History class

The teacher and the students take a break to eat oranges and pose for the camera man.

Fireworks

During almost seven days the people of Valencia celebrate Las Fallas, and other spaniards come here to join the celebrations. It means a lot of light shows, some crazy Fallas-statues and most of all a lot of fireworks. It's not just the kind you shoot into the sky, like we do in Sweden on new year's eve, it's mainly things that go "boom" and everybody lights them everywhere all the time. So it is a kind of confusing start of life in Spain for some quiet swedes like ourselves. Or actually the Arenius-girls love it, but I think it's a little noisy. But even though I am not a big fan of all the noise, we bought some firecrackers for Stella and Aina and had our own Fallas celebration tonight up on the mountain where we live. It was fun (and noisy)!

Tomorrow we will go to Monteluz with some friends from another church that we know here. It's a beautiful retreat place surrounded by thousands of orange trees.

From Örebro to Valencia

We have not posted pictures yet, on this blog. But we wish to share pictuers of our time here in Spain soon. At first we show some pictures from our 3300 km journey from our swedish hometown to our spanish hometown. Pictures taken by Thorine this time.

A short break in the mountains between Spain and France. 

 The Atomium in Bruxelles, where we enjoyed both the monument and the surroundings.

Stella and Aina, who learned only a few french words on our trip, but now are happy to learn spanish words. 

 We went to the top of the famous tower of Eiffel.

Outside of Sacre Coeur in Paris. Mom is the photographer.

Home schooling

I should not blog about this, because somebody told me that it is against the law to do home schooling in Spain. But the truth is that Thorine is the teacher of Stella and Aina, and our own house is the school building, for the three coming months. I hope that only people who want us to stay in Spain read this blog.

The reason I am taking this risk is that many people ask about how school works out for our daughters. Aina is in pre-school, so she does not have a heavy agenda here. But Stella has quite many things to learn. Thorine usually makes a plan for the day, and Stella and Aina make plans for all the breaks during the day. Meanwhile Daddy is usually sitting by the computer or by the synthesizer.

As I write this the girls are eating Valencia oranges in the garden and Stella is reading for the others from one of her books (part of her school work).

When school is over today we will go into the city to take part in the Fallas.

The first day on the job

After almost a full day of working by the computer while my family enjoyed the sunshine in the garden, I looked forward to start my work here and learn more about the spanish music ministry. I had agreed with Laura, who helps me with everything I need to know, to teach “Mi Padre (My Father)” to the church choir she directs. For me that was a perfect start, because I would meet the choir from “our” church, I would get the chance to know more about how Laura works with the choir and I would work with a song that means a lot to me.

Unfortunately it became a day of learning instead of music. It is time for Fallas in Valencia, which is like the carnival in Rio. So instead of driving into the city, I drove my car to the nearest metro station with the intention of taking the metro to church. But the Fallas festivities surrounded the metro station too, and I ran into one problem after another. When I finally got to the church, the choir practice was over. It could have been a big disappointment, but the choir still made me feel very welcome as we chatted for a few minutes. They had practiced “Mi Padre” and we sang it together, which was a blessed moment for me. I really look forward to meeting them again!

I think next tuesday I know how to get to church faster!

Haan

My first weekend in Spain was not in Spain at all. I went to Haan, close to Düsseldorf, in Germany to make music together with singers from Taktvolk, Seitenwind and some people from Leverkusen and other places. It was a great weekend with old and new friends. After the service on Sunday night the whole choir was standing outside of the church singing "Jesus loves me" to all the people who were walking out of the church. I still have the joy from the weekend in my soul!

Meanwhile in Valencia Thorine and my daughters were exploring our new hometown together with some friends from the church where we will be going while we live here. They also got to know more people from the family who lend their house to us. The house is beautiful and we are so happy for Gloria and Antonio who let us live here!

Tuesday in Valencia

Many things to do today, but everything has a special touch to it. A tuesday here is just different then a tuseday in Sweden. I still had some problems to get online this morning, which is not fun, as I am sure you know. But while I was working with the computer I listened to the singing of spanish birds, some cats fighting, a neighbor cleaning the pool, my kids learning spanish and lots of other exciting things.

Now it's lunch, Thorines pasta bolognese, and then I need to finally send the files for the musical they do at Karolinska skolan, Örebro. A tuesday in Valencia.