Rugby in San Sebastian

The US men's rugby team (the Eagles) is in Europe for the month of November a part of the Autumn Internationals. They are playing Romania in Romania and Ireland in Ireland, but last weekend, they played Samoa in San Sebastian! No, we don't know why this game was scheduled for San Sebastian, but we have never seen a rugby match and thought it would be fun to check it out.

Note: we still have several posts to write about our trip to Italy and Prague, but we thought we would interject this post about something more recent.

So, last Saturday night (Nov 10) we walked to the soccer stadium here in San Sebastian (about 15 minutes from our place) to see the match. We even got lucky and the weather was perfect. There was a pretty good crowd, although there did not seem to be a strong rooting interest. Everyone was just kind of there to see the match. Perhaps, like us, the locals had a healthy curiosity in new things.

Before the game started, the Samoan team lined up and did a Haka, a traditional Maori ceremonial dance:

Not sure exactly why the US team lined up to watch, but it was a pretty cool spectacle.

Then, the match started. We do not know a lot about rugby, but we know a bit, and were helped by listening to the man behind us explain what was happening to the kids he was with (in Spanish of course). We probably did not understand everything going on, but we could generally follow what was happening. We were particularly amazed by how torn up the field gets every time there was a scrum:

When play moved to the other end of the field, the grounds crew came on the field to try to repair the damage. (The stadium just replaced its grass in September for the start of the La Liga season and the crew must have been thinking, "whose idea was it to host rugby on our pristine pitch?!?") Although there was a lot of short runs and tackling, we did see a bit of break-away running as well.

The US jumped out to a quick 15-0 lead, but at halftime were training 21-20. The second half remained very close and it looked like the US was going to lose 29-27. But then...the US was awarded a penalty kick from a long way away (notice in the first picture above how narrow the posts are). The kick seemed to be in the air a long time, but it went through the uprights and that was the last play of the game! The US won 30-29.

We did not understand exactly why the US received a penalty kick, but it was a dramatic end to a close game. We learned later that this was the first time in history that the US men had beaten the Samoan team, so we got to see a bit of rugby history. All-in-all, a very fun night out in San Sebastian.

Hasta pronto, and we will now return to our travels, 

Jeff and Shana

Capri

The island of Capri is located a quick boat ride from the Sorrento area. It’s been a resort since Roman times and has a reputation for attracting the rich and famous. But, more importantly it is drop dead gorgeous. Since we were so close, we had to go check it out. Luckily there was a little harbor with a morning ferry to Capri right out our front door in Piano di Sorrento.

After so much travel without a car this year, we consider ourselves rather adept at figuring out transportation options as we have taken any number of trains, buses, trams, and metros. But for some reason the Sorrentine peninsula was a challenge. We missed a local train because we were on the wrong side of the tracks! Oops! The train going the other direction had passed on one side, so we assumed that the train going our way would be on the other side. But, in the little Piano di Sorrento station, the train can use either track to go either direction! It was an easily solved problem; only it required an expensive cab ride. Ouch! And, as you may have read, we had a bus issue on our trip to Amalfi as well.

Well, heading to Capri, we walked down to the harbor and confirmed with the local fisherman that there was an 8:30 a.m. ferry and that we were in the right place. We waited where they pointed and sure enough the ferry pulled up right on time. Unfortunately, we learned that the boat captain does not accept money, only tickets. And, the location to purchase tickets was back at the entry to the harbor -- without any sign or booth indicating its existence. We did not have time to walk back and purchase tickets, but luckily for us there were 5 Brits waiting with us who also did not have tickets. Since there were seven of us, and only about 10 other people on the ferry with tickets, we figured there was little chance that the ferry was going to pass up taking us. So, after several minutes of back-and-forth with a lot of hand gestures, the “agent” who had brought the ticketed customers to the boat got the other “ticket agent” to come to the boat and sell us tickets. We bought round trip tickets to avoid any further issues or confusion, and we were on our way.

We had booked a separate boat tour to go around the entire island and see the Blue Grotto if the sea conditions permitted. So, when we arrived, we headed straight up to the top of the island, first via local bus to the village of Anacapri, and then via chairlift:

As you can imagine, the views were tremendous from up top:

We hiked back down to Anacapri, which sits in the middle of the island, and enjoyed the little town center. Several restaurants looked lovely for lunch, but we knew we had to be back at the harbor for our boat cruise. While on the bus back down we got a call that the tour had been cancelled because the seas were too rough. Huge bummer. I really was looking forward to circling the island and seeing it from all sides. Now we needed a Plan B.

We decided to walk up to the main Capri town and find a place for lunch, perhaps a bit off the beaten path. We found Le Palette and enjoyed this view, good food and a bottle of local white wine:

Afterwards we walked out to the Arco Natural, which is the remains of a collapsed grotto:

We then continued our walk but were disappointed that the road to the Marina Piccola and Via Krupp were blocked off. So, we continued wandering slowly taking it all in as we headed back to the main harbor, arriving with just enough time for an Aperol Spritz before our departure:

The ride back was quite rough. Still, we enjoyed talking with the Brits, who happened to be staying on a boat in our little harbor, as we bounced up and down on the waves.

Our day on Capri shows that sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and go where the day takes you, and in the end it all works out.

Ciao,

Shana & Jeff 

Amalfi

Amalfi, the city for which the Amalfi Coast is named, has a long history, and was an important maritime power between 839 and around 1200. After a series of lost battles eliminated its independence, a tsunami in 1343 destroyed the port and the lower town. As a maritime power, Amalfi never recovered, but it has been an important tourist destination for over 100 years.

We decided to travel to Amalfi by bus, which is the most cost-efficient option. To buy tickets, we had to find the bar/tobacco shop selling them. With a little help from the locals, we found the right place and  bought our tickets, which were only about 3 Euros each. So far so good. We waited at the bus stop confirmed we were in the right place, and right on time, the bus pulled up and we got on. That is where things got a bit strange. The driver looked at our tickets and was clearly annoyed and he seemed to indicate we didn't have the right tickets -- while he didn't speak English,  his body language was clear. Nonetheless, he accepted the tickets and we were on our way. The bus was full, with many people standing in the aisle, which was our only option as well.

We started talking to an American couple from the San Jose area and learned a few things about our trip. First, in Sorrento (the first stop and the one prior to ours), a long line of people failed to get on the bus because it was full. Second, the couple had paid about 10 Euros for each of their tickets. Why the bar owner sold us different tickets when we clearly wanted to go to Amalfi was beyond us, and why the bus driver stopped for us and accepted our tickets was even more mysterious. Finally, we learned that the primary road from Sorrento to Amalfi (which runs along the coast) was closed and we would be taking a secondary road through the center of the peninsula, which meant our trip would last about two-and-a-half hours (!). The coastal road is narrow and windy; the mountainous route was another level of crazy.

As we passed through the center of the peninsula, and came out of a tunnel on the other side, we got quite a shock. We were high on a very steep hill overlooking the ocean, and the road leading down to the bottom was extremely steep, serpentine and narrow. The next hour or so was a harrowing experience. We give credit to the bus driver who deserved combat pay for driving that road in a bus, but we found it difficult to enjoy the amazing scenery as we repeatedly thought we might be close to rolling off the road to our death.

Finally reaching approximately sea level, we sat in a traffic jam for a good 20-30 minutes to go the last 1000 feet into Amalfi. It turns out that the road into town is crossed by many tourists and there is no stoplight (which makes no sense) leading to long backups as cars and buses attempt to enter and exit the town.

As soon as we arrived at the bus "station," which was really just a parking lot, our bus was mobbed by far more people trying to get out of town than the bus could handle. Once we alighted from the bus, we made a beeline for the office selling ferry tickets. Although it cost a lot more than the bus, there was no way we were braving the crowds and those roads again. With ferry tickets in hand, we had just enough time to walk through the city and have lunch.

The city's church was interesting, with clear Byzantine influence:

Lunch was yummy with delicious pasta (of course) and wine (duh). And, that's it. We got on our ferry, took some pictures of the city on our way out, and went back to Sorrento where we caught the train back to Piano di Sorrento. All told, our return took about one hour. 

We are not sure what the moral of the story is, but in our next post, we will talk about yet another transportation challenge on the Amalfi Coast.

Hasta Pronto,

Jeff and Shana

Pompeii

Of all the tourist sites we have visited during our time living in Spain, the Mezquita of Cordoba is probably the coolest (for those who missed it, you can read about our visit there in our 5/24/18 post). I bring up the Mezquita because I think Pompeii is another site that goes on my "coolest places to visit in Europe list".

You probably all know the basic story: in 79 C.E., Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii (and several other cities) under 13-20 feet of volcanic ash. Most of the people in the city were killed instantly and many have been found oddly preserved by the ash:

It is not the best picture to show this, but the object in the glass box is actually a dog who was curled into a fetal-type position against the super-hot gases and ash, and it was preserved that way for over 1500 years.

What amazed us about Pompeii was two things. First, when it was destroyed, Pompeii had already existed for at least 700 years! It was founded in the 6th or 7th century B.C.E. It had been used as a safe port by Phonecian sailors, the Etruscans are believed to have been there in the 6th century, and the Greeks first conquered Pompeii between 525 and 474 B.C.E. Second, and perhaps related, Pompeii was a very large city. I had always pictured something relatively small - after all, this was nearly 2000 years ago - but it turns out that to fully explore the ruins of Pompeii would take something like two full days, and not all of it has even been unearthed yet.

We did not have two days to spend at Pompeii. We were with our friends Matt and Amy who had booked a private two hour tour of the city. So, while we did have a guide just for the four of us, we definitely only saw a limited part of the city. I really don't even know where to begin.

As you walk through the cobble-stoned streets of Pompeii, the first thing you notice is large stone blocks at many corners and sometimes in the middle of a longer street. These are ancient "crosswalks" intended to allow people to cross the street without stepping in what was running through the streets themselves (we'll let everyone use their imagination on what that might have been). Also obvious are the divisions of one building from the next. The city appears to have been like modern large cities in that businesses are interspersed with houses. Here we are at the "door" of a large bakery (notice the kiln-type oven over my right shoulder).

While the businesses are impressive, generally the houses are even more so. The part of Pompeii we saw was apparently the high-rent district with a number of large and impressive houses. What is amazing is some of the art that has survived for at least 2000 years. This is painted on a wall:

Here is a mosaic "welcome mat" in front of a large home. It is literally a permanent "Beware of Dog" sign.

Of course, there are many public squares and buildings including public baths, which we went in but were not easy to photograph, temples to various Roman Gods, a large central square and, a basilica that inspired the traditional three-nave structure of Catholic Churches:

There are also several theaters and an amphitheater that on the map looks like a football (or futbol) stadium. We did not see the amphitheater as it is on the opposite side of the city from where we were visiting. This is the large theater. Note the seats close to the ground are made of marble and are (not surprisingly) for royalty and the wealthy, while the remaining seats are made of less-comfortable stone.

Due to fairly large crowds, we chose not to go to one of the brothels in town, but apparently they contain pictures of the various "services" on offer, which survive to this very day - the pictures, not the services. We saw some of them later when we visited the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.

Overall, we had a wonderful visit to Pompeii, and I would love to go back and spend more time seeing other parts of the city. As if we needed another reason to return to Italy.

Hasta luego,

Jeff and Shana

Sorrento

When our dear friends from LA, Matt and Amy, told us they were checking the Amalfi Coast off their bucket list with a trip in late September, we knew we had to meet them there. It worked out well to meet them in Sorrento, their last stop, and for us the first stop of a nearly 3-week trip.

Sorrento is about an hour train ride heading south from Naples. We hopped on the Circumvesuviana (say that 5 times fast!) train and enjoyed the landscape. Sorrento is built on the cliffsides of the Sorrentine peninsula from where you can take in the entire Gulf of Naples, Mount Vesuvius, and the Isle of Capri. It is simply stunning and is one of the most beautiful places we have ever visited. We walked the charming streets and enjoyed seeing the numerous lemon products in various stores. Lemons are locally grown and limoncello is one of Sorrento’s creations.

We also had some of the freshest fish for dinner in a beautiful restaurant right on the water.

Sorrento is a place to linger and savor – the views of the bay, the cliffs, the boats (big and small), the smells and tastes of the sea, fish, and lemons, and the sunsets.

We stayed two train stops up the road from Sorrento proper in Piano di Sorrento. These were the views from our (very small) balcony.

As you can imagine, Sorrento’s beauty made us smile. Sharing it with good friends made it even more special.

Ciao,

Shana & Jeff

San Sebastian Film Festival 2018

As noted in our last post, the 2018 San Sebastian Film Festival started for us at 3:00 am on September 15 in Canada when we spent over an hour choosing movies and buying tickets for 17 movies (Shana actually bought a ticket for an 18th film that I was not interested in). Our return trip from Canada involved a flight from Toronto to Paris and then an afternoon train back to San Sebastian. We arrived home around 10 p.m. on September 21st - the first day of the festival.

Between the 22nd and the 28th, I saw 16 movies (Shana saw 17). We skipped one of the movies (The Sisters Brothers) for which we had bought tickets because it aired at midnight after we had already seen 14 movies including three that day. We just needed the sleep. Unlike last year, we did not have any star sightings on the street, but our viewing of First Man included an introduction by the film's stars: Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy both of whom were quite charming:

The best movie we saw was Spike Lee's latest, BlacKkKlansman, which was both entertaining and an impressive political statement. We saw several other "big" movies: Beautiful Boy with Steve Carell and Red Joan with Judi Dench, as well as plenty of smaller movies in both English and Spanish (with English subtitles - we are not ready for a whole movie in Spanish...yet).

In any event, as was true last year, the films we saw were hit and miss. Shana actually left five movies early including one where she had to walk right past the director and actors to leave - bold! Here is a list of all the movies we saw with a brief comment for each (* = Shana left early):

El Amor Menos Pensado: good, not great, movie about what happens when an empty nest couple decides to separate.

Yuli: film about a Cuban ballet dancer, which Shana saw alone. She liked it.

Mudar la Piel: documentary about the mediator between the Spanish government and the Basque separatist group ETA made by the subject's daughter. Had potential, but did not reach it.

Beautiful Boy: based on a pair of memoirs about a father and son dealing with the son's drug addiction. Again, good but not great.

*Leto/Summer: Another movie based on a memoir. This one about the rock-and-roll scene in St. Petersburg, Russia in the early 1980's. Worth seeing if you are looking for something different.

I Hate NY: documentary about transgender activists in NY.

First Man: only one comment: it is no Apollo 13.

*In Fabric: a stylized horror film that was apparently an homage to an Italian B-movie genre of the 1970's and 80's. We didn't get it.

Red Joan: based on a true story about a woman who provided British nuclear secrets to the USSR in the 1940's, but was not caught until she was in her 80's. Good, not great.

*Angelo: just don't bother.

Jaen, Extra & Virgin: a really interesting documentary about olive oil (yes, we are serious). Recommend it to all you foodies if it shows up on Netflix.

BlacKkKlansman: as noted above, our favorite.

Les Distancias: a film about some Spanish college friends who get together years later for a weekend in Berlin. Another film that had unrealized potential.

*High Life: sci-fi movie with Robert Pattinson. Interesting concept, but again the movie failed to live up to the idea.

Perfect Desconocidos: probably the second best movie we saw, but unfortunately it is in Spanish without subtitles (electronic subtitles in English were added for the film festival). The story of a dinner party where seven friends - three couples and a single - agree to publicly reveal the content of all communications (calls, emails and texts) that arrive on their phones during the meal. Of course, the participants have many secrets...

The Book Shop: a nice, British movie about a book shop. Nothing special, but enjoyable.

*Roma: Alfonso Cuaron's (Gravity, Y Tu Mama Tambien) latest. A really interesting look at the life of a native servant and the wealthy family she works for in Mexico City in the early 1970's.

All-in-all, we had a really good time, but I think next year we won't plan a trip immediately after the week of the festival. Seeing so many movies is fun, but also requires some recovery, which we did not have as we left on September 29th for Italy. More on that trip to come.

Hasta luego,

Jeff and Shana

Toronto Family Time

As part of our Canada trip, we spent nearly a week in Toronto with my first cousins. My dad was born in Toronto and his sister’s children all live there. These are some very special people to us and we were thrilled to have the opportunity for an extended visit with them.

We started out with a weekend at Eli & Adina’s cottage on Lake Simcoe. We visited the cottage with Clyde in August/September 2016, and fell in love with the area, which is incredibly beautiful and peaceful:

So, of course, we wanted to go back, and Eli & Adina indulged us by holding off on their end-of-season renovation projects. It was a special weekend that included a long bike ride, a Shabbat nap, relaxation on the dock, games, good food, wine, and a Kawartha milkshake (Kawartha is a local dairy that makes fantastic (!) milkshakes). It was heaven on earth.

While there we also got up in the middle of the night to buy our tickets to the San Sebastian Film Festival, which went on sale at 9 a.m. in Spain. Not sure if it was the cottage air or the early morning hours that led us to purchase tickets to see 17 films in 7 days. (17 – not a typo!) Next post will let you know how that turned out.)

We returned to the “city” to relax, see the rest of the family, meet our newest cousin Gloria May, and celebrate cousin Molly’s 17^th birthday.  

We also observed Yom Kippur. There aren’t any opportunities to attend Jewish services in San Sebastian, so I was grateful to go to shul.

We miss our family and friends a lot, and our time in Canada with Jeff’s parent’s and my family was precious.

Hasta luego,

Shana & Jeff