Before Portugal

We wanted to do a quick post while we sort through Portugal pics.

This is some of the things we have been up to since Toledo.

Gui and Leah invited us over to there apartment for a Mexican food night. We had a hard time getting there because of a huge procession of one of the Catholic churches nearby. Gui and Leah say they come down the street all the time. Some men carry a huge statue of the virgin, covered in candles, while the band follows behind playing some pretty solemn music.
Some people hate it. I love it.

Delicious Mexican Food.
The supplies are hard to find and expensive.

Gui and Leah's apartment

Gui downloaded the T-Pain app for his iphone.

Endless entertainment.

Random Russian dolls. The girl on the right is Gui and Leah's flatmate from Belgium.

Sarah and I finally made it to the Feria De Las Naciones before it ended.
It had been going on for over a month already. We are not sure what else happened on this stage but while we were there is was a creepy clown making kids sing and dance.
We bought scarfs from the South American booth. Mine was made in India.

We chose the Dominican Republic food over the ostrich burgers from Australia. Sooo good!

Here is a Mexican Food restaurant we found near our church. The burritos and tacos were sub-par but the nachos were amazing.

Here is a shot from our church, Sala Encounter. This group was visiting and led the music. We have really been enjoying meeting people and getting connected. Sarah and I were able to lead last weekend.

We finally were able to find the right transformer for our Wii. So we invited everyone over for a Wii night. It was also a goodbye party for Claudio, who's job was taking him back to Brazil.

Leah and Sarah boxing match.

Claudio and Gui tennis match.

Wii boxing leads to real violence

This was the first night with our new oven. Leah was just as excited as we were about it.

For Halloween we decided to finally try the pizza place across the street from our favorite tapas restaurant. Natalie Liles, who was in my class in high school, came into town to visit us from the school she is working at near Madrid. We decided to be really Spanish and eat it in the middle of the Alameda de Hercules along with plenty of tinto de verano and Cruzcampo.

Then of course we had to carve pumpkins. They were a little expensive.

I was happy to finally be able to use my knife from Toledo.

Sarah was very excited about the owl.

The owl, jack, and the toro

We wanted to show the Spaniards how it was done.

Many Spaniards are still trying to figure out what this Halloween thing is all about. I read in an article, "The Spanish Catholic Church has warned that Halloween ‘has an anti-Christ and occult undercurrent’, and is not an innocent fiesta." I can't blame them much because it seems like all people wear around here is devil costumes and scream masks.

I am sure if they saw costumes like these it would change their minds.
http://lovemy3ms.blogspot.com/2009/11/as-promised.html