Dia de la Paz and los Coches

The Day of Peace -Thursday January 30th

January 30th is celebrated here to commemorate the death of Gandhi.   The theme of this day is: Universal love is better than selfishness, nonviolence is better than violence and peace is better than war. 

To help celebrate this day, the kids were asked to bring a painted rock to permanently surround the school's olive tree.

 

These are some of the first graders placing their rocks and admiring the rest.  After the entire school participated this was entirely filled up with bright and colorful rocks.

 

The kids were also told to bring a large white shirt or white coat, but we didn't understand why they needed to be large so our kids just wore a white shirt under their coats.  When the kids went outside for the celebration of Peace Day wearing the large white shirts over their coats we finally understood.   The first graders are on the right looking like American football players.

 

 



It took over half an hour seating the kids and then they sat through an hour long program of the classes singing songs about peace.   It likely would have been quite "Peace" ful  if the kids would have sat and listened, but being 1st graders they were restless before it started and couldn't cease talking, playing and fighting. 

 

Friday  January 31st the kids had no school. We aren't sure if it was to celebrate the day of Peace or not. 

Parking/Traffic

Since Peace day did not yield a large post I am adding the following very non-related info. 

The public transportation is so great in many parts of Spain that many people don't have cars, unfortunately there are still plenty of cars or perhaps just not enough places to park them.  People are very creative when it comes to finding parking.   

 

The cars on the left are double parked which is very normal and probably legal here.  If you are the one who is trapped you simply honk your horn until the person blocking you comes out and moves their car.

 

 

On any given evening the cars are double parked along our main street, which creates back ups when they are double parked on both sides and the traffic is heavy.   Restaurants line the streets right here and there are no parking lots.  In fact there are very few parking lots anywhere in Spain. 

 

 

 It's amazing how close cars can get to each other here.  Brent has gotten really good at parallel parking and undoing parallel parking. This was last summer in Valencia.  Besides the parking in this spot, it was a dead end and therefore when we were ready to go we had to pull out and turn around in this same spot. 

Europe is known for it's common use of round-abouts.  The small ones are simple but this is a large one with several entries and exits.  We've learned to stay to the right, because once you are on the left/in the center it is very complicated to exit.

These roundabouts require a little skill and a whole lot of luck to get through them.  Since there are no lanes, cars will come from the left of you and turn right in front of you to exit.   We are never sure who has the right of way once you are inside. 

One last shot of the same roundabout outside our window in Valencia.  Needless to say it was very loud during the morning commute.

 

 

The 2nd Snow of the Season, Tuesday February 4th

When the large flakes began to fall at school, we could not keep the 1st graders away from the windows so we eventually gave in and let them go outside for a few minutes.  We enjoyed watching them as they tried to catch the snow with their tongues and ran around screaming with excitement.   Half an hour later was recess and the school canceled it due to the cold and snow! Really?