randomness

Well must apologize for lack of updates. Things have gotten real busy now since I have another blog to take care of. The blog for the program is up and running, you can find it HERE. We will be sticking most of the pictures from school excursions on that blog.

It is crazy that we are heading into the end of February already, it really feels like we have gotten in the groove of things and weeks are flying by.

This first picture is from a Staff dinner at Salva's (one of the professors) house. It was actually the first Spanish house we have been in because everything in the city is apartments. He lives in a quiet pueblo outside the city. Salva and his wife made all the ingredients for tacos. We had to show them how to put them together. The couple on the right is Stephanie - who was in Sarah's position when Sarah was going through the program (she came over with the students this semester), and Nick - who came and visited for awhile and check out Spain. On the left is Cecilia -who was my professor last semester, and her husband Enrique (great people)

Sarah and I are becoming more Spanish by perfecting our Spanish tortilla, basically eggs and potatoes. The new pan we bought made quiet the difference. This was by far the most beautiful tortilla española we have made.

This picture pretty much explains the weather lately. This has been one of the wettest winters in a long long time. Even though it makes things tougher we know it is good for the land. Just like the Central Valley, Southern Spain has been in a big period of drought.

This little cutie is Sophie. She is the 1 year old daughter of Leslie, the director of the school. We have started to hang out with her once in awhile while her parents get to go out.

We bought bikes!

One of the students really wanted to buy a cheap roadbike. Sarah and I found a posting online. Sarah called the guy. He had two. We bought both for a great price. We sold one of the bikes to the student for the semester and we will buy it back at the end. We felt Sevici (the public bikes we use) we a little bit limiting so we hope to do more exploring with these.

One of the churches in Sevilla asked Sarah if she could get a group together to take to their retreat center to help them fix up the place alittle. So early this morning we hopped on the train with a group of students and rode a little over an hour out of Sevilla to the campo (the country).

It was nice to be out in the fresh air away from the city for awhile.
We finally saw cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens in Spain. This is the picture of the retreat center. Five churches have come together and bought the area and they are slowly fixing it up hoping to be able to host bigger groups.

Right next to the center is the remnants of a old English steel factory. I really wanted to get in and explore but it was fenced in really well.

Our job for the day was to repaint one of the apartments of the center.

This is the before picture.

And here is the after. The color looked real interesting going up on the wall.

But it got better as it dried.

Señora vs. Horse
She was picking some plants in the pasture and the horse got a little to close for comfort. She pick up a stick and showed it who's boss. It was absolutely hilarious.

Our payment for the work was a nice Spanish meal. After eating we all went for a walk along the river. Lots of rain makes for a sweet waterfall.

The weather was perfect all day but now as I type this at home it is raining again. Pero no pasa nada because the plan tomorrow is to catch up on sleep until we go to church at 5.