Up Close with a Hawk, a Falcon, an Owl, and a Puppy; and some History

 

While staying near Kilkenny, our first stop after leaving Dublin, we had several fun adventures. We spent a very special morning with Hawkeye Falconry meeting Mabel the hawk, Elvis the falcon, Turbo the owl, and Lily the cocker spaniel puppy. You don’t know me at all if you can’t guess which wonderful creature was my favorite. We learned a lot about birds of prey and witnessed Mabel hunting, albeit not catching anything.  We even got to play a part as we learned how to call Mabel to our gloved arms (with the help of a bit of raw chicken placed strategically). We also learned that when Lily grows up, she’ll help flush rabbits for the hawks to hunt. Elvis provided a fantastic show as he attempted to catch a lure swung by our host. The most amazing part of that was the incredible speed with which he did so. We could literally hear him flying past us.

Mabel and Elvis were amazing – highly intelligent, fast, and efficient in their movements; while Turbo was almost as cute as Lily – almost.

We did a bike tour of Kilkenny, a town with an interesting medieval history. It turns out that small Kilkenny is home to Cartoon Saloon, an animation company that has received several Academy Award nominations. Its co-founder painted the mural in the photo. The town’s castle includes a wonderful park area for the public to enjoy.

Also in the area, we visited Jerpoint Abbey, founded in 1180, and the Rock of Cashel, seat of the ancient kings of Munster (AD 300-1100).

The abbey was built by Cistercian monks who became the dominant religious authority by creating a network of monasteries.

The Rock of Cashel is a fortified hill that became a prominent castle and church. St. Patrick baptized King Aengus on the Rock in about AD 450, which was a key moment that started the expansion of Catholicism in Ireland. This site is fascinating for several reasons. First, it was a site being fought over by competing kings (important for its strategic hillside position) before one of them donated it to the Catholic Church to keep it from the hands of his rival (pretty clever). In addition, the buildings on the site were built over many centuries: in the first two pictures below, the round tower was the first building built on the site when the Catholic Church took over in 1101, while the surrounding church was built between 1230 and 1290. Finally, and this is something we saw throughout Ireland, the graveyard on this site has been in continuous use for centuries and is still in use by the local town. Thus, you’ll see ancient graves adjacent to modern ones.

More rocks and more history to come.

Shana & Jeff

Ireland - Introduction

One of the main things we love about living in Europe is the traveling we are able to do. Of course, the pandemic put a significant damper on our travel schedule. In the 17 months between February 2020 (when we were in Portugal, and Covid was just some illness most people knew little about), and July 2021, we had only taken a brief, 5-day trip to Paris (July 2020), and a week hiking in the Pyrenees (October 2020). Now that we are vaccinated, we felt it was time to get back on the road.

We chose Ireland mainly because it would not be too hot in August, especially compared to possible destinations in southern Europe, and because we did not expect it to be too crowded since the country only opened for visitors on July 19th, giving foreign travelers little time to plan trips there. We were right on both counts. The weather was cool and rainy (as you will see from our pictures), and although the Irish were traveling in fairly large numbers, there were not many foreign travelers. Generally we felt that most sites we visited were not overrun. 

Traveling during Covid was a bit of a different experience. We had extra forms to complete before entering Ireland and returning to Spain; nearly every site required you to book a time to visit, although many of the government-run sites in Ireland waived their fees as an incentive to get people to travel; and, in order to eat inside a restaurant, you had to provide proof of vaccination. Almost every restaurant we went to over the 17-day trip adhered to this requirement, and at least checked our vaccination certificates, with the majority scanning them to confirm they were valid. Inside masking requirements were almost universally followed, and we generally felt pretty "safe," although on occasion it seemed like there were just too many people in an enclosed space.

So, what did we do in Ireland? Well, of course, we ate a lot of good food, drank a lot of good wine (no wine is made in Ireland, but they have a decent wine culture with most restaurants offering wines from Europe, South America, New Zealand and even South Africa) and, of course, drank a good amount of local beer, especially Guinness.

(No, I did not go bald in the last year, that is Shana's brother Adam, who met us for a few days in Dublin as a detour from his own visit to Iceland. Adam has traveled more during Covid than anyone else we know. I don't even want to think about how many Covid tests he has taken.)

After spending five nights in Dublin, seeing the sites, including St. Patrick's Cathedral and the famous Temple Bar, and especially enjoying ethnic food that we cannot find in San Sebastian, we set out driving around the south and west of the country for 12 days. This meant that I got to drive on the "wrong" (left) side of the road for the first time. And, while I did not actually find this too difficult, driving in Ireland is complicated by the fact that many Irish roads are very narrow, and the speed limit on these narrow roads is often a surprising 80 kph (48 mph). So, although I was driving below the speed limit, many of the Irish were not, which led to many moments where cars would come around a blind corner in the middle of the road before moving over (to the left, remember) forcing us to scrape our car along the foliage that lines practically every road in the country. Overall, a fairly stressful part of the trip.

All that said, we had a wonderful time visiting Ireland, as we will show more completely over a number of upcoming posts. And, we will say that the Irish reputation for friendliness is 100% deserved. They are all genuinely nice, helpful and friendly, and add to the enjoyment of a visit to their country.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana

Jazzaldia 2021

 

If it’s July in San Sebastian, then it’s time for Jazzaldia, the annual jazz festival. Despite the rampant spread of the delta variant, the show did go on with similar COVID safety protocols to last year's event. We saw two great shows, both in outdoor settings.

The first concert was a solo piano recital by Marcin Masecki, a Polish pianist, who performed ragtime music. Jeff chose this concert, and it was a real winner. Unlike last year’s soloist, Masecki spoke to the audience (in Spanish) before each piece, providing a bit of information and history about the artist. Most fascinating was how he got into performing ragtime in the first place:  he was inspired by the ragtime music he heard at Disneyland as a child. Ragtime became his passion and he started focusing on it more and more, including composing original pieces. It was easy to know that the music brings him great joy because we could watch his feet energetically dance under the piano while he played – we had a great view from our first-row seats in the cloister of the San Telmo Museum (a former monastery).

The second concert was Noa & Gil Dor, an Israeli duo, who performed with Inaki Salvador, a local pianist. There was an opening performance by Naissam Jalal & Rhythms of Resistance. Jalal is a Syrian flutist who lives in Paris. Her performance was enjoyable but not as dynamic as the main act.

Noa has a captivating voice and knows how to connect with her audience. She spoke almost exclusively in Spanish, while singing in English, Hebrew, Spanish, and even Basque. The selections played from her 2019 album “Letters to Bach” were marvelous – it is worth checking out her unique tribute to J.S. Bach. But the most special moment was when she sang as her final encore “Txoria Txori,” a Basque song that is considered a piece of resistance against the Franco regime’s prohibition of the Basque language, and a current symbolic yearning for independence. It is based on a poem about a how a caged bird loses its essence and can no longer be considered a bird. Listening to the audience sing along was incredibly moving. She truly held the crowd in the palm of her hand.

We are already looking forward to next year’s festival. Hopefully COVID security measures will be a thing of the past by then.

Hasta pronto,

Shana & Jeff 

A Return to Travelling

Since the beginning of the pandemic in Europe (basically March 2020), we have been "stuck" here in San Sebastian. With the exception of a two-night "stay-cation" at a local hotel by the beach in June 2020, five nights in Paris in July 2020 during a significant lull in Covid-19 cases, and a week hiking in the Pyrenees, we have not traveled at all. Given the break-neck pace of our travels during 2018 and 2019 (84 and 79 nights on the road, respectively), it has been a big change.

Now that we have been vaccinated, we hope to begin travelling again. We have planned trips to Ireland for two-and-a-half weeks in August, and California (and Hawaii!) for three weeks in September/October. But, first, we decided on a quick, two-night jaunt to Bilbao.

Bilbao is just a 75 minute bus ride away, so we donned our FFP2 masks (the European equivalent of an N-95) and hopped on the bus last Monday morning. The plan was to arrive in Bilbao in time to drop our stuff at the hotel and make it to our 2:30 lunch reservation. Our hotel, The Hotel Ercilla, was lovely, and we got upgraded to a large room with a sitting area and a giant shower. Lunch at El Informal was delicious and we decided to brave sitting outdoors even though there was a risk of rain, which fortunately did not materialize. Seven courses later (four appetizers, a fish course, meat course and dessert, plus wine) we were truly stuffed and decided to just relax at the hotel for the late afternoon/evening. As you can imagine, after that lunch, no dinner was needed.

The next day, we visited our old friend the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The museum was surprisingly busy, especially since it was a Tuesday. While none of the current exhibits were super exciting, it was nice to be back there to see what is currently going on, and just to do something that feels "normal". There were some pandemic-induced changes in the museum, including the lack of a place to check your bags/coats, and an attempt to move foot traffic in one direction through the museum. But, for us, the worse part was that our favorite permanent exhibit The Matter of Time, which is a group of large sculptures by American artist Richard Serra that you can walk through and be part of the art, were only partially open. You could not, in fact, walk through all the sculptures. We hope this restriction will eventually be lifted as we enjoy experiencing this exhibit every time we are at the Guggenheim.

There was a cool, new suspended neon sculpture at the museum that presented an opportunity for some good pictures (notice especially the reflection of the sculpture in the outside wall of the museum in the second picture): 

And, once outside the museum, we became part of another of the permanent exhibits, Fujiko Nakaya's F.O.G. Sculpture #08025:

After the museum, of course, it was time for another Spanish lunch (that time being 2:30 p.m.). Although not as huge as the previous day, our lunch at Lar was very impressive, and we enjoyed trying a new-to-us white wine grape from Galicia called Godello. It was exactly the type of minerally white wine that we enjoy, and paired perfectly with our mostly-fish lunch.

Finally, on Wednesday morning, we visited Bilbao's other art museum, the Bellas Artes, which we had never done despite multiple visits to the city. Although the museum has a number of pieces by very famous artists (El Greco and Goya among others), we were somewhat underwhelmed by the overall offering. The most interesting part of the current offering is that they have organized the art in the permanent collection by theme, with each room representing a theme of one letter of the alphabet (with a little bit of cheating, since the rooms use words from Spanish, Basque and English as themes). This presentation often put art from very different time periods in the same room, which is not something you see often, and did present some interesting juxtapositions.

Finally, after two days of eating and art, we caught a bus back to San Sebastian. And, while it was good to get away, we were surprisingly tired after our brief trip. I guess we have to get our travel legs back before we venture to Ireland in August -- Covid willing.

Hasta luego,

Jeff and Shana

Reading Books in Spanish

Since starting this blog, we tend to give semi-regular updates on how our Spanish skills are progressing. I thought I’d take the opportunity to give another based on a recent achievement – I read my first book in Spanish. A real book bought from a real bookstore; not something you might read as part of your studies (i.e., a book with a particular skill level in mind – these exist, and I did read one a while back). Here’s how it happened.

We read the local paper, the Diario Vasco, about four times a week. Both to keep informed about local and national events and to keep our Spanish skills sharp. Overall, its level of writing is closer to USA Today than the NY Times. We can read it cover to cover but still have issues with articles about politics and the economy – more on a conceptual level than a linguistic one because there are significant differences between various aspects of the systems here and in the US. The editorial pages can be difficult, but we don’t focus on them much other than letters to the editor.

A few months back there was an article about a new book written by a Basque journalist, Mikel Ayestaran, who is a Middle East correspondent living in Jerusalem. I read the article and was intrigued to see if I could read and enjoy the book, Jerusalén, santa y cautiva – Desde el corazón de la Ciudad Vieja a la eternidad (Capitalization in Spanish has odd rules. “Jerusalem, Holy and Captivating – From the Heart of the Old City to Eternity”). Having lived in Jerusalem for a year (1989-1990) and visited many times, the topic is familiar territory, and I thought it would be interesting to get a totally different perspective on the city.

I downloaded a sample of the book on my Kindle to see if the writing was manageable and it was. I then went and bought a copy from a wonderful local bookshop. The book recounts the author’s experiences and focuses on each quarter of the Old City, its holy sites and history. It was broken up into brief chapters and sections. I gave myself two months to finish it. Lo and behold I finished sooner.

I enjoyed the book for many reasons. As expected, a Spanish, non-Jewish writer (who has not been indoctrinated about Israel in the manner that Jewish-American youth are) provided a distinct viewpoint that was edifying and candid. The writing was clean and easy to follow, an obvious benefit of a journalist author. His anecdotes were entertaining and the details intriguing. His experiences were both familiar and foreign. I had to use my dictionary plenty of times, but less often than I might have expected because the subject matter was known to me. I laughed at some of the Spanish vocabulary – he used “sequéles” for shekels, which confused me momentarily because I read it is sequels.

It was such a positive experience that I wanted to get another book; but how to choose? Non-fiction is the easier option due to a more direct writing style, yet I wasn’t sure in what direction I wanted to go. I went back to that charming bookstore to ask for a recommendation. My new friend, Santi, one of the managers, remembered me and was more than happy to help. He recommended Los senderos del mar, Un viaje a pie (Paths by the Sea, a Journey on Foot) by Maria Belmonte, about the author’s experience hiking the Basque coast and I thought it would be perfect. Once again, a familiar and interesting topic. I’m working my way through it now.

We can read certain books, we can watch some television without subtitles, and recently we have navigated some more complex medical appointments. After nearly four years here, our Spanish is getting there!

Hasta pronto,

Shana 

Officially Traded from Team Placebo to Team Pfizer

Good news: we received our second dose of the Pfizer vaccine on 24 June, so we’ll be “fully vaccinated” as of 8 July. It seems like it took forever to happen, but ultimately it happened much faster than expected. We fully admit to having vaccine envy, especially as all our nephews (even the 12-year-old) got vaccinated before we did. Although the vaccination campaign here got off to a slow start, the pace has definitely picked up, and the national and regional governments get full kudos for getting the job done. We expect that Spain will reach the theoretical 70% herd immunity before the US (on a national basis). So here are a few details of how it all happened.

Because I was participating in the Curevac Herald Study it was initially unclear what would happen if our age group became eligible before that vaccine got approval. The press had been positive on Curevac’s early results and there was a lot of optimism. But our turn came before approval, and now we know that Curevac may not get approval at all. More on that in a moment.

We monitored the news as the Basque health service started vaccinating the 50-59 age range. After vaccinating the elderly, healthcare workers and other high-risk groups, Spain is using an age-based approach. My discussions with friends indicated we would be eligible as May ended. On Monday (31 May), I called the vaccine “hotline” for those having trouble using the electronic appointment system. Because we are not eligible for the public health system, we us private health insurance. However, the entire vaccination process is being run through the public health system, so we needed help. When I finally got through, I learned that we needed to go to the local clinic to have a profile created in the public health system first. That afternoon an extremely helpful clerk not only set us up, but also called and got us appointments to get our first shots on 3 June. We were so grateful.

In San Sebastian, most vaccinations are being done at the former bullring/current basketball stadium. We arrived and were stunned at how quickly it transpired – we were in an out in just over 15 minutes (including the mandatory waiting time after the shot). The second appointment is automatically set for the same time three weeks later. Here’s a look at how the arena has been transformed.

Thankfully, the side effects after both shots have been minimal.

Before the first appointment I contacted the study to confirm that I had been given the placebo, and as I suspected I was on “Team Placebo.” Because our area was still experiencing a high number of cases, I was released from the study to be vaccinated. While receiving the placebo seemed disappointing back in February/March, things sure have changed. First, the expected approval in late May/early June did not occur as anticipated. Second, on June 16 Curevac announced disappointing preliminary results – a 47% effective rate at preventing the virus, far below the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines. As a result, tt now appears that the vaccine may not get approval at all. Although the new variants may have played a role in the poor results, some believe it could be the dose or the fact that Curevac relied on natural mRNA. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01661-0) All in all, getting the placebo was the lucky hand in this game of chance. My friend who received the vaccine has since gotten a first Pfizer dose, but it is unclear whether a second dose will be given as well. That kind of uncertainty and the mixing and matching of vaccines, even of an ineffective one, seems potentially risky.

Having now been vaccinated with an established vaccine has been a relief and we are starting to make plans to travel again, which could lead to more blog posts in the future.

That’s it for now.

Shana & Jeff

May 2021 Update: The Proverbial Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Well, May is almost gone, and overall things have not changed much here. While the “state of alarm” ended on May 9, allowing us to move more freely throughout the city, province, and country, ultimately that hasn’t impacted us much. We can stay out past 10 p.m. and travel anywhere we want within Spain, but we are not “painting the town red” just yet because we haven’t been vaccinated, and while the case numbers have gone down, they still aren’t great. There is however light at the end of the tunnel as we expect to be vaccinated early next month. (If I really am on Team Placebo, I’ll drop out of the study and get one of the approved vaccines.)

We’ve started making plans despite the fact that disappointment is still looming large. We’ll be celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary on June 2^nd and we planned a little getaway to “exotic” Hondarribia, the coastal town that is across the border from France (about 10 miles from here). We have reservations to stay at the Parador Hondarribia, which is a former 10^th century castle converted into a hotel. The Spanish and Portuguese governments have repurposed these types of medieval and other vintage castles and forts to luxury hotels, and we’ve always wanted to stay in one. We figured this was a great chance as it is before the high summer season making the prices affordable. Unfortunately, many of the things we want to do next week may not be available at all. The best restaurants are not open mid-week currently and the small boat that runs between Hondarribia and Hendaye, the first French town across the border, is not operating due to COVID related border restrictions. We were hoping to rent bikes in Hendaye and cycle north perhaps as far as Biarritz. Knowing that we can’t take the easiest and most charming route to Hendaye and that the restaurants we wanted to reserve were going to be closed, we are seriously considering canceling and rescheduling for another time. While it would be nice to get away, if you can’t do the things you want, what is the point? Instead, we would go out to a nice lunch in San Sebastian to commemorate the special occasion. We’ll plan to make a few other local excursions once we’re fully vaccinated. 

We also made plans to return to the US in late September. 22 months will have passed since our last visit in November 2019. We’ll be in California and will also get to Kauai, one of our favorite places in the world. It will be good to see family and friends in person. Zoom and Skype have proven their value, but let’s face it, there’s nothing like a nice warm hug from the people you love.

We’ll keep you posted as things evolve.

Hasta pronto,

Shana & Jeff