Entries from August 2009
I first visited Spain more than thirty years ago. I was young and just married; it was my first trip abroad. In Barcelona, we stayed with the family of our friend, Juan Manuel, whom we had met in school. His father owned a ham business. Having known only boiled ham I found the ham served at meals to be quite another beast. I enjoyed it and didn’t mind that the entrada always incorporated it in some way. Then one day, his father suggested that we visit the bodega where he cured his jamon serrano. “Sure,” we thought. “Why not?”
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Categories: Culture · Travel · wine
Tagged: Andalucian horses, andalusian horses, Fernando de Castilla, fino amontillado oloroso palo cortado, Jerez Spain, Protected Destination of Origin of the Jerez, Real Escuela Andaluza del Arte Ecuestre, sherry wine, solera system, vinos de Jerez, Xéres
This is the last of four pieces on Spain whose themes are not common in travelogues. I have chosen these because, each one, in some way, has informed or illuminated some issue or experience of my own life. The subject of this episode came to me as we traveled from Madrid to Andalusia on the the AVE. As we flew across Castilla de la Mancha, I looked out on the neat rows of giants, hugging the ridges of the rolling hills, their long spindly arms going round and round, and thought of Don Quijote and how he had also gazed upon them so long ago. Now tall and svelte these giants bear little resemblance to the squat bulk of their forebears, but their riches are still intact.
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Categories: Energy · Travel
Tagged: Acciona Energía, Gamesa Eólica, Iberdrola, Spain wind industry leadership, U.S. wind energy leadership, wind energy, wind farms, wind industry innovation, wind turbines
This is the third of four installments on Spain which I recently visited with my husband and two other friends. You never know when you are going to need health care. In this episode, an unlucky event turned into a fortuitous experience, Spanish style. An accident required a trip to the emergency room. That visit pleasantly surprised me and made me envious of Spanish health care. As we work to solve our very deep health care crisis here in this country, it helps to look at how others, in other places, do it, even if that happens after a fall.
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Categories: Travel · health care
Tagged: Córdoba Spain, health care costs, health care in Spain, health care in the U.S., Madinat al-Zahra, Spain
This is the second of four installments on Spain which I recently visited with my husband and two other friends. In this post I remember my first experience with train travel more than thirty years ago and share the best way to travel in the 21st century. “Oh that more Americans might know what it is to fly pleasantly like a bird right here on the surface of the earth.”
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Categories: Travel
Tagged: Alta Velocidad Española, AVE, Barcelona, Madrid, Sevilla, Spain
This is the first of four installments on Spain which I recently visited with my husband and two other friends. I am struck by how much it has changed since I first visited in June of 1975, just months before the death of Franco. Today, it is a modern, vibrant country, and like many nations, it struggles with the effects of the economic crisis. Yet, it refuses to stand still. Even though Spain’s unemployment rate had reached more than 17% by the second quarter of this year there is serious investment, rapid development, a reverence for excellence, a preference for lively discussion, an acceptance of the idiosyncratic, and an elegance of living that I find most appealing.
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Categories: Travel
Tagged: Barcelona airport, Barcelona Spain, economic crisis, New terminal Barcelona airport, Spain, Travel
