Category: Culture

When we travel, we try to check out local news sources to find out what the locals are up to. Sometimes it’s a dry well, other times we strike gold. This past week was the latter here in Alicante.

First, Judy saw mention of a local fiesta about the “Santa Faz.” The Holy Face? So I looked it up, and sure enough, there is a monastery of the Holy Face in the greater Alicante area, dating back to the 15th Century. According to local lore, in that period, a monk from Rome smuggled part of the Veil of Veronica to Alicante to spare it from whomever was sacking Rome at that time. The Veil of Veronica? A Catholic legend that a woman named Veronica wiped Jesus’ face (as he walked the cross up to Golgotha), thereby receiving an image of his passion on the veil.

There’s no contiguous evidence for Veronica’s story, and some theologians believe even her name is simply a mistranslation referring to the veil (Vera icon = true image in Latin/Greek). But veils purporting to be the true image have been around since the 6th Century, and at one point the Vatican collected up the many versions to try to establish some sort of registry. Unfortunately, before the work was done, the accounting was lost, so no one knows which was which. They subsequently found paths to different places like Alicante, where they continued to be venerated. The Church has approved worship of the Holy Face (as an icon of Christ’s passion) without going any further toward validating any of the individual veils.

Locals in Alicante believe the veil has miraculous qualities, and they honor it annually with a procession from the Co-Cathedral in the city back to the monastery. The images you see in my photos/videos is NOT the veil itself. Too many people tried to touch or grab it over the centuries, and it suffered from public exposure. So the religious authorities constructed a tableau to put it in for further public exposition. The procession happens every year on the second Thursday after Easter. It starts inside the Cathedral, with prayers and a welcome from the alcalde (mayor), as the event is well-coordinated with the local authorities. The pilgrims carry cane poles with sprigs of rosemary signifying their status. It then winds through the narrow streets of the old town until reaching a major modern highway, one-side of which closed. About halfway (5 kilometers) to the monastery, local businesses set up booths offering snacks, wine, and freebies (note the many orange baseball caps, for example).

Arriving at the monastery , there is a full-scale fiesta with booths, carnival rides, etc. We inched our way closer to the main door, and found an outdoor Mass, and the chance to receive Holy Communion. We didn’t stay for the tour inside the monastery, and instead found one of the special public busses set up to take us back to the city center. As we rode home, we could still see families on the early stages of the walk! The government estimates about 330,000 people processed this year!

This adventure was the Caminar (walking) portion of the week; now for the Comer (eating).

Around the same time, the Alicante city government also sponsored “Alacroqueta,” a competition to see which local restaurant serves the best croquettes. Alicante views itself as a national leader in croqueta cuisine. Croqueta began as a solution to leftovers: take whatever didn’t get eaten, form it up into little balls (maybe add a little sauce), dip in batter, fry it up, and serve it again. Over time, they became a go-to form of tapas, the little snacks served alongside drinks in Spanish bars.

As a form of marketing mixed with self-promotion, the city sponsored a public snack-off. Fourteen finalists (after a first round competition earlier in the year) were selected to sell their best croqueta creation at this event. If you bought even one, you got a QR code to vote for best croqueta. The competition went on for four days, and we visited early on Saturday before the lunch rush.

Among the competitors we tried ones filled with kimchi, jamon iberico/mushroom/truffles, and Spanish chorizo. Each croqeuta cost two euros, and drinks were three or four (very inexpensive). We only lasted two rounds of tasting, because while the croquetas are small, they are very rich and fried, thus very filling. A tapas crawl (similar to a bar crawl) here comprises walking from bar to bar, trying their signature tapa with a caña (small beer) or small glass of wine while standing in the bar, then moving on to the next bar. For the locals, the standing and walking and waiting while chatting with friends is part of the experience, while tourists are easy to spot for ordering many different tapas while staying in the same bar.

In both cases (the caminar and the comer) it was fun to join locals enjoying their town.

Marriage (and life in general) is a series of compromises. My dear wife would prefer to be at home, living her routine, every day, for the rest of our days. That works great for us during college football season (September-January), as I too like to be where I don’t have to search to see where games might be televised. I can access the Firestick, pull up YouTube TV, and select four games to watch simultaneously. Three times each Saturday. And some people think there is no God!

But starting in February, I get the travel itch. That’s not quite true. Starting in February I get the travel itch for next year, as by February all this year’s travel is planned, paid for, and ready to go. Judy is game for the annual exodus, but because we’re traveling, I get a chance to compromise. For example, we try to avoid those “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” type trips, endlessly hauling luggage up-n-down European stairwells because the Romans didn’t invent the elevator. We try to stay longer when we go somewhere. We try to avoid jet-lag. and most importantly, we try to live wherever we land within our home, expat schedule.

“What’s the point of traveling if you’re going to live like you’re at home,” you might ask. Why, that’s the point of this blog post!

Living by your typical schedule gives you a sense of normalcy in unfamiliar places. Life on the road, even a planned, extended trip, can quickly become unsettling. A rail strike in Italy, which doesn’t even get covered by the local press anymore, can mean a missed airline flight. A grabby cabbie can lunge at your fistful of dollars in Istanbul, because you don’t have enough Lira (true story). Worst of all, you might get sick. Anyone who has been sick far away from home knows the feeling: what do I do now? Visiting Oxford many years ago for an executive seminar (thanks, US taxpayers!), I got a terrible head cold. I mean snot running out my nose in a torrent. I asked the professor of my seminar where I could get some pseudoephedrine to address the symptoms. She looked at me like I was trying to score some crack. Turns out it was a controlled substance back then in the UK (now too in the US). She said Brits just go to the local apothecary, which I then did. Where, it turns out, they offered me an herbal tea and some smelly thing for a chest rub. Luckily, my wife was arriving from the States, and she smuggled in a box of extra-strength Sudafed.

But setting aside the things that go terribly or mostly wrong, just small things can add up. The coffee is not quite right, or the dining hours off, or the microwave controls appear to be from the Soyuz system. People stay up late partying next door, or don’t form a queue at the bakery, or have a trash and recycling system more complicated than voting in the States. Eventually you can figure these things out, and life sets into a slightly-different routine. But not if you don’t settle in place, first. So we try to keep our home schedule, with nice local excursions to that schedule. What’s that look like here in Alicante, Spain?

I still get up between 6-6:30 am. You can’t get up before the dawn for forty years and not establish a pattern. So that’s my quiet time, to pray, to fix some coffee, to start my daily reading. I wake Judy at 7:30, with a cup of fresh brew and a song. Always the same song. I tried to change it once and never got a verse done before she asked what I was doing. I return to my reading (and another cup) while she has her prayer and quiet time. Around 8-8:30 she makes breakfast. Here’s where small changes come in. We have a minimal kitchen here, and plentiful Spanish foods, so we generally have eggs with jamon iberico (in its many forms), toast with olive oil and salmorejo ( a cold garlicky soup the locals also pour onto the breakfast bread). Judy has the same with what I call her “nuts and twigs”: cottage cheese or yogurt with chia seeds and powdered bat-wing, eye of newt, and grass from the plaza next door. I may be wrong about the last few ingredients. Maybe. I don’t want to ask.

Between 9-9:30, at home we would head to the gym we built in our basement. Here, we joined a local gym for the two months of our stay, €30 per person per month, no sign-up fee and no long-term commitment. We go six days a week, with a schedule that includes daily stretching and cardio, and weights with rest days in between. I have to say that we see the same set of twenty-something gym-bros and -bras there everyday, so I have no idea what they all do for a living. We’ll be at the gym until 11:30-noon, then back to the apartment.

Lunch presents the first real choice of the day: do we eat out or will Judy cook it? Remember, we only eat breakfast and lunch, so cooking our big meal of the day is no small commitment. Judy usually plans a day or two out in advance, so sometimes there is a chicken breast or pork filet that needs eating, other times not. Fresh Broccoli, or seasonal vegetables: right now it’s asparagus and artichoke season, so they’re fresh, inexpensive, and in every tienda. I’ll have a few restaurant options to choose from if that’s what we lean toward this day. Not all of them will be tapas, croquetas, or even Spanish cuisine; we just hit a pizzeria because it advertised real Napolitano pizza, and sure enough, the chef was from Naples. There are sushi, Thai, Poke, Argentine, Chinese, and Arab restaurants within blocks.

After lunch, we usually go do our grocery shopping. When in Europe, shop like the Europeans: go to the store every day and get fresh bread, veggies, milk, etc. Carry them home in a little trolley. Yes, they do have giant all-in-one stores like Costco, but most people shop in the store down the street. The crazy thing is, everything in there will be fresh. When you walk into a 7-11, you expect processed and frozen food; you don’t eat the prepared stuff unless you have a death-wish. Here, even the prepared foods were made this morning, and usually by someone who really took pride in making that little ensalada rusa. And they’re good, and not expensive.

Because it’s close to the apartment and we shop for a only a few things, it’s a quick trip. We often take a short walk around town after meals. Between 1:00 and 2:00 we face a second choice: is there some place or event we want to visit? Via walking or the tram, we can get anywhere in town in under ten minutes, so we can pop over to a museum, a store, a display and be back before siesta time. Or we can always go another day, and siesta time beckons sooner. Siesta is real thing, but it doesn’t always involve sleeping in the middle of the day. Well, it does for us, but in general in Mediterranean cultures, it’s the hottest part of the afternoon, when it is best not to go out, or if you must, to run a few errands before returning to work. In Mexico the school day is a half day, so parents go home to greet their children coming home or to send the second shift off to school. Here in Spain, many more stores stay open as a convenience, but some banks and government offices close. In the Spring it seems a luxury, but in Summer, it’s a necessity.

Judy can easily put in two hours of siesta, falling asleep to her True Crime podcasts. How anybody can fall asleep to the creepy voice of the narrator saying, “he looked normal, but that machete he was sharpening had a well-worn blade” I will never understand. I take my patented Pentagon nap. Back in the day, when I was still in uniform and worked on the Joint Staff in an extremely stressful job supporting the nuclear arms talks, we all used to work insane hours. My bosses didn’t care how long we spent at the POAC: the Pentagon Officers (and civilians) Athletic Club. On really bad days, I would head down there, switch into my swim trunks, shower next to the pool, then sit down in one of the pool-side lounge chairs (yes, they really had these, although the pool was underground!) and close my eyes. Forty-five minutes later (without a smartwatch, timer, or alarm clock), I would sit up, shower and get back in uniform, and “resume the suckage” as we used to say. Thus is my siesta today.

I’ll wake Judy between 4:30 and 5:00 pm so we can indulge a guilty pleasure: watching the ABC evening news and The Five on Fox. Depending on what time zone we’re in, these shows may be live, taped, or even from the previous day (most often the case in Europe). It’s strictly to see what the legacy media is saying, and if you haven’t ever watched The Five, I recommend it to you. The panelists (mostly regulars) genuinely like each other, so the banter is spontaneous and authentic. They really do mix it up, and there are genuine representatives of different viewpoints: MAGA, trad GOP, libertarian, liberal/progressive, and comic. But there’s clearly a right-leaning take.

In the early evening, we may go for another walk. I’ll do some writing, either for this blog or for a book. We both review social media, but try to limit it by setting a time to “watch our shows” normally at 8:00 pm. At that time, we pull up some new or interesting series on Britbox, Acorn, Netflix, Amazon Prime, or other streaming services, watching however many episodes fit in before 10:00 pm and bed.

Go to sleep, rinse and repeat.

The one major difference is Sunday, where we skip the gym and instead go to church. Oh, and Monday, when we cut into siesta by getting a massage at the Thai parlor down the street.

Last week, I reported on the afternoon and late evening processions we attended, which throw this schedule off, but are of course part of the reason for travelling in the first place. This week, there’s another pilgrimage and a croquetas competition, so those will find a place on the schedule. The nice thing is we don’t have to feel rushed. It started to sprinkle today as we left church, and we hesitated: do we skip the archaeology museum for another day? We chanced it, and the threatened rain didn’t materialize. And we got that amazing pizza afterward.

We were never going to be comfortable adopting the Spanish eating schedule. As I write this, I’m watching the families out in the plaza across from our balcony apartment, and they’re sitting in the square, talking and playing games, working up an appetite for dinner, because it’s only 8:00 pm and it’s still quite light outside. They’ll be out until 10:00 pm, kids included. Works for them; would make both of us sick. But other aspects are easier to adopt. Doing small loads of laundry (we’re lucky our apartment has both a small washer and dryer), shopping daily, walking everywhere.

So any given day may seem a lot like home, with some more Spanish flavor (as in the meals) or be as different as attending a pilgrimage walk of several miles with several hundred thousand of our closest co-religionists (coming soon to a blog near you). Not overwhelming, but also different from staying at an all-inclusive or doing group tours. We probably wouldn’t be able to pull this off without our functional Spanish-language capabilities, although a tourist city like Alicante has plenty of English speakers and businesses with little Union Jack flags in the windows (English-friendly). But signing up for a gym, or shopping for clothes, or asking the museum ticket office for a special combination ticket? All that’s en español.

So that’s our approach to slow travel, and it works for us. If you have your own way to approach travel, share it in the comments!

Not a typo, but a Latin term used by the Catholic Church for the three days coming after the Lenten penitential season. Some old Catholics and other Christians may recall references to the “forty days of Lent” but that is a historical reference, not an actual count. Pope Leo I originally set the Lenten period at forty days, but later Popes set Ash Wednesday (you know, the day you see people walking around with smudges on their foreheads?) as the beginning of Lent , which reset Lent to more than forty days. Some folks contend the Sundays in Lent don’t count (Sundays are always “feast days”) but that would leave Lent at less than forty days. Either way, Lent ends with Holy Thursday, the start of a three-day period called Triduum. And yes, it’s still confusing, because the three days comprise Thursday-to-Friday, Friday-to-Saturday, and Saturday-to-Sunday. Which is Easter.

While many people think of Christmas and Easter as equally important peak days of Christianity, that’s not entirely correct. The Triduum, the mysterious period where Jesus Christ holds the Last Supper, is betrayed, accused, chastised*, tried, condemned, crucified, and then rises from the dead, is the summit of Christian experience. Of course, you can’t get there without the Incarnation (Mary’s fiat in Nazareth, Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem), but we can’t get there (Heaven) without the Triduum.

The Alicante processions continued all week, and while we didn’t attend each and every one, the ones we did attend were all unique. On Wednesday we tried to get close to the Hermanidad Penitencial procession in the Santa Cruz neighborhood. I say tried, because despite going early, we only got this close:

The Santa Cruz area is the original old city, on a hillside, with very narrow lanes. Maneuvering the paso through involves all kinds of complicated maneuvers. Going under a doorway might have the costaleros crawling on their hands and knees; going downhill means holding the front over their heads, hands extended (to equalize the weight; think about carrying a couch down a stairwell). A French couple with whom we were watching another procession told us the costaleros return the paso to the top of the hill by running with it! Luckily, someone else got a better video of the event:

On Holy Thursday we stayed up till 11:30 pm to watch the beginning of the “silent procession.” Two surprises awaited us. First, the procession turned right coming out of the door of the Co-cathedral, while the official tourist guide assured me they would turn left. So we were out of position. Second, the band started up; maybe the silent part comes later?

Lest we find ourselves distant onlookers yet again, the Spirit took pity on us when we returned to our apartment. One more procession, not just in the neighborhood, but right under our balcony!

and then . . .

We eventually recovered from our late night, and now happily and solemnly await Easter morning. I know I’m looking forward to chocolate (from the Leonidas store two blocks away) and ice cream (gelato!); Judy will resume listening to true-crime podcasts. We hope your Lent was spiritually fruitful!

Blessed Easter to All!

*Chastisement was a spectrum of Roman punishment, from mild public scolding to heavy flogging designed solely for those about to be executed by crucifixion. Odd how in English, it has become solely the former.

Choosing to spend some quality expat spring time in Spain meant the opportunity to witness how the Spanish do Holy Week: Holy Cow! When we moved to rural Mexico, we were impressed by the Passion plays, posadas, and festivities surrounding Catholic feasts (especially Christmas, Easter, and each pueblo’s patron saint). But like so many other things (vaqueros/cow-boys, talavera pottery, skeletons/catrinas, use of doubled surnames), Mexican culture has significant antecedents from Spanish culture. Now you might think that Spain, being an advanced European nation with a sophisticated, post-Enlightenment mentality, might have outgrown much religious “superstition.” And you would be wrong.

In addition to all the religious services normally associated with the end of Lent and the celebration of Easter, one of Spain’s most treasured traditions is the procession. These processions are elaborate affairs, supported by local organizations (often called cofradias or hermanidades) and some trace all the way back to the sixteenth century. These groups resemble the “krewes” who perform a similar function for Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but there are no beads and no flashing in these processions. Instead, the groups arrange elaborate floats (pasos) which are hand-carried through the streets, accompanied by a drumbeat, sacred tune, and members of the groups in official costumes. The pasos can weigh between 4,000-12,000 pounds, including elaborate sculptures, statues, and floral arrangements. Thus the costaleros carrying the floats can number in the hundreds, and it is an honor to be chosen to carry. The massive floats maneuver down narrow city streets, usually passing by several major plazas and the town hall and either ending or beginning at a basilica or cathedral.

We considered visiting Sevilla for this special week, as the processions there are often featured in videos and draw large crowds, so I assumed they were unique and special. But I decided to double-check what was on the agenda for Alicante: twenty-six distinct processions, starting on Palm Sunday and ending Easter morning. No need to take a train to see one, they were coming (figuratively, I thought) down my street!

All this was only Palm Sunday. Now it was also the first week of Daylight Saving Time, so the already night-owlish Spaniards were quite happy to be out and about with the 60 degree temps and an extra hour of evening sun (it got dark around 9:30 pm).

Before anybody asks: no, the klan is not well-represented here. The pointed white hats and hoods are a holdover from the infamous Spanish Inquisition. One of the punishments meted out to the sinful-but-repentant was to parade through town wearing this “dunce cap” carrying a sign or symbol of one’s serious sins. Thus the penitent was forced to face public ridicule, but was anonymous, sparing them the greatest disgrace. Or they marched without the face covering, but with nothing identifying exactly what sin they committed. Today, we embrace our shame and post about it on Insta; haven’t we come so far! The caps are called capirotes, and the various groups who sponsor the processions adopted them as uniforms showing their own contrition.

And all this was only the beginning.

Longtime readers will recall Judy & I started absconding to Europe in the springtime a few years back. First, because it’s less crowded than summertime and the weather is still nice. Second, Ajijic is at the end of its dry season, when it warms up and gets a little dusty. Third, according to Judy, I can’t just sit still and enjoy our wonderful home when there are still battlefields, historic ruins, and cathedrals we haven’t seen. Anyway, shoulder season is getting more crowded all the time, we now have air conditioning and total off-grid solar power at home, but there are still battlefields, historic ruins, and cathedrals we haven’t seen! She’s probably correct.

We just arrived after a seventeen-day transatlantic cruise, and we’ve settled into a rental apartment in Alicante, Spain for the next two months. I’ve previously extolled the virtues of cruising to Europe (here), so I’ll summarize it thusly: if you have the time, if you know what type of cruise line you prefer (they are VERY different), if you hate jet-lag, if you don’t get seasick or aren’t afraid of the open ocean, cruising to Europe is a comfortable bargain. End of commercial.

Why Alicante? We visited here for a week last year, after doing a lot of due diligence about perhaps buying a vacation home in Spain. Our two finalist locations were Sevilla and Alicante. Either would be a great place for an extended visit, but Sevilla well-earns its nickname as the “oven of Europe” for summer temperatures. Alicante, on the Costa Blanca (south of Valencia, north of Cartagena) has more moderate weather, which made it our winner.

But our vacation home-buying plans are in abeyance right now, due to the politics of the Spanish government. Spain has an affordable housing crisis, as there are too many people chasing two few houses in the cities where everyone wants to live. Vast rural areas and small towns in Spain are depopulating at an alarming rate, but zoning and other regulations impede new construction in more desirable locations. Demonstrating that other countries can be as mismanaged as our own, the Spanish Prime Minister has unilaterally given amnesty to 500,000 illegal immigrants, and pledged to be more welcoming to immigration in the future . . . while not increasing the housing supply. The government’s straw-man arguments are to blame the lack of housing on (wait for it) foreigners buying vacation homes in Spain (us in the future conditional tense), and overtourism (us in the present tense) creating demand which results in converting long-term rentals (for locals) to short-term rentals (for tourists).

Actually, both of these arguments hold some water, but they omit important details. Home buying by foreigners is a very tiny part of the market, and represents a net gain economically by introducing well-off clientele to the local economy. And who owns all those apartments being converted for tourists? Spaniards, making money off the rentals. “My, you’re the dark one,” said the pot to the kettle!

While the government has done nothing but complain about the situation, they have threatened measures like a 100% purchase-price tax on foreign home-buyers, which is the kind of thing to cool one’s ardor to buy a home in Spain right now. At least it cooled ours. Just to buy, not to visit. In fact, we viewed the cooling off period as an opportunity to try out the lifestyle we were considering, just short of going all in with a purchase. So here we are in Alicante.

Alicante is big enough (pop: 370,000) to have everything one wants in a city, but retains the smaller town feel. The casca antiguo (old city) clings to the hillside beneath the obligatory mountain-top fortress of Castell de Santa Bàrbara. The areas closest to the beach have been gentrified into shopping/eating/touristing, but the quaint lanes of old casas still line the Santa Cruz neighborhood. There is a fine marina, with a stunning, large esplanade of mosaic tiles and tapas bars. While some tourists stay in Alicante, most descend upon the nearby purpose-built beach suburb of Benidorm, where high-rises stretch from the beach to the hills. The downtown is flat and very walkable, while the city and local beach communities are connected by an inexpensive tram.

We have a small (600 sq. ft.) apartment in the centro. While it does have two bedrooms, a kitchen and a combo living/dining room, it is designed primarily as a short-term rental. Because we were looking for a longer-term and seeking outside the high season, we were able to cut a deal with the property manager. When I say deal, don’t think “steal”: it was still expensive, but worth it to try out the lifestyle short of the cost of buying a place!

So for the next two months, we’ll be reporting on our attempt to merge our own well-settled expat lifestyle with that of Spain.

“¡Palante, como los de Alicante!” (Forward like the people of Alicante!), a common Spanish aphorism.