Blues in Burlada

On Friday night Inaki and I wanted to get out and stretch our legs a bit. We wanted something new, but nothing crazy and settled on hitting up a bar called "The Black Rose" in Burlada, a village about 2 miles away from where we live. They had live blues music for the evening and we thought that sounded pretty interesting. The Spanish language is too sing-songy, in my opinion, to make a tune sound low down, pitiful, "my woman runned off an lef me, but befo she gone she done kilt me dog", sad. So, I wanted to see this Spanish blues concert of course! What would it be like!?

Well, it was in English. I almost wished I'd made up a business card before arriving because I really could have helped with pronunciation. However, the music was so good! This video isn't very good, but you can hear my fave Susan Tedeschi beat as he's getting into the lyrics:

We just leaned up against the cinder block wall, watched and had the best time. Early on in the concert, one of the first songs, the singer and band stopped after repeating the same line over and over again, and looked around at the crowd. If I were in the states, I would have taken this pause as a sign that I was supposed to repeat the line, but seeing as how there were crickets, I stood quiet. The singer looked at the owner of the bar and said into the mic, "Mikel, we're going home" but then laughed and finished the song.

In the next song, one of the lines was "oh, oh, oooooooooh."After saying it about 3 times, the singer and the band paused again, looking out at the crowd and again, silence. That is, until I got fed up and couldn't hold it in any longer. As the singers eyes passed over me, I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled "oh, oh, oooooooh!" It came out a lot louder than I'd anticipated and my "oh"s were obviously long and very American. As soon as the words came out of my mouth I wanted to suck them back in again. The singer smiled and continued the song, but then I thought, "crap, maybe I'm not supposed to do that here!?" I mean it was sooooo silent and then here comes the big obnoxious American with her loud ways! Picture my mother, at a basketball game, doing her signature "wait til everything's quiet and then yell at the ref in a deep baritone". That's what it sounded like.

But, after the song, Inaki leaned over to me and said, "good job with the 'oh's" He said Esteban, a friend we were with, whispered to Inaki after I yelled, "oh, that's what we were supposed to do!" So, I think I was actually helpful, yay! And, during the rest of the concert, other people started participating. Yessssssss, trend setter!

Anyhow it was a great time and if any of you readers come visit, we'll take you there so you can see the first place Spanish citizens repeated after a blues singer during a concert!

2012 in reviewsky

While at home this holiday season, I found myself in constant complaint mode. As much as I tried to be positive about my life and how things are going, being home made me miss it even more, though I was there. Go figure. Every time someone asked me a catch up question, I would tell them, "I'm living in Spain and teaching English and we're decorating the apartment, blablabla." Eyes would widen, smiles would stretch across faces and a happy, good-hearted envy wafted through the air during these moments. People would say, "you are so lucky!" or "wow, I've always wanted to teach English in Spain!"

Usually, I would then ask my sweet friends, "what would you do with your time there?" Because, I find teaching to be all consuming and my weekend life is still infiltrated by thoughts on phrasal verbs and how to better explain them or how to get my students to sit down in their chairs and not stand on their desks staring at me like, "what are you going to do about this? Nothing." Mostly, people said they'd travel, eat, drink and learn Spanish. Although I've been doing that, I'm going to focus on that more this year. I want to quit taking myself so seriously and quit wallowing over teaching and remember that this is a special time in my life. We'll see.

Also, I've looked back at 2012 and realized, we did so much! I need to get my optimistic-self back, quit being a spoiled brat and enjoy the time I have here. So, here are my top pictures from experiences we had each month last year. It's pretty amazing that I did all this and it makes me feel glad.

January 2012 (or December 31st, 2012) Migration Brewing:

This was NYE last year (2011-2012) You see here Inaki and Whit sitting across from me at Migration Brewing shortly after we discovered that trying to make the Zoolander "Blue Steel" face while drinking is the funniest thing ever. I happen to have the cheekbones for it and can bust it out at a moment's notice. These 2 yahoos just couldn't get it! Whit has issues pursing her lips and Inaki... well, he's not the best imitator :) So I snapped about 10 pictures of them trying to do Blue Steel that night and I love this one because they are so happy, having fun, with their eyes shut the same way at the same time and it just makes me laugh when I see it. Pure joy in their faces, don't you think? We sure do miss hanging out with Whitty! Can't wait to hang out here in July!

February 2012, Mom and Dad's kitchen:

Inaki and my 2nd brew. Everyone said the first one was good, but when this one finished, everyone said it was better. We chose an amber because we thought it would be hard to mess up and then we dry-hopped it to get more flavor out of it. It ended up being much more drinkable than our first round and a smoother process the 2nd time through. Brewing and beer was a big part of my life in 2012. The process of applying for a job with a brewery and diving into the beer industry to learn as much as I could was really fun. Though we ended up in Spain, I think the beer industry would be a great place for me in the future.

March 2012, Seattle 10K with Cousin Kell:

Whits, Inaki and I headed up to Seattle to visit our cousin Kelly in March and run my first 10K of the year. It was so fun to visit Kelly as "adults" and see Seattle as she lives in it. I saw more of the city than I ever have and it was so cool to be with her and experience her life there. We ran a 10K, had delicious coffee, crumpets, visited Snoqualamie Falls (Twin Peaks fans should know that one), saw a few shows, had a terrible whisky shot (which almost made the blog) and ate at Dick's. Great times. We miss you Kell! Come visit please!

April 2012, Lake Pilsbury, CA:

This was just the coolest weekend! Inaki and I met Lance and Lauren 1/2 way and camped in Northern California for a few days. We packed up the Aveo and she made the trip like a champ! A million great stories came out of this weekend, but the theme was great friends, beautiful surroundings and adventure. I love this picture because you can see we were the only people there and right on the lake, got the only pocket of good weather (it was snowing the night before), we were fully stocked with the essentials and you can see me chatting with one of my best friends in the whole world. Doesn't get much better.

May 2012, Tom McCall hike:

This is from a hike Inaki and I took in May. It was in Tom McCall park and these dandelion-ish flowers were everywhere in the field perched atop a cliff in the Columbia River Gorge. All that yellow is such a clear memory and I'm glad Inaki had the sense to snap a shot like this. Oh nature!

June 2012, Father's Day biking bar hop:

We had a lot of great times in June, as we knew we'd be saying goodbye in a month, but Father's Day topped it, I think. I'm not sure how we came to the decision that we should do a bar hop by bike, but it was a great one! I'm pretty sure Inaki cooked it up and mapped it all out now that I think about it. We started at our house in NoPo and rode to St. John's for Occidental. Then, dad's bike got a flat and we thought all was lost because we had an 11 mile ride back to his house. We pumped it up at a gas station and had to skip a few spots, but we made it to Breakside, Mash Tun and then Peter's to round out the day. The amount of bars we had originally hoped to hit would have been way too many. I'll never forget trying to ride up the hill from Occidental after that first pint. So hard!

July 2012, San Fermin:

July has to be San Fermin. We actually had a huge July last year, because as we said goodbye to Portland, we said hello to Pamplona. But, you can't beat San Fermin. Maybe with Carnaval in Brazil, but I'm not sure. We accomplished our 24 hour party last year by starting at the chupinazo and staying out until the next morning to ring in the day with the Pamplonesa. I got to meet the whole family and the whole time was just jolly fun!

August 2012, a sudden visitor:

Inaki and I were so happy when Kim emailed and said she'd be visiting in a couple of weeks. She got a random job moving a boat from one spot to another (as you know, she's a professional pirate when she's not teaching), and popped into Pamplona for a few days. She was our first visitor and a friendly face from home was just what I needed. Thanks Kim!

September 2012, San Adria:

I blogged about this one, so you already know about the beer fight in San Adria. It was such a good time and reminded me of the Spain I left 5 years ago. Spanish hospitality all over the place, a visit to the Barcelona city center and all the sites it has to offer. Making new friends and having a crazy beer fight for hours. Who gets to do that? Me. Awesome.

October 2012, 1st full phase on El Camino:

October was another big month for us. I think it was the great weather. We ended up doing 2 phases on the camino, 2 races, visited Santander and the Picos de Europa and started our new monthly tradition of lunch out with Paco. It was great. But, I think the best I felt was on my first phase of the camino. Walking through all the tiny towns and such long distances feels so good. This picture is on the top of the Perdon, which I also already blogged about. I've got PaPete's old shirt on that my mom made for him and this is when it became my new hiking shirt. Anyhow, I'm sure there will be more camino to come. Maybe tomorrow!

November 2012, San Emillion and Bordeaux:

Inaki and I got to take a trip to San Emillion and Bordeaux during the end of November that was pretty cool. Next time, we'll definitely learn more french first, but the evening in San Emillion was just beautiful, which is where this shot was taken. Can you see our shadows? Wandering through the town was magical and then stopping at the grocery store for a dinner of wine, bread, meat and cheese. Here's to more trips in 2013.

December 2012, Christmas card:

We had so much fun walking around Pamplona and taking pictures for our Christmas card that we never sent last year! We threw some cheap wine in a thermos, added a cinnamon stick and strolled up to town to try to make it for the blue hour. We took various shots, but these are our favorites. How cool is a wine bottle Christmas tree? So cool. I might just make my own! Sadly, we never sent it, only face-booked it, but our intentions were good! Hopefully next year.

Well, that's my/our year in a nutshell. Wow, it's been a good one I guess. 2012 has felt very hard for lots of reasons, but we've managed to have such a full life in between the tough stuff. Cheers to being happy, healthy, adventurous and optimistic in 2013! And to the Cave Girls. Love to all!