Where were we?

I guess it is my turn to write a post! I have been pretty busy with work and meetings and visits and the worship night and teaching the service learning class so its been hard to sit down and do justice to a blogpost, but today is a holiday and we don't have work or class! Thank you Columbus, for having your own day.

So, we have been up to a lot since Jordan's birthday (which was spectacular). It seems like the weeks have been flying by! On Thursday it will make 7 weeks that we've been here in Spain. Let me see if I can catch you guys up a little bit with the many adventures we've been having...

To date, we've had 12 couch surfers stay on our loft! Gui and Leah (from Brazil and Arizona); Lauren (California); Maja and Rok (Slovenia); Emma and Dennis (Finland and Sweden); Marina (Germany); Kirsten and Matt (California); and Elsa and Jan (Germany).

We are having a blast getting to know people from all different nationalities and backgrounds! I think we last left you when we were hosting Lauren, from California. Here are some photos of our most recent surfers and our good times with them! If you are curious about couch surfing.. check out our profile:

http://www.couchsurfing.org/people/thebentleys/

Also here is the link to the mission statement and other info:

http://www.couchsurfing.org/help.html.

Emma and Dennis

Marina, Jordan, Leah, and Gui at an Irish Pub in Plaza Dos de Mayo

Marina

Kirsten and Matt, from California!!!

and finally, our most recent guests (who left this morning)

Elsa and Jan, from Germany.

I decided to spruce up the loft a bit and made some curtains for a bit more privacy. They are from IKEA, of course! They came with a strip that you iron down in order to hem them where you want... they are perfect!

We have also rearranged the loft a bit for more space.

Wouldn't you just love to stay up here?

We truly have had an awesome time meeting new people and sharing our house with them. We have only hosted so far and haven't traveled anywhere using couch surfing yet! We hope to do so soon, maybe when we go to Barcelona for a weekend towards the end of November... we'll keep you updated.

Well, in between Dennis & Emma's stay and Marina's stay, we went on an excursion with the students to the province of Huelva. We visited La Rábida, the name of the monastery where Christopher Columbus waited until he got his funding for his first famous voyage across the sea. It has many relics from the discoveries of the indias (including dirt.. maps.. flags.. little ships, etc). All of us really enjoyed seeing it! Here are a few photos from that interesting afternoon...

Outside view of La Rábida

Beautiful little courtyard!

Interesting art in the first courtyard...

Dining room where they used to host CC... He used to sit under that cross.

Me in the 2nd little courtyard!

La Niña, La Pinta, y la Santa María.. representations of CC's ships

Thinking to myself... it is really difficult to walk on this

thing while it is still.. can't imagine out in the open waves!

Meanwhile... the other chaperone and I are on another boat... and some of the students started to climb the rigging... not 45 seconds later we hear over the loud speaker (in English) "Climbing is strictly prohibited on the boats!". Oops. Couldn't resist a taking picture before they came down!

Life-like representations, of course.

Jordan is much better at this than Leonardo...

And to top it all off... we spent the rest of the afternoon at the beach! We were entertained by the game of American Football for quite a while.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit more of what we've been up to!