Daimiel

Happy Monday!

This weekend I went with Raquel and her friends from the university to Daimiel, a town in Ciudad Real, Castile-La Mancha, where Raquel´s family is from.

The concept of the Spanish "pueblo" is very curious. From what I understand, Spain seemed to lag behind a bit in the urbanization process that the rest of Europe experienced around the end of the 19th century. During the first half of the 20th century, the majority of Spain´s population lived in small towns or villages that more or less made up the whole country. This, obviously, is no longer the case.

Now, young people (whose grandparents probobaly came to the city some 50 years ago) go back to their families´ pueblos, where most of them still own ancient and slightly abandoned houses. Every Spaniard I know has their own "pueblo" that they visit every so often to get away, visit with distant cousins, or just eat.

Daimiel is home to a national park called "Las Tablas de Daimiel"--so called for the wooden planks that cover the giant wetland that lies there alongside the Guadiana River (which is cool in and of itself, because in some places it submerges under ground and you cannot see it until it comes out the other side). But I am confused by this wetland situation, because everyone speaks of the dry, arid earth of Castile-La Mancha. A wetland can exist in such circumstances? Mom? Oh, wise expert of wetlands?

Anyway, we went to this park for a total of one hour, I think just to say we went (we were a large group, none too interested in bird-watching). Life in Spain, I´ve begun to realize, revolves around food, and we needed to get back to prepare. If one is not eating, one is planning for the next meal. I can´t complain, because I myself quite like to eat, drink and be merry. We made paella for the 12 of us, and by we, I mean a one Vincent from Valencia. The rest of us drank beer and held a ping-pong tournament.

Raquel´s house was SUPER cool. It belongs to her grandmother, who lives in Madrid now, but raised her 16 children there. It was HUGE, old, and wonderful. There were 3 floors and a terrace, all centered around closed-in courtyards with glass cubed floors (it was quite luminous). There had to be at least 20 beds in the house, although we used less than half (it was really, really cold at night). The coolest part: a secret door that led to a secret passage-way which led to a secret room with a cot, a wooden chair, and a picture of the Virgin hanging on the wall. Creepy.

Sorry all the pictures came out on top, but rearranging on this thing is a real hassle.