My, my.  The idea of this becoming a flowerly, gentile blog about the virtues of Valencia has morphed into this.  I don't know what's getting into me.  But there are those days when I simply have too much time on my hands.  Or when I am simply too obsessed with the state of our plaza that I have to take action.

This lady picks it up with a tissue and then hurls it into the treebox.  Of course, sometimes the wind blows...

Valencia Fireworks by Ben - crayola on scrappaper

We are encouraging Ben to draw based on his teacher's recommendations. Although Ben has never shown an interest in art, we apparently need to get him ready for kindergarden. Just a few days ago, on his own initiative, he drew a sky, a sun, some water with waves and a fish. This recent work (smile) doesn't show the same technique, but it does show his creativity and Valencia's influence.   Perhaps this will be known as his Valencian period. 

It occurred to me that because I write about the streets teaming with filthy caca, you may think that Valencianos are not clean folk.  So, I must affirm that they are indeed quite clean in many, many regards. 

Back home, I never see storekeepers washing their sidewalks with ammonia every morning.  In the supermarkets, the shelves are emptied, wiped down and restacked every single morning.  Shop windows are cleaned every single day.  Basically, everyone has a mop located within 20 feet of them and they are ready to whip it out at any moment. 

When it comes to children and their accessories, they simply sparkle.  I am embarrassed by the sight of our worn looking McLaren stroller.  (But with Ben nearing four, I refuse to buy another one!)  Every other stroller out there is covered with an elaborate, quilted cotton stroller cover that can be removed and washed.  The children's clothes are ironed, their shoes are shined and their hair is slicked back. 

Ben's longish hair sticking up all over the place, his newly ripped jeans and his overall, slightly disheveled look this morning prompted his teacher to say that Ben looked like a hippy.  Oh well, he was clean and his school zipper sweatshirt was recently ironed so I was able to brush that one off!

Another common sight here in the city are the 'sanidad' crews zooming around on cleaning scooters and machines.  On another occasion, I will share with the some pictures.  Why pictures?  It seems like  the Valencian cleaning crews are either middle aged men or "hot" (Mitch's word) young women who look like they model in their spare time.  This is no joke.  Mitch informs me every day whether the blondie crew or the brunette crew are out there. I must admit, with their long, flowing hair, it does look like they are biding time until accepted into America's top model or some similar reality program.  I promise to take some pictures and share them with you.   

When we arrived in Spain, I was inspired to evaluate the ecommerce market, at least from a personal shopping perspective.  Well ladies and gentlemen, I simply don't have the money for that.  Very early on in the U.S., much of the appeal of shopping online, was the lure of low prices.  Not so in Spain. 

For my first experience, I ordered printer cartridges from Pixmania.  Let's see, they cost 10 euros each and took about 10 days to arrive.  After purchasing from Pixmania, I must have received an email every day.  Luckily, I eventually opted out, and it worked to my surprise, so the emails have ceased.  I have found however that I can buy the same printer cartridges down the street from our apartment so there is really no price or time advantage to buy those online.   

Next, I needed a digital camera.  Mitch's Canon Powershot Elph, which I inherited,  was fantastic but one day it simply stopped working.  Since this was our third, yes third, replacement of this camera, we decided that we needed to opt for a new model.  I found the Kodak dual lens 570 and decided it was just what I needed.  I wanted to buy it in Spain.  For one thing, I couldn't find a single U.S. retailer that would ship the camera here.  Plus, I wanted it fast.  I love to have a camera in my pocket and my old Canon A20 - tried and true from 2002 - felt like one of those old cell phones in my pocket.

Pixmania had the camera for 232 euros.  El Corte Ingles for 399 euros.  (yes, that's a difference of 167 euros or $233)  Clearly, you need to shop around.  In the end, I purchased it from one of my favorite online retailers - Buydig.com had it for $210 including shipping.  (Yes - 142 euros) It shipped to my brother's house in just a few days, in time for them to bring it along for their visit.  If they weren't coming to Spain, I would have needed to ship it to a U.S. address - and that friend or family member would have needed to ship it to me.  I'm not sure of the legality of that transaction in terms of duties and taxes however.  (Note - Buydig currently has the same camera for $196) 

I have purchased from Buydig on three occasions and have been delighted with every purchase.  I should also mention that it's a delight to have a dual lens camera like the Kodak V570.  I can't remember how many times I felt frustrated because I couldn't fit my intended picture into the frame of my camera.  The wide angle lens on the V570 allows me to take all of those pictures.  Fun!

Last week, when I was looking to buy vitamins and fish oil for my son (that's another story) I went to evitamins.  Although the shipping was $18, which seemed painful to me, given the euro/dollar exchange rate along with the price of things like children's' vitamins here, I figured I would come out ahead.  The vitamins arrived in less than a week.  Another successful transatlantic ecommerce transaction. 

We jumped in the car and headed south this weekend not knowing exactly where we would land.  Altea, Alicante, Mar Menor de la Manga and Murcia were all possibilities.  But I had no luck finding reasonable, dog friendly accommodation within walking distance of a town. 

As we checked into the Hotel Campanile in Alicante, Benjamin, being the clever three year old he is, immediately found the Rio Safari Elche brochure in the lobby.  As we had a late bite to eat in the hotel restaurant, it became apparent to us that the safari was first on the next day's agenda. 

We kept our expectations low as we had never heard of this place and it looked pretty small.  Plus, the weather was dreary and cold.  As we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed a man walking out with a dog.  "Are dogs allowed here," we asked the parking lot attendant?  Sure, they just can't attend the shows.  O…kay….  Mitch had to convince me not to leave Carmen in the hotel, and now he was spending all of his energy convincing me that we had to bring her into the safari.  "Just think of all the smells," he implored.  "Come on.  She doesn't have that much enjoyment left in her life."  Oh brother, here we go again, schlepping our blind, nearly deaf dog in the stroller. 

The safari was pricey.  18Euros for adults and 15 Euros for children.  Mitch was ecstatic and I think would have paid twice the amount for the right to bring in his dog.  The most shocking part of this was at the gate house.  "Just bring the dog back to the office when you want to watch a show.  We'll take care of her.  We love animals!"  WOW! (And we did, and we were amazed that we were able to)

Do any of you know my husband?  Do you get his sense of humor?  Take a look at these pictures.  He was in heaven.  We're not sure if the dog was on her way there or if the camels and giraffe were simply grooming her.  It was pretty funny.

Some additional highlights of the safari were the guacamayo show and the elephant show.  Have you ever seen a parrot riding a skateboard or a bicycle?  How about a dancing elephant?  We had fun at the shows.  

 About the emus. They're not too nice.  They were quick to nibble my jacket as I took this photo. 

Actually, they are quite nasty. 

Did you know that BIG BIRD is based on an Emu?  It's a huge artistic stretch however, because I just can't imagine ever telling a child that Big Bird is an Emu.  Either they will lose a limb to an emu or they will be turned off to Sesame Street education for ever!

Raising Emus is becoming so popular in the U.S. for their meat that apparently some towns are beginning to have problems with packs of wild emus roaming free.  

A grandmother and her grandson in Eugene, Oregon were almost attacked by one of these.   

But I digress.  Thankfully, Rio Safari Elche has them under control.  And thankfully, funny Mitch did not ask the Emus to groom his beloved Jack Russell Terrier. 

I have made a deliberate effort not to write a blog about dog crap.  But let me tell you.  It is by far, the absolute worse thing about this city.  I wish I could just ignore it.  But I can't, because I am constantly looking down to avoid it. 

We live in a pedestrian only plaza, but we don't want our son playing soccer here because of the mine field that it is.  We live very near a long stretch of gardens that line Blasco Ibanez.  There are benches, fountains, gardens and piles and piles and piles of feces everywhere you step.  Luckily, there are children's parks with signs for no dogs - so that helps in the playgrounds at least - but not all of them.  But wow, what a waste of a green space that we could use daily.

Last week I lost it, and spent a morning printing out signs and stickers with catchy clean up your mess phrases.  I posted a few of them around the plaza but the rain washed most of them away, as it spread the messes around.   The thing that gets me is that some owners think they are being responsible by picking up the messes and throwing them in the tree boxes.  Excuse me?

Every day, I try to put things in perspective, but I keep coming back to this #1 annoyance.  How much will signs help?  How much will offering a bag to a dog owner do?  Would the mayoress Barbera grant me 30 minutes?  Could I inspire her to start a city wide campaign - or a huge program to fine the culprits?  Who cleaned up New York?  Would Mayor Koch volunteer his time to clean up Valencia?  If we purchased real estate now, would it appreciate if Valencia were caca-free? 

Do you have comments or suggestions?  Do you think I'm insane?  Are you a relative reading this who hasn't booked your tickets yet because you are offended?  Let me know!

Well, I didn't quite know where to categorize this, since it's not about Valencia. 

But it is about Baby Einstein, which is related to my little Ben however because he was introduced to the videos at a very young age - four months perhaps.  I know, young.  But there has to be at least one of you out there that put your little baby in one of those vibrating bouncy seats in front of a dvd just so you could take a shower, right?  Well, I was one of them.  Plus, honestly, it's pretty intriguing to see your baby react to all of the lights, music and movement of the baby einstein videos.  That's a good thing isn't it?

And it is about Papa, since Papa was in Iraq, and Bush decided to go into Iraq, and the author of this article links the "marketing" of the war in Iraq by Bush to the "marketing" of Baby Einstein.  A stretch, but an interesting article.

And for the record, I wouldn't mind creating a little company in my basement that I could later sell to Disney.  I know a lot of mothers.  Some of them purchased baby einstein and others didn't.  But I don't know a single mother who thought their babies would fall behind without baby einstein.  That's a stretch.  

And also for the record - post baby einstein.  Ben may have a few issues - but he excels at critical thinking!

Wow.  We haven't seen rain like this in Valencia since our plane touched down in Manises in something similar back in October.  It is cold (36F), windy, and there is lightning and thunder. The sound of the rain is intense as we live on the top floor of our building.   I know it's nothing like the weather the rest of Europe experienced last week, but hey, we've become accustomed to the good life here. Current Valencia weather link.

Monday was a holiday in Valencia in honor of the city's patron saint San Vicente.   (I mentioned him in a previous post as I was quite surprised to see his left arm on display in the cathedral!)

There were several parades in honor of the city's patron.  We caught one at midday near the Plaza de la Reina.  We especially liked the dancing!

Oh - the craziness before "Reyes" in Valencia.  Reyes, or the day of the Three Kings (January 6th) is when most Spaniards exchange gifts. 

My sister-in-law wanted me to take this picture, so she could share it with her sisters (or brother ;))

I know, passing the buck on the daring underwear but it's the truth!