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| The girls before their first day of school. Lucia is not excited. |
Upon my return to Sevilla, the girls and I enjoyed our last week of summer vacation by playing games and riding our bikes and swimming in the pool. But vacation had to end some time and the girls could no longer sleep in until their mother´s high heels woke them up. The girls attend a private catholic school. At their school the teachers are nuns and students attend from kindergarten to the end of what is high school in Spain. The girls look so cute in their uniforms every morning! Since I have started spanish classes at the adult school we have been able to share breakfast every morning. They both drink hot chocolate and dip cookies into their hot chocolate. This keeps them until about 11 when they consume more cookies for snack, and then they eat again around 2pm a full, balanced meal. They think my fruit for breakfast is so strange. This week, upon seeimg me eat a banana and tea, Marina said to me "I could never get used to an American breakfast." Yet they don´t hesitate to admit that they think my oatmeal is delicious. We all get into the car, Carmen, Marina, Lucia and myself, and drive into town. First we drop off the girls and then I get dropped off in front of the school to wait until 9:15 for classes to start. They never exactly start at 9:15 because the professora enters the room around 9:20 everyday. Once I thought I had missed the memo that there was no class one day because I was the only one in the classroom until about 9:20, then I remembered that I am in Spain and that most people seem to not take punctuality too seriously.
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| Just a photoshoot in los Jardines del Prado |
When Nick visited town we saw some cool things, but I still had not really remembered my way around the city. We went to the Jardines del Prado together and played around. It was my only time to have Nick to myself because when we were at the house I let the girls hog him. Of course they thought he was SO funny and playful. They made music together on Nicogrande´s ukulele and he launched them in the pool over and over again. To this day they still talk about the "potato" that is his bicep muscle.
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| The result of Spaniards at Ferias de Talavera |
I would like to explain the picture above. The family I am with has had two Au Pairs before me. One is named Nina and she is from the Phillippines, another named Leah from Boston. Nina loves Talavera and Spain so much that she decided to stay after her time with the family and teach english in private academies. She now lives in Madrid and has a pretty sweet life there so far. She came down to enjoy some of Carmen´s delicious paella and invited me to farias, something very exciting for Talaverians. Twice a year, Talavera hosts a fair and it brings many people from the surrounding area to come and play and drink and dance. The fair is similar to what you would expect a fair in California to be, except no livestock. Awesome people watching, fattening food, rides, etc. The fair here is a little different though, because the vendors dress in medival clothing and alcohol is 1/3 the price. Around 11:30pm we walked from her friend´s house to farias to see the specatacle. There is an area where all of the young people go where different clubs and bars set up tents and sell alcohol and blare their music. If you can imagine a large square with about 6 tents on each length blaring music so loud you cannot hear what your friends are saying. It was surreal to stand in the middle of the square and hear all of the unsynchronized beats and see all of the young spanish people. I met some really sweet girls from the U.S.A., Gretchen and Emily, with Nina at ferias and we wandered around from tent to tent. Throuhgout the entire night we were stared at, and I think it is because we looked pretty different from them. I am considered very tall in Spain, and the girls are considered very tall for American´s and especially tall for Spaniards. Emily and I are also rubias (blondes) and it must have been something of a spectacle to see three tall white chics actually dancing to the music in the temporary tents at farias. It was a great night/morning. Anyway, back to this picture. Spaniards don´t throw away their trash. If they don´t want to carry their wrapper, used cup, kleenex, whatever, they just drop it on the floor. I am in a country full of litterbugs! Anyway, I know people do things differently everywhere and that I shouldn´t say it is bad. I was so disgusted on our walk home that I had to take this picture. I came back to that area two days later with the girls and they were STILL cleaning up trash.
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| An ice cream date with the family of Alejandra. From left: Carmen, Leon, Marina, Alejandra, Priscilla, y Lucia |
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| Celebrating Carmen´s birthday! |
Since I have been here we have celebrated Carmen and Carlos´s 16th wedding anniversary and also Carmen´s 44th birthday! The girls and I made her cards and helped her with dinner. She made this cake and the girls decorated it. This was an especially memorable meal for me for some reason. This family is so happy!! I have shared almost every meal with the family since I have been here. I reallly think that because of this I have had more opportunities to learn more about each of the family members and also more about Spain. Every meal, EVERY MEAL, we watch the news. I usually don´t understand what they´re saying but understand what they´re talking about, if that makes sense. Eventually it is explained to me and we drag on our meal much longer to have a language lesson afterward. One funny story with dinner: So I am here to learn spanish and try to speak spanish when I know that I know how to say something. Well I decided I knew how to say: Can you pass me the cheese, please? So with my attempt, I said "Puedes pasearme el queso, por favor?" Immediately the girls were red in the face from laughing so hard while Carlos stood up and walked the cheese around the room, making fun of what I had just said. I basically asked him to walk the cheese instead of pass it to me. There have been many more instances of my mistakes in spanish, never ceasing to generate a great laugh for the niñas.
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| At Carmen´s birthday lunch. Lucia is such a diva! |
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| Cerámicas de Talavera |
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| The pueblo of El Real de San Vicente in the hills near Talavera |
The family has been eager to show me the surrounding area of Talavera, and one weekend they decided to take me to some pueblos surrounding the city. We all packed into the X3 and ascended to nearly the top of this mountain. Each pueblo is small, if I had to guess, maybe the size of Los Olivos. We never made it to the top because there was a race involving neon subarus that we wanted to avoid. Our drive ended in a hill pueblo called Navamorcuende. The above picture of the ceramics on the patio walls was taken there. We enjoyed some tortilla de patata and drove back into Talavera. The landscape on the mountains reminded me a lot of home in Santa Barbara because of the numerous oak trees.
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| Trinidad square in Talavera |
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| The front of Bascilica del Prado |
Like I said, I have started classes in castellano for extranjeros at the adult school in town. The classes are free and my classmates are nice folks. Yesterday we figured out that our class includes extranjeros from 10 different countries! I go to class four days a week for two hours. Two days of the week it is really basic spanish for people just starting and then the other two days is more advanced! I have met another Au Pair through the class from Germany and we have done some exploring together through town. One day we grabbed some tea and walked through the main street downtown and visited the bascilica.
I don´t have class on Wednesdays so I took advantage of the time and treated myself to a day in Toledo. Look forward to reading about it soon!!
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