American in Spain

Recently I was contacted by InterNations, an organization I registered my expat status with several years ago and have since been diligently ignoring all their newsletters about meet ups in Madrid. They asked if I’d like to do an interview with them and to be featured on their site. I agreed, but then life got complicated, and they ended up having to nag me several times, but we finally did the interview and they published it. They’ve given me permission to re-post it here for your enjoyment. Some of my regular readers might not know my answers to some of these basic questions.
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The other day, during my bidaily visit to the local grocer, my grocer and friend, Andrés, said, “Hey, Erik, come here for a second. I have something to give you.” From its hiding place behind some yogurt in the display fridge, he pulled out three strange fruit pods. He explained that they are called tamarinds, and that they are native to Africa and are sort of a cross between a peanut and a date. I had never heard of such a thing, but he instructed me on how to peel and eat them, warning that the seeds are very hard and to be careful.
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We had a lovely visit this weekend from my second cousin, once removed, and her husband. My parents and I visited their house, in Cupertino, California, once twenty years ago, and the last time I saw them was about twelve years ago at a family reunion at my grandparents’ house in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But for all intents and purposes, they were strangers to me. So much so that when we visited San Francisco 2.5 years ago, they never occurred to me when thinking of people I knew in the Bay Area to visit. Although we share some genes (and a Jean, as her namesake and Aunt Jean was my maternal grandmother), what they really were to me were internet friends. I got to know Jeanie after she friended me on Facebook shortly after we dissed her on our San Francisco trip, and we’ve grown to quite like each other over the past couple of years. Their visit was going to be another data point my “meeting people you only know over the internet” experiment…
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The following is a document written by my father, Paul Rasmussen, about his trip to visit us in Spain in March 2013.

Tuesday and Wednesday

We dropped the dogs off at the kennel at 8:30 am, and an hour later we were at the Charlotte airport long-term parking lot. We flew to snowy Toronto, waited there for four hours, and boarded the flight to Dusseldorf around 5 pm. We landed in Germany at 6:20 am on Wednesday, enjoyed a croissant and coffee, and then waited three more hours for our flight to Bilbao. Our son Erik met us there, and an hour later we arrived at his home in Colindres.
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Two and a half years ago, we drove the seven minutes to the town of Limpias and very much enjoyed a walk along the river. I remember thinking at the time, “I should bring my parents here.” And last weekend, I did. The sky was clear and the sun was warming the cool spring air, and we decided to walk along the water in Limpias.

Limpias is positioned by where the Asón River begins to open up before spilling into the sea in Colindres, and Limpias still has a lot of artillery guarding the river entrance, presumably from the Spanish Civil War.
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I’m a big fan of clever street art, such as this mural, in nearby Santoña, that spans three buildings. The medieval Old Town section of nearby Laredo is both the most happening social zone of the town, and also the most derelict crumbling part, full of abandoned, disintegrating buildings. Just last month one of them blew over. So there are plenty of abandoned houses with boarded up windows. A year or two ago, some interesting paintings began appearing on some of the doors and windows of the Old Town, depicting women inside the houses looking out. More than once, I’ve done a double-take when walking by, because they seem so real.
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Last week I took my annual golf vacation to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to participate in the Myrtle Beach Classic, a golf competition among good friends that my father organizes every year in February. Since I started going in 2004, I’ve only missed one year (2011). Sadly, my good friend Jacob couldn’t make it this year, as he was called off on a business trip to Singapore. Careers can be so annoying sometimes! Despite his absence, fun was had, golf was played, music was made, and trophies were awarded.
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I hate it when I do this. Sometimes I take a bunch of photos in a day, but then I set aside some of them, like of an iconic bridge, for later for their own blog post, but then I get so exhausted of blogging about the whole trip that the group of photos gets overlooked for months.

When I was walking around Brussels on October 10, 2012, I stopped by the cathedral and took a couple dozen photos, which I left out of my original post to save for later. I just now rediscovered them. Below are some of my favorites.
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I was weak once. On my first ever trip abroad to Scotland as an early teen, when given a day to myself to wander about and choose my schedule, I ate lunch at a Burger King. And later, as a 20-year-old, having moved abroad for the first time, it didn’t take me long to visit the McDonalds in the center of Copenhagen. When in Budapest, someone talked me into entering what was described to me beforehand as “the most beautiful McDonalds in the world”, and, while I can’t speak for the entire world, I must agree that it is quite pretty. Each time, my justification was curiosity about how my American culture had been translated to another culture, but I’d be lying if part of it wasn’t the comfort of familiar food that makes these chains so successful.
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The second “must see” tourist attraction in Brussels after the Grand Place has got to be the Atomium, a bizarre and unearthly structure built for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair, which is, in theory, modeled after an iron crystal. I saw it once when I was flying into or out of a layover at the Brussels airport, which makes sense given its proximity to the airport. If nothing else, it’s very big and very bizarre.
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