Sunday, August 6, 2017

¿Cómo se dice "loud"?

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TRAVEL TIP FOR AUGUST - AVOID THE EAST COAST OF SPAIN
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The kids used to wake me up at 5:30 in the morning all the time, but I certainly never fell asleep at an airport café while waiting for a flight.


Luckily for David and Tom, Peter stayed vigilant. He also devoured David's chocolate croissant as he drooled on the wall, but the important thing is that he woke up both of the sleeping beauties before boarding. Okay, it took some parental convincing to get him to do that, but the important thing is - he did.

Directly after taking off, a kid sitting next to us (not one of ours) got up to use the bathroom. While climbing over us, he stomped all over Angie's purse that was laying on the floor and broke off the strap. I laughed. Angie almost cried. Destructo Dave said nothing, but cast an admiring eye towards the boy with the weak bladder and heavy feet.

In case the travel tip didn't give it away, let me narrow down our whereabouts for the next ten days.


After landing, we moved on to our next adventure, which was picking up our rental car. As we approached the counter, Angie was dragging her broken purse by one strap and looking absolutely thrilled at the sound this was making. Or maybe that was me. Not sure - it was a long flight. Doesn't matter. To me.

We dumped our baggage in front of the counter and Angie told Peter to watch the bags and disappeared with David and Tom to get drinks. She ignored my request for a cerveza, but I'm sure that is because she studied nine years of Latin instead of Spanish. What a waste.

As I was finishing up, I turned around to find a uniformed man sporting a machine gun trying to hit on my wife, who had just returned with nothing closely resembling a beer.

'Señora, you need to watch your bags. ¡Siempre!'

'It's okay, my son was watching the bags.'

As it often happens with men dealing with my wife, the policeman shook his head and laughed.

'¡No, no, Señora! ¡YOU need to watch your bags!'

With that, our Spanish friend and helper pointed to his female partner in crime, who was standing at the opposite end of the airport. In her hands, dangling by one strap, was Angie's purse.

The Hollywood side of my brain immediately raced to the logical conclusion that this was a shakedown and that we were going to need to blow our already low pool of funds on getting Angie's broken purse back.

Luckily, Sergeant Jefe just shook his head and laughed for the second time. Then he whistled at his partner, who came over and gave Angie her purse back. My mind immediately transmitted two thoughts:
  1. Pull the guy aside and tell him politely that whistling at women stopped being cool in the eighties.
  2. Check for missing money.
I cannot control my mind when it comes to transmitting thoughts. Angie can testify to this fact, even if no one has asked her for her opinion. Unlike the love of my life, though, I can control how my mouth responds to such thoughts.

'¡Muchas gracias!'

After picking up the rental car, we did the same thing that I'm sure all families do shortly after landing in Spain and drove directly to Taco Bell.


In our defense, they don't have a Taco Bell anywhere close to where we live, so, unlike their regular customers, we were genuinely excited to be there.

Our final destination was actually about an hour from Valencia in a beautiful city called Jávea. Leif's mom has an amazing place at the foot of the mountain bearing the name that sounded a lot like an imperative to our family - Montgó. The view is breathtaking in any direction, it's about ten minutes to the beach, it has enough rooms to house a zoo and she made the nonretractable offer once for us to stay there. Oh, yeah, it also has a pool.


By dinner time, the Zoo Crew was collectively losing energy. That's when Patricia woke up the boys by unveiling the "Beefer".


If you have never tasted food cooked in a "Beefer", my recommendation is not to. No other steak or burger in your life will ever taste like you know how it should taste and they can be a bit pricey.

Basically, you raise the tray with meat until it is less than an inch from the flames, which keep the entire hot box at a whopping 800 degrees Celcius (1,472 F). The result is an incredibly crispy outside and the searing completely seals all of the juices inside. You can only do one large steak or two burgers at a time, but it only takes a minute per side so my belly accepted the tradeoff.

After dinner, we got the kids to sleep and Patricia woke Angie and me up by unveiling the "Gin Tonic".


If you have never tasted Patricia's "Gin Tonic", my recommendation is not to, for reasons that will become blatantly obvious in the morning.
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Ladder Talk: 
1) What was the best part of your day?
Peter: That we came to Spain and the flight was good.
David: That we landed and could play in the pool.
Tom: That we came here to Spain, that Patricia is SO nice and that the house is so nice with the pool.

2) What was the worst part of your day?
Peter: That David was kinda grumpy at the end of the day.
David: That I accidentally did a belly flop and that hurts.
Tom: That Peter and David were the whole time dunking my head under the water.

3) What would you like to do tomorrow?
Peter: Play in the pool and maybe go to the city or the beach.
David: Play in the pool and maybe go somewhere and have fun.
Tom: I want to go in the pool and eat burger meat with the Beefer.