Happiness is a Lit Cuban

This is Raf sitting on the 4th floor solarium of our hotel in Barcelona, having a pre-dinner cigar.

What's unusual about this picture is you can see his teeth. And he's smiling. Laughing, even. Most people rarely see this side of Raf, but in Spain he's been all aglow and a-twitter -- it seems that you can buy Cubans (the cigars, silly, not the people) from any gosh-darn Tabac on any corner. That's right: the same cigars he covets for a truly high price in the US, he can just walk on up and buy for a fraction of what he usually pays. It's so cheap, in fact, that right after I took this picture, we noticed that it was time to go downstairs for our reservation and Raf snuffed out the half-smoked cigar without regret. No worries, he said, I can just buy another one tomorrow.

We saw an incredible humidor room in the tobacco department of the venerable department store Il Cortes Ingles, but the best experience Raf had in buying cigars was with a little old man in San Sebastian, Spain. We had asked the Tourist Information clerk if there was a cigar shop and he pointed us down the street, to a small tobacco shop in the Old Town. It's probably closed, he told us, pointing out that it was already 7 pm. But we had nothing much that we had to do so we decided to direct our evening stroll in that direction.

I'm having trouble finding the pictures I took of the proprietor of the shop -- I must have taken the video and pictures on Raf's iPhone -- but he was a short, older Spaniard, white hair, distinguished beard. Raf asked him about Cuban cigars and purchased a few "run-of-the-mill, but better than I can get at home" cigars, as well as a few spectacular smokes that he's never tried because the cost is prohibitive (and you can't just buy Cuban cigars in the US). For each selection, the man carefully pulled down a cigar box and gently uncovered the outer and inner wrappings, gingerly lifting each cigar from its nest, then ceremoniously showing Raf for his approval before carefully placing them into a plastic bag. Sadly, after Raf had made his choices and was about to pay, the man's fingers slipped and one bag (filled with two cigars) fell to the floor. The man made a pained face, like someone was stabbing him in the heart, but didn't say the expletive that surely he was thinking. Instead, he slowly returned to the humidor and retraced the formal steps he'd already taken to help Raf get the cigars he wanted.

It's ironic that generally it costs Raf so much more for cigars (well, when you factor out the cost of our entire trip, I suppose), and yet the ceremony involved in buying these less-expensive cigars was priceless.

The Aquarium in San Sebastian

One of the very best aquariums we've ever seen. There is a HUGE tank that surrounds you, so you can watch fish swim over, under and around you without ever getting wet. For me -- and you know how I feel about sharks -- the ability to see a shark swimming two inches from my face, knowing it couldn't see me or try to bite me, was exhilarating. I watched one breathe for several seconds, quiet, just hanging out above me. The kids loved it, but Raf and I were equally mesmerized. I had no idea that this place was here and am grateful that the weather was too cold for a beach day, otherwise we may have missed it!

Adios, San Sebastian

Pintxos in San Sebastian

One of the pleasures of San Sebastian is its gastronomie. Tapas here are elevated from a simple appetizer to mini-bites of gourmet cuisine called pintxos (pronounced "peen-chos" in the Basque dialect). Because this is a seaside port, many of the offerings feature seafood and fish, as well as peppers and slabs of bread.

Here's how you do it:
* Ask the bar man for a plate
* Fill it up with anything you want
* Pay for what's on your plate (usually just 1 or 2 Euros per pintxo)
* While you're at it, order a sangria... or two
* Sit down and eat
* Repeat as desired, but at a different bar. Pintxos are designed as a movable feast; you eat one or two with a drink at the first place, then move on and get a few more at another spot.

It's kind of a perfect way to stave off hunger before a late dinner OR during late-night revelry, kind of like In-n-Out without the "animal-style" craziness.

Sangria... yum, Mama like!

Day to Night in San Sebastian

This is what it looks like at night in San Sebastian. The sun was nearly set, and it was about 10:15 pm. The lights along the boardwalk shimmer and the tide is low, so the sand goes on and on into the Bay of Biscay.

It's no wonder that most nightclubs don't open until 3 am and close at 7 am. I've noticed that the beach has its own rhythm, according to the age of its visitors: early morning is when you'll see runners, walkers, ocean swimmers, kayakers and people biking to work on the path; later morning is when families arrive, with young children toting their pails and shovels; midday is when the elderly, middle-aged and families with older kids arrive -- these groups tend to stay on the beach for several hours, either renting a canopy or just doing it Cali-style, with beach towels and sandy bags; later afternoon (4 pm and onward) is when teenagers and young adults arrive via scooter and bus in packs of 5 or more kids, play soccer on the beach and dive under the waves and body surf; around 6 pm, the families and elderly pack up while ocean swimmers and kayakers arrive to complete their daily dose of exercise; after 8 pm, some young people are still milling around the sand and a few people take walks at the shore, but it really clears out because everyone is getting dressed for dinner and starting to get to their meeting places. By 10 pm, most people are eating pintxos at bars or ordering helados from ice cream joints or joining in the evening paseo (stroll) through the Parte Vieja, people-watching and enjoying the night air.

One thing I've loved is the relative quiet and lack of chaos in this little beach city. There's a sophistication here that I don't think I've seen in our own California beach towns. Teenagers aren't annoying, for example. Even large groups of kids don't seem to want to mess with the older generation or be pains in the arse; frankly, they seem too interested in having fun together and flirting to even notice other people -- and that's sort of nice. Children aren't crazy, spoiled fools, even though they are clearly doted-on (I've noticed so many well-turned-out babies and toddlers in pique shirts and sweet hair bows -- it's like a baby fashion show when you see a pram approaching; I've also seen MANY siblings dressed identically, both twins and not... although I'm not sure if I like that as much 'coz it's a little too matchy for my taste. What do I know, though? My kids have wild hair and are wearing Target shorts.).

Anyway, there is an expectation of decorum that kids -- and adults -- seem to understand and adhere to, a basic human politeness that supercedes the "Look at me! No, look at me now!" quality that pervades many American tourist spots and beach towns. I haven't seen any Botox-ed faces or fake boobs, for example, and very few tattooed/pierced faces. Many of the people I've seen are naturally beautiful, all ages, and confidence seems to override self-consciousness. The girls stand up straight, a revelation to an American mom of three girls who are used to seeing Miley Cyrus slouch.

It's no wonder that rich people used to send their children on "The Grand Tour" of Europe during the 1800s (as in A Room with a View). There's just something about Europe... it's intangible, but cultured, something that you have to experience to understand. This is why I wanted my kids to come here, to see what I mean about the night sky being different, to understand why I'm so drawn to return. It's like finishing school. As if we could ever be "finished"... but it's a great start.

Our Apartment in San Sebastian

I'm no expert on travel or traveling with kids or traveling with kids in Europe, but I can tell you that getting an apartment here in San Sebastian has been a godsend for our family. Frankly, we chose to rent an apartment in San Sebastian because our travel agent didn't think the hotels would be as comfortable for a family of five and she knows that we're babies when it comes to crappy accomodations. So she sent us a few ideas and we found this gorgeous place literally a block from the main beach, La Concha Playa (or La Kontxa, as the Basques call it) through http://www.emyrent.com/. If you are ever traveling here, look for our apartment listed as "Belle Epoque," it is where Emy (the proprietress) grew up and her family lived here for a hundred years -- the walls are lined with family photos and she's mixed modern Ikea furniture with family heirlooms, creating a comfortable and classy place for tourists to stay. She told me that it's a community landmark and all work had to be approved by an historical society.

We met Emy the day we arrived and she shared lots of insider tips about San Sebastian, like how to eat pintxos (San Sebastian's gourmet answer to tapas) and where to buy groceries for the kids. We have WiFi, a TV, microwave, fridge, dishwasher, stove, washer/dryer (it's a combo here, which is interesting) and a laundry line (pictured above). Unique to most European apartments, we also have three bedrooms and two large bathrooms with showers.

Needless to say, fixing our own meals has been incredibly helpful, both for the kids and for us -- we are loving the pintxos and sangria, but in order to eat "normally" we really needed a small kitchen so that we could wash and cut fruit, prepare eggs, store yogurt and chocolate milk, or have a cup of coffee in the morning while the kids sleep (yes, the apartment came with a French press - oh-so-Euro). Last night, I made pasta and zucchini for the kids and an arugula salad for me and Raf -- I've been feeling like we are missing out on veggies while we're away from home -- and it was so much better than ordering from a menu, not sure what you'll be getting on your plate and paying more for it than it's actually worth. Beyond that, I felt like Raf and I were so cosmopolitan, walking into a Spanish supermarket and buying fruit from a fruteria, relying only on our Spanish (because the ladies didn't speak English).

The other amazing part about the apartment is the little washer/dryer appliance under the counter, which is small compared to what I'm used to and a little unusual because it can both wash AND dry (though the dried clothes tend to smell a little moldy because of the excess moisture in the appliance). Being close to the beach means that our towels are sandy all the time, so it's been nice to wash 'em a little as we go, as well as our clothes. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a laundry fanatic. I don't really love to fold, but I love the smell of clean clothes and I tend to hang many of our clothes on a line anyway -- a holdover from my last trip to Italy. The only things I don't like hung on a line are towels -- I try to get them at least partially dry first so that they're not crispy -- but I always feel so smug and eco-conscious when I use the clothesline.

After the first day, we all felt very much at home here, where we have to use three keys to get in: one for the street-level building door, another for the outer door to our suite of two apartments, and the last for our own apartment. All of them stick and have their own quirks for opening, but we've gotten used to the formidable sound of the locks. The girls love to race up and down the worn-in marble staircase to and from our 3rd floor enclave (actually 4th floor, 'coz the lobby level doesn't count in Europe), which takes far less time than waiting for the ancient, crowded-with-a single-rider elevator.

More than those things, though, is a sense of ownership and residency. We are leaving today for Barcelona and, though we are set to stay in the "It" hotel of that city(the Hotel Neri -- our huge splurge of the trip), we're all a little sad to say goodbye to our adopted home on San Martin Kalea.

Best Day Ever

The weather was spotty when we woke up, but more sunny than cloudy so we declared it a beach day. Upon arrival onto the sand, I thought it might be too cold to stay all day, even though I knew that was Raf's plan. It was about 11 am and I figured that, since the sun doesn't really set until about 10:30 pm, maybe it was really more like 9 am, weather-wise. So I hung in there... and finally allowed the kids to convince me to go in the water, which I complained about because it felt cold when I dipped my toes in.

After a few waves, I was like a fish and found my sea legs. I convinced Serena to swim to one of the 3 diving platforms around the bay and we slid down the blue slide, jumped from the side into the inner "swimming pool" and then dove off the back so that we could swim and touch the big yellow buoy at the far end of the swim area. As we swam back to shore, Emme waved to us and convinced us to swim back to the platform, then to the buoy, then across the bay to another diving platform closer to the beach in front of the Parte Vieja (Old Town).

Emme said the diving platform reminded her of the movie Mamma Mia! Serena kept saying, As long as I'm here, on a platform in the middle of the ocean in Spain, I may as well dive/jump/slide. Even I set aside a lifelong fear of sharks to just enjoy the moment, swimming alongside my kids to the buoy so that I could truly savor their exuberance, strength and stamina. For every unruly thought about Jaws, I calmed myself down with a deep breath and a new thought that life would not always be like this. The girls may not always coax and cajole me to accompany them on their adventures toward something new, scary and thrilling -- I may not be there to accompany them or they will find new friends and lovers who will be their first choice. But I made a discovery out there as I reached out to touch the yellow buoy: once-in-a-lifetime moments come along every second, if we can be open to them and allow them to carry us in their wake.

After we left the platform, we back-floated on the water, a tradition for the women on my side of the family, toes up, head pointing out to sea. With each wave that came upon us, I'd shout, Float it! and we'd quickly get into position, the three of us lying peacefully on our backs, bobbing along. Eventually, we could touch our feet to the sand again and caught some waves into shore. As I sat down on my towel, I lost sight of the girls and panicked for a moment. Then I spotted them, two little brunette heads bobbing on the waves and swimming toward the platform again, this time with Raf next to them and Marlowe, in her hot pink rash guard, on his back. It's too far for me, Marlowe had said earlier this morning. But the allure of the swimming platform, and the desire to just do it, obviously caught her off-guard, too.

We may not be back here again. It is like a motto in my head lately, a metaphor not for this trip or the physical geography that we're traveling but for the very moments of our lives together. We may not be back again.

We may as well float.

A Raison D'Etre

I love this picture of Raf because he's standing barefoot on La Grande Plage in Biarritz, France.

When I first pleaded for us to go to Europe as a family, I begged for Italy. It's my favorite European country and the place where I tend to feel most "at home" when traveling because I lived there for a few years as a teenager and have been back twice in recent years. It is familiar and easy to get around, comfortable in its chaos, a good place for families, kids, women, romance, art and food. I knew we could find a fabulous villa for a few weeks and rent a car to make day trips. I could guarantee a good time for a trip to Italy: food, wine, gelato, shopping, culture... it's all easily accessible. No one would make fun of our attempts to speak the language. The kids could eat as much pizza, bread and pasta as they wanted. C'mon, I said, it'll be a good introduction to Europe for our kids.

But Raf was steadfast in his wishes. If we're going to Europe, I've gotta surf, he said, citing a few of the famous surf cities that he's seen on his favorite surf docu-reality show Drive-Thru Europe. Kelly Slater and his gang of American surfers set up house in Hosseger (on the southern Atlantic coastline of France) and surfed Biarritz and Anglet. They crossed the border to Spain and surfed Zurriola and San Sebastian. But when they tried to surf in Rome, it wasn't as beautiful, the waves were choppy, the water was muddy-looking. The only saving grace was the food.

Okay, okay, I finally conceded. And then we started to plan our trip. We made Biarritz and San Sebastian our first stops so that Raf could bring his board on the plane and then ship it back home; then, since we're in Spain anyway, we'd see Barcelona. Since it was so close to the South of France, we'd tour around that area next. Paris is the best place to fly home from, so we decided to tack on a few days to tour Paris and see some famous sights with the girls. And then the trip was set. Italy seemed a little too far, a little too "much" to get to this time around, so we didn't push it. Another trip, we decided.

The irony is that Raf isn't surfing this trip. He decided it would be too much of a hassle to bring his board when he didn't even know the waves and could just rent a board here (which was a whole other drama when I mentioned this to him -- it's just not the same, he said, it'll take me days to feel comfortable on someone else's board.). But the trip has taken on a different flavor while we've been here. It's become an experiment in culture, both the culture of European travel and the internal culture of our own little family. How well do we work together as a unit? Can our kids exist on a diet of bread and ice cream? Can we just enjoy the moments as they present themselves?

And so this image of Raf, enjoying the what is-ness of Biarritz, a side trip on our European journey, means a lot to me... When I took it, I wondered if he had been contemplating how Biarritz really brought us to Europe, and whether he was bittersweet about the way that the trip had changed its flavor long before he stepped onto the shell-packed shore.

Turns out he was really just thinking about the Cuban cigars he wanted to buy in San Sebastian later that evening.

World Cup Revelry

World Cup revelry in San Sebastian, Spain from Erin Shachory on Vimeo.

World Cup - Ole!

You may not be able to see the true insanity of the World Cup celebration in San Sebastian with this pix, so I'll upload a video later. Suffice to say that Raf and I have never seen anything like it. If we had been downtown in LA for the Lakers' win over Boston, let's say, the cars would have been turned over and fires started and fights breaking out and police everywhere...

Not so in sweet little San Sebastian. Dancing, singing, pounding on cars as they passed (which they only did because they were using their cars and horns to celebrate, not because they actually needed to get anywhere!), play bull-fighting the cars, jumping, shouting, lighting fireworks, drumming, kissing, stopping public buses, jumping on car hoods, running into the plaza fountain, screaming and reveling.

Our kids rolled with it, through the 2-hour World Cup final game on TV and the passionate partying afterward. At first, the loud explosions from the fireworks scared them (some were zinging past our window and up at nearby buildings, bursting into colorful sparks), but they soon became as mesmerized as Raf and me. We couldn't stay off the balconies, wanted to keep watching what would come next. I had just bought a red and yellow beach towel with a black bull on it, so we waved it from our balcony and got excited thumbs-ups from the people below. Eventually, my tired family retreated inside, closed the windows and grew so accustomed to the sounds of "Ole- ole-ole... Ole-ole!" that we were all able to fall asleep, even as the fireworks, shouting and singing grew louder.

It must have all stopped around 4 am. I'm guessing this because the silence was what woke me up!

Carousel

Kids love carousels. See?

Carousel in San Sebastian from Erin Shachory on Vimeo.

San Sebastian's Dirty Little Secret

It's true. Fairies do dishes in Spain.

Parents Love Coffee

Fresh-baked pastelitos + cafe con leche (con mas leche por Mama) = happy parents

Kids Love Ice Cream

Serena with a freso helado (strawberry).

Marlowe, demolishing a txocholate (chocolate).

World Cup Fever

Spain vs. Netherlands tonight. Our apartment overlooks an Irish pub called Molly Malone, and futbol (add the accent over the "u" por favor) fans have been filing in for a few hours already. This guy, draped in a Spanish flag, is heading out to incite fans to honk as they drive by.

Interestingly, we've been noticing so much Basque pride -- from signs and menus, which are always written in Euskara, the Basque language, first and Spanish second, rarely French or English, to a huge Basque national parade and rally last night that passed our apartment -- that we weren't sure if people would freely support Spain as it vies for the World Cup title.

Obviously, they do. I wonder if they'll loot and be crazy like in LA when the Lakers win or if the European sophistication that we've seen so far will override the soccer hooligan-ism...

Men of San Sebastian

This guy's taking care of business in the front, but partyin' in the back. The other one is the #1 entry in Marlowe's just-started list titled "Hairy Dudes in Speedo's" in her European journal... and already he's not the last.

Sparkling San Sebastian

This is what San Sebastian looked like to us within the first hour of arriving... Magnificent.

And if it's this pretty at 5:30 pm, then what will it be like to spend the entire day on the beach, under one of those blue-and-white striped canopies, with my feet in the brown sugar sand?

This is the crescent-shaped bay beach, Playa La Concha, that is a half-block from our apartment on Calle de San Martin (add the accent over the "i" for me, I'm too lazy to look it up, and say it like "San Mar-TEEN" for a little Basque flavor). It was gloriously sunny when we arrived yesterday afternoon and the sweet half-moon beach is bordered by two small mountains and a tiny island in the middle. There are swimming platforms several yards from the shore, so you can swim up and dive or slide down the water slide into the bay. The water is crystal clear and there's a promenade that you can stroll for the entire two miles around the bay, from Monte Igueldo to the aquarium (near the statue of Christ on the hill, which reminds us of the famous hilltop statue in Rio) in the Old Town.

If you're like our good friend Habanakane, you can enlarge the images and try to find nude sunbathers, sort of a "Where's Waldo?," the European version. Trust me, though, for every perky and natural non-enhanced tanned set of young girl's breasts, there are three pairs of droopy, saggy, leather-like boobs swinging from ladies older than your grandma. But it's all good. The thing is, it's normal. Raf and I noticed one really pretty 20-something Spanish girl who was topless and just walking along the beach with three friends (two guys and a bikini-clad girl), comparing the tan on her arms with the guy next to her, no weird sexual vibe at all. Just a girl walking topless on a public beach with friends, that's all. So far, we haven't seen any Botox or big silicone boobs or California blonde hair. I wonder if that's the main difference between Americans and Europeans: an acceptance of bodies as normal.

We'll see today... I may join the locals and do as they do, getting an all-over tan. If I'm real good, I'll talk Raf into a Speedo...

The Sunday Morning Crawl

Woke up too early and have been hanging around the apartment with the kids, figuring out jet lag. When we opened the balcony door, this is what we saw: a parade of young partiers making their way home after a Saturday night. Oh yeah, it's 7 am.

Marlowe to Raf: Are they just going home? When did they sleep?

Raf: They'll sleep on the beach today.

Toto, we're not in the Oaks anymore.

A 10-hour flight with kids, an "after" and "before" story

These were taken en route to Bilbao, Spain, the second leg of our European journey.

For comparison's sake, this was taken before... Before the limo ride from our house to LAX. Before the 2 and a half hour wait for our flight to Paris. Before I watched the first 20 minutes of "Nine" twice and then heard that the audio/video would be shut down for the entire flight. Before the lady next to me moved the arm rest out of the way and may as well have sat *on* me rather than next to me. Before yet another of my kids' iTouches came in fatal contact with water, its dreaded villain. Before our family's near meltdown at the currency exchange at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, due to no ice cream stands and the adversarial relationship that the French seem to have with both air conditioning and ice. Before I discovered the reason we hadn't gotten our luggage from the carousel was, heck, we were in the wrong place... no wonder everyone else was gone. Before we realized that it was a good thing I only packed two suitcases because apparently they don't rent Suburbans in Europe (their version is an Audi 4-door with manual transmission). Before we drove an hour through Spain and fell in love with the green countryside. Before we landed at our pretty apartment in San Sebastian, with views of the beautiful bay-like beach, saw a few topless sunbathers , an orange striped banana hammock, and a parade or rally for something or another. Before our kids insisted that we go back to the apartment at 9:30 at night to get bathing suits because the sun was still setting and the waves were warm and the lights illuminating the surrounding boardwalk came on and made the whole city appear to be magically bejeweled.

Basically, before we fell in love with San Sebastian and decided that yeah, we could do that 10-hour flight and 2-hour connection to Bilbao again, if it meant we could be here.