From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009

      We spent one week in Sevilla (Seville), which is in Southern Spain. We went to a pigeon park and fed the pigeons little nuts and seeds. Each packet of pigeon food was 1.50 euro (1 euro is about 1.50 dollars). If you ever put your hand out above the pigeons with seeds in them, they will fly to your hand, land on your fingers, and peck at the seeds. You can catch them, but they are uncomfortable and flap their wings, so you have to let them go. Diego, my friend from Zaragoza (in another part of Spain) came to visit us for two days. He caught some pigeons too. Then we went to a museum where they had stone lion sculptures built by the Romans. Then we saw a baby bird and I wanted to catch it, but my mom said that the bird’s mom would sniff it and smell the human and think that it’s a human and fly away. My mom, Cy, and I saw flamenco dancers. They stomped their feet and it made a loud noise. There was a singer who sang like he was crying and a guitarist who tapped his feet while he played the guitar. We saw a bullfight, but it is too horrible to talk about.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, June 2009

     The first place we went to in Portugal was Coimbra. Coimbra is a small city with a nice river park. You could walk over the bridge and then you will get to the other side. If you walk down the path you will get to a science museum. At the science museum we made our own aliens. Mine was an octopus that had a beak, ate rotten meat, and had three human eyes. It was sticky and slimy. There was a puzzle that had parts of the human body. I made it all confusing, and I put it back together. It took like 40 minutes. We lived in an old building. Our apartment was at the top (up 45 steps). We were on the same hill as the university. The roads were cobblestone. I thought Coimbra was awesome. It had Fado singing. Men sang while the women watched. In the rest of Portugal women sing.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, June 2009

     After Coimbra we lived in Cabo Espichel for two weeks. Cabo Espichel is on coast of Portugal near Lisbon. We finished our school work. In Cabo Espichel there was a dog that got its leg cut off by a tractor blade. His name was Jijo. We had a mini-pool, but the water too was cool to swim in. There were a lot of fruit trees. There were cherries, oranges, lemons, figs, plums, apples, and peaches (one of the peach trees broke from the blowing wind). I caught bees with my bare hands. The bees were pollinating the flowers. There were butterflies too, and a hummingbird moth. We went to the beach in Sesimbra and met a 10 year-old girl who spoke Spanish and was from Peru, but lived in Lisbon. I buried a girl’s ball in the sand. We played tag in the water, and it was really quite fun.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, June 2009

     We took a day trip to Sintra, which is a town near Lisbon. There was a big castle on a rocky hill. As we were walking to the castle, there was a cat that was hunting, and it caught a rat. I thought the cat was bringing the rat to its babies. It ran up to the rocks, and I ran after it. It started cat-growling after me. I slipped off a rock and fell to the soft, leafy ground. When I got up, I looked around, and I guess she already got to her babies, because she wasn’t there. It was cool to see a domesticated cat living a bobcat or a bear. In Sintra we went to a palace that seemed like a fairy-tale castle. The King and Queen of Portugal lived there a hundred years ago. It was cool. Outside there were grassy ruins, and I saw the same cat in there. There was a forest. All the trees were from all over the world. Inside the palace every room was fancy. There was furniture with rabbit fur, and it was fluffy. I wanted to live in the Queen’s room. The Queen even had a velvet bidet.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, July 2009

     After we left Cabo Espichel, we went to Sao Joao de Tarouca, which is a small village. In Sao Joao we had a huge chlorine pool. There was a dog, a cat, and at least a dozen lizards that climbed in our house and around our walls. The lizards couldn’t swim (I tried it in the bird bath). We had a castle house with six bedrooms and five bathrooms. It was built of large blocks of granite. We had such a big place because Grandma, Aunt Cathy, Aunt Connie, Erica, Julian, and Zacciah came to visit us. There was a little house outside. I thought it was a chicken house, but it was for storing corn. I let Zacciah use my goggles in the pool, but he didn’t give them back (eventually he did). It was fun to be on vacation and have great guests.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, July 2009

     After that we went with all of our company to live in Ponte de Cavez for almost three weeks. Ponte de Cavez was not even a village – it only had like three houses. There was a river with lots of fish and fishermen on the other side of the house. Once I went to fish with Grandma, and we got a fish (a man gave it to us). It died. We had a swimming pool that we could drink out of (if nobody peed in it). The water came from a spring. There were three dogs – a big dog and two puppies. The big dog was tied up so three quarters and a half of the time we couldn’t play with it. The puppies were really cute. Whenever I cuddled with them for a long time and left, they would follow me, and when I ran, they ran. They were really fast for puppies.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, July 2009

     I went on a little trip to Spain with Grandma, Aunt Cathy, Aunt Connie, and Mom. We went to Santiago de Compostela to see a big party. There were a lot of fireworks that almost blew up half the church. They made boob cheese there. It was because a man made a sculpture of an angel, and it had way too big boobs. He was ordered to make the boobs smaller. The people in town did not like that, so they started making “queso tetilla”, which means “boob cheese”.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, August 2009

     When everyone left, we went to Talasnal. Talasnal is a town where all of the homes are made of schist, which is a flat stone. It had about a dozen cats. There was a teeny-tiny German shepherd that jumped on me, and when I ran it tried to bite my heels. If you take about a half an hour or 45 minute walk down hill (because Talasnal is up on a high hill), you get to a beautiful river beach. In the river beach there are a lot of young and old people swimming or bathing. There was a diving board six feet above the water. If you jump into the water, you won’t touch the ground because it is really deep down. It is about a 45 minute to an hour walk back up the big hill to Talasnal.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, August 2009

     Next we went to Lisboa (what the Portuguese call Lisbon). Lisboa is the biggest city in Portugal. Lisboa is cool because there are a lot of parks, and there is a butterfly garden where you can actually see butterflies laying eggs on leaves. I saw caterpillars forming chrysalises and butterflies hatching from chrysalises. I also saw many pairs of monarch butterflies mating. One of those pairs was flying and mating. I went to a puppet museum. There were puppets from Sri Lanka in masks that were Naga Rakshas, which means “snake demons”. One night I went on a date with Papa and Cy. We went on a movie date. We saw The African Queen in the Film Museum. I thought it was really cool. When I went on a Fado date with Mom, we stayed up til about midnight watching fado. It is a very actionative music (that should be a word that means that do every single emotion). In Lisbon we made two really good friends, Clyde and Nico. Nico’s birthday was on September 2nd (I think). I made a poster that said, “To Nico: Happy Birthday – Bella”. I gave her a plastic horse too. We spent four days in London and then went to Bulgaria. I’ll write soon about London and Bulgaria.

From The Big Field Trip – Portugal, August 2009

We have been living in a once Moorish town of Alhama de Granada, Andalucia, Spain for the past few weeks. Andelucia was once a Muslim country ruled by Moors, but it was taken over by the Christians in 1492. Alhama de Granada is a very nice mountain town and has a population of around 5,000 people. Alhama is a one hour drive away from Granada, the closest city. Spain has lots of nice people. Rat-tails are in style here and lots of young people have them. In Spain Jason, Angela, Cruz, Bella, uncle Spencer and I have been having fun eating tapas, hiking in the mountains, and playing on the Mediterranean beaches.

From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009

We live in a five story house in a town called Alhama de Granada. We have two English boys as our neighbors named Clement and Luca. Clement is three and Luca is five, so Cruz is right in between. The school hours here are nine a.m. to two p.m., so Luca gets home at two-fifteen. On weekends(when we aren’t doing something) Cruz plays from sun up to sun down. Superman (Clement) does also. Their parents are James and Lisa. They also have a gigantic dog named Sasan. Our house is about 15 yards away from the church so we can hear the church bells ringing every half hour. A few blocks away from our house is a nice park with a kids playground and a few restaurants close by. For some reason, old men wearing dress pants, long sleeved shirts, vests, dress shoes and hats sit there every day, even when it’s super hot outside. Bella likes to feed the dogs around the restaurants.

From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009

                                                                                                                    <—- Sasan and Bella

From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009

The Alhambra, a palace in Granada, is one of the most beautiful structures in the world and Alhama is only a one hour drive away. We went there a week ago. It was brilliant. This Arabic palace was built by the Moors then taken over by the Christians. The plaster moldings on the ceilings and walls were very intricate. They were made by first carving designs into wood, and then pouring plaster into it to make a tessellating design. They would put the plaster pieces on the wall. There were fountains with water piped from miles uphill and in the pools were goldfish. There was a cat that was trying to catch a fish in the palace garden, but Bella scared it off when she tried to pet it. It would have been a great photo. We had to get our tickets in advance because about 6,500 people go there each day!

From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009

We have been on quite a few hikes in Spain. On my favorite hike, near both the Mediterranean and the Sierra Nevadas, I saw a very small deer, many lizards, including a lizard with a green and black pattern on its back, birds and other wildlife. There was some sort of spiky plant that stung for about ten minutes if you brushed against it. Pretty soon, Cruz was looking at each plant to see what kind of plant it was. The Sierra Nevadas are the tallest mountain range in Spain and Spain is the second most mountainous country in Europe. We have a deep canyon a few blocks from our house. Sometimes we go on hikes or walks with our neighbors and Sasan. The canyon has a small river with fish and lots of birds. It also has a trail called “the path of angels.” It is a great walk.

From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009

The food in Spain is very good. There are snacks called tapas, which means “lids”. This comes from when the King came to a town in Southern Spain. A villager was afraid that some dust would get in the King’s wine, so he put a slice of cheese and ham over it to block the dust. After that the King asked for another glass of wine and another tapa. The Tapas are lots of small snacks that can be put together into one big meal. Tapas can range from a slice of cheese to grilled asparagus wrapped in ham. Olive oil is served with almost every meal, mostly with bread. The Spanish have a small breakfast, large lunch, and a small, late dinner.

From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009

Spain is on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. We played football on the Mediterranean beaches a few times. We also did in Tunisia, but without the football. The water here is cold, but in Brazil it is warmer and houses tropical fish which you will learn about in my next report.

Until then,

Cyrus

From The Big Field Trip – Spain, May, 2009