Sunday, April 26 - old wall, aquarium

After Scott made pancakes, we started the day by walking to the old wall in the Macarena neighborhood (the northern end of our neighborhood).

This street reminded us of Charleston.

This is for you Aunt Marcia - the barber of Seville

Scott, Rosa, and Cody at one of the gates in the old wall.  Macarena is the sign above their heads.  Behind me as I take the picture is the super old Macarena church.

Here are some pictures of the wall...

We hopped on a bus and got off at the University of Sevilla / Parque Maria Luisa.  Rosa suggested I take this picture looking up at these beautiful carvings.

She also suggested this shot.  Smart girl.

And this one.

We walked across the street and over to the aquarium.  It was our mystery ride, or mystery walk, for the day.  Those are when we take the kids on surprises.  It started raining and we heard a lot of whining.

When we got to the aquarium, it was lunchtime.  We popped into the restaurant that was there (Quay Lounge Club) and had an amazing meal.  Here are some moorish lights hanging from the ceiling.  

Rosa and Cody are looking at the kitchen waiting for our food.

Scott and Devon

Rosa loved the pretty carrots that came with one of the dishes.  They had Asian food and we had vegetable tempura, pad thai, and chicken and cashew stir fry.  It was amazing!

Afterwards, Rosa and Devon were ready to enter the aquarium.

And so was Cody.

The aquarium somewhat followed Magellan's voyage around the world.  Here's a list of the food they brought with them for the journey.

How disgusting that they had to eat rat.

I found the aquarium to be absolutely magical.  There were so many sea animals to see.  There were screens sharing information about the different animals.  There was a touching area where you could touch flounder, starfish, and sea cucumbers (in different tanks).

There's a huge tank that you walk around and then walk through in a tunnel.

The rays in this smaller tank loved teasing us by swimming up to the glass.

Hola

First time I've ever seen a black-tipped reef shark.  There were also white-tipped reef sharks in this tank.  Amazing!

Devon pointing to neat stuff he's seeing.

This cayman keps on following this boy around.  Creepy and cool.

I couldn't get enough of it.  Unfortunately there's no season pass.  Although maybe that's fortunate for the kids because I'd be there all the time with them.

Not sure what this building is, but it's next door to the aquarium and we liked how it looks.

A cruise ship actually made it in.  Didn't realize that they could get in so close to the city.  Apparently it was practically touching the sides of the bridge it had just passed to get to this port.

After the aquarium. we took the bus home.  Then we chilled out and I caught up on the blog (for the most part), we booked tickets to Ireland this summer to visit my sister and family (super excited!), and the kids watched some tv.  We mostly ate leftovers at home.

Feria ended and there was a fireworks show at 10pm and midnight.  Unfortunately both kept Scott awake.

Wednesday, April 15

Wednesday was the 2nd of two days for Rosa's mini olympics.

First, Scott captured this picture of Tab soda for sale at the base store.  Flashback.

This time I figured out which bus to take to the mini olympics, since the walk was ~45 minutes.  At the bus station, I met another mom from the school.  She had her 4yo daughter with her.  They were wonderful.  They sat with me on the bus and let me practice speaking Spanish.  They taught me a ton and they helped me feel more comfortable knowing that I'd get off the bus at the right stop.

Earlier that morning I hadn't had time to do Rosa's hair.  I thought I'd put a ponytail holder in my pocket, but I hadn't.  And one of the coaches had told Rosa she needed to put her hair up.  Luckily she found some rubber bands and this is the 'do we came up with.  Rosa loved it and calls it a heart hairdo.

Here's another basketball game.

Run, Rosa, Run.

After the morning of team sports, all of the students lined up.

And here they are in a fantastic olympic parade on the track!

The individual activity that Rosa had signed up to do was running around cones.  Here she and some of her classmates are getting ready.

Conferring

Being reminded of the course

And she's off...

Later, all 2nd graders lined up to walk to the other side of the track where they then had to run ~200m.

And they're off...

Here's Rosa and her Spanish teacher as she's about to cross the finish line.

The mini olympics were really hard for both of us.  Besides these activities being foreign, it was also 2 full days of almost all Spanish.  Rosa just wanted me to take her home in the morning.  Scott and I agreed that as a life lesson, she needed to stick it out.  By the afternoon, I gave her the option to either leave with me or to take the bus back to school with her friends.  And, thankfully, she chose to go home on the school bus with her friend Mar.  Scott had worked from home that day and he had the opportunity to eat lunch with the boys and meet Rosa as she got off the bus at school.  I took the city bus back to school and I was only a few minutes behind.  I took it with another mom I met that day and her daughter.  She's American, married to a Sevillan, and they've figured out how to work and spend half the year in the states and half the year in Sevilla.  What an amazing life balance.  She's great and she helped me understand so much more about the school.  I continue to struggle with not only understanding the language differences but also the cultural differences with this amazing school here.  We're so lucky to have both a great school here and a great school in the states.

Once with Rosa, we had 2 hours for a babycakes date.  I brought Rosa into El Corte Ingles and up to the 5th floor for an afternoon snack.  We shared some fabulous nachos and cheese.  Then, downstairs, she had fun playing in all of the beautiful fringes of so many colorful shawls.

After school the 5 of went back to El Corte Ingles for dinner.  It was too wet to go outside.  But we enjoyed snacking indoors.

After El Corte Ingles, the 3 boys went to a barber to get their hair cut.  While waiting, Cody had the chance to play his first video game.  He LOVED it!

Here's Devon getting a very meticulous haircut.

And Devon enjoying playing his first video games.