Visa Fiasco: Moving to Chelmsford?

When we came to Spain at the end of August, we were in a hurry to get Adele and Iris to the first day of their new school. So we rapidly moved our belongings into storage, got the house ready to rent (which it is) and came over on tourist visas, confident that, long before they expired at the end of November, Matt’s company would procure residency visas.

We first planned to return to the States for the new visas mid October. This date kept getting extended, finally to November 21^st. It seems that the Spanish consulate kept sending the company’s request for a work visa back as insufficient. They wanted more and better signatures, a different notary public, and so forth. I might have found it amusing that a multinational corporation with over a 100,000 employees around the world, and headquarters that look like the city of an advanced, but heartless, civilization

 could not get this one visa from Spain. But, actually, it is not that funny. Perhaps Ludwig Bemelman’s depiction of the Spanish Ambassador in “Madeline and the Bad Hat” can give us some insight into this dilemma. The Ambassador’s son had a very strange sense of humor:

Really, where the problem lies is not clear, but the fact is that when we return to the States on the 21^st of November, the residency visas will not be available, and we will therefore not be able to reside in what is called the “Schengen” countries until, at the earliest, January, and, at the latest, early March. The Schengen region includes all of the European Union except the UK and Ireland.

Matt will have to work out of London. Personally, the prospect of living near the Tate Modern, The British Museum, the Victoria Albert, and others is mouth watering. Also, I am not eager to leave Matt working on his own across the Atlantic. Unfortunately, Adele and Iris are not so tempted by the wonders of London, and home schooling two unhappy children in another new city does not seem especially enticing. In fact, it would be a lot easier to set up camp and home school where we have a lot of family and friends.

So, the current plan (always subject to corporate and national whimsey) is that Adele, Iris and I will, until we get those work visas, live in or near Concord. We are looking for a furnished house or apartment in Concord or Acton from November 21^st to somewhere between the second week of January and the first week of March. A house sitting situation would be fine. In fact, we would love to have pets to look after. And we need to identify this place pronto as Matt's company is ready to have us take an apartment in Chelmsford (about 20 minutes west of Concord). If you know of a possible rental, send me a note. Help us avoid moving to Chelmsford! With all due respect to residents of Chelmsford, this would not be my first choice.

To those in Concord and its environs: See you soon!

Visiting Blogger: A Weekend in Cape Town



View of Table Mountain from my hotel room in Cape Town

As I checked into the luxury boutique “15 on Orange” hotel, the desk clerk handed me a lengthy legal statement to sign. It pointed out that the hotel bore no responsibility for anything that might happen to me, whether perpetrated by their staff or anyone else.  I joked that they were making me feel right at home; but it really disturbed me to think that the hotel would need to go to such lengths. I had just arrived from Johannesburg, where everyone warned me I could not go out jogging, and I spent all my time in secured business or tourist areas. Would Cape Town be just as confining?

Thankfully, no. The next morning I was able to walk without concern a few blocks to a bakery to eat breakfast. It was run by this older Afrikaner who spoke English like Colonel Klink of Hogan’s Heroes. He was just as comical as the Colonel, because even though he ordered his staff around, most of the time they couldn’t understand what he was saying.

In fact, everyone was having a hard time understanding one another. When I asked for a latte, at first the counter staff thought I was asking for a lighter.  Meanwhile, another customer had to ask the short order cook three times before he could get across that he wanted four croissants with eggs and cheese. But the strangest conversation was between a third customer and the owner. They both spoke English and Afrikaans, but they still couldn’t agree on what type of chocolate pastry he was looking for.

The situation was the most poignant example of a phenomenon that I’ve witnessed as I’ve traveled to places like Dubai and Brussels, where there are people from everywhere and multiple official languages. Everyone – even the locals – ultimately becomes a foreigner. The experience made me feel more at ease here. I really wasn’t struggling any more than anyone else.

Wine with a View

After breakfast, I took off towards the Winelands, the source for most of South Africa’s wines. I had read that some of the tasting centers closed at 12:30 on Saturdays, and weren’t open on Sundays, so I had to get moving. I had really liked one Syrah that I had been served at a restaurant in Johannesburg a few nights earlier, so I decided to visit that vineyard first.



Shantytown

On the way out I pass miles of shantytowns, which seem like huge scrap piles that have been wired with electricity. Occasionally someone has painted their galvanized panels some bright color, or strung up colorful washing, but mostly it’s a collision of rusty metal forms and plastic tarps.

Further on, near Stellenbosch (where, ironically, Apartheid was invented), the scenery turns bucolic. The long driveway up to Rustenberg winery is lined with mature trees, with pastures and vineyards on either side, The tasting room is in a compound that has a large garden and a sloping lawn that provides a view to the green valley below. The server tells me that the winery bottled its first vintage in 1711, 299 years ago.

Rustenberg no longer made the Syrah I had had at the restaurant. But they were happy to let me try some other wines. Since it was still morning, I made use of the spittoons that they had at the ready. Tragic, but essential! In the end, I bought a half bottle of white and a bottle of red.

South African Winelands near Franschhoek

I then headed further up the valley towards Franschhoek, a place originally settled by French people. At the ridgeline, I spotted a sign for the Delicatessen at Tokara, and decided to get lunch there. This was like no other delicatessen I’ve seen; perched on the ridge top, it had commanding views over the valley’s vineyards and olive groves. To make the most of it, the dining area was enclosed by floor to ceiling glass panels.

I was expecting sandwiches, but it turns out that this deli served a buffet lunch; there wasn’t a sandwich in sight. The food was fine, but it couldn’t compete with the view. Soon I was on my way again.

Soon I spotted a modest-looking dirt driveway to Thelema Mountain Vineyards. I thought I might find a less touristy experience at this place, but it, too had a flashy tasting room with a nice view. Here I found an astonishing Merlot (yes, Merlot) with an unheard-of 15% alcohol. When I told the vintner that in France, this would not be considered possible, he just shrugged and said “the grapes get riper here.” I bought a bottle and headed south.

Whales and Waves

Southern Coast

Eventually I made it to the coast. I headed for Hermanus, known as a place where you can stand on the shore and watch the whales. And sure enough, I saw some: a few black forms peaking above the swells a couple hundred yards away, occasional spouting, and once or twice, a tail fin. Apparently, a month earlier, there are up to 150 whales in this place, with some just below the promontory.

I took the scenic route back to Cape Town, along the southern coast of Africa. Big crashing waves, white sand beaches littered with boulders, steep, barren mountains rising straight out of the water, with clouds clinging to their tops. Every once in a while a rainbow appeared to top the whole view off.

I ended the day at the Victoria and Alfred waterfront, which turned out to be a touristy mall with big outdoor areas full of street performers. After a day of natural beauty, I wasn’t in the mood for it, and I soon turned in.

Cape of Good Hope

On Sunday, I headed south along the Western coast of the Cape of Good Hope. I was determined to hike in the National Park after a week with no exercise. Hoards of people were heading to the beach on this warm day, so I was soon inching along in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

I worked my way up to the famous Chapman’s Peak Drive, an ancient road that winds its way along the steep hills that surround Hout’s Bay. The scenery was spectacular, and the wind was howling. I had to check my footing as I stood on the overlook and aimed my camera over the bay.

Hout Bay from Chapman's Peak Drive

The tip of the Cape of Good Hope is a protected area. Nothing grows higher than about 8 feet tall; some areas look like tundra, with small wildflowers peaking through the low greenery. The Cape has dramatic cliffs and views back up the coast; no wonder people think of it being the tip of Africa. The real southernmost point is 300 kilometers east, but it couldn’t possibly feel more like the end of the earth.

The Cape of Good Hope

Table Mountain

Aerial Tramway up Table Mountain

My final visit was to the top of Table Mountain. I was lucky enough to pick a clear, calm afternoon, and missed the crowds on the gondola ride by going during the week. From 3500 feet above the city, I could see all of the places I had visited in the previous two days. It’s easy to love this city, which has the skyscrapers of San Francisco, the shipyards of Oakland, and the funky, slightly run-down-looking clubs and shops of Seattle set in more stunning scenery than any of them. However, like a shadow on the scene, Robben Island stands in the middle of the bay, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 27 years. South Africa has done remarkably well, but it is still recovering  from the scars of that time.

View of Cape Town from Table Mountain - Robben Island in the Distance

A Sense of Optimism
On my flight back to Johannesburg, I happened to sit next to South Africa’s policy head for relations with other African countries. We spent two hours talking about the progress and promise of Africa. He was encouraged by the development of a middle class in Angola, and the example of Brazil lifting 40 million people out of poverty.

I admired the sense of optimism I’d felt in South Africa. Everyone I met seemed to be looking forward to future developments. I noted how I had seen the shantytowns electrified. “You seem to be working forward from the basics: clean water, power, education and health,” I said. “Yes,” he replied, “We have the right programs, and plenty of money for them, but sadly, not the right people to deliver them.” “Every year we have to roll over funds because we can’t find qualified staff for our initiatives.”

I also wondered aloud about the ongoing inequality; probably 85% of the people at the conference I attended were white. "Some people must be resentful and impatient." I suggested. "Yes," he agreed, "But our path is working. We do know, of course, that things could change at any time."

I did not catch the name of my seatmate, but many people on the plane seemed to know him. I can't capture all of the nuances of our conversation here, but it was one of the highlights of my visit. I ended my trip with a sense of "good hope" for South Africa and Africa more generally.

Update on Claire, and Exporing the Spanish Coast.

Update on Claire

Here is a photo of Claire from a few weeks ago. She was on a trip with other American Field Service students in Italy. She says that she has really enjoyed meeting other teenagers from around the world who, like her, are crazy enough to land themselves in a foreign home with a language they don't know. They all speak English as well as their own language, and while some knew more Italian than Claire (it would have been hard not to) most had little knowledge of Italian.

Claire said that, as far as she can make out, she is, at 15, easily the youngest AFS student in Italy. Most people assume that she is 17 or 18. I suspect that she just smiles that enigmatic smile of hers and lets them think what they like.

Claire also says that her Italian is improving. She is starting to have real conversations. So now her teachers are actually expecting her to produce work. Two months into learning Italian she is now writing essays.

Greetings from the north coast of Spain.

                                                             

Holidays make short work of school days in Spain in November and December. Between the two months, there is just one week without a holiday.

All Saints Day is a national holiday in Spain, and it happened to coincided with a holiday  of our cousins, Michelle, Remy and their boys, Gael and Dima, from France. So, our well experienced travel agent, which would be Matt, looked at places on the internet and arranged for us all to meet at a posado, that is an inn, near Santander.

Then, about 10 days before the trip, Oracle (not Delphic, not all knowing, but definitely all powerful) asked (kind of the way I “ask” the girls to do their chores) him to go on a business trip to South Africa. This trip followed closely on the heels of a trip to Dubai and London. Which was not long after a trip to Germany, and not long before a trip to Russia. So, Matt is pretty much Mr. Traveling Businessman.

Perhaps wanting to make up for not being with us, he got us first class tickets on the train

The girls painted pictures as I read Harry Potter, and the landscape zipped by at 150 to 200  miles an hour

When Remy asked me what kind of train we had been on, I was wishing Matt was there. He would have known that it was the high speed AVE, imported from France.

Adele, Iris and I agreed that this was quite likely the most comfortable and pleasant 4.5 hour journey we have taken. And thank goodness I didn’t drive, because I thought that Santander was on the Mediterranean coast, just south of the French boarder! We would have been a few hundred east of the Posado.

                                            You will find Santander on the coast, exactly due north of Madrid.

At first, when we saw the city:

And an abandoned developement by the posada (these are endemic in Spain),



and we realized that this part of Spain, called Cantabria, has the least sun and the most rain

:





we were thinking that we should have researched this a bit more. However, the coast is beautiful, it was great to be on beaches, and we had a wonderful time with our cousins.



Iris with Dima, Adele, and Gael holding up a "rock"

Me with my cousin, Michelle

Michelle's husband, Remy







On the coast east of Santander

Concord, Massachusetts and New England are never far from Iris and Adele's minds.

Our favorite beach was the stormiest.

Iris and Remy

The tide was coming in fast.

We could see a hermitage built into the cliff and, despite an approaching storm, Remy, the girls and I, decided to make our way out to it.

View from the Hermitage.

On Saturday, when it was particularly rainy, we retreated to a cave: the ancient caves with paintings in Altimira.

They are amazing. The caves we went into are reproductions, but quite good, and thank goodness for them, because some of the originals could only be approached by crawling through long narrow tunnels. And the people who made the paintings did so with torches.

We also went to a lovely medival village called Santillana del Mar.

We stopped and had a not very authentically medieval snack:

Remy and Gael watched a football match on the television.

And here is my very decorative, my girls would say horrifying, dinner at a Spanish reastaurant:

It was delicious. The Spanish LOVE to eat fish.

                                     Now on our way home. The girls discovered the Club Car.

That is it for my account of Santander. If you have any questions or comments, as always, leave a comment here or send me an email: margotkimball@gmail.com .

NEXT: Stay tuned for our visiting blogger. Matt will give an account of his time in South Africa:

View of Capetown from the top of a Gondola ride.

Dinner Party Entertainment and Halloween: North American Exports

We threw our first dinner party in Spain a couple of weeks ago.

Here I am with Victoria and Javier who we met at the Aparthotel during our first month here. They are from Madrid, but only moved back recently after 8 years living in New Cannan Conneticut and San Paolo. Not being used to city life, Matt and I did not realize that the other guests were circling the block for 20 minutes looking for places to park.    

Sandra showing off her flan. The national dessert of Spain.

This is Sandra. (Not at our house now, I did not get a pic of her there) She and Stefano and their two daughters were the first people here to befriend us. Sandra is from Mexico. Stefano is from Switzerland and they met in London where they had both gone to learn English. Their children have grown up in the States as well as Belgium and now Spain, and they speak English, Spanish and German. Their history is not unusual at the American School.

Here are Adele and Iris at their house in September, with their daughters and a couple of other girls.

Also at our party were Yoshiko and her husband Hiro. I met Yoshiko in the cooking class that Sandra has organized.  Hiro works for the Japanese government to facilitate cultural exchange with Spain.

 The kids ate first so that we could wash our modest supply of glasses, utensils and so forth.

Coming from the suburban culture of Concord, where finished basements, large yards, and vast quantities of games and toys seem ubiquitous, I had worried about what the kids would find to do in our small and sparsely attired apartment. Turns out that 3 varieties of ice cream is sufficient to entertain 6 girls in a kitchen. And “Apples to Apples”

Followed by a Disney Game that you play on the TV set was enough for everyone for after dinner entertainment.

We played the adults vs the children.

 

Each team had to be the first to identify the Disney Character or spot the Mickey Mouse Ears.

                                           The adults were as into this as the children,

Kids and adults of all nationalities played this game with enthusiasm and expertise. Matt and I were probably the least well versed. We also seemed to be the only ones who felt a sense of resentment and distrust toward the Disney Corporation for their game that seems so well designed to reinforce people’s knowledge and attachment to Disney characters.

Strange to consider that Mickey, who Walt Disney based on his pet mouse, Mortimer (his wife pursuaded him to change the name for the cartoon), nearly 85 years later has become one of the world's most familiar icons.

I commented on this to Yoshiko who said that in Japan, Disney movies and characters are so well established, so familiar, that people don’t think of them as being from the United States or anywhere in particular. People think of them as a part of their own culture. We wondered if perhaps Hello Kitty

and Manga novels and films

 have become absorbed into other cultures in the same way. Are people aware that they are Japanese exports?

And speaking of exports:

Halloween at the American School of Madrid.

What do Americans abroad miss most?  Hamburgers, peanut butter and Halloween would all be strong contenders. Peanut butter is not often embraced by those who did not grow up with it, but hamburgers and North American style Halloween inspire many. At ASM, which is just 1/3 Americans, the Halloween Carnival is celebrated with great enthusiasm and this year about 1,400 hamburgers were sold.

Here is Matt, doing his community service at the grill. Most of his hour long shift he was obscured by smoke.

I do believe I had the better job, or jobs.

My first contribution was a life size witch that I painted in my “studio”, that is the space between the red couch and the wall in the living room,

My second contribution was to do face painting:

I have to give the headmaster, Bill O'hale, credit for coming as a witch, and having me paint his face.

Iris’s teacher, Ms. Law, opted for the day's favorite, a demure jack-0-lantern.

 This activity brought me back to many years of face painting at the Thoreau School Cake Walk, as well as assisting Mr. Lemaire with make-up for his annual production of “Monster Madness”.

Adele helped out

Iris with her friend, Caroline.

 

Adele with friends



In the gym

I don’t think I have realy managed to capture this event in my photos. If I had seen this carnival depicted in a Hollywood movie I would have thought it was  unrealistic, overdone but definitely entertaining.