A time out

I apologize for my 4 day hiatus from the blogosphere. I had a weekend alone with the kids and some reflecting on life to do, so that took up most of my time. Other than eating lots and lots of cookies with Emily of course. We are trying to keep each other thin on this trip by constantly offering the last of whatever we have to the other. One of us always ends up eating it though.

I haven´t taken many pictures lately. I need to take a weekend excursion or day trip to San Sabastian or Vitoria soon. Ireland/Norway is almost here, so I need to finish planning that first. Thanksgiving is almost here as well and Em and I are thinking hard on how to find turkey and corn and stuffing and all that great stuff. Thank you America for having binge eating holidays!

This morning I took the kids to school and the hills around Tajonar were peaking up through clouds of fog. I took a couple snaps...
The second one´s a little blurry, but I thought it still captured the moment. So pretty!

Last week, I was showing Emily around a little, the very little that I know, and making up history about Pamplona that I think is true, but possibly not as well. I finally got to take a picture of the Ernest Hemmingway statue in the Plaza del Torros. The inscription on it basically says "thanks for the party!" I think that´s incredible. The man has a statue in honor of how much of a kick ass time he had in Pamplona. Well, that´s my new goal, to have a statue next to Ernie saying, "you rock too Darbo!" Here´s the picture...
Literally translated in my broken Spanish, sans diccionario, the inscription reads: "Ernest Hemmingway: Premiere noble of literature, friend of this town and admirer of our parties... (que supo?) to describe and to spread the city of Pamplona, San Fermin."

Very cool.

Let´s see... another picture that I like is of me from last week exploring the various parks in Pamplona at night. I´m quite good at riding dogs with springs for legs...
Tomorrow it is possible that I´ll be able to play in a game with the better team in Navarra. I first have to bribe Emily to be here with the kids while I´m gone because Catherine and Patrick are out for the rest of the week. I hope she´ll babysit! Also, I need to ask Catherine if it´s ok. She´d just have to be here with them while they sleep, no real interaction necessary. I hope it works out because I really want to play.

Ohhhhhhhh, also... the other night I met Nicole Kidman... Iñaki´s friend Luis attempted to translate their conversations on movies and kept saying, "I am Nicole Kidman." It was really quite hilarious. I also found out that in Spain, Burt Reynolds is known as Bart Rain-yols and Tom Cruise is Tom Crew-iz. They´d keep saying to me, "You don´t know Bart Rain-yols? He´s an American actor!" Luis later told me that I need to work on my pronunciation in English. A funny man, that one. Seriously though, I can´t believe how hard people try to accomodate me here. It´s so nice. I don´t expect it and they really try to make sure I understand and include me. It´s pretty great. At the same time, it makes me feel like a jack ass for not knowing their language very well yet. But, I´m still working hard-ish on it and new things are making sense more often.

I have no real plans for the week other than to stay here this weekend for some Darb-time and work on achieving hemmingway status. I´ll keep you posted. Love to ya!

PS - Check out my cousin Kelly´s blog on helping out in N.O., http://360.yahoo.com/kellylynnfullerton. Quite interesting...