American in Spain

Con pan y vino se anda el camino.¹

Every year, in July, the town hall of Colindres sponsors the “Ruta de Peregrino” (“Route of the Pilgrim”). It works like this: You go into any bar on Saturday, and they give you a little card with the names of 32 bars in town (that’s not all of them). After you order in each bar, you give them your card and they put a little sticker in the square corresponding to their bar. At 8 PM on Sunday evening, you walk through a little doorway that they construct called the “gate of pardon” and turn in your completed card to be entered in a raffle. The grand prize is a trip to somewhere. One bartender told us that normally over 200 people turn in completed cards. What a great idea! With one stone, you’re creating a festive atmosphere and giving business to the local merchants!
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Last weekend, we went to a free concert on the beach in Laredo. The band performing was El Sueño de Morfeo. I had heard of them a little bit, and I knew the chorus of their hit single.
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Last Christmas, my grandmother gave equal amounts of money to Marga and me with the instructions to purchase “something for our new house”. It only took us 6.5 months to do so…
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I don’t even remember what I was looking for when I found this guy. It’s some dude that lives in New York City that makes daily videos (vlogs?) about random stuff.
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The theme for today’s Flickr post is Grandparents. Since these pictures were taken two years ago, two of my grandparents, Jean and Glen, have passed away.
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As in 2002, I took advantage of my liberal employment schedule to watch most of the games of the World Cup. I enjoyed it as much as last time, too. I normally don’t watch much league soccer, even though Spain has the best league in the world, because I have been unable to choose a team to follow and support. But with the World Cup, I find myself much more interested in which country wins.
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I didn’t run, and I don’t regret it.
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We’re actually gonna do it this year. I’ve just bought bus tickets to go to Pamplona this weekend for the San Fermin festival. For you Americans, that’s the “running of the bulls” that brings Spain to your evening news program once a year.
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As in previousyears, we had hamburgers to celebrate the Fourth of July again this year. I couldn’t find any hamburger buns in the local stores, so I took a risk and baked my own. They came out a little dense and crunchy, but I ate my burger on it. It was too much for Marga’s braces, though, so she had hers on a piece of “normal” long baguette-style bread.
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We were visited this weekend by a friend that we met in England, Luisma. He’s from León, and last June we visited him there. This year, he took time from his vacation in Spain to come up to visit us.
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