A break-in in our apartment

Rita and I shared an apartment that was rented by Ercosa for it's temporary American staff. Before we came, it was used by a young man who, like us, was sent from Chemetco to Ercosa on a temporary basis. Back in Illinois he had originally been hired because our brilliant management thought his story of stealing from a pizza delivery guy showed "initiative". Nevertheless, they took it badly when he showed the same initiative again and stole from them; they fired him. He left the apartment without a forwarding address, just disappeared. Later Rita moved into the apartment, and eventually I arrived. 

One day we moved one of the pictures in the hallway and found a $100 bill taped to the back of it. We immediately checked the back of every picture in the place, but there wasn't any more money. However...there was a closet in the bedroom we were not using, and nobody had a key to. We never worried about it, but now we thought it would be a good idea to force it open. We found a couple of shirts, some stolen items like a computer and discs, and a big salami. Fortunately the salami was dried and didn't smell. We threw the salami in the trash and returned the computer and other IT stuff to Ercosa. We didn't have an address to send anything to the guy who had the apartment before us, so we pitched most of the shirts and split the money.

Flash forward few weeks, and one evening Rita and I came home late. Our front door was unlocked (although we had locked it when we left) and inside we found the missing thief, sitting in the living room, in the dark, waiting for us. Oops. He was nice enough, but he sure as heck shouldn't have been in our apartment. We carried on a somewhat stilted conversation with him as we put our groceries away.  He said he had decided to stay in Spain awhile to learn the language, but had gotten a trouble with the police somewhere down south; something about a hit-and-run accident, which he assured us wasn't really his fault. Now he was thinking about staying north to avoid the police, and trying to make a living by teaching English. In the kitchen Rita whispered that she was nervous about him being there and I whispered back that I would handle him if he started any trouble. That was nonsense, he was a tall, strong young man and could have been a real problem for us if he wanted. Apparently, though, he just stopped by to let himself into our apartment to visit. I suspect he came back to check out his closet and discovered his stolen goods were gone. If someone less harmless than Rita and I had been there, things may have ended differently. But eventually he said goodnight and left. We locked the door behind him, although we knew now that he still had his key - the next day we had the lock changed. We never saw him again, but there was no doubt he knew exactly who found his stuff - the night we found him in our apartment, I was wearing one of his shirts!

First trip to Madrid

My first trip to Madrid was with one of our American accountants, David Eckstein. We both wanted to see Madrid and happened to be free the same weekend, so we drove to Madrid, taking turns behind the wheel. On the way we stopped at Segovia. This was my first look at the old aqueduct, and I fell in love with it. Dave, bless his heart, let me out of the car so I could stare at it while he looked for a place to park the car. And boy, did I stare.

When Dave found a parking space, he walked back to admire the aqueduct, too. We didn't climb it, we just stood in the street, appreciating the impressive 1st century Roman engineering that constructed this entirely without mortar. Then we walked around the base of the structure a bit, before getting back on the road.

It was late by the time we got to Madrid so we got a couple of rooms at the Hotel Convention, and started sightseeing the next day. We walked around a lot of the city, and greatly admired the Palace de Real. Unfortunately it wasn't open to the public, so we had to admire it from the outside. 

But the grounds behind the palace were open to the public. 

There was a maze of low hedges, punctuated by tall trees, sculpted into columns. 

We drove back to Bilbao late, still taking turns at the wheel. When we were about an hour away from home, Dave got too tired to drive safely. I was tired too, but I found a can of Coke in the car trunk and knew it would do the trick. I normally drink Diet Coke, so regular Coke would be a jolt to my system. I opened the can of soda, took the wheel, and got us back. Another use for Coca-Cola!

Visiting the French teacher

Rita spoke perfect Spanish, but she was also taking lessons in French. She was on excellent terms with her French teacher, and one day her French teacher welcomed us and a couple of other friends into her home. We also went to the beach together, where the French lady slathered on what she called tanning lotion; it looked a lot like brown dye to me!

Victoria

I took a day trip to Victoria with Luc, the Belgium temp working at Asua. We didn't know anything about it, but it was close (about 40 miles south) and neither of us had been there before. Luc wanted to see as much of Spain as he could before returning to Belgium.

In Spanish, the town is known as Vitoria-Gasteiz. It has a beautiful old arch, with a plaque that refers to the 19th century. It also refers to the Municipal Savings Bank.

And a beautiful cathedral, with no mention of the Municipal Savings Bank.

I could not get all the amazing detail into one shot. The door is flanked by full statues. 

And these sculptures probably tell some morality tale. 

Of course Victoria has a plaza in the center of town. It's very pretty and well maintained. 

In fact, all of the town (at least what we saw) was very pretty and well cared for. This was absolutely one of the nicest towns we'd ever seen. 

And then there is this: the Blanca Square of Vitoria-Gasteiz. To me, this one spot is an excellent representation of Spain.

We went into the Virgin Blanco Cafeteria for a soda. It turned out to be more of a bar and neither of us drank alcohol, so we didn't linger. As we were walking about town, we heard a crowd shouting in the distance. Neither of us spoke enough Spanish to understand what was going on, so we started walking towards the noise to investigate. As we walked, we started remembering the riots in Bilbao. Could this be trouble, too? We agreed that whichever one of us got pulled away by the mob, the other one would take a Nobel prize-winning photo of it. Obviously we weren't taking it too seriously, but as we got closer, the shouting got louder and we started having second thoughts. We continued walking, though, and when we turned the last corner, we realized there was a soccer match going on!

Burning wire at Continental de Recuperation

I was in Spain to work at Concorde Trading Company in Asua, and help its sister foundry, the nearby Continental de Recuperation. I occasionally had a business reason to go there, but generally I didn't do much there. The best story I heard about Continental de recuperation was from Rita. One day she drove up and saw all the Spanish workers standing outside, grinning, while black smoke rolled out the open foundry door. In answer to her question, they said that Dennis was in there, burning the covering off of copper wire. That, of course, was illegal. When the police arrived, Dennis told them, in his broken but emphatic Spanish, that he had been smoking and the stuff just caught on fire. They didn't believe him and the company got fined, but he got his copper wire clean!

In England with Mario

Mario visited a couple of times in Spain, but he didn't stay long because he was still running the IT department back in Alton. Once, when I got a seat on the company jet that was going to England, I ran into him there. We did a little sightseeing together around Windsor and the castle's grounds, but I kept wishing I was seeing it with Randy instead. 

Plentzia

Plentzia is a little harbor town that we passed on the drive north, going places like Bermeo. It was a good place to get out of the car and stretch our legs. Rita and I enjoyed walking on the beach here, even early in the year when it was too cold to get in the water. 

The weather didn't matter to this little fellow, even in his birthday suit!