Easter, thinking meme, and a walk

Well, apparently I have not yet bought the camera. I got an e-mail today telling me that I have to fax them a copy of my photo ID and proof that I am resident at the address...I'll do that tomorrow.

The flights...well, Chuck is booked from Zurich to Toronto and back, but the flight from BCN to Zurich, I don't know yet, it's with Spanair, whom I had never ever heard of before, but it's Easter week and they ain't open.

Urgh. These are the sorts of chores I hate.

Well, actually I hate most chores.

Ah well.


Beth chose me as a Thinking blogger. Thank you very much Beth. Well, she nominated everyone on her list, but I made the grade on the great "pull it out of a hat" system....




However since it took me five full tries to load that image, it makes me wonder if I deserve it.

Now I am supposed to nominate five bloggers who make me think, and presumably who can upload the image as well. This meme has been going around recently so I am a little limited, so many of you already have received the award. Also several of the blogs I regularly read are dormant right now....Nomad is moving so that rules her out, so is Kim. Kate at Expatmama has guests and is buried in school work, so it doesn't seem right to send it over to her. Though if any of you read this and want to do it...you folks are brilliant so go for it if you'd like to.

Sarda over at Fish Feet has a blog that I mentioned just a few posts ago. She has a science blog, that I have to admit does make me think every time. It's pretty great. Terrie and Robert from Wahine I'll award as well. She's got a brand new blog, she managed to post photos on her third post, and they make me think and remember so much about my cruising life and what wonderful people we met and know from there. She's funny too.

Well, let's consider everyone mentioned as nominated....check out their blogs, but several of them are quite unlikely to pick up on this as they are pretty busy right now. Feel free to lift the logo for your blog. *hint* I had to save it as a photo on my 'puter before I could load it.

With Easter here it has been a pretty big deal locally. We are strangely absent from all the festivities. No family to have over, no big meals. By the same token, I have to say that it has been a wonderful Easter. There have been different styles of cakes in the window for every day. Today is the Mona de Pasqua, complete with FEATHERS!



There have been chocolate soccer balls, and houses, and flags, and Ronaldhinos and well, just about anything. Once this camera comes I can stop stealing from google images, and actually have the photo I want of things. *tick* *tick* *tick*

Hmmm.

This is a big weekend locally, very big for family. Everyone goes back to the poble, the village and stays with Mama and Papa and has the big meal. More chocolate goodies and cakes have been consumed than I think I can imagine.

It is one of the odd things about being expat....you sort of miss out on many of the local events, or you are there as sort of the village idiot, stumbling along trying to make sense of what is going on around you, or you just aren't there at all. Simultaneously you don't really do your own events either.

While we haven't been around for Easter for the last few years, and it was never a big feast day for us anyway, we still had other cruisers, some of whom would inevitably come over to ply the children with chocolate....here it's a bit different.

What we DID do today was take an enormous walk in the hills...we went for about 4 hours, bushwhacking and following small trails for most of the way. We started out with the theoretical goal of finding the ruins of a pre-Roman Iberian village that is supposed to be near here, there are masses of the things. Our maps were, we rapidly discovered, inadequate for the goal, so instead we wandered hither and yon, and had a marvelous time. We let Chuck off leash again. I was rather edgy, but everyone else was keen. They hadn't spent an hour and a half calling for a dog that didn't come. Anyway, he came every time, and even had a lovely frolic with a beautiful she-dog grey hound at the end. We had met the woman before, and her dog is lovely and gentle and just wanted to play. Boy, so did Chuck, so we let him off leash again, and they had a ball....Chuck was pretty enamoured with her. Must like taller women.

He was one tired dog by the time we got home. We were all pretty tired in fact, although I continue to be amazed and impressed by the kids. This was a great deal of very rugged hill climbing, and they were totally game. They only whined briefly at the end. They must be getting their legs on. I am impressed.

Now they are in the pre-school drill, washing, tidying their rooms, and packing their bags to go back tomorrow. There was some confusion last night though. Turns out the little one thought she was starting grade three on Tuesday. New teacher, new room, the works. She was remarkably calm about it all. It never ceases to amaze me about the bits of information that get lost along the way. She was relieved that all would be normal when she got back.

The dog is sleeping basically all afternoon. Tired out pup. No limp today which is good.

The little one picked a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a poppy, and a bunch of others that are unknown to me....sort of like Easter around here.

Things to think about....

(I feel obliged, you know thinking blogger and all...)

Why bunnies and eggs at Easter? Where do the bunnies get the eggs?
Why are airlines so irritating?
Why don't kids listen?????
Why doesn't the government subsidise public transit more?
Why does the agri-business do the things they are purported to do?
Why aren't more of us more upset about it?

There are basically no GM franken-foods in Europe, because people were so horrified by it that they leapt up and yelled about it...so they don't sell it. No one would buy it. Why can't we do that?

Why is there an apparently ever increasing concern about the environment, and an ever increasing rate of SUV sales? WTF?

Ok, time to stop. I'm getting all worked up.

I hope you had a very happy bunny day, and that you all drive carefully on your way home from your families.