Walking on Water: Ice Fishing in Madison

Madison, Wisconsin is sometimes referred to as the Four Lakes City…referencing the four major lakes in the city. Part of its charm is that two of the lakes are right downtown buffeting the city center including the State Capitol building into an Isthmus. The largest of the lakes, Lake Mendota (9,842 Acres) occupies the northern end of the Isthmus while Lake Monona (3,274 Acres) is on the south end of the Isthmus with yet a smaller bay cut out by a roadway (John Nolen Drive) and a train track. The lakes provide Madison residents a vibrant aquatic cultural recreation both in the summer and winter season. This winter as most winters, the lakes freeze over forming a huge surface area for all kinds of sporting activities. Lake Monona seems to be the most favored as you find folks carve out ice-hockey rinks, or skating rinks and having fun with the sports they enjoy. This season, as in many other seasons past, some ingeniously creative folks, remake a tradition that has endured since 1979. They create a huge head and crown of the statue of liberty in the middle of the lake, giving the impression that she is submerged in ice to the chin. While you can enjoy the view from the shores of the lake, the thick ice cover assures everyone the security to walk up to the statue over a hundred yards into the lake. As incongruous as this might look to non-resident Madisonians, just about another hundred yards away further from this sculpture last weekend, you saw some hardy families and friends lounging in lawn chairs on the ice, having a beverage and gazing into the brilliantly cool horizon as though they were sitting in their backyards gazing at the stars. By far the most popular winter activity on the frozen lakes is Ice-Fishing. I ventured out consecutively for the last two weekends to join other hardy fellows ice-fishing. Majority of the area fishermen and women seem to prefer the bay end of Lake Monona. Close to hundred people or more are scattered all over the lake surface, some clearly in the elements sitting on an upturned bucket or easy chairs fishing while others go the whole nine-yards with heated tents and other sophisticated gears to keep the cold away and fish in luxury, I might add. One common denominator among folks is a cooler of beer sitting at an arms length. An instant fishing buddy, I met on the frozen lake, Phil from a nearby city, Janesville, while not tenting, had some cool gadgets of his own, including gas powered machinery to drill a hole through the ice for the fishing lines. He also had a lunchbox-size gadget with a computerized surface to monitor the movement of fish underwater and alert you when the fish starts flirting or chomping at the bait and sometimes when it actually swallows the hook in the process. Such sonar tracking devise allows for guys to shoot the breeze without fixating on the lines. The camaraderie on the ice is like no other. Strangers are instantly transformed into good friends, as people freely trade stories and fishing tips. Even the generosity of sharing was evident with people easily lending their tools, or handing over their meager catch to one person to boost someone’s harvest than each person taking home a couple of fish that would not make a full meal for them. Until early Spring when the ice on the frozen lake starts cracking, and getting thinner, we will keep the spirit of ice fishing in Madison going strong! When next you are up in Madison during the season, ice-cold beer or beverage of your choice is on me…. on the frozen lake of course.

Ethiopia Winter Olympian: The Madison Connection

This is not the first time Robel Zemichael Teklemariam of Ethiopia emerged in the international winter sports spotlight. He was at the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy four years ago representing Ethiopia. Well, he never did go away in spite of the wonder that someone from a country that does not experience snowfall will be so dedicated to a sport that feels more natural to those in cold and temperate regions of the world. While a native Ethiopian, Robel grew up in NY City where his Mom was a United Nations Development Program official, so, instead of honing his skills in the highlands of Ethiopia, Robel, carrying the long distance endurance and stamina genes of his fellow countrymen and women, learned his craft around Lake Placid in NY. Robel who was born on September 16, 1974 moved to the US in 1983 with his mother who enrolled him in North Country School, a small boarding school in Lake Placid, New York. He fell in love with skiing while there and competed in various races, ultimately winning an athletic scholarship to the University of New Hampshire. When his mother retired from the United Nation, she relocated her family including Robel to Madison. While in Madison, she opened a popular Ethiopian restaurant on Monroe Street, near Westside of Madison. Most Madisonians probably remember patronizing this restaurant that was nestled in a strip mall on Monroe Street just blocks from Edgewood College. Her entire family including Robel all worked at the restaurant during various tasks and waiting tables. Though the restaurant is now closed, Robel’s interest in skiing never dimmed even as he worked in yet another Ethiopian restaurant Buraka, on State Street, downtown Madison. On occasions, Ethiopians, other Africans and friends helped out with fundraisers to support his interest in a sport that is generally expensive. It is not a surprise that Robel remembers the support he received and still receives from Ethiopian communities abroad, including those in Madison. Roble’s tenacity and love for the sports inspired him to single-handedly set up Ethiopian Ski Association. In explaining the possibilities of the association, they echoed that for over 50 years now, Ethiopians have proven themselves successful in long distance and cross-country running evidenced by numerous gold medalists in both women and men’s competitions. They conceded that though snow does not particularly exist in the mountainous regions of Ethiopia; however that doesn’t mean that there cannot exist a winter athlete in the highest level of competition as Robel has proven this to be true. It was his dogged determination that carried him all the way to the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. And now to Vancouver, Canada. The Ethiopian Ski Association in the face of all odds has a clear mission, which is “to be able to groom and organize young Ethiopian skiers who want to race and accomplish their dreams as an Ethiopian champion. This will be realized through the support of Ethiopians at home, the diaspora as well as compassionate supporters of the sport”. As the current Winter Olympics is drawing to a close, we have watched various news reports of victories, disappointments, and the perennial problem of possible violations of anti-doping laws at the games. At the end of the day, we will all celebrate the courage, ambition and ice-breaking of countries that have been under-represented in the games for reason of geography, as they are pushing through the fog to realize that skills, preparation and ambitious tenacity trump geography any day. Congratulations to all the Olympians out there and especially from those in tropical regions of the world that are boldly embracing the cold weather sports.

Madison Winter Festival: Making Merry in the Cold and Snowy Dairyland

In perfect alignment with the rest of the world, our Madison Winter Festival falls smack in the middle of the ongoing Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. So for two days last weekend (February 20 and 21, 2010) we peeled our eyes off the Olympics triumphs and agonies on our television screens to troop down to Madison picturesque downtown to actually play, compete, frolic and cheer in the snow, both under our feet and on top of our heads. The festival is around the eight city blocks, creating a 500-meter course that square our imposing state capitol building which is pretty much an exert replica of the US Capitol building in Washington DC. The marbled capital edifice seats smack on the Isthmus dividing the city into four cardinal quarters overlooking two of the four lakes within the city – Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. The Madison Winter Festival according to the primary organizers “is a weekend of winter celebration which was established in 2004 to promote fun and healthy lifestyles during winter by showcasing snow sports, festive recreational activities and opportunities to participate for everyone including individuals with mobility limitations”. The first event was held in January 2005. True to its billing and as always…the festival did not disappoint. As I left work on Friday evening, the four streets squaring the capitol, Pinckney, Main, Carroll and Mifflin, were cordoned off while snow was being trucked in and paved over the road pavement to form a thick coat of ice for the various races and events. Various sponsors were also not left out in setting up their banners and music stands, just as various beverage vendors were also setting up their stands. On Saturday proper, you would think you were in Vancouver as all the skiers were donned in their ski suits with their tag numbers firmly in place and boisterous supporters milling around and making the event a great winter celebration. To underscore the importance of this event, some of the participants in the previous year, are actually competing in various events in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver this week. We are further proud that we have University of Wisconsin, Madison students/graduates among the US team, especially in the powerful male and female hockey squads. Among the popular events in the festivities included Cross country ski racing, Snow shoeing, Snowball Rail Jam, Tubing and Ice and Snow Sculpture. The events were not just for the professional skiers among us but the lanes were open for the public irrespective of their skill level. Folks on wheelchairs were also part of the fun and exercise. The inclusive nature of the gathering is a hallmark of Madison traditions that often bring our community together and create joy even in the midst of what other cities or regions of the country would complain as being frigid, snowy and inclement weather…for us, we get out there an play. As the scheduled festival packed up, some of us headed back to our frozen deep lakes for rounds of ice-fishing and more lake sculpting…I will be sharing that soon.

Brick Capital of the World: Pantoja and its neighbors

The brick capital coinage is my own adverb. You know, the American penchant for exaggerating every thing as number 1 or the biggest, ‘baddest’ or best. Remember our world series, which often involves only US and Canada? Well, there is no other way to describe the relatively small city of Pantoja, about 30 miles north of Toledo where I spent a couple of days with a Spanish friend of mine. The clay in the Pantoja and its neighboring towns of Cabeja, Alameda de la Sagra, Anover de Tajo, and Villaseca de la Sagra was described to be of the highest quality, hence attracting several brick factories to the area. If you know the Spanish love for tiles, both decorative and functional, you would understand why the brick industry could build regional economies. Even at this time when things are slow because of the global recession, you still saw trucks hauling bricks drive past you every 5 minutes. Based in Pantoja with a population of about 5,000, I visited nearby bigger cities of Yuncus, Numancia and Illescus. Sad you don’t get to hear about these cities but most of them are the size of American midsize cities with all the hustle and bustle of a big city, sprinkled with centuries old monuments amidst glitzy modern shops and conveniences and surprisingly very racially and religiously diverse. Being that far deep into the heart of Spain it’s always surprising seeing black kids playing around in the plazas or the adults tending shops or going back and forth from work, just as you see Moslem women clad in hijab (long robe covering the entire body but the face) resting on benches in front of old cathedrals and having good evening breeze with their kids. Determined to take home a cultural peculiarity of the area, if not the entire Spain I had my friend teach me how to make a cultural cuisine Paella, that is a specialty from the Valencia area of Spain. A tasty rice dish cooked with lots of seafood, including squid, shrimps, prawn, clams, mussels, chicken and assorted vegetables. For someone who is squeamish about irregularly eaten seafood like mussels, clams and squid, I found the dish mouthwateringly delicious and took notes. I have added it to my regular dishes to serve among friends and family. Sometime in the future, I will write about the various foods that I enjoyed from different regions of Spain. The assortment and originality of Spanish food are as rich as the tapestry of the civilizations that have called the Iberian peninsula home at some point in history.

Aranjuez: The Royal Palace by the Tagus River

Fascinated by the number of palaces that dot the Spanish landscape, I decided to visit one that was not so far away from Pantoja and indeed still within the Madrid province. It is in a nearby city called Aranjuez. This small city is situated between the Tagus and Jarama rivers. But its fame comes from the Royalty that it houses. King Felipe II in the 16^th century had declared it a royal site, probably because of its geographical features and being in the plains of two important rivers in ancient Spain.

There are numerous royal palaces scattered all over Spain where the kings or queens and their families winter, summer, autumn and fall, or just go to get away whenever they felt like leaving town.

The Royal Palace of Aranjuez has however been converted to a museum with every furnishing and articles in the palace preserved in the condition they were several centuries ago. These include the king and queen’s bedrooms, baths, study rooms, diplomatic rooms, royal courts and every kind of setting you would expect in a king or queens quarters. The palace interior basically depicted the monarch’s daily lives at home.

One of my favorite rooms in the palace was a porcelain room that has every inch of wall and ceiling covered in porcelain figurines of people doing various daily activities. Imagine a mural that spans the entire wall and ceiling space in a small hall, but instead of painted colors, the mural is molded figurines to the minutest detail. I was saddened that picture taking are not allowed inside the palace, but at least I had good pictures of the exterior and the surrounding royal gardens.

The opulence in this palace oozed with incomprehensible wealth for that era. Surprisingly, their taste then could rival the taste of modern day billionaires. The physical palace itself was humongous, with adjoining rows of servants and military quarters discreetly flanking the mega mansion. The size is further boosted by the Royal Gardens that was a work of art by itself with unique blending of the watercourses diverted from the nearby rivers, in essence ensconcing the palace in the heart of a natural habitat as well as a technological powering of the water system in the palace. Maximizing the aquatic surrounding, intricate and ornamented fountains were erected all around the palace compound and gardens calling to mind a mythical Garden of Eden. They were the most elaborately detailed fountain structures I had seen in a long time.

Toledo: Swords, the Alcazar and a great lookout

Toledo is best described as the ancient city on the hill. It must have been deliberately and strategically built on the highest point of the surrounding countryside with a 150-degree view, perhaps to safeguard itself from enemy attacks in the belligerent epoch in the Iberian Peninsula. No, I am not talking about Toledo, Ohio in the US, but Toledo, Spain, which is the capital of Toledo Province in the Autonoma Communidad of Castilla la Mancha. When it was founded during the Roman era in Spain, the name was the Latin ‘Toletum’ which eventually evolved to the Spanish Toledo. Toledo is just 70 kilometers south of Madrid and had been the capital of Spain before the Muslim invasion and take over of the city. Emerging from the bus station, you have to do a hefty climb to get into the city, and a further steep climb though the ancient parts of the city to get to the very top, which sprawls into the major plaza and several ancient buildings that are currently living monuments of the city. As you wind your way up the city, several gift shops beckon you with assorted displays of ornamental and actual swords. The city was known for its steel and iron works. It was the chief supplier of swords, knives and such implements in the days of yore and still does so today, hence the ubiquitous display of swords, knives and cutleries in every gift shop. I really liked some impressive decorated swords with embroidered steel ornaments for its handle but wondered how that would fit into my luggage as a souvenir. Instead, I settled for table-size decorative gift-item swords and gold and silver necklaces that seem common there too. Meandering around the plaza mayor which doubles as what we would regard as downtown in the States, I pulled some money from an ATM (by the way, that and using credit card for purchases are the best way to obtain money in Europe if you want to avoid the exorbitant exchange rates when you manually change dollars into euros) and headed in the direction of the Catedral de Toledo (Cathedral of Toledo). The cathedral is built in the Gothic style. King Ferdinand III of Castille and Leon, accompanied by the archbishop and most important booster of the edifice, Jimenez de Rada, laid the first stone of the church. The construction was finally completed in 1493, yet the church is still standing in great condition and actually in use. The Cathedral is the most important monument and museum of the city of Toledo. The charge for the tour of the church was 7 Euros but it was well worth it. The cathedral had been very instrumental in the annals of the catholic traditions of Spain as well as the world in general as it had hosted so many synods and the last one concentrated on the implementation of the Treaty of Trent (which made sweeping reforms, set dogma and clarified virtually all Roman Catholic doctrines especially those contested by the Protestants). The magnificence of the church is indescribable given the grand detail of every inch of plaster or whatever they used in those days. To achieve this feat without the modern construction equipment we have today humbles any one standing inside or outside the church today. With the cathedral tour under my belt I headed to the next most important monument of Toledo, the Alcazar. Built by the Romans in the third century but renovated by King Alfonso in 1535, it served as a military garrison, which understandably was very well located. It now houses the regional library and the Army museum. You could pretty much see all of Toledo lying at its foot with the confidence that no approaching armies could breach its boundaries without detection. If you knew nothing of its history you would assume it is some kind of city hall built in the 1970s. The only outward hint of its original purpose as a castle would perhaps be the statute of a lady wielding a sword in a non-menacing manner as if saying, ‘I welcome you with a smile but would chop off your head if you make a wrong move’. On the other hand, she might have been saying, ‘people of Toledo fear not, I am here to protect you’. As usual in all the places I had visited people were very warm and friendly. The one surprise was when I cornered a passerby to take my picture at the gate of the ancient city, a guy driving past noticed my red Wisconsin Badger shirt, slowed down and yelled out “Go Badgers”! I was so excited hearing that cheer in a foreign land that I whipped around towards the roads with both hands in the air belting out, Yeah! Go Badgers! Everybody else noticed I was excited but could not figure out this sudden burst of excitement from this lone big black guy. A television crew taping some kind of lighthearted variety program on the plaza asked if they could interview me. Well, while I could understand some Spanish I could not string a sentence in the language. So as they interviewed me in Spanish I responded in English along the general gist of the questions I thought they were asking. Maybe the interview ended up on the cutting floor, but at least I had my 5 minutes of fame in Toledo. Afterwards some policemen in the area took pictures with me, the just-minted celebrity! Ha…

Granada: Wonders of the Alhambra

Traveling from Marbella to Granada was by itself a topographical delight. It was indeed a steady even-rolling climb from the shores of the Mediterranean Sea towards the high elevation that ended up in snow capped mountains and elegant scenery that included tunneled passes under mountains and highlands. There were occasional dizzying moments when the car gingerly drove on very narrow strip of road on the side of the mountain with vertical drop of several hundred feet below to the foothills on the opposite side of the car. The journey was not uneventful as the Jaguar a friend and I were traveling in died about 45 minutes before Granada. Apparently the night before, the car had a tire-leak, which was not noticed until the car belly grazed the sturdy iron frame of the massive, compound gate and busted the oil tank. It was not until the oil completely dried out and the car stalled that we realized what had happened, despite the earlier tire change. Magically after about twenty minutes wait on the highway, wearing neon bright jackets every stalled motorist was required to wear on an interstate highway, two motorcycle highway cops appeared to assist. By then the equivalent of Triple A had sent a tow truck to tow the car to a garage and another van to take us to Granada. Settling into the Granada Palace hotel atop the highest point in the city, right behind the famous Alhambra, I opened the window to gaze at the ancient and modern city that sprawled out from below the foothills of the cliff the hotel perched on to the far-flung foothills of the snow capped mountain that enveloped the city like a bowl protecting its precious content. The Alhambra is a magnificent edifice built by the Muslim rulers of Spain centuries ago. The buildings are standing strong today as if they were just completed. It took about four hours to tour all the rooms and compounds and its towers and intricate gardens. It is unbelievable, but for the evidence before you, how they could craft such huge spectacular and fortified edifice without the use of modern construction equipment. Wanting to enjoy the view of the city as the ancient rulers of Granada saw it at night time, I walked the ten minute walk from my hotel into the courtyard of the famous Alhambra to enjoy the view and get bathed in the fragrant air scented by perennial trees and flowers that I learned had been part of life in the red fort for centuries. A giddy excitement washed over me knowing that I was standing in the very compound and in its natural form as did those who lived there for centuries. Gazing at he same walls, breathing the same scented air, towered over by the huge brick outlook posts that gave what appeared to be a 360 degree view of this sprawling ancient city and all the hillsides to the distance…and mesmerized in the snow capped mountains surrounding me as though it was some giant bedspread under a moonlit night. I bet any enemies approaching the city from any of the mountain passes would have been spotted so easily. The next day, I went for a full tour of the Alhambra. The tour lasted for hours, as there were what in American terminology could be considered about 15 long blocks of intricate property serially linked to each other by a labyrinth of manicured flowerbeds and unique landscapes. Every block constitutes its own set of compounds with characteristic features that range from ancient subterranean baths, women quarters, sculpted gardens, waterfalls, servants quarters, religious courts and palatial dwelling quarters to simple yet efficient irrigation system that watered the gardens and created the waterfalls that cascade, hum and murmur all around you. Inside most of the buildings, the bright intricate ceiling and wall paintings still survive till date and in some cases, in their original multicolored arrangement. Later in the evening, I descended from the hilly cliff of the Alhambra to what is today the downtown area of the city to enjoy the bustling events on the plaza, with lots of street festivals of Santa Cruces, and the elegantly period dressed horsemen that gave horseback rides around the web of narrow streets of the city for a fee. The downtown was abuzz with open-air cafes, street entertainers and wandering tourists. The city was indeed alive that evening and I suspect every evening, as Spaniards know how to unwind and enjoy their leisure time, if not spending time at the beach. Thanks to the surprising diversity of the bustling downtown, I dined at a Turkish restaurant amidst the conviviality that the Santa Cruces festivities foisted on the city that week.