Easter holiday photos

Some photos to accompany the previous blog post…

The French police was more than willing to show us (and the driver in the Spanish car) to a local ATM so that O could pay the speeding ticket…

While in the countryside we went to a local wholeseller of fruit and veggies… V loved the madly barking guard dogs (inside a big cage) and wanted to help select potatoes and tomatoes.

One way of eating your dinner… Everytime I tried to tell V to sit up / not touch something etc, his grandparents said “Oh, let him…”. Oh dear, Houston we have a problem…

Have you noticed that IKEA almost always have Swedish books in their bookshelves? The book to the left is a “wine guide for ordinary people” – in the kids´ section in IKEA, opps  😉

Passing time in IKEA in Zaragoza while daddy was having a conference call in the restaurant section… This was taken before V decided that it was more fun to run around the whole shop and I tried to keep up with him

The grandparents shop is full of fun stuff to play with but who wants to stay in the back room when you can charm customers and try to plot your escape everytime somebody enters / leaves the shop?

Some last tapas with Vs grandfather before we headed back north… V was offered a lollipop by the bar owner who was a bit surprised when we said that he doesnt eat sweets but quickly produced some bread and jamon when we suggested that instead. (second time V was offered a lollipop in Spain…)

Our Ibis hotel at Futuroscope in Poitiers, halfway between Zaragoza and Brussels. Perfect place where we will probably stay again – child friendly, 81 EUR for the night including a great breakfast buffet and just by the motorway – easy to find. The hotel room was basic but nice (no fitted carpet, we like that!) and it even had a balcony! V was a little shocked though when he just before checking out managed to turn on the shower while standing under it… Poor boy but he looked so funny that we couldnt help laughing!

My new nephew! 🙂

Not the planned outfit but after the impromptu shower it was the only dry option, and I think that he looks very cool in stripes!

Random Easter thoughts from Spain

We had to re-schedule our traditional Easter holidays from the Easter week (Semana Santa) to after Easter since Vs creche is closed this week and we couldn´t take two weeks off work. But even though that meant that my parents couldn´t join us in Spain, they came to Brussels for 5-6 days last week, which was great! V got an extra week off the creche that way and got to spend time with first the Swedish grandparents and then now with the Spanish grandparents.

• I became an aunt* on the 23rd March when my brother´s son (who everybody was convinced would be a girl 😉 ) was born. He chose to arrive the day between his paternal grandmother´s birthday and his maternal aunt´s birthday! I can´t wait to meet him!!
• The old ladies, the priest and the nun in the small village where V was baptised last Easter were delighted to see him again on Sunday. One of the old ladies whispered “Henry** is here” when she saw him in church. Guess who couldn´t sit still during mass – fortunately it is always a very quick service in that particular church.
• I told O “I told you so” when the nun, when seeing that we are adding to the family, told us that “now you really need to get married” (religiously that is). She is really sweet though so no pressure…
• I managed to block the sink in the bathroom late at night and O and his mother spent more than one hour to get it unblocked… opps! I thought that the nausea was over for this time but nope, my breakfast came up yesterday morning as well (this time in the toilet and not in the sink…) 😦
• V absolutely loves running around in his grandmother´s shop and creating trouble… it´s getting a little old picking up all the chewing gums (wrapped) from the floor again and again…
• I got hysterical when Vs grandfather wanted to drive off with V in his lap even if it was “just for a 5 minute ride”***. Later on that day the car seat buckle broke (fortunately not our own new car seat) when we were in the neighbouring town and we had no option (??) but to drive home without V belted in. I was convinced that we would have a crash! Guess who felt punished by the car safety gods…
• Driving 1400 km in two days with a 18-month old was do-able. Hoping for as good driving karma on the way back this weekend!
• O might not agree with good driving karma as he got fined 90 EUR just before the Spanish border by the French gendarmes (police). They stopped a Spanish registered car and our Belgian registered car, but none of the French that were driving at least as fast…
• A lost cause: trying to convince my mother-in-law that V understands Swedish as much as he understands Spanish…

*) Of course I am also the tía of O´s niece and nephews
**) One of V´s two second names 😉
***) Trying to get my parents-in-law to understand car safety is another lost cause I fear. Their constant argument is: “We had five kids who were never attached in the car and they were never hurt”. Sigh…

Fruit harvest in Spain

It’s a month since our last visit to V’s grandparents when O helped with the fruit harvest:

Pears, plums, grapes and figs were harvested last month

V and a big pear!

Funny, my father had taken a photo of the same [kind of] butterfly back home in their garden, it’s called “Red Admiral” (or Vanessa atalanta in Latin, which sounds nicer I think).

Siesta under the pear trees

V’s cousin also helped with picking pears, and I helped her mother figure out the new Ikea sewing machine

V likes the “papilla liquida” (liquid porridge / välling) that we buy in Spain

And he charmed the Ryanair hostess

He is definitely not afraid of strangers, here he is chatting with the air hostesses and steward up by the cockpit

Votre train ne circule pas…

I wrote last week that V and I were travelling to the south of France (Provence) to see my old friend L who lives there with her French boyfriend and their 2-year old daugther. Well, that didn’t happen thanks to [bloody] SNCF, the French railway company, that just happened to decide to go on strike last Thursday. According to the first information that L and I managed to get, it sounded quite positive: 7 out of 10 TGV would be running like normal. However, it turned out that our train was one of the 3 (out of 10) that were cancelled 😦

We missed out on this view over le Luberon in Provence – photo from O’s and my quick visit in August 2010

We were all very disappointed but I was at least happy that V and I didn’t get up at 05 in the morning to be at Gare du Midi at 07 to find out that the train wasn’t going to depart… I was also happy that O came back one day early from his quick tour of Puerto Rico and the US, on Friday morning. I could have decided to work Thursday and Friday last week and the beginning of this week but V and I have spent some quality time together instead. And today we are off to Spain:

The outskirts of O’s village in Aragón, Spain

We will probably have some of my favourite tapas, “boquerones con olivas / aceitunas” (sardines with olives). No fancy tapas bar but the local one across the street from my parents-in-law’s house

and we will visit the church where V was baptised at Easter, and say hello to the sweet nun who helped us with the baptism

and have fika at the local pastelería

and spend time with O’s parents, M & M

Spanish Easter with the two families

So the two families, the Spanish and the Swedish ones, finally met after O and I spent almost 7 years together! It was an intense, a bit stressful but fun Easter. It was a confusion of languages: my Spanish sister-in-law probably never spoke that much English before, my Swedish sister-in-law and my parents spoke German to my Spanish brother-in-law, and my German sister-in-law spoke Swedish to my family, my father used his smart phone to speak Spanish to my brother-in-law’s secretaries in the office (as my father had to work during the week), my sister spoke Spanish to the Spaniards and O’s parents spoke… Spanish to everyone and O and I were interpreting.

My parents promised O’s father that they would be back in the autumn to help him pick the figs… And O’s sister and niece are hopefully coming with us to Sweden in August!

Before my family arrived, O, his brother and his sister put the finishing touches to the renovation of a 4-bedroom apartment where the Swedish family members could stay. I think that the retro kitchen tiles are cool!

We visited a castle with my parents and O improvised a baby sling

Spanish desserts – O’s parents thought that my mother could do with some “fattening up” 😉 I think that the Swedish family was a bit shocked by all the food – two three courses twice a day!

Calatayud has storks…

and a leaning tower…

Actually a whole square lined with leaning houses!

V and his Spanish abuelo (and a reindeer skin from Kiruna!)

The castle in the village is beautifully lit up at night

Of course some exotic Easter processions for the Swedish visitors

Shoe outlet shopping – O’s village is specialised in shoe-making! (and yes, it rained as usual at Easter hence the pram raincover)

More Easter processions…

We went for a walk to O’s father’s fruit plantation

And discussed different fruits and plants (O’s father is holding wild onions), and how to plant a fig branch. Unfortunately my parents didn’t get the actual branch with them home. Next time!

The local bakery and one of the tapas bars became the regular places for the Swedes and the owners told them that they were most welcome back! No wonder 😉

What a cute baby…

Is it a girl?

We have received several questions (and actually non-questions “Que bebé bonita” – Excuse me, it’s “Que bebé bonito!”) along these lines despite the fact that V is usually wearing a BLUE hat and is not dressed in any kind of clothing that could confuse his gender (including the Spanish faldón)! And this in countries such as Belgium and Spain and by the older generation who would never think about gender-neutral clothes…

People’s reaction when they hear that he is a boy, is “Oh, he is too cute to be a boy”… Oh well, I think that we can live with that  🙂 And no, we don’t always dress him in blue but he doesn’t have any pink clothes [yet].

Gender easily confused despite all the blue??

Too long…

It’s been too long since I blogged and I don’t know where to start… V and I are back in Sweden after a month in Spain. Life in Brussels seems so far away but we will be going back on the 22nd January. This first week in Sweden has mostly been about getting 100% healthy, as both V and I got sick the last two weeks in Spain.

A summary of the last month:

• Cultural differences: in Spain people are worried about babies getting cold, in Sweden it is important that the baby doesn’t get too hot
• Husband and father took holidays to work in the family business – not always popular with the wife…
• Small baby, big virus! V got bronchiolitis / rs-virus infection and had to spend 3 days in the hospital in Spain. Then I got the cold of the century. And O and I got a stomach virus that “only” lasted about 12 hours but it was very aggressive. Plus V and I got eye infections
• Eye infections are called “cold eye” in Spanish and people think it is due to being exposed to cold air.
• V got a new cousin on New Year’s Eve – his name starts with M, just like his parents’ and brother’s and all whose birthdays just happen to be in December as well!
• V’s two cousins, 8-year old M and 5-year old M (not siblings! just realised that V’s three cousins, three grandparents, two uncles and one aunt have names starting with M plus his first family name!) loved their little cousin even if 5-year old M was a tad jealous of the attention her mother gave him…
• If you want me to keep a secret, let me know that it is a secret!! Too many secrets to be kept from parents-in-law and various “siblings-in-law”…
• Temperatures ranged from 16 degrees to -3 in Spain. An exceptionally warm Xmas, both in Spain and in Sweden
• I never got around to bake the safran buns with marzipan, despite Millan publishing her recipe and I buying all the ingredients
• My German sister-in-law and I have three languages in common – Swedish, English and Spanish but we speak mostly Spanish to each other.
• No internet connection for a month was very frustrating!
• I discovered that with digital TV you can switch to VO (versión original, i.e undubbed version) and / or subtitles (in Spanish) when watching American films and tv-series
• Baby V is no longer so small, he gained 1 kg in 18 days. Fortunately his growth has slowed down a little since then!
• Security staff in Copenhagen airport definitely the friendliest, Brussels airport staff quite nice as well and Charleroi third. Madrid Barajas’ staff the most unfriendly and unhelpful with a mother travelling alone with a baby.

• Scaninavian airlines the most baby friendly airline! Both price-wise and service-wise.
• “Ajo” was the most popular word during our stay in Spain. Spanish children “have to” learn this word first as it contains a very important sound in the Spanish language. I claimed that most of the time when V “said” “ajo”, it was just a sound he happened to make and it would be more of a challenge to teach him to say “jamón” or “Jorge”  😉
• People thought that it was cute that V wears “un pantalón”, i.e real trousers… Eh? Well, many Spanish babies wear old-fashioned knitted stockings, with or without a “faldón” (skirt), also boys!
• A baby has to use a pacifier, according to O’s sister and a random woman in the hospital. I am not anti-pacifier but I don’t understand why we have to force V when he doesn’t want one and seems to be doing perfectly ok without it! He sometimes sucks his fingers but it is not a real habit (yet) and I am not too worried…

The baby is wearing real trousers!?

Photos and more posts will follow soon!

What’s in a name (Part III) – in Belgium, Sweden and Spain?

Our little boy has already been exposed to five languages – Swedish, Spanish, English, French and yesterday Flemish. He is also a true international when it comes to his name:

Some of you might remember my posts about Spanish surnames (here and here)? Well, if that was confusing, wait for this one – our son will have three different versions of his full name! One version in Belgium, which is the only country where he is registered so far. However as O and I of course want to make sure that little V has all his options covered, he will also be registered in Spain and in Sweden which means two other versions of his name. The reason for these different ways of registering the complete name is of course bureaucratic, the three European countries have various administrative rules for names.

As a true half-Spaniard, little V has both our surnames; first his father’s [first] surname and then my family name. I didn’t change my surname when O and I got married, as it is not the tradition in Spain, and as a matter of fact most (?) Belgian women also keep their maiden name when they marry. V also has three first names as is the tradition in my [father’s] family. The first first name is his own, the second one is after his father’s maternal grandfather and the third one after my paternal grandfather who is the only great-grandparent still alive.

However, depending on which country you are dealing with this combination of 3 first names + 2 family names will change:

Belgium: V’s three first names are on his birth certificate but in most contacts with the Belgian authorities only his first two names will be used. His two family names are sometimes written with a hyphen, which I think is a good idea as O’s family name could be thought to be a first name.

Spain: We are not entirely sure what is going to happen with V’s three first names when registering at the Spanish consulate. Fingers crossed that they will be accepted and they won’t drop the third one. The two family names will be written without a hyphen and there will be an accent on the i in O’s family name. In everyday life, it will be his first family name (i.e O’s) that will be used as the father’s name takes precedence over the mother’s.

Sweden: O was told when registering V’s birth and names in Anderlecht, the municipality where he was born (the location of the hospital determines this, not where the parents live, which is the rule in Sweden) that we might have problems with the two surnames for the Swedish administration. I knew this already, as in Sweden you can only have one family name. If you have two names, the first one will be considered a middle name. In other words, V’s official family name in Sweden will be my surname!

In conclusion: In Belgium V will have two first names + two family names with a hyphen, in Spain he might have two or three first names, two family names without a hyphen and the “most important” family name will be the first one. In Sweden he will have three first names, a middle name and his last family name will be the official one. Phew! You might ask yourself why we complicate things so much, but I guess both O and I feel strongly about the different name traditions in our families and countries.

And at least we didn’t opt for:

• Not putting his “first” name (V) first. For example in my family I am the only one who has my given name (tilltalsnamn) first. In Sweden it happens quite often that parents think that it sounds better with a different order of the names regardless of which one will be used as the given name. My sister ended up being called Anna during her year as a pupil in an English school as it is the name that comes first out of her three names, and I have a few Swedish friends here in Brussels whose official mail (bank, insurance etc) is always addressed to their second names that happen to come first!
• O was really tempted to give his two family names to V, i.e both O’s mother’s and father’s surnames. It can be done in Spain, you just add a hyphen between the two names! Fortunately he decided that it would just be a little over the top to give our son three first names and three surnames…

Little V has received his first official letter, I find it so funny that he already gets addressed as “Monsieur”, at 3 weeks old!

Parental magazines: Spain vs Sweden

Lately I have split my magazine reading between the interior design ones that I always read, and some magazines devoted to becoming / being a parent. O’s brother’s wife M-J gave me four editions of a Spanish magazine called Ser Padres, which is actually free (for the moment?), my blog friend Brysselkakan gave me an old edition of the Swedish magazine Mama and as interior design and parenthood are combined in the Swedish magazine Family Living I have bought some of those myself.

I am aware that this will be an unfair comparison, but I would still like to make some remarks about the different parental magazine styles in Spain and Sweden. The unfairness is due to the fact that we do have parental magazines in Sweden that are more similar to the ones in Spain – at least, that’s what I think, I haven’t actually read any of them (I am thinking of Vi Föräldrar (Us Parents) for example). But I wonder, are there similar parental magazines like the Swedish ones below in Spain??

The Spanish parental magazine called Ser Padres (Being parents)

Ser Padres is a magazine full of interesting articles about everything from medical and health advice to shopping tips and what to feed a baby / toddler / child. I haven’t read all of the articles yet but I like that part of the magazine is divided into chapters for different ages, and that they also have articles about real families (for example living in the countryside vs in the city etc) and even travelling. Lots of hands-on advice, and several pages are devoted to answering the readers’ questions.

The article Cosmética para el bebé drew my attention but fortunately most of the article talked about shampoos and soaps, not about cosmetics as in make-up as the title would make a non-Spanish speaker to think. However, it also mentioned different types of Colonia, because, just like the Belgians, Spaniards apparently like their babies to smell… something else than baby! It’s funny (or NOT), but I have always heard that the smell of a baby is one of the best smells ever. I knew that this is a cultural difference, just like the piercing of ears on small new-born baby girls, but there is no cologne / perfume getting near my baby, that’s for sure!! Except for this little difference, I would say that the advice I have read so far is very similar to what I have read in Swedish parenthood books and magazines.

NB. If you look closely at the four babies featured on the cover pages of the magazines, you might notice that they are all blonde and at least three of them have blue eyes. Interesting, don’t you think, in a country where most people have dark hair and brown eyes! (and the two women featured on the Swedish magazines below have brown hair, but they are actually both of foreign origin)

Glossy Swedish parental magazines: Mama and Family Living – what’s with the English titles??

As I mentioned in the beginning, the two Swedish magazines I have been reading are not really the same type of magazine as Ser Padres, and I am not even sure that glossy, cool, fashionable parental magazines exist in Spain!? Correct me if I am wrong! Mama is like a combination of a fashion magazine with a parental magazine with still some interesting articles but maybe not as serious as the Spanish one. The articles are shorter and more easily digested than the advice-filled Spanish articles. There are always a few celebrities mothers / parents interviews, and the focus is very much on image. Both Mama and Family Living I would probably call “parental life style magazines”, with FL being a more interior design oriented version.

What annoys me about these two magazines is: the titles – why do they have to be in English? Is it more cool / catchier? Do they seller better? Actually it seems to be a Swedish magazine phenomenon which I discovered last Christmas when I went to the local news agent’s (Pressbyrån) to try to find a magazine in English for O – it seemed that more than half of the titles were in English (about cars, music, whatever!) but when I looked closer, I realised that nope, the articles were written in Swedish. On the Mama cover page there is a reference to an article called Har ni hamnat i IVF-hell? (“Have you ended up in IVF hell?” but the two last words are in English!), what’s wrong with using the Swedish word for hell? And I remember reading the editor’s column (in one magazine or the other) where she wrote about her kettle, I am sorry but who talks like that in Sweden? I thought it was called vattenkokare but then again, I guess I have been living abroad for too long!?

Nevertheless, I enjoy reading all these three types of magazines. The Spanish ones I read to get an idea of how parenthood is perceived in Spain, which is important as I am expecting a little half-Spaniard, and I want to know what to expect from the Spanish part of the family… The Swedish magazines I read, not so much for information, but for the pure enjoyment of reading a glossy magazine focused on parenthood. And I would definitely rather buy Familiy Living than Mama.

If you are wondering, no I haven’t had the opportunity to check out any French / Belgian parenthood magazines yet…

Heading North and some Spanish tiles

We are heading to Skåne, the south of Sweden tonight after O has finished work. Just like previous times we will drive during the night as there is less traffic and fewer trucks on the German motorways. This is the first day of my two-week holiday and I have been taking it very easy – slept late, read some blogs and the newspaper online but now I need to get a move on with preparing our picnic and get ready for the departure.

We have a long weekend, Ascension ahead of us with my family and we are going to be very lucky with the weather – predictions between 23 and 27 degrees until Sunday! A bit different from last year’s Ascension when we sat in the [unfinished] extension in the summerhouse wrapped in blankets because we just had to sit outside despite the cold weather.

Until I have time to answer comments and blog again, I hope that you will enjoy the Spanish tiles (azulejos) I saw in Sevilla, and tell me, which is your favourite pattern?

All the photos are from the mudejar palace El Real Alcázar, the private palace La Casa de Pilatos and Plaza de España in the parque María Luisa.

What I found interesting was that all the tiles were on the walls, and not on the floors… I wouldn’t mind putting a tiled floor like this in a hallway or maybe kitchen in an old house.

I couldn’t help myself, I had to take photos of almost all of them tiles…

Especially as they all contain my favourite colour – blue!

I like these small tiles…

Let me know if you are bored already?

I think that I went a bit tile crazy in the end 😉

At Plaza de España the tiles were a different style…

And all the Spanish provinces were represented – this is the province of O’s mother who doesn’t come from Aragón but Soria in Castilla y León, next door to O’s province of Zaragoza (both the capital of the region Aragón and a province in Aragón).

Zaragoza represented and illustrated in Plaza de España

Ok, I think that I overdid it with tile photos so this is the last one…