Sunday afternoon in Avila

We have an air conditioned jinx. The entire hotel we are visiting for our third night appears cool everywhere but our room. The maid has turned the dial on our air conditioner all the way to 30 degrees, its hottest setting, reassuring us that this is the proper way to cool the room. After two days of baking with it set the other way we are willing to try out her suggestion. The room is stifling. We spent as much time as possible outdoors for the past few days, as the outside temperature compares quite favorably to our room.

Avila has the most interesting walls of any of the walled cities we have visited. With 8 gates, it accommodates car traffic in and out of the city without the congestion and danger of the one way light system that we saw other places, most notably in Valenca. Here, a complex system of one way streets (they are so narrow only one car can drive on a street at a time) lead into and out of the old town, each of the gates having a designation of in or out or pedestrian only. We only saw one gate that handled two way traffic, and that was with an orderly waiting system rather than lights to accommodate cars going in opposite directions. The 2.5.km long wall system, with 88 towers is strikingly well preserved - it looks like Disney built it rather than some medieval serfs. Although it was built during medieval times during various Roman and Muslim conquests and raised to its towering 12 m during the 11th and 12th centuries it is clean, orderly and looks sturdy rather than crumbled as some of the walls in other cities we have visited. It is easy to see why this is declared a UNESCO world heritage city.

Our hotel, the warm Palacio Valderrabanos was built during the 14th century by a prominent bishop of the period for which it is named. With fresh Pergo floors, marble bathroom, television and refrigerator, only the thick stone walls and adjacent 12th century cathedral indicate its age. This is one of the hotels booked from home on Booking.com that we did not cancel. At 59 Euro for Sunday night, and 89 Euro the other two nights, it is priced similarly to other rooms we have stayed in yet it has some modern touches that the other places have not. Air conditioning, for example. After climbing up multiple sets of stairs in the lesser starred hotels, we have come to realize that the number of stars also indicates the likelihood of an elevator, be it ever so small, for carrying our bags upstairs. I wonder how many generations will go by before Americans no longer can fit in European elevators. As it is now, the two of us and our wonderful Osprey suitcases just about max out every elevator we have tried. Yet, we have not had to split up yet. Nor have we had a replay of the elevator scenes I have had when traveling with work friends when the elevators were so full of Americans with baggage that our backpacks were inadvertently pressing miscellaneous floor buttons and alarms behind out back without our knowledge.

We are getting quite proficient at people watching. Here are some of our observations to date:
- The Spanish make walking around, sitting drinking coffee and people watching a real, sanctioned past time. It is not like they are goofing around on their way to do something else, they walk somewhere to sit and watch people or sit for hours with a coffee. Unlike the Portuguese women we used to see walking around with shopping bags, these people aren't always shopping when they are walking around.
- The Spanish have a weight problem too, although probably not as bad as the US. There are lots of heavy Spanish folks walking around
- The elder generation (those born before the war, let's say) all dress up for walking around, particularly the women. Rarely do they wear pants, preferring nice, sharply pressed dresses or suits.
- The younger set (late teens to early 30s) all seem to dress up while they are out also. No where have we seen gang clothing or menacing looking teenagers like you might encounter in a US city. In fact, it is quite noticeable that the teens are affectionate with their families; teenage boys holding hands with their mothers or with younger siblings.
- Young children in strollers are everywhere at all hours of the day and night. It wouldn't pay to start a babysitting business here, as it appears that everyone takes their children with them when they go to dinner. We never make it past midnight, but when we have turned in for the night we have seen children still out enjoying the evening with their parents.
- During the day, in non-touristy areas it appears that Grandmothers do some of the day care for the children. We see older women with strollers during the day, and younger parents with the strollers at night except in touristy areas.
- The Spanish young people wear clothing with English phrases on them, "Kiss me", "Born to be Free", "I heart NY", "I'm so happy I could....". There are lots of American university shirts and Yankee baseball caps, yet universally most of these people look at you blankly when you try to speak English to them.
- Hello Kitty is HUGE here and in Portugal. As grandparents of a five year old girl we understood the phenomenon a bit, but not the depth of love for this blank-faced little cat that appears everywhere here.
- People appear very outgoing and social here. They greet each other warmly with hugs and pecks on the cheek and appear to enjoy being out in public more than inside watching TV.
- The Spanish are less protective of their children in public than we are. Kids run around the plazas while the parents sit and visit, without the hawkish guarding and nagging that we do with our children in public.
- Although we see most tables with a beer before dinner and wine with the meals, we have seen only the rare, exceptional drunk on the street. Drinking to excess just doesn't seem to happen.
- Spanish parenting seems very affectionate and effective. I saw one mother smack her daughter and it was shocking to all of us that were watching. Someone even spoke to her about it to calm her down.
- The 96% Catholic population statistic is true. The church bells ring for fifteen minutes solid at mass time on Sunday. The streets are full of people walking to services. Nuns, sometimes in habits and sometimes in plain blue clothing are everywhere.
- There are supermarkets which are much smaller than ours, yet there are also many more unique shops for purchasing meats, pastries, produce, breads, etc. The modern parts of town are moving towards bigger, chain stores, yet many neighborhoods retain the myriad of small, individual stores. In a city of 80,000 or so you can see international chain stores like the Body Shop and McDonald's, but mostly you see individual bookstores, coffee shops and pastry shops.

Last night we were sitting at a table with a glass of wine and a coffee at 9:00 PM marveling at our improved ability to order when a man sitting at a nearby bench asked us in English how we were enjoying our vacation. Of Chinese heritage, born in Peru and working for an American company, he speaks four languages and has lived in Miami in the past for twelve years. David, his wife Rosario and daughter, Amanda sat and talked to us until 10:30. They were very interesting people and we enjoyed the time with them. David is in sales, and he must be a superstar, as his outgoing personality kept the conversation going. Having heart problems similar to Mike's of days gone by, we left each other's company with David's phone number and the name and phone number of a Madrid cardiologist in case we have any difficulties while in Spain.

Tomorrow we leave for Alicante, where the temperature is even warmer. We are very excited about seeing Caitie.

Bye for now, Deanne