for visiting museums!!! There, it is all public knowledge now.
Valencia is a quite different city than Gandia. In addition to its being more cosmopolitan, it is very old in the center and growing pretty modern towards its outskirts. In Gandia, I have not noticed the signs of poverty but in Valencia it is pretty visible. As the train approaches Valencia, one notices the rows of community housing and apartments lined along the railroad; the view gives an impression of inner city. Throughout the train ride, we could see miles and miles of citrus groves with occasional breaks of farms of different plants such as olives, fruits and household plants. Weaving through each plantation, you notice the legendary irrigation system - if this is the sole watering system currently in use, I do not know.
In Valencia, we quickly scanned some of the main historical sites in the old town. None of the museums were open and we did not have time to go to the famous arts and sciences museums by the Rio Turia. The city gave me the feeling of Istanbul because Islamic influences of Moorish architecture and designs in old buildings. The use of vivid colors such as yellow, pink, red and blue were also reminiscence of some of the palaces along Bosphoros and Beyazit in Istanbul. We even found the “Original Turkish Doner Kebab” restaurant! But it was closed. I have posted some pictures from this trip in blog site if you like to check.
Our next expedition to Valencia will be a visit to the Science Museum. There is also an oceanographic center, which we cannot wait to explore. Our Spanish teacher gave us this website address www.cac.es to check out the events happening at the arts and science center. Check the website if you can because it also shows the architectural beauty of the whole complex.
I will end now and pick up from where we left in the next entry. Things seem to be getting more exciting and information hopefully more reliable as we began hurdling the language barrier and acquiring many new friends.
Adios.
