
<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673361591_f6a2be3441_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image post-thumb" title="Torrelavega Saturday">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673361591_7de90fdfeb_t.jpg" alt="Torrelavega Saturday"/>
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After 12.5 years of living in Cantabria, I must ashamedly admit that today was the first time that I visited Cantabria's second city, Torrelavega. It was on a brief, last minute, detour after visiting another local attraction, the [Villapresente Labyrinth](http://laberintodevillapresente.es), a pine hedge maze that has gained touristic significance of late. More to distract the kids for 30 minutes than for [strategery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategery), I had figured out how to download an overhead map of the labyrinth, invert the photo, so that the paths were white, and printed out two copies to give the kids.

Nora figured the way in to the center by herself, but my a-_mazing_ abilities were required to find the way to the exit. She then drew over the pencil in colored marker, which turned out to be helpful. <a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/34995372833_b2c495a444_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Torrelavega Saturday">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/34995372833_6cbb5e26e5.jpg" alt="Torrelavega Saturday"/>
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My inverted, pencil-drawable map. Feel free to solve. Entrance an exit are on the right (entrance above the exit).

When we got there, we did the whole thing without looking at our map, which was pretty useless, because finding where the heck you are at any given moment amongst the pine hedges was nearly impossible.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673361591_f6a2be3441_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Torrelavega Saturday">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673361591_7de90fdfeb.jpg" alt="Torrelavega Saturday"/>
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The center held little more prize than some benches to sit on.

They have the maze designed such that it's pretty easy to get _in_ to the center, but _much_ more complicated to get out. By the time we reached the end, some of the other adults around (it was fairly crowded) were pretty annoyed with the whole damn charade. When we reached the end, Ian declared that he was done with the "left or right?" choosing, and then had to choose a parent to leave with. Unsurprisingly, he chose his Mommy.

That left me with Nora to attempt a reverse solution, based on our previous map drawings; we had to go back to the middle and then out to the entrance. We had paid a whole 11€ (4€ x 2 adults + 3€ x 1 7-12 child) for the experience, so we were going to milk it. Plus, it seemed like prime map navigation practice for 8-year-old Nora. She made a few mistakes, but I was always there to describe out the very local surroundings corresponded to a place near where she thought we were on the map, and we continued from there. On the reverse trip, we ran into many people joshingly saying, "Hey, a map is cheating!", to which I responded, "We've already found the exit without a map. You?"

Nora did a fantastic job of navigating us out.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673362221_41e425d00f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Torrelavega Saturday">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673362221_b21ecbc8da.jpg" alt="Torrelavega Saturday"/>
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Cool photo on the Company Van parked outside the maze. They have monetized this well, including a bar and picnic area right outside the maze. Bravo to them for that.

When we finally emerged and were reunited with our wife and brother, we headed to the car. We had seen a sign for the Museum of the Altamira Caves, which is the local attraction of the prehistoric cave paintings. My phone told me that it was only 7 minutes away, but that we would be arriving 59 minutes before closing time. We took the gamble, and arrived _just_ as the security guard was closing the gate.

Fine, we said, and we were off to visit the heart of Torrelavega.

The city itself was relatively uninteresting, but we stumbled upon a work of art that... well, what is art supposed to do? If you answered "evoke emotions", then this was definitely art. Anyone first coming upon this "installation" will have been struck with a feeling of _something_. It fascinated me how easy it is to convince a human brain that they are seeing another human.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673365021_74e86160d9_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Torrelavega Saturday">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673365021_8ac825f2da.jpg" alt="Torrelavega Saturday"/>
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This is what we came upon. _Clearly_ these are women marching, or, if still, posing as if they are marching. Right?

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673364021_e0f809e25e_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Torrelavega Saturday">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673364021_293dc50f01.jpg" alt="Torrelavega Saturday"/>
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This is what the street looked like.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673365441_c9e6635785_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Torrelavega Saturday">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673365441_608e82032b.jpg" alt="Torrelavega Saturday"/>
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The "faces" of the "women" were mirrors.

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PHc1uuZ5CNU?ecver=2" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Creeped out yet? If it makes you _feel_ something, it's art, right? RIGHT??

I leave you with the map of my "Outdoor Walk Workout", as recorded by my Apple Watch during our time in the maze.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673369111_154ce5dd05_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="Maze Walk">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-08-a-maze-and-the-creepy-women-of-torrelavega/35673369111_e61d978f88.jpg" alt="Maze Walk"/>
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A Maze and The Creepy Women of Torrelavega


<img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-preschooler-parsing-spanish/8421697116_04fa614317_t.jpg" alt="Colindres Town Hall" class="post-thumb"/>

One of the hardest parts of learning a foreign language is learning to parse a string of sounds to determine where words stop and start. Whenever you hear a foreign language that you don’t know spoken, it sounds like one continuous stream of phonemes. When you hear a language you know spoken, the word breaks are obvious.

It has been fun watching my children learn my second language natively. I have the special insight into their minds in that they generally speak to me in English, but when they don’t have an English word, they will use the Spanish word, which I immediately translate for them before they complete the sentence. That’s what usually happens, but with both kids, there have been nouns that are always spoken in one of the two languages in our household. With my eldest, I think one was _pañal_ (diaper/nappy), and with the youngest, another is _biberon_ (baby bottle).

Two perfect examples of word parsing mistakes have happened in the past two days with my four-year-old, that I thought I’d share.

## Waxy Walk

> “Daddy, how do you say _cera_ in English?”
> 
> “You mean, _wax_, like a candle?”
> 
> “No, on what we are walking!”
> 
> “Oh! You mean _la acera_, ‘the sidewalk’!”

This word has always tripped me up as well, since it’s feminine and requires a _la_ article, the initial _a_ syllable gets swallowed, and, unless you make a specific pause between the article and noun (which no one does), it sounds like you are saying _la cera_, when it is written _la acera_.

## On The Meda

The little grove of trees in front of our town hall is called _La Alameda_, which my dictionary translates to either “tree-lined avenue” or “poplar grove”, as the word for “poplar” is _el álamo_. [Remember it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remember_the_Alamo_(song)).

![Colindres Town Hall](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-preschooler-parsing-spanish/8421697116_04fa614317.jpg)

This grove has a playground that is often frequented by my son’s friends, and today he told me, “Let’s go to the park of the _Meda_!”

This makes perfect sense, as, if we were going to a place called _Meda_, we’d say, “_Vamos a la Meda_”. See those previous syllables: “_a la Meda_” is indistinguishable from “_Alameda_” if you don’t know how the words break down or are written.

## Conclusion

Anyway, I thought that was cute, and I haven’t posted in a while, so there. 😄


Preschooler Parsing Spanish


<img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/34955941273_d2bb0f3b2d_t.jpg" alt="The Cleaves in Colindres" class="post-thumb"/>I met Becky about three years ago. One of the families that has a son in my daughter's grade has both the resources and wherewithal to hire English speaking _au pairs_, young women (usually) that are like foreign nannies. Becky was the third _au pair_ of theirs that I met. I always made a point of introducing myself to them, if only to give them a brief respite from the barrage of Spanish. Some, like Becky, knew quite a bit of Spanish already, and others came with nothing.

The school year was almost over when I first learned that Becky played the violin. I didn't think much more of it. For some reason that is beyond me, she decided to spend _yet another year_ of her vital youth in small town Spain, and she came back for a second school year. For another whole school year, I said "Hello" to Becky 2-3 times a day at kid drop-off and pick-up times. That was the year that my daughter [began her violin lessons](https://erikras.com/2015/11/30/state-of-the-offspring-address-november-2015/), and at the end of the year, like a good music-lesson-paying father, I subjected myself to [her violin recital](https://erikras.com/2015/11/30/state-of-the-offspring-address-november-2015/), which is one of these events where you'd like to only hear the one child, but you have to sit through all the rest out of courtesy. At the end, Nora's violin teacher, who is also English, introduced Becky, and took no credit for her talents, only mentioning that she had been tutoring – which means what, exactly, when the tutee is more talented than the tutor? – her for the semester. Becky's performance _blew. me. away._ My thoughts after her performance were: 1) That might be the first time that lyric-less music has moved me to tears, and 2) Why on earth is she performing for free? _People should pay money to see this kind of art!!_

A year ago she left to go back to school in southern England. Somewhere in the intervening time, I discovered that she and her brother [have a Facebook Page](https://www.facebook.com/TheCleavesMusic/), with an adorable header image that shows that they have been playing music together since they could walk.

![The Cleaves](https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/35596552132_13ecf04c99.jpg "The Cleaves")

This week I heard that they were performing a concert in our local park, a place that has never before hosted a concert, in my time here of over a decade. So naturally we had to make a family outing to go see them. They did not disappoint.

Becky did a great job of talking in Spanish to the crowd between each song, and her brother, Danny, even sang backup on some of the Spanish songs they played.

I considered editing these videos together into a long video, but I decided that separate they provide both more exposure to these young artists, and also a higher likelihood that you, dear reader, might hear some of the later songs.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/34955940823_ae8506c00f_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Cleaves in Colindres">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/34955940823_f74da51767.jpg" alt="The Cleaves in Colindres"/>
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I had to give major kudos to the town hall for planning this venue and timing it _right_ with sunset.

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0E6mkdMVPRg?ecver=2" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You can actually watch the sun set during this lovely jig.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/34955941273_e4e4f424eb_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Cleaves in Colindres">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/34955941273_d2bb0f3b2d.jpg" alt="The Cleaves in Colindres"/>
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How gorgeous?

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rvdqRemxu9o?ecver=2" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

We continue with a Miley Cyrus cover, _Wrecking Ball_.

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2T5-7np9JGI?ecver=2" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And a more modern hit, the 2017 smash hit, _Shape of You_.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/35724961356_49e86f4050_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Cleaves in Colindres">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/35724961356_8b4bc91d3a.jpg" alt="The Cleaves in Colindres"/>
</a>

The wife and I were enjoying the small town freedom of not really knowing where the heck our kids had run off to at any given moment.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/35724962376_52a8e2dc73_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Cleaves in Colindres">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/35724962376_170958772c.jpg" alt="The Cleaves in Colindres"/>
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Oh, and did I mention that our local microbrewery was providing _FREE BEER_ for the event??!?

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XYybCh4rQ20?ecver=2" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Some classical-or-is-it-folk? violin-or-fiddle? magic.

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZNl_7HeDI3A?ecver=2" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This song, _Viento del Norte_, considered to be the Hymn of Cantabria, damn near brings tears to my eyes with it's lovely lyrics about my adopted homeland. You can hear the crowd joining in. They played it again for their encore, much to the crowd's satisfaction.

After the concert, I got to have a brief chat with Danny, the brother, who was _delighted_ to hear English spoken to him. I had dozens more questions and topics I'd like to discuss with him, but my family was bed-bound, and we had to part ways.

<a href="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/35724962816_3ae27f3548_o_d.jpg" target="_blank" class="flickr-image" title="The Cleaves in Colindres">
  <img src="https://d1js6qm6cshi0v.cloudfront.net/oldblog/2017-07-06-the-cleaves-live-in-colindres-spain/35724962816_86937c21bc.jpg" alt="The Cleaves in Colindres"/>
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This group of people who I don't really know posed for the mayor to take their photo. As clueless as Danny, I decided to capture the moment.

The crowd loved them so much that they broke out into this song in their honor.

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FKqauvYCER8?ecver=2" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" style="position:absolute;width:100%;height:100%;left:0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Well done, Cleaves. You should be selling out stadiums instead of fishing villages. [Go buy their album](https://cleaves.bandcamp.com/releases), people.

Also, I'd like to offer a round of applause to Becky and Danny's parents. Bringing your kids up in a musical environment was a wonderful gift.


3 posts from July, 2017