Friday, April 17 - Granada

Our American friends were taking Spanish lessons multiple times per week from Antonio.  They constantly raved about him.  We're trying to arrange additional Spanish classes, and so I met Antonio at the American's apartment to discuss whether our schedule would fit with his.  He's super nice.  He's going to talk with his wife to figure out who would be the better fit.  I laughed because he referred to his wife as his mujer, his lady.  Apparently that's the way it's said here.  And husband's are maridos.  We native English speakers often refer to our spouses in Spanish as esposos which would be like saying "my spouse" in English.  It's a bit formal.  The Spanish just laugh to themselves every time they hear it.

Here are some door knockers that I liked seeing.

After meeting with Antonio, I had a few minutes to wander around before meeting the kids for lunch.  I came upon Plaza de San Francisco and saw it empty-ish for the first time.  When we'd arrived in Sevilla, it was already barricaded and being set up for Semana Santa.  It's a really neat and big plaza with Banco de Espana on one side.

Here's a view of city hall on another side.  What a neat building!

Cool Sevillan architecture

I walked around and window shopped and then decided to treat myself to some lipstick.  I tried some on before lunch and then met the kids.  They all liked it, so after eating at The Good Burger (TGB), they joined me at the make-up store to buy the very bright lipstick.  In retrospect, something less bright would have been a better fit.

Rosa saw Chloe perfume and wanted to take a picture.  Devon jumped in (and scratched his nose).  Check out how he now also has the school PE jacket.  Now all 3 kids have them.  

Missing you Chloe

Scott met me at the apartment in the afternoon where we packed up and headed out by car to pick up the kids.  We hit some traffic, and so Scott dropped me off near the school so I could walk and get the kids and Scott looked for parking.  Eventually we met up and loaded up the car and headed off to Granada, about a 3 hour drive.

Here's some scenery.  You can start seeing rolling hills in the background.

The hills got bigger as we got closer.

Now there's a snowcapped mountain in the distance.

A railroad bridge is being constructed here.

Scott and I got a kick out of these signs that we'd see when we were climbing hills.

This is a similar sign for motorcycles, but we only caught a small part of it.

We arrived in Granada, tried for a few minutes to find street parking, and quickly just chose the parking garage across the street.  We had reserved an Airbnb apartment that worked out great for us.  It was centrally located and with plenty of beds.  Manuel had been our contact, but his mom let us in and showed us around.  It's the first apartment we've seen over here that didn't have the washing machine in the kitchen.  Rather, it was in a laundry room just off the kitchen.  But, like our apartment, and like so many other apartments, there was no oven.

After quickly settling in, we headed off to find dinner.  It was about 9:30 at this point.

The apartment is just by a river (Rio Genil) and this beautiful fountain is nearby.

We tried a few nearby restaurants, all that were full.  And then we found this one (picture taken the next day).  We ate inside at a bar-height table.  The tapas came first and I ate up and we tried to feed the kids.  They were so tired that they didn't eat much and mostly just laid in our laps.  Then I took them home as Scott's aparantly amazing dish arrived.  He enjoyed that while I tucked the kids in bed and then he came home just 20 minutes later.

The apartment had 3 bedrooms, with one being a bunk room.  But, the layout was such that the bunk room was on the opposite side of the apartment, so Rosa wanted to sleep in her brother's room which was next to our room.  She and Cody fell asleep in there while Devon fell asleep with me.  Then Scott pushed the 2 twin beds together and laid Devon in the middle.  We thought it was so cute seeing the 3 of them snuggled up together.  This is the same way the slept the 2nd night.