The Long Bus Ride to Zaragoza, Spain

Saturday, March 22, 2025

It was a wet morning in Gijón but I still had a few errands to run before our team bus set off for Zaragoza at 1:00 p.m.

Principally, I was on a mercy mission, braving the drizzle to buy Laurie some of her much needed hand warming packets at the local Decathlon Sporting Goods store. The temperature predictions for our game in Zaragoza on Sunday called for cold, blustery weather.

Mission accomplished.

The many . . .

. . . wondrous things . . .

. . . one sees on a morning walk

in Gijón

Our Zaragoza Game Itinerary

Our chariot awaited

There is a reason that the north

coast of Spain is known as . . .

. . . La Costa Verde

The views out the bus windows were spectacular with the rugged coastline to our left and these lush green mountains and valleys to our right.

The drive to Zaragoza, the seat of the ancient kingdom of Aragon, would take seven hours. Six of them driving and about an hour for a rest/food/game stop at approximately the halfway point.

The mood on the bus was an upbeat, good one.

At our rest stop, a game of

Ninja Tag broke out

First, form a circle, then on the "GO" call everyone takes one step/leap in any direction and freezes.

One participant is picked to start the tagging process and they then take turns, one at a time around the circle. The target is any other player's hand within reach. Whether you make the tag or not, the player trying to tag and the one being tagged both freeze again after their move to strike and/or avoid being tagged. A player is still in the game until both of his hands have been tagged.

Team Bonding never ends,

let us begin

LB Hugo using his turn to jump

closer to another frozen player's hand

Ninja Mariners in stop-action

All seemed to enjoy playing and watching these ten minutes of good hearted fun playing two rounds of this game.

DB/Ninja Master Iván Ávila both won games.

We continued the long drive to Zaragoza with full stomachs and smiling faces.

The Eurostars Hotel where we

would spend the night was in the

huge Zaragoza Transportation Center

Here you can see the train portion of the station. Our room was above the bus station.

We were extremely happy that we were unable to hear any noise from either buses or trains from our hotel room.

After checking into our rooms, we were all given about two hours to ourselves before our 10:00 p.m. Special Teams meeting. The 8:30 p.m. team meeting had been cancelled.

That was a change to our itinerary that just begged us to explore. 

Laurie and I opted to grab a taxi and head downtown to see Zaragoza's top cultural site, the Basilica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar, a.k.a., El Pilar.

This fountain at the edge of

El Pilar's large plaza changes colors

I liked the red look

Our first glimpse of El Pilar

It is MASSIVE

The 16th and 17th century basilica

has a Byzantine feel to it in its

domes and towers

Nuestra Señora herself

in this large, white sculpture

We tried to go inside to see the famed frescoes by Goya but were denied entry as it was now but five minutes before closing time.

Rats!

We both loved this little girl reciting

a Spanish version of "This Little Piggy"

Could have used a gargoyle in my opinion

Ornate look all around

The tile work was exceptional

This café/bar sitting right across

from El Pilar on the busy plaza . . .

. . . just begged for an aperitif

A shopping street that empties

into El Pilar's plaza

Great lighting on . . .

. . . both of these buildings

We started to head back to El Pilar's

plaza as we still had that Special

Teams meeting to conduct

Welcome to Zaragoza INDEED!

Just another random church

at one end of El Pilar's plaza

This bridge spans Spain's

famed Rio Ebro

We caught a taxi ride back to the hotel in plenty of time for the Special Teams meeting.

We were to meet as a team in the lobby at 10:00 p.m. When I arrived at 9:55 p.m., it was just me and the three American imports. The meeting finally started at 10:20 p.m. as several players reported that the restaurants they were in had still not delivered their dinners.

The Spanish rarely, if ever, arrive to any event on time.

That being said, the Mariners were focused on the task at hand at this meeting. It made for a good feeling as we headed back to our rooms for a good night's rest before our 11:00 a.m. Kickoff on Sunday.

A good road trip so far.

There was one Spanish Serie A game today.

Las Rozas (8-0) ended their

regular season in dominating fashion

by throttling Coslada (3-4) to clinch

the #1 seed in the upcoming playoffs

and the Western Conference title

News from the net . . .

I truly was an addict but I kicked

this filfthy habit in the Fourth Grade

I'll take the Fifth Amendment

on this one

Truer words were never written

INDEED!

A Visit to the À Muséu del Pueblu d' Asturias

Friday, March 21, 2025

If you didn't know, the city of Gijón has a series of seven culturally based museums which are always free for public viewing. Today we visited one of them.

During my now 73 day stay in Asturias I have been able to visit six of these fascinating museums. I thought that Laurie would enjoy this excursion and she did to my delight.

The Museum of the Asturian People

It was founded in 1968 and is located on banks of the Rio Piles near the Mariners home field, the Hipódromo Las Mestas.

Laurie with a traditionally

dressed Asturian couple

I got into ancient cart wheels today

To be 100% clear, I did not do any cart wheels today.

Ben-Hur Chariot?

Metal reinforced wheels were the norm

A crude but effective plow

We thought that this was a yoke

used for a beast to turn a gristmill

Not all cart wheels . . .

. . . were created equal

We could see how those metal edges were a definite upgrade.

From the farming exhibits, we moved into an exhibit hall that had just opened today that displayed women's clothing from about 100 years ago.

Sunday Finest

Lots of colorful vests,

Laurie's included

A sharp dressed family

Isn't she the hot patootie!

Lace that up tighter por favor

Perfect material for your

next Rose Bowl game dress

Bright cloth

Somewhat intricate stitching

Much more intricate stitching

We moved on to the next exhibit hall that was dedicated to bagpipes in general and the Spanish version known as a Gaita in particular.

There were also all sorts of other Asturian music instruments on display.

A colorful bagpipe

Black goes with everything

A goatskin bagpipe

Disturbing to hear bagpipe

music coming out of this one

Not a bagpipe

Different regions came up

with different designs

We loved this kid!

This one reminded me of the one

we had in our home in California

Accordions are a big part of the

traditional Asturian music scene

My Abuela, who was born and

raised in Asturias, was a

virtuoso on the castanets

Abuela's castanets were much

smaller than these . . .

. . . her's were about the size of

the ones third from the right on

the bottom row

A small organ

A Hurdy-Gurdy

Passing on the musical culture

to the next generation

A face that despite the wear and tear

can still play this hand made flute

Animal bones turned into wind instruments

Nice, old clarinet storage case

After spending time inside these last two exhibit halls, we progressed back to the open air parts of the museum.

A weird looking plant

The stable of a small farm house

The farm house's master bedroom

An ornate Asturian Hórreo

that is used for grain storage

Wheels for the . . .

. . . gristmill

Sidra storage barrels

This apple press used in making

Asturias' drink of choice, Sidra

How old are these traditionally

green Sidra bottles?

Not sure of the use of this Sidra

making instrument but it was HUGE!

We ended our visit by going through the museum's four story main building that is dedicated to the daily life in the typical Asturian homes of the period from 1800 to 1960.

Religion was a big part of

the Asturian lifestyle

These Spanish figa charms were

worn to fight off the demonic threat

of "The Evil Eye!"

One of science's finest discoveries.

More religious objects

Now, THAT'S a drinking cup!

A well constructed basket

There were many examples . . .

. . . of quite . . .

. . . intricate . . .

. . . woodworking on display

Primitive snow shoes is my guess

Much more comfortable . . .

. . . looking lightweight shoes

Smoking cap and slippers from 1890

A closer look at that cool looking

smoking cap. I liked it!

We spent about two hours at this fine museum that we both enjoyed immensely.

It was now mid-afternoon and we were both rather hungry.

Earlier, we had spotted a sidrería near the museum that offered an attractive menú special today consisting of grilled meats.

We decided to return to this sidrería

for what we thought to be a light lunch

Our Menú options

Or so we thought.

Laurie and I each picked one of the grilled meat options to order.

When the waiter came to take our order, I relayed our two meat choices to him.

He replied, "No, if you order the Parrilleró Menú, we bring you cuts of ALL of the meats that are listed."

Thus we were served this HUGE

plate of sizzling animal flesh

The Parrilleró Menú also included a large bowl of a lettuce, tomato and onion salad, a bottle of red wine, a large bottle of water, bread and dessert.

We would spend the rest of the day in a deep Food Coma.

Thankfully, there was no practice scheduled for this evening.

 

Gijón proudly proclaiming itself

"An Excellent Tourist Municipality"

A gorgeous, random outer doorway

It was another good day for the two of us in the Principality of Asturias.

Not much today from the net . . .

I did not know this

Now we prepare for the travel to

Zaragoza for this weekend's game

We will leave for Zaragoza by bus at 1:00 p.m. on Saturday with a scheduled arrival time at our hotel in the capital city of the Province of Aragon at about 8:00 p.m.

Our game is set to kickoff at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday and we should get back to Gijón at about 11:00 p.m. that evening.

The weather prediction on Sunday at Kickoff calls for an 85% chance of rain and chilly temperatures of 6°C/43°F.

In other words, a BEAUTIFUL day for American football!