Let me just begin by saying how glad I am to not be working in a school in the US these days.  How sad is that?

Now on to what I've been up to.  Last week was ski week when all of our filthy rich school families go up to their homes in the mountains and come back with great raccoon tans.  For those of us without homes in the mountains but still fortunate enough to be in Europe where one can acquire a plane ticket for less than $100, there are alternatives.  For me it was a round trip flight from Torino to Barcelona for about $75!  I flew to Spain to meet up with sister V.  I've been to Barcelona a few times before and it is a vibrant, interesting city.  It was V's first time there and unfortunately she didn't see it in the best light.  In fact in no light.  It rained all of our first full day.  Not a pleasant drizzle either.  We spent the day on a hop on hop off bus tour (mostly on) and had a couple good hours in a great little restaurant on the waterfront eating paella and drinking sangria.  Then dinner in a tapas bar with more wine..  On Tuesday we took a train down to Seville and Cordoba where we spent two/three glorious days/nights with cousins amid the relaxed and charming Spaniards of southern Spain.  The weather was perfect.  The sky couldn't be bluer.  The architecture is a gorgeous combo of Islamic, European.  There are Mosques turned Cathedrals, palaces (Alcazar) built by Christian rulers, modified by Moors, reclaimed by Europeans and so on.  The results are stunning.  The Alcazar of both Cordoba and Seville are UNESCO sites.  Sadly, we only had the opportunity to visit the palace and gardens in Cordoba.  The food and wine were yummy and we all spent a lot of time sampling both.  Life in Spain, and especially the south, is lived in it's plazas and streets.  The bars and restaurants all spill out their doors and folks chat, snack on tapas and drink cerveza or vino tinto at all hours of the day and night.  How is it they are not all obese and dead at 50 I just don't know.  It must be the fact that the food is local and fresh and they walk everywhere.  Anyhow, it is the life for me!  I am most definitely going back to Seville.

The Mosque-Catherdral of Cordoba

exterior wall with the bluest sky

The area is known for it's tile work and it is everywhere.  In Seville, the Plaza de Espana is a square of government offices that was originally built for a world's fair exhibition in 1929.  As far as the eye can see, every surface is tile work.  It's frickin' gorgeous.  I want to live there.   Look here as my pictures can't do it justice. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_de_Espa%C3%B1a,_Seville)

Plaza de Espana, Seville

Torre de la Calahorra

Catherdral Seville

Gardens of the Alczar Cordoba

Love this guy

view of Cordoba from Calahorra Tower

Just a cool building

On Friday sister and I headed back up to Barcelona for a final day.  Saturday was gray again but at least it didn't rain and we saw some sites including Park Guell, the bizarre park designed by Gaudi in the early 1900s. 

bridge

V under the Portico of the Washerwoman

A wonderful, exhausting week with family.  Now back to the real world.  Record cold in Northern Italy this week!  Lousy heating in my library.  Joy.  xxoo me

The MIL is beginning to lose it.  GP and I spend a lot of time giving each other looks over the top of her head.  It's sad.  She has always been a strong, stubborn, capable woman.  It's tough to see her ill at ease and uncertain.  Well, it's why we're here.  Last night I made her some fish chowder.  She's been saying how she'd love to return to BBH again, (most unlikely), and how much she loved "that soup".   So I sent GP to the fish market and to find some bacon.  It was pretty damned good if I must say so myself, and MIL was pleased.  This morning I made pancakes.  Now the apartment smells like the Ebb Tide Diner. 

Italian news.  Yesterday someone stole a 100 lb safe containing about $5000 from a prison kitchen office.  A young woman, white, was found chopped into pieces and stuffed into a suitcase by the side of the road in a small central Italian city.  Somehow they traced the murder to an African immigrant.  2 days ago a neo nazi in a black Alfa mowed down 6 African immigrants in the street.  They were not killed fortunately.  THEN, just the other day in Torino, a woman was hit by a delivery truck while crossing the road and dragged for two blocks.  She was identified only by her wedding ring and watch.  They just found the truck and driver in Naples.  He didn't know anything about it.  He'd been on his phone.  And this is just news from here.  Internationally it's even worse.  I want to move to an island somewhere with NO internet, no TV, no newspapers....  It's a good thing I'm Canadian.  
 xxoo me