So, we made it home. As you already know, since we've talked to every reader of this blog in the last few weeks (that is, both of them). But there's still the story of the return journey to be told, for Posterity, whomever the hell that is. The return trip started with our last full day in Oviedo, rainy (not surprisingly), but we walked all over town taking pictures of every sculpture we knew of and even finding a couple we didn't know about. We planned this as a way to say goodbye to Oviedo, to indulge our nostalgia, and get out of the house and walk around a lot before we'd be sitting on our butts traveling for a couple of days.
Our main target was the tribute to "Labor" in the Parque San Francisco, on Uria, the main street, a statue that looked uncannily like a monument to disco.
Of course, we had to do some participatory poses, like the girls raisin' the roof here. Our very first stop was in our neighborhood, Annabel hanging out with the sidra pourers, and then Annabel and I posed with the photograper's shop.
We had to pose with the luggage, since this was all about leaving. And then, of course, we had to get front and back shots of "the Butt."
Yes, Oviedo does not merely have a giant butt sculpture in one of its most crowded intersections--there's a butt on each side. But at least that solves the problem of how to represent a giant crotch.
For a couple of weeks before we left, since after the elections in Spain, there had been a protest camp in one of the central squares, and they incorporate one of the most well-known sculptures, La Gorda (the fat woman), into their protest. This is one of MANY tributes to motherhood that have been immortalized in sculpture in Oviedo. We took pictures of at least three different statues that were called "La Maternidad," and they were bad and sometimes really weird. This is the best of the bunch--if you can see it behind the signs.
And another one practicing participatory sculpture-photography--Annabel in the book-hat, with the humanities campus in the background, very close to our apartment. We took a few pictures of other things besides sculptures, including more than one in the "cured meat" category, like the jamon vending machine that Alex had been meaning to photograph for months (with a portrait of us reflected in it), and the window full of chorizo at the Rey Jamon. Also an occasional favorite bit of architecture, in a town full of interesting and varied buildings--this one is Alex's favorite.
We didn't take pictures of our trip down to Madrid or the flight over, but we did take a few of our fabulous stopover at the Casa Lauren&Leon in Seattle.
The top one is the cool guest house they built for us (with studio for Julie downstairs and office for Lauren upstairs (which she can only use when we're not visiting, of course)), the middle one is the interior of the upstairs (our home away from home), and the bottom one is their very own cool house where we hang out most of the time we're there. We managed to have a lot of fun in a couple of jet-lagged days with family.
Lauren commissioned the drawing at the bottom at the Seattle Folk Fest at the Center--do you recognize the Seattle and Fairbanks cousins? The drawing managed to bring out the fact of how much they look like each other--either Quin or Chace could be Annabel's brother.
One highlight of visiting Seattle was seeing the paintings and drawings Julie is doing from her visit to Greece last fall. It was a powerful flashback to our time in Greece, and a beautiful look at things we hadn't exactly seen the first time.
And then it was time to fly back to Fairbanks, and after she had what she described as "the best lunch ever" at the airport in Seattle, Annabel had the supreme pleasure of being surprised by a huge contingent of her friends (not to mention their parents) meeting us at the airport. We didn't get pictures of all of them, but maybe you can get a sense of just how excited Annabel was to be home again.
I had to put the airport lunch picture in there because we never responded to faithful readers Jen and Ryan's request for "more pictures of food." Since we only had a half-dozen or so comments on the blog over nine months, it feels churlish not to have granted a simple request in one of those few.
We were overwhelmed with stuff to get down when we finally got home, but the first was to buy a car to make doing all the others easier. Just because it's such a perfect symbol of American life and the culture that we were returning to, after nine months of walking and taking public transportation, I leave you with a final image of our new SUV. I've already put 800 miles on it. You can go home again, as long as you have a decent set of wheels. Now if we can only get back the garage door opener that our renter accidentally took with him...
It was a wonderful adventure, and it's great to be back home.
Our main target was the tribute to "Labor" in the Parque San Francisco, on Uria, the main street, a statue that looked uncannily like a monument to disco.
Of course, we had to do some participatory poses, like the girls raisin' the roof here. Our very first stop was in our neighborhood, Annabel hanging out with the sidra pourers, and then Annabel and I posed with the photograper's shop.
We had to pose with the luggage, since this was all about leaving. And then, of course, we had to get front and back shots of "the Butt."
Yes, Oviedo does not merely have a giant butt sculpture in one of its most crowded intersections--there's a butt on each side. But at least that solves the problem of how to represent a giant crotch.
For a couple of weeks before we left, since after the elections in Spain, there had been a protest camp in one of the central squares, and they incorporate one of the most well-known sculptures, La Gorda (the fat woman), into their protest. This is one of MANY tributes to motherhood that have been immortalized in sculpture in Oviedo. We took pictures of at least three different statues that were called "La Maternidad," and they were bad and sometimes really weird. This is the best of the bunch--if you can see it behind the signs.
And another one practicing participatory sculpture-photography--Annabel in the book-hat, with the humanities campus in the background, very close to our apartment. We took a few pictures of other things besides sculptures, including more than one in the "cured meat" category, like the jamon vending machine that Alex had been meaning to photograph for months (with a portrait of us reflected in it), and the window full of chorizo at the Rey Jamon. Also an occasional favorite bit of architecture, in a town full of interesting and varied buildings--this one is Alex's favorite.
We didn't take pictures of our trip down to Madrid or the flight over, but we did take a few of our fabulous stopover at the Casa Lauren&Leon in Seattle.
The top one is the cool guest house they built for us (with studio for Julie downstairs and office for Lauren upstairs (which she can only use when we're not visiting, of course)), the middle one is the interior of the upstairs (our home away from home), and the bottom one is their very own cool house where we hang out most of the time we're there. We managed to have a lot of fun in a couple of jet-lagged days with family.
Lauren commissioned the drawing at the bottom at the Seattle Folk Fest at the Center--do you recognize the Seattle and Fairbanks cousins? The drawing managed to bring out the fact of how much they look like each other--either Quin or Chace could be Annabel's brother.
One highlight of visiting Seattle was seeing the paintings and drawings Julie is doing from her visit to Greece last fall. It was a powerful flashback to our time in Greece, and a beautiful look at things we hadn't exactly seen the first time.
And then it was time to fly back to Fairbanks, and after she had what she described as "the best lunch ever" at the airport in Seattle, Annabel had the supreme pleasure of being surprised by a huge contingent of her friends (not to mention their parents) meeting us at the airport. We didn't get pictures of all of them, but maybe you can get a sense of just how excited Annabel was to be home again.
I had to put the airport lunch picture in there because we never responded to faithful readers Jen and Ryan's request for "more pictures of food." Since we only had a half-dozen or so comments on the blog over nine months, it feels churlish not to have granted a simple request in one of those few.
We were overwhelmed with stuff to get down when we finally got home, but the first was to buy a car to make doing all the others easier. Just because it's such a perfect symbol of American life and the culture that we were returning to, after nine months of walking and taking public transportation, I leave you with a final image of our new SUV. I've already put 800 miles on it. You can go home again, as long as you have a decent set of wheels. Now if we can only get back the garage door opener that our renter accidentally took with him...
It was a wonderful adventure, and it's great to be back home.
