Summer is at least getting closer

I readily and wholeheartedly admit that the Pacific Northwest has some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve seen in all my travels.  But I still wish it wasn’t so damn cold for so much of the year.  It’s the last day of February, and aside from a brief work trip to the Caribbean last November, I’ve been bundled up, with the heat on, for the last four and a half months. Only three and a half more to go. 

Sure, it could be worse.  I could have been raised in Alaska and still living there.  The views might be stunning way up there, but the cold would be even more bitter.

With that said, I know living here in Western Washington isn’t all bad.  The clear days don’t happen all too often, but when they do, we’ve got it made.  I’ll keep that in mind as I wrap a few more sweaters around myself and dream of the approaching summer.  Because in my mind, summer is always approaching, even when it’s the middle of winter. 

The end of last summer. 111 days until the next one.

40 Days Without Facebook

I’ve managed to avoid Facebook for a little over a day so far.  Only 39 more to go.  I haven’t broken out into night sweats or seen dead babies crawling across my ceiling just yet, but I was feeling dizzy and lightheaded today.  Why does it seem like good health is always so fleeting?  Maybe I really do need to get back to running.  And lay off the ramen.  At any rate, the health issue probably had more to do with diet or blood sugar (and hopefully nothing more serious) than with Facebook, which is what we’re here to talk about. 

I don’t normally bother observing Lent, but I thought it would be interesting to try this year.  A couple of weeks ago, I was at work, on Facebook, which I’m allowed to do a little bit for gathering work-related info and the like.  But while I was on there, I realized how easily I get distracted and begin perusing my news feed and just plain wasting time.  Working at a computer all day, it’s so easy to just click on over to Facebook anytime there’s a lull.  I thought about this and looked over at my calendar on the wall next to my desk, to see when Ash Wednesday was.  “Hmm,” I thought. “Maybe that would be good for me.”

So here we are, 26-ish hours in and going strong.  I’ve gone for long periods without using Facebook before, but only when I’ve been out of the country or busy and away from a computer.  I think, for the first few days, it will be tough to avoid checking up on my friends via Facebook.  In addition to being a huge distraction from real productivity, it’s also such a great communication tool.  It’s a one-stop shop for sending and receiving messages and party invitations, and for keeping in touch with my outer circles of friends, who I don’t see on a regular basis.  It even keeps me up to date on some of the goings-on with inner-circle friends when we don't make the effort to call each other. 

I’m sure I’ll feel out of the loop for a little while, but I’ll get used to using my phone and email as my main communication tools.  I bet I’ll even feel relieved to not have Facebook as a constant distraction or one more thing that I have to keep up with.  Sort of like the peaceful feeling I get when I turn my phone off when I’m out of the country. 

And even though my only other attempt at observing Lent failed within two and a half weeks (I couldn’t last very long without soda pop; I just get these cravings), I feel better about this one.  It’ll just take some getting used to.  And it’s a little disappointing that no one will read my blog during this time, since Facebook is by far the best place to set up links pointing my friends and family here.  I mean, it's not like anyone ever checks this blog on their own.  And I'm certainly not going to email links to everyone I know.  I guess I’ll just have to tweet this. 

La Rioja

I had heard talk of La Rioja and its wines before I visited Spain.  Linnell was the first to mention it.  After college, where we had become friends, she had spent one year working as an au pair in Barcelona, and another year in Valladolid as a teaching assistant.  When she returned to the States, she informed me that her favorite wines came from La Rioja.  A few short months later, I was in that very region, visiting my friend Jason as I made my way through Europe.

Just like Linnell and anyone else who has spent more than a few hours in Spain, Jason had developed a respect for the Rioja wines.  I quickly saw why.  In Spain, there are a few wine-producing regions, but none are regarded the way Rioja is.  Standing at the edge of the town of Tricio, where Jason lived, we looked down at the surrounding vineyards.  The valley stretched out around us and flamed with neat little rows of yellow, orange, and red vines.  The scenery was probably similar to the kind found in Spain’s other wine regions at that time of year, but the produce here was different, better.  The people of La Rioja know this, and are proud of it.  Their love for the very ground where they live, and all it produces—especially its famed wines—is contagious.  That pride alone could convince a visitor to love the tempranillos, crianzas, and reservas passed around at Rioja dinner tables.  Fortunately, though, the wines have a taste that lends credence to the delight these people take in their prized beverages.

The best of the bunch was a tempranillo made in a neighboring town and named after Tricio.  They called it Tritium, which is what the Romans called Tricio, and which was a hell of a lot better than “ashtray,” the name of the town where it was bottled.  Jason and his wife, Maite, had an entire case of the stuff left over from their wedding more than a year earlier.  We polished off a few bottles during my stay, and I decided to bring one home for the family to enjoy at Thanksgiving.  Everyone who tasted it loved it just as much as I did, and that bottle was empty before anyone had even finished their turkey. 

My dad enjoyed the Tritium so much that he tried to find it in the States.  He found one place in California that imports it, but none in Washington.  We still haven’t had a second bottle of it.  Thankfully, though, there are plenty of other tasty Rioja wines to be discovered here in the U.S.  More and more people seem to be gaining an appreciation for wines from all corners of the earth.  Just like I first began to do five years ago, when my friends in Buenos Aires introduced me to the malbec. 

The view from Tricio.

Cafe con leche

After the UK and Ireland, I made my way through Amsterdam, Berlin, and Istanbul before hopping over to Spain.  In Amsterdam I had one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten—turkey, sprouts, and honey—but that’s another blog for another time.  When I think back on drinks during that leg of the trip, the only one that stands out is the tiny cup of Turkish coffee I had with my baklava one night in Istanbul. It was a dainty little thing, in an ornately painted blue and gold cup.  But it was powerful.  A bit too strong for my taste, in fact.  And it started to get gritty toward the bottom.  The English and Irish teas were still winning.  Then I flew to Barcelona.

Café con leche.  It just means “coffee with milk,” but it’s so much more than that. Tea with milk, I can make at home, even if it’s not as good as Dave and Chloe’s stuff.  But café con leche, no chance.  They do something special to the mix, whipping it up a little and infusing the coffee with the milk just right.  Toss in a packet of sugar and you’re golden.  Maybe even platinum.  I couldn’t get enough of the stuff during my two weeks in Spain. 

After a few days in Barcelona, I bussed it over to Logroño, where my buddy Jason and his wife, Maite, picked me up at the station.  They took me back to Maite’s parents’ place in a little town up the road called Tricio, where I stayed for a week.  Just about every day during that week, Jason and I would be out and about and find some bar or restaurant and dip in for a cup of café con leche and some food. 

At one of the first places we went, Jason demonstrated an amusing bit of Spanish culture he’d discovered since moving there.  As he finished his pincho (a small plate of food served at bars and cafes in Spain), he wiped his mouth, wadded up his napkin, and as he finished chewing, said, “Watch this.”  Then he threw his napkin on the floor, right in front of the bar.  I looked down, and there were dozens, if not more, wadded-up napkins and toothpicks and other pieces of trash at our feet.  Apparently Spaniards prefer sweeping the floor over cleaning off the bar.  I got into the custom and pretty soon we were both chucking napkins, empty sugar packets, anything, onto the floor with gusto. 

But Jason's new home had a lot more to offer than just coffee and free-spirited littering.  You see, Tricio is in the heart of a region in northern Spain called La Rioja.  And it wasn’t long before I learned just how important that name is to people who enjoy a good glass of wine.  

Cafe.

This was hanging in the bathroom in Maite's parents' house.  It has nothing to do with coffee, but I like it.