American in Spain

On July 3, 2011, we attended the wedding of my childhood friend, Charley Coffey, to his beautiful bride, Christanne. Due to the separate courses our lives have taken, I had never actually met Christanne until the wedding. Both of them are incredibly photogenic and every photograph of them looks like it should be on an orthodontist’s wall. They are both medical doctors at the end of their schooling, primed to stop living like students and start living like kings in San Diego, the city said to have one of the best climates on the planet. I couldn’t be happier for them. Everyone at the wedding was very nice, the North Carolinians from the groom’s side as well as the South Carolinians from the bride’s side.
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This past weekend we went to Zaragoza for a wedding. The groom was Marga’s cousin, Manu, and the bride was named Irene, previously unknown to us. We left on Friday afternoon, stopping at a rest stop just before Haro, Rioja, for a half hour to meet up with my in-laws, so we could make the rest of the journey together. Marga spent five years at the University of Zaragoza, and she was excited to introduce me to the city.
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Marga’s boss recently gave us a simple, but thoughtful, wedding gift. As you may recall (and if you attended, how could you forget?), one of the dishes at our wedding meal was a Scallop Au Gratin. Her boss actually saved the shell that the restaurant served him full of creamy cheese, cleaned it up, wrote our names and the date of the wedding in the smooth interior of the shell, and gave it to us as a souvenir of the day.
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We’re back from our honeymoon! We’ve got plenty of wedding and honeymoon photos to share, but first we’ve got to get some of the pre-wedding family visit / birthday photos out of the way. My father has written up a much better explanation of events than my blurred memory could give you, so I won’t do much explaining here, and share his story soon.
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For years now, I’ve been told what a shame it was that I’ve been missing Maritxu (mar-EE-choo). Maritxu is a huge party in Mondragon held on the first Friday of October. Since moving to Spain 2.5 years ago, I’ve been out of the country for Maritxu in both 2005 (golfing in Scotland) and 2006 (New York City).
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