First Week in Jaca

We arrived in Jaca on the evening of September 1 after our flights from Denver to Philadelphia and on to Madrid, and an epic bus trip from Madrid to Huesca, which would not have been extraordinary, except for a 2 hour traffic jam and the fact that I was travelling with two tired and very hungry children and 8 pieces of baggage. My colleague Federico from the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE) kindly met us at the bus station in Huesca and ferried us to our rented apartment in Jaca in the Institute’s covered pick-up truck. In the truck, we devoured the sandwiches which we were forbidden to consume on the bus from Zaragoza to Huesca, and made polite conversation with Federico as we drove through a light rain.


The first week in Jaca has been a predictable flurry of settling in and figuring out the routines of a new country and culture. Apart from the jet lag, there is the adjustment to the Spanish schedule (horario), with the main meal or comida in mid-afternoon (when everything closes for 2-3 hours) and a light supper late in the evening (9 or later). For a family used to rising at 5:30am, dining at 6, and lights-out for the kids at 8pm, this is a big change. There were the small details, like what do the other school children bring for their mid-morning snack (we switched to “bocadillos de jamon y queso”—ham and cheese on baguette--after the first day), and the bigger ones like how to get internet access (free WiFi in the public library and the town’s central park until I got connected to the IPE network) and where to buy groceries at a reasonable price and walking distance to our apartment.

One part of the horario that I particularly enjoy is the daily break for café at 11:30 am (to tide you over until comida at 14:30). Every day at about 11:30 a small herd of IPE researchers migrates to a bar across the main avenida and up a small back street for the mid-morning café. Who buys rotates daily and there is usually a friendly competition for who picks up the check each day (I finally managed pay on Friday). The coffee break lasts about 30 minutes, during which the researchers exchange information and institute gossip, complain about malfunctioning equipment (the IPE internet was down for 2 days this week), and engage in lively debates over topics such as whether it is unhealthy to nap in the shade of a walnut tree. (Apparently there is a local saying to this affect and one of the ecologists hypothesized that the purported unhealthy effects are due to the tanins from the tree leaves while another argued that sleeping in the shade causes one to catch cold.) Participating in this daily routine has helped me get to know my institute colleagues and also provides a natural forum for asking dumb foreigner questions without disrupting someone’s work.