Night in Sant Mateu...

So this weekend we decided to take a trip south of Cataluña to the province of Valencia. The reason for the trip was to see a little more of Spain as much as it was for Carme to escape the lovingly smothering from her mother. Maybe I will get into that story another day...

A little information about Spain and it´s provinces, of the major provinces, they are generally named after the largest and main city residing in that province. Catalonia is comprised of 4 sub regions (Tarragona, Barcelona, Girona and Lleida); Valencia is made up of 3 sub regions (Alicante, Valencia and Castellón). If the name Valencia sounds familiar, think of the fruit oranges. Driving down the main highway, A-7, reminds me of driving down I-95 in Florida. To your left and right, there are acres and acres of orange groves lining the hilly landscape. Now I have never driven thru Florida in the dead of winter but I know the temperature never seemingly dips below freezing and when it does, there is major damage to the citrus crops. Still I have spent time in this region and I know it can get near freezing at night but somehow the oranges seem to survive. And I mean big plump ripe oranges for the picking even a few days before the New Year. A year ago, Carme taught Chelsea K. the finer points of jumping out of the car and stealing a few baskets full before peeling off down the road in a cloud of dust.

We journeyed to a small town called Sant Mateu (Sant Mateo) first to shack up for the night. Sant Mateu, which is in the Castellón (or in Catalan Castelló) sub province, is the birth place of Carme´s father and summer hell for Carme growing up. Sant Mateu is a very small and old town situated in a somewhat mountainous region about 40km or more west of the coastal and larger town of Vinaros. We took off from Tossa and made the 3 hour journey to stay in the summer home of her sister there in Sant Mateu.

To me, Sant Mateu is known for 3 things...how freaking cold it gets at night, the flies in the summer and the foul smell in the air. I think the later of the two are related due to the smell of either fertilizer or cows I have yet to run into. I can imagine with a smell like that lingering, flies must make Sant Mateu a summer home also.

Natalia´s summer home is actually like a line of attached cookie cutter row homes. The funny story is about a year ago, the lady to the right killed herself by hanging. Every time I sleep there I have to talk myself out of the existence of ghosts. Besides, I am not sure of the woman´s nationality but if she was Spanish, I would not understand her anyhow so how could she haunt me? I am such a scaredy cat.

Also most houses don´t have central air and heat in this part of Spain. The weather is pretty mild in the winters and they houses stay surprisingly cool in the more than warm summers. When the summer comes around, I will try to figure out why. Well Natalia's little love shack is no different. But with near freezing temperatures looming the night of our arrival, we were warmer outside than inside the house. So I put my survival skills to the test and decided to build a fire (reminder, get updated on the fire starting badge from the boy scouts). Well actually I got a fire started, but the stacked wood in the back was a bit moist and old and smoke quickly filled the living room.

Luckily we had two space heaters. When I say "luckily" I mean the difference between life and death! Carme´s nose turned blue but I was shivering too much to focus. I did my best to cook that night in mittens and 3 pairs of socks. Then we decided to divide our resources and put one space heater in the master bedroom to preheat that oven! We tried to past time watching a movie but even the DVD player was icing up so we decided to move to bed. To possibly save Alex´s little toes, we had him sleep between us that night. Entering into the bed room, our faces flushed at the noticeable difference in temperature but still we were to sleep in double layers socks and knitted caps. We tried to bring in the second and smaller of the space heaters but due to the lack of space on the floor due to the layout of furniture, it might have been unsafe to do so.

So off to bed we went. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up feeling like my throat was dry as a wool sweater. I tried to speak but inaudible words plagued me. What had brought about this parched feeling? The space heater was working just a bit too well. I remembered that there were 4 settings, off, one, two and three and I am sure it was on three. I decided to risk my family´s chances at frost bite and turn it down to two. I decided to go for a drink of water. We slept with the door closed so as soon as I opened it, I felt as though I somehow had walked into a walk-in freezer. I thought twice about venturing a few feet to the refrigerator as Carme might not awaken until morning and by then, hypothermia might have set in and I would be lost to building shelter only 4 feet away from the bedroom door. So I regress back to the warm sheets.

In what seemed like 2 seconds since I closed my eyes, I felt the unfamiliar kicking of Alex, the soccer player. Since he is only 6 years old and has little body control while sleeping (thank goodness for bladder control), he took out his dreams on me. He must have been dreaming that he was scoing the winning goal in the Wold Cup and my kidneys were the balls. I can't complain too much as I could have been facing the other direction. I figured he was just pushing and uncomfortable at having his mother and father´s body heat envelope him, so I decided to take one for the team. I will take the other heater and move to the spare bedrooms and slept on the lower bunk of the beds. I contemplated sleeping in my shoes as I put them on to assist with traction as I am sure the floors were icy from the coldness. Surprisingly, they weren´t but one can never be too safe.

As I take one last look at my sleeping family and pray that morning will come for all of us, I reminded myself not to cry as it might freeze on my face. I bravely set up the smaller space heater in the back room as I settled into my night´s slumber. Instead of a blanket or quilt on the bed, the covers were sort of like a sleeping bag. The zipper opened away from the wall, as opposed to closer to the wall, where the bunk beds were pushed against. No fear of falling off I suppose. So I slide in between the covers and fall into a sleep. My last thought was fear that I was drifting off to sleep or just passing out from the coldness.

Again, I am awakened in the middle of the morning to a weird sensation. No it was not my nose throbbing from being so cold but in fact, I had managed to kick off my socks and was about to kick off the covers. I shook my head to gain my bearings and realized...this little heater was kicking my ass. I was sweating!!! How was I to regulate this nuclear heat coming my way? Would I need to put aloe on my face in case I was burned in the night while I slept?

I heard stirring in the other room and I decided to make my way to the bedroom with my family. Carme greeted me with sleepy eyes and asked how I slept. I could only describe it as knowing how a grilled cheese sandwich felt.

The next morning, we got up and decided to make a trip down to Valencia. We did not go too deep into the city as there is just too much to do in a day. We did take a horse ride around the city and enjoyed ourselves looking like tourists. Here are some photos from the trip...Enjoy...