Sunday Morning Routine (from 9 to 12)

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Masha Kubyshina

Our routine changes depending on the place we live in. As we have been moving a lot, our routine consequently changed every year. I remember I read a blog entry by my brother’s friend. She wrote about her routine as a tourist in a new place. The post was a great read. And it made me think that unless I write it down while I am living it, in couple of years from now I will not remember what our routine in Barcelona used to be.

Sunday morning in Barcelona:

9am – The kids wake up and play some noisy game. Today they are playing with their dolls and teddy bears. All the toys fight between them and make a lot of noise. My four-year-old says he is going to put the teddy bears into a prison for making all that noise. Then my six-year-old tries to figure out where he heard the word “prison”. “You have not heard it from me. How do you know it then?” she asks.

9:15am – I get dressed and start making our breakfast while the kids are trying to kill their pajamas, fighting them with their wooden swords. Then we have our breakfast, Russian “oladushki” (pancakes) and some bread with olive oil and tomato (my Catalan upbringing). And coffee.

9:45am – While I hang the freshly washed clothes on the back balcony the kids are getting ready for the bike ride. Every Saturday and Sunday I take them for an hour bike ride in the neighborhood. This is the part of our day I really enjoy.

10am – We are out of the door of our apartment building on the cross of Muntaner Street.
We reach Plaza Bonanova and turn onto Passeig Bonanova. I love this street to go cycling with the kids. On Sunday mornings it is peaceful and quiet. We pass in front of La Salle school where one of my son’s friends go. The school gate is closed.We get to a small ramp that my son uses to zip down to the sidewalk. He does it every day with his scooter when I pick him up from his school. His school is just around the corner.We reach the newspaper stand called Zurich. The kids get down from their bikes and cling to the ball machine. Each ball costs 1 Euro and this time I tell them “no”. Sometimes though they do get a ball each. They call them magic balls.10:20am – We continue our way to Plaza Sarria. We are more than half way there now. There is a gate in the white wall. My kids always stop there. The train (FFCC) line gets out of the tunnel there and if you stay long enough you get to see a train passing by. Today when the kids stopped at the gate, a nun that was next to them stopped too. She asked them if they were waiting for a train to pass by. My kids nodded. The nun smiled and waited a little bit with us.10:30am – We stop at the cafe 5 Pino. It is nice and shady there. There is a small kiddy park where the kids play. There are eight pine trees next to the cafe. I think those are the only pine trees in this area.Sometimes we get a kids’ magazine to read together, and some coffee and croissants.11am – We head to Plaza Sarria, which is just five minutes away. Actually the Sarria church is visible from the cafe. Today at 11:15am we heard the church bells ring for over three minutes. They were announcing the Sunday mass. We stop at the red light in front of Room Service cafe. This cafe has the weirdest opening hours ever. You never know if it is opened or closed. This is Plaza Sarria. Kids bike around it while we watch how the nearby restaurant, Santana, starts setting its tables outside.11:45 – We head back to Passeig Bonanova and towards Plaza Bonanova. The Sarria Church is in the background. We pass by an organic grocery store. Surprisingly it is opened on Sunday. It always has some wonderful basket with seasonal vegetables next to its door. We bike by the shade of the fence of the Mexican consulate. It is almost noon when we turn right on Mandri Street and go one block down. We pass Doctor Coffee (closed), Cafe Mandri (closed), and another bar that is open, but I do not remember its name. It has a large TV outside and people come there to watch football games each night.12 (noon) – We reach Plaza Bonanova and go to Fornet to get some fresh bread. We can hear the bells of the Bonanova church while we wait in line to buy the bread.12:05pm – We get the fresh bread and go home. Here it is looking back at the church from the corner of our apartment building. End of our morning trip 🙂

Roman Gardening (something we have not done before)

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Masha Kubyshina

At the end of April we did something new and fun: we signed up for a Roman Gardening excursion. It took place in a Roman vila, La Vil.la Romana del Munts, not far away from Tarragona (Spain). The two hour activity is geared towards the kids and grown-ups. We went with our children ages 6 and 4. The six-year-old participated fully in all the activities. The four-year-old enjoyed the activities such as gardening and skin-lotion making with a Roman recipe. The rest of the time he tried to reconstruct the vila and climb the roman walls. And, no, he did not do much damage to the original Roman construction and I was grateful for the patience the guide had with us. He did not even notice how our son built a small fort in the middle of the hortus, how he hung on the olive tree, and how he tried to hit the 2000 y. o. aqueduct with 2000 y.o. stones (we stopped him on time). Spanish people have an amazing way with children.

I am going to post some images and notes about the excursion and the activities.

Here we are at the beginning of the activity talking about the structure of the Roman vila and where the baths and the housing were located. In its time this vila was very rich, it belonged to the high official of Tarraco (Tarragona). It even had a private aqueduct for watering the fields and the gardens.

Termes. The “baths” of the vila. The baths consisted of dressing area, hot therms, and then cold therms. There was a marble incrustation along all the therms, a sign of richness.
The plants that Romans planted in this region and how do we know about it.
The guest-rooms in the vila. Each guest-room consisted of two spaces, entrance room and bedroom. You can see floor mosaics and some frescos on the wall.
The part of the guest-space in the vila.
Kids following the gardening trolley back to the garden area.
Walking inside of the Roman baths.
The Roman garden (hortus) viewed from the therms.
Hortus was a flower and spice garden that Romans planted close to the therms. They used it for relaxation and pleasure.
The leaves of acant. Many columns’ capitals were decorated with this plant. Below I posted an image of a column with the capital decorated with the acant leaves.

Working with lavender in the Roman garden.

Tables set with ingredients for making skin lotion following a Roman recipe.
The skin lotion was made of lavender, honey, olive oil, and clay powder. I tried the lotion on my face and hands. It is really sticky. Romans probably washed themselves throughly after using those lotions :).
Kids enjoyed forming groups and making the skin lotion.
My son having a blast with powdered clay.
The Roman vila is located in a small Mediterranean town called Altafulla. The beach was beautiful and peaceful that morning.
At 10am everybody was still asleep in this small town. Coffee at the empty cafe on the beach.I was surprised at the amount of nowadays plants that Romans used to plant. At the end of the activity each of us was given a booklet with the names of all the plants that Romans planted in this region.

Here are some of the plants from this list:

Dates
Lemons
Pomegranates
Peaches
Apricots
Plums
Apples
Pears
Olives
Walnuts
Loquats (Nisperos)
Almonds
Cherries
Figs
Garlic
Lavender
Parsley
Valeriana
Rosemary
Ment
Chamomile

The happiest person in the house

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Masha Kubyshina

“The kids are having a blast!” one of the guests said.
“I am having a blast!” replied David.

It was 8pm and the kids’ joyful screams could be heard all around the place. There we were twelve adults sitting around a messy table in the back patio. The party started as a lunch, then it smoothly merged into coffee & cupcakes, and then continued as an improvised dinner. A house of a school friend of mine. A small house in the upper side of Barcelona.

We were sitting around the table laughing and talking nonsense. We talked about work, going fishing, cooking, and food. In Spain you always end up talking about food. Then David, the younger brother of my school friend, now is his thirties, popped up and told something about the snails. And it was funny and we could not stop laughing. Then the kids came chasing him and he run with them inside the house to continue playing hide-and-seek-carnival-twister-indians game. We could hear their enthusiastic giggling and laughter.

We spent the evening sitting outside talking, eating, drinking, and trying to relax. The three kids and David would stop by the patio sometimes and grab a piece of bread or a cupcake and disappear again in the depths of the house. Shouting and jumping. When David would sit at the table with us for a minute or two, with my son on his lap (my son did not want to separate from David even for a second), I would look at his face and know that he was the happiest person in the house. He was the only grown-up who was not self-conscious.

Later that night walking home under the dark starry sky I thought about David and the rest of us. Too often we make ourselves believe that we are not self-consious. We try to appear in our own eyes as naive, genuine and happy. We sit still, relax, and smile when somebody takes a picture. Too often we do not play with the children. Too often we do not laugh wholeheartedly. Too often we are too tired to play hide-and-seek or to take time and listen what games the children want to play with us. Too often during the day we convert into self-conscious grown-ups.

We were a great bunch of relaxed adults that night. David was the only one who was truly happy and enjoyed the moment. I think that it is easy to sit and overview what the children are doing. It is easy, and tiring, and not rewarding. Getting really involved with the kids and being part of the game takes more energy. It is also magical.

Easter in Barcelona

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Masha Kubyshina

In Spain on Easter kids receive La Mona de Pascua, it is a chocolate figure decorated with feathers and chicks. Those chocolate works of art range from simple chocolate eggs to elaborated chocolate scenes from Disney movies and Barca football players. The price of such chocolate gift also varies a lot, from 10 Euros for a simple egg up to 100 Euros for a nice house with couple of chocolate figures around it.

Apart from La Mona de Pascua the Easter sweet bread and Bunyelos de viento (air bunyelos) are sold. The Easter bread reminds me of Russian sweet bread (сдобные булочки) and there is a boiled egg placed in the center of it. Sometimes the eggs are decorated with a sticker. And yes, lots of colored feathers and Easter chicks accompany the bread.

Today all the children in Spain commenced their Easter vacations, the vacations always start the week before Easter. We strolled with our children through the city and looked at the Easter decorations of the cafes and at Monas de Pascua. We got an Easter bread at Crusto and it was really good. Here are some images of Barcelona’s cafes decorated for Easter.

Crusto, Carrer Muntaner 363, Barcelona

Easter Bread at Crusto, Carrer Muntaner 363, Barcelona

Easter bread with two chocolate eggs (instead of boiled eggs) at Crusto, Carrer Muntaner 363, Barcelona

Easter chocolate eggs at La Criolla, Carrer Muntaner 423, Barcelona

La Criolla, Carrer Muntaner 423, Barcelona

Chocolate figures at La Criolla, Carrer Muntaner 423, Barcelona

Monas de Pascua in a pastisseria at the cross of Carrer Muntaner and Ronda General Mitre, Barcelona

Monas de Pascua in a pastisseria at the cross of Carrer Muntaner and Ronda General Mitre, Barcelona

Monas de Pascua in BoPan, Carrer Muntaner 536, Barcelona

BoPan, Carrer Muntaner 536, Barcelona

Monas de Pascua at Canal, Carrer Muntaner 566, Barcelona

Monas de Pascua at Canal, Carrer Muntaner 566, Barcelona
Monas de Pascua at pastisseria Serra 9, Plaza Joaquim Folguera, Barcelona

Barcelona My Love

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Masha Kubyshina

It was a perfect day today.

While unhappiness is complicated, happiness is very simple. It is visual, it is physical, and it consists of small acts that make us happy. I am talking about things like walking down the street, having a coffee with a friend, working on an interesting project, looking at the flowers in the flower-shop window, and talking to new people.

The day started simple, I walked down the Muntaner street all the way to Diagonal. It was sunny. I got a coffee at Le Crusto and walked with the coffee. Walking in Barcelona is a blast. It is one of my favorite cities to live in.

The streets look beautiful. I love the trees in bloom and the flower shops. And I like people who like flowers and flower shops.

I turned down on Passeig de Gracia and walked two blocks against the light. I stopped at a small store to get the rubber bands that my daughter is crazy about. It seems to be a fad in her school and in the whole city. All the moms, teachers, grandmas, dads, brothers wear those handmade colorful rubber bracelets.

I turned at the corner of La Pedrera and reached Pau Claris street. There was the cafe, Jaime Beriestain, where we held our focus group. The place was full of green sofas and flowers. The meeting was a good one, I learnt a lot, specially, I got a lot of insight on how to run a better focus group next time. When the coffee is good and you get to learn things that interest you, you are happy. At least I was.

Once done with the meeting I headed to Valencia street, where my favorite bookstore is located. Jaimes, the French bookstore. And I stood there and read the titles in the children section and held the colorful books in my hands. I got some books for my kids. The Barbapapa for my daughter and Boucle d’Or et les Trois Ours (The Three Bears) for my son. He studied this tale in detail during the first term in his school. This book will be full of great memories for him.

Things are not always smooth in life. In the past years I realized how difficult the things can be. I went (still going through) the separation process with my husband. It is not a fun thing, and those who have lived it, know it. However, through all the pain we were able to stay friends and make it the best for the kids and us. Every day I realize how grateful I am for having him as a friend and as a father of my children. I also appreciate the patience and ability we both put in to make our relationship during and after the separation better and not worse.

From where I am right now, I see that pain and unhappiness are small tunnels in our souls, that we dig ourselves. We are alone in those tunnels, we are the only ones digging them. And happiness is like sunlight. It is very simple, very generous and we want to share it with others. Happiness is walking down the street and stopping to look at the flower-shop window, and some times making a self portrait to make it more fun. Happiness is to just live and to enjoy small things. Like the fact that in ten minutes I will see my kids; and that my son got a haircut yesterday and I will probably almost not recognize him.

Walking down Muntaner Street.

On the corner of Muntaner Street and Diagonal Avenue

Walking along Diagonal Avenue

Diagonal Avenue

Rambla de Catalunya where it touches Diagonal Avenue

Diagonal Avenue close to Passeig de Gracia

Bus stop on Diagonal Avenue

Flower shop on Pau Claris Street

Cafe Jaime Beriestain on Pau Claris Street

Entrance to Cafe Jaime Beriestain

Inside cafe Jaime Beriestain

Our focus group meeting at Jaime Beriestain

Coffee and sandwich at cafe Jaime Beriestain

On Valencia Street

Walking along Valencia Street

A flower shop on the corner of Valencia Street

Flower shop on the corner of Valencia Street

Jaimes French bookstore on Valencia Street

Small rubber bands that my daughter uses to make bracelets

Flower shop on Valencia Street (right next to the French bookstore)

Cafe on Valencia Street

Houses on Valencia street (close to Passeig de Gracia)

Lamp posts on Passeig de Gracia

Passeig de Gracia

La toupie, la corde à sauter & les billes

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Masha Kubyshina

These are the three games that my first grader constantly plays at school. Every day she drops in her bag a jumping rope, a bag of marbles and her wooden top. La toupie, la corde à sauter, les billes. La peonza, la comba, las canicas.

They speak French and Spanish in between of the classes. With two of her friends she speaks Spanish, with her other friend French. All the kids are bilingual; trilingual if you count Catalan. The game names are in French and in Spanish.

They share the patio with the older kids, some of them are really good at one or more games. My daughter says she watches how the big kids play top or marbles and learns. Then, she plays with her own friends. Myself I went to school in Moscow, Russia and as a kid I never played marbles or top. Thus, I am starting from zero here. My daughter showed me how to play marbles and we manage to play it at home. However, I can’t make the top roll as it should. Yesterday we had guests and they were able to show my daughter how to make the top roll. In Spain the kids games in school have not changed over decades. Everybody knows how to play marbles, roll tops and jump rope. I found it sort of cool.

I enjoy the games the kids are playing at school. Every day my six year old shows me the new marbles that she won from her friends, she is excited about those colored crystal balls. Les billes. She admires kids who can jump a rope for 20 times in a row or who can make the top roll and then pick it up on their palm while still in motion. For whatever reason I thought that kids did not play those games any more. And now, I am reverenced when my first grader, already dressed in her boots and winter coat, runs back to her room because she left her bag with marbles next to her pillow.

“Mon sac de billes!”

“What’s your favorite book?” I asked my kids (Part 2)

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Masha Kubyshina

My son will turn four in February 2014, thus he is almost four now. To the amazement of our frequent guests he loves to spend time with books. If the guest is willing to read to him, this will be a never ending story. He will accommodate himself on the guest’s knees and bring book after book to be read to him.

He also tells stories to us and our guests. Yesterday he told our friends who came for dinner “You know, I just ate a mouse!” And he went on enjoying the details of his imagination.

I asked him to give me some of his favorite books, and these are the ones he brought me.

(note: because our family has moved three countries since he was born, he speaks good Russian, Spanish, Catalan, French and some English)

Favorite books of my almost four year old son:

1. Ecoute les bruits de la foret (Listen to the sounds of the forest)

2. Усатый-Полосатый Маршак (Children poems by Marshak)

3. Chuggington magazine

4. La historia de El Cid Campeador adaptacion por Carmen Gil-Bonachera (The Story of the Cid adapted by Carmen Gil-Bonachera)

5. Elmer by David McKee

6. Let’s Go for a Drive by Mo Willems

7. 10 Petit Penguins por Jean-Luc Fromental (10 Little Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental)

8. The Empty Pot by Demi

9. Tante Bruns Fodselsdag by Billedbok and Elsa Beskow (Aunt Brown’s Birthday by Billedbok and Elsa Beskow)

10. Bonne nuit, Petit Ours! by Didier Zanon (Good Night, Little Bear! by Didier Zanon)

11. Como mola tu escoba por Julia Donaldson (Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson)

12. Palmier de Noel pour Audrey Poussier

13. Le Plus Malin pour Mario Ramos

14. Renato aide le Pere Noel pour Maud Legrand et Virginie Hanna

15. The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson

16. Лучшая книга для чтения от 1 до 3 (The best book for kids 1 to 3 in Russian)

17. 1001 cosas que buscar en el pasado (1001 things to spot long ago)

18. The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr

19. Приключения Незнайки и его друзей Николай Носов

20. Sant Jordi i el drac por Anna Canyelles i Roser Calafell (Sant Jordi and the dragon by Anna Canyelles and Roser Calafell)

“What’s your favorite book?” I asked my kids (Part 1)

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Masha Kubyshina

Every year I ask my kids what are their favorite books. I want to document their likes, because a lot of times I am curious to know what were my favorite books when I was their age. And I wish somebody would have done the list of what books I read the most when I was three, four, five, etc.

Last time I asked my daughter about her favorite books when she was five. Right now she is six and a half and the 2013 is almost over. I asked her and my son this morning to select about a dozen of their most favorite books. I will publish both lists.

Part 1. Favorite books of my six and a half year old daughter
(note: she was born in California, USA, currently living in Barcelona, Spain and going to a French school. Her main languages are Russian, Spanish, Catalan and French, and some English)

1. El Mago de Oz por L. Frank Baum (The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum)

2. Jean de la Lune pour Tomi Ungerer (Moon Man by Tomi Ungerer)

3. Les Trois Brigands pour Tomi Ungerer (The Three Robbers by Tomi Ungerer)

4. Georges le Dragon pour Geoffroy de Pennart (Georges the Dragon by Geoffroy de Pennart)

5. La historia de los Reyes Magos (The story of the three wise men)

6. Чудо Чудное Русские Сказки (Russian Fairy Tales)

7. Planeta Tierra (Planet Earth)

8. Маленький Принц Антуан де Сент-Экзюпери (The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

9. El Sistema Solar por Rosalind Mist (The Solar System by Rosalind Mist)

10. Busca los Caballos (Find the Horses)

11. No Es Una Caja por Antoinette Portis (Not a Box by Antoinette Portis)

12. The Wonderful World of Knowledge, Transport

13. Ponis por Laura Marsh (Ponies by Laura Marsh)

14. Les plus beaux chevaux (The most beautiful horses)

15. L’imagerie du poney et du cheval (The visual dictionary of ponies and horses)

16. Diccionario por imágenes del bosque (The visual dictionary of forest images)

Talking about Miro’s paintings with my six year old

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Masha Kubyshina

August 8th 2013:

“What have you seen today?”

“A bird that ate the sun.”

“What is your favorite painting in the museum?”

“There are two of them. The firebird (The Firebird) and the white bird. The white one with two color spots (The bird of the paradise).”

….

August 11th 2013:

“What do you remember from today?”

“Not from today. From the first time we went to the museum I remember two things. I saw them again today. The yellow egg on a chair, because of the color. And the second thing is a painting of woman, flower and fire.”

“What painting are you talking about. I can’t remember it.”

“It has a woman looking sideways, fire, flower. There is a red wall behind the woman. I can draw it for you. It has lots of red and yellow.”

(Flame in space and naked woman)

….

August 24th, 2013:

“What did you like today the most?”

“The two drawing of the garden” (Personajes en el jardin II and Personajes en el jardin IV)

“Why did you like them?”

“Because the garden was full of fruits”

“Those were not fruits, those were people’s faces”

“They looked like fruits to me”

….

“My favorite three paintings are of the birds and the sun. I like the one where the bird ate the sun.”

“What do you like about them?”

“All three paintings have a bird, a blue rectangle, a sun and a star. The star is important and easy to draw.”

….

“I know how he did this one. He used cotton swabs. I am going to do one at home too.”

….

“Can we lick the mercury fountain?”

‘No.”

“Is there fish in the fountain?”

“No.”

“Hmm. Let’s stay here for a while and look how the water falls.”

….

“I do not know whether I want to be an artist or a horse as a grown up.”

and a little bit later

“… I think I can be both. I will be an artist in the mornings and horse in the evenings.”

Onstage you always smile

Posted on June 8, 2013 by Masha Kubyshina

“Remember girls, onstage you have to look happy. Always! You have to smile when you dance. When you dance here on a real stage, you have to forget about your tiredness, about your parents, about the public, you have to forget everything except the desire to dance well. Dance to your best ability, dance with joy, always with a smile on your face. Your hands and feet know what to do, now you have to dance your best and smile. It must be the smile of acknowledgment of your effort, of your ability. Your hardest work is the best celebration and joy you will have in life.”

“Please do not dance just to have fun, do not just do something for the sake of doing something. Always do the best you can, do it with purpose, with passion, strive, work hard. Now you have seen the lights turned upon you, wearing a beautiful dress, wearing makeup, may be for the first time in your life. Do you know what it means?”

“This beautiful dress is a part of celebration of your effort and your ability. This dress represents your purpose, it accounts for every hour your spent dancing to be on this stage, it is the beauty of your hard work. Wear it with pride! Wear it with a smile! You are the true owner of this dress now!”

“Today is your last rehearsal, tomorrow the public will be watching you. Forget everything except how well you can dance! Your chin always up, a smile, and only think about the best you can perform! In this accomplishment and in the celebration of it lies the happiness.”

Those were the words of the ballet instructor to the girls who were about to perform onstage for the first time in their lives. Skirts, tutus, little feet running behind the stage. People in black hurrying around, gesticulating, the dresses being steamed, girls rehearsing in the halls, makeup artists, voices. Music, more little feet running up and down the stairs. “The door one?” “Ready.”

I generally do not put the portraits of my daughter on this blog. However, I made an exception this time. I find these two portraits to be a reflection of what she was able to do. I did those shots behind the stage, at night, after the last rehearsal was over. She was very tired. I asked her if she was afraid of dancing onstage and she said she wasn’t. And added that she wants to go back onstage. She just turned six.

unrelatedtolife

about sun, coffee, travel and people I have met

Category Archives: Barcelona

Sunday Morning Routine (from 9 to 12)

Roman Gardening (something we have not done before)

The happiest person in the house

Easter in Barcelona

Barcelona My Love

La toupie, la corde à sauter & les billes

“What’s your favorite book?” I asked my kids (Part 2)

“What’s your favorite book?” I asked my kids (Part 1)

Talking about Miro’s paintings with my six year old

Onstage you always smile

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