The week of fiestas was busy for little Eric. Instead of going to the Escoleta during the day, as usual, he stayed home with his mommy and papá all week. We tried to take advantage of having daddy home, using it to do some things that I had wanted to do for a long time.
I had been wanting to bring Eric to some place to see some animals (or "guau guau's" for Eric). Around here there aren't that many places for him to see them, so we brought him to the nearest "zoo," Terra Natura in Benidorm. Mauri and I had gone there several years ago when they had just opened and it was a lot nicer than it is now. Sadly, the park seems to have deteriorated quite a bit, and its maintenance wasn't that impressive. Eric, of course, didn't care about any of that.
He did seem to like all of the "guau guau's," and especially seemed to like the ducks (!), possibly because they made the most noise of any of the animals we saw. With the heat of the summer, most of the animals were hidden in corners, sleeping or resting. The ducks, however, were playing in the water and making a lot of noise. When we ask Eric what the ducks said, he makes a funny noise.
What I was most looking forward to in the park was the "contact areas" (aka petting zoos). We came across the main one soon after having arrived there. Mauri helped Eric get close to some goats and llamas. At one point, I was just about to take a video of them touching one of the animals, but stopped because I saw a goat looking like he was going to try to eat part of Eric's stroller. So, I ran to the stroller, and as I did, I saw, once again out of the corner of my eye, what I was just about to have videotaped. The animal spit a bunch of partly digested straw at Mauri and Eric. Eric started to scream. He doesn't like it when he gets wet or dirty, except when playing in the pool, and this was much more than what he is used to. Despite his obvious horror at the situation, I couldn't help but laugh at them, and kick myself for not having recorded it all.
Seconds before this guy decided to spit up straw all over Mauri and Eric's faces.
The boys got cleaned up as best as they could, but continued to smell like farm animals.
The goat that had distracted me earlier
It was a very hot day to be roaming around the park, but even in the heat, Eric decided that he didn't want to ride in his stroller, and spent most of the time running around the park on his own. It was amazing how quickly he moved around from area to area, especially when you consider that this park is made up of a lot of inclined areas, so we were constantly going up and down little hills.
Touching the lion's paw
Eric had no problems keeping up, and seemed to have a lot of fun running from place to place, and pointing out the various animals. He imitated the quacking of the ducks, and liked petting the donkeys. He seemed especially fascinated by the big paw of the lion that was lounging around on the other side of the dirty window that allowed us to see her up close.
Mauri thought he was too young for all of it, but I think it was a good experience for him. He might not understand all of it, but he did seem to enjoy it. Of course, he seemed to almost enjoy the park's run-down kids' play park even more, and cried when we tried to pull him from there.
He spent time going down the slide several times. He was terrified by the swings, but enjoyed ringing the bells, and running through a little maze. I even managed to get him to look through the Indian face hole for a cute picture.
Hungry, we wanted to move on to get our overpriced, horrible park food lunch, but he wanted to continue to play. So, we had to drag him, screaming, away from the park.
We ate in an area with a peacock roaming freely around our picnic tables, which was fun until some kids scared it away before I got to get a picture.
Pretty much exhausted, we ate, and headed towards the exit of the zoo, checking out the last area that we hadn't seen on the way. It had been a fun, albeit hot and exhausting day, so we headed home.
First, though, we bought the overpriced souvenir picture from the entrance to the park to help remember Eric's first visit to a "zoo."
Being the week of fiestas, there are more "guau guau's" to be seen. The fiestas are known for what is called "Bous a la Mar," or "Bulls in the Sea" which happens twice daily throughout the fiestas. On certain days it begins with a running of the bulls down the main street down towards the port where there is a temporary half bullring set up.
The bullring is set up along the water, and people can either pay to watch the show above, or go below to participate themselves. Those who choose to be in the ring usually try to coax the bull (or, more often, cows) into the water.
I personally hate bullfighting, but don't really have the same aversion towards Denia's version because the bulls aren't meant to be hurt or killed in the process here as they are in a traditional bullfight. That said, I don't love the whole idea of it as much as I used to either, especially when things go wrong as they did one afternoon this year. One of the bulls that had jumped into the water sadly died of a heart attack while they were trying to pull it out.
So, the whole ordeal seems like lighthearted fun, but can obviously be quite traumatic to the animals. That said, I get the feeling that these animals normally live in nice conditions, and are treated much better than a traditional factory farm cow meant for food. So, even in the worse case scenario, with the world as it is nowadays, I think there are many worse things to be upset about.
So, we went one afternoon. We never pay to go see them in the plaza, though. Mauri's brother has a small speedboat which we take to watch the show from the water. It is much more comfortable, and is also really the only way to go see them with a hyperactive toddler. Not being huge fans, we only went one afternoon.
Eric seemed to enjoy the experience. I don't think he got much out of the actual show, but seemed to enjoy being in the boat. He also clapped when he heard others clap, and was fascinated by seeing everybody in the plaza that was faced towards us. We brought some snacks and drinks with us, so Eric was entertained with his popcorn and juice. Luckily no bulls nor cows were hurt, and the experience was good overall.
The only other fiestas activity that we attended was the "bouncy castles" that were set up for the little kids. We brought Sheena with us one afternoon, and decided to go for a walk with her and Eric. As we were walking around, we noticed that they had a show set up for kids in one of the plazas and had the big inflatable bouncy houses set up along the street nearby. So, we headed that way to check it out.
A girl came up to us with a juice box for Eric, and he happily drank it as we observed the various bouncy castles. Our first impression was that Eric would be too small for them, but then we noticed that there were a lot of other little kids in a few of them. We looked for one that was less active, and took Eric's shoes off and let him play in one.
He had lots of fun, but not too long after starting to play, a big group of larger, wilder kids started to carelessly and roughly jump all over. We got a bit nervous and pulled a very sad Eric out of his castle.
Our plan was to go back on other days, but on other days, there were a lot more kids there, and there were less bouncy castles set up because they instead had set up big inflatable waterslides. Eric was obviously too little for those, and the other two were so filled up that we decided against trying to let Eric play. Next year, hopefully, it will be better, and he will be able to do a lot more.
Eric "helps" with the setup for the "teatro," a skit performed in the street each year.
The official events, though, aren't the only activities that we have available to us during the fiestas week. Just like the activities they have planned during fallas, the street where Mauri's parents live also has activities planned for the fiestas. Last year you may recall that I brought Eric to the "cucañas" that they have planned for the kids. Eric is still a bit small to participate well even this year, but I thought he would at least enjoy the atmosphere.
At first, he happily rode his little car around while the older kids were practicing on their bikes for some of the later activities. As more and more kids got there, though, he seemed to be less excited about being there. We waited for some of the activities that he could do, but this year he participated even less than last year.
Last year I pushed his bike during the ribbon race. For the ribbon race, a string with envelopes with ribbons is set up and held over the kids. They are supposed to ride towards the string, and use a stick to put into a ring that is attached to the ribbon and pull it out of the envelope. Last year Eric used his hands to pull out a few.
This year, though, Eric wanted nothing to do with it. He refused to ride his car towards the string. Even when in Mauri's arms, he refused to pull the ribbon out. Oh well, hopefully next year he'll have more fun.
He also somewhat participated in the egg race. There were two teams: one of the older kids who had more obstacles and were supposed to hold the eggs on a spoon in their mouths. The younger kids, though, were able to hold the spoon in their hands, and the very young ones used both hands, one to keep the egg on the spoon.
I'm not sure who actually ended up winning, but the kids seemed to have fun.
After watching musical chairs, which Noa won with a bit of help, Eric was getting too tired to see much more. We tried to hold out for the water fight, but Eric didn't want to participate, and I didn't really want him to get wet anymore anyway. You see, for some reason, the people here always want to do everything very late at night because "it is too hot to do it earlier." So, the games didn't end up starting until almost 8PM, which is already getting late for Eric to be up and around.
What doesn't make sense to me, though, is that the finale to the games is a big water fight in the street using water balloons, hoses, big bowls of water...
It was much too cool and windy out for me to want Eric to be wet anymore, especially since, by that point in the week, I was sick with strep throat. I didn't want to miss out on some of the main fiestas events, but I wasn't up for all of the activities that we had planned either. I ended up taking the second half of the week pretty easy, and we stayed home most of the time, only going down to see some of the main events.
We did end up going down to Denia to see the float parade. Each year there is a competition between the various fallas to make the best float for the parade. Each falla chooses a theme, and then they create a falla and get dressed up in costumes to reflect their theme. In the end there are prizes for the best float, best presentation, etc.
We usually go early, and sit near the barrio where Mauri's parents live because that way we can more easily see the parade from seats brought from the street. The only problem with that is that we miss out on most of the dances and presentations that the falleros do as they march through the streets. We also see the floats during the daytime on the first run-through, but I think the floats look much better at night all lit up.
This year the parade was fun because we saw a lot of people that we knew in the parade, and a lot of them stopped by to see Eric. At first, though, Eric was still asleep after having fallen asleep in the car on the way down to town.
Later on, though, he woke up, and some of the girls from the Escoleta came by to see Eric and one gave him candy. He also ended up with a balloon from other people in the parade, and food and water from another float.
When we had seen all of the floats (the parade continues through a second time), we headed back to the barrio where Eric very happily played with his new balloon. He ran around kicking it all over until it popped, and he started to cry.
Everybody felt so bad about it that they looked for a new balloon for Eric before we headed home.
At home, we relaxed a bit, and were able to try out our mini pool with Eric. The first couple of times in the pool this year he seemed to be really afraid to be in the water. Little by little, though, he got used to it, and started to let go of us. Now that he has realized that he can touch the ground and run around in the pool by himself, he loves playing in the pool.
He likes throwing around the thermometer and running after it. He also tries to imitate me when I blow bubbles, but it seems like he drinks more water than he blows bubbles. Either way, it is very funny for him, as is it when Sheena jumps up on the side of the pool to get a good look as us.
Overall summer with Eric is a lot of fun. He loves to be able to play outside more, and is starting to get better at doing everything. Last week, there were even a few days in which he didn't cry when I left him at the nursery school.
He keeps picking up new words, too. That said, his list of words is still rather limited. Last week I found it quite funny when I took him grocery shopping, and I said "a ver" out loud when trying to decide what to buy. He repeated "a ver" in the same exact tone. So, when I found what I wanted, I said "aquí," which he also repeated.
Ooh-Ah and Guau-Guau watch us play in the pool
To those who ask about the language spoken to him: yes, I do usually speak to him in English when I am alone with him, but in this case I was just unconsciously speaking to myself. Even when I speak with Eric, I have a hard time not mixing both languages. It's just too easy to use the Spanish word for things for which he obviously knows that word better. (Imagine me saying, "Do you want 'agua'?")
Water pistols were a party favor from the street cucañas
I'll leave off with a list of Eric's main vocabulary words, and will post a video of him playing in the pool and saying some of the words.
Mamá, Papá, Pepe, Yaya, guau guau, agua, aquí, está allí, no está, Pau (school nemesis), Ana (teacher), a ver, no va, ooh-ah (aka. Trufa- Sheena's mom that comes to visit sometimes- you can see him call to her in the video from the pool), Tita (Maite- I guess from Tita Maite), Teetee, pupa... I'm sure there are more, but that's about all I remember right now.
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