Spring 2010 has come and gone....

Its always a hard transition for me (Sarah) in between semesters.... I get so used to each group of kids that it is sad and weird when they are gone... the Spring group left on May 14. Now that the summer kids are here, I am having to write Summer 2010 on everything instead of Spring 2010.... just another reminder that another semester has come and gone. I feel like time has never gone by so fast than it is now for us here in Spain. Maybe because we are just having too much fun!?!?!?

Here are photos and captions of what we've been up to over the semester.... our many apologies for not updating more often! Enjoy

"el mercado" or farmers market type place where we buy our fresh fruit, bread, chicken, eggs, etc! The fruit guy is married to the chicken lady. We love them. They give me free bananas to make banana bread :)

The biggest pizza I've ever seen with my own eyes!!! We went to Sevilla Este to spend time with some friends and they took us to this amazing pizza place....

La Carboneria, again, where we go often to see free flamenco! When we have couchsurfers we like to take them there... we have been having lots of surfers! Lately they have been from Australia, Singapore, Chicago, and Turkey!

The beginning of Semana Santa en Sevilla! Everyone dresses up to the nines... I tried to dress up, but still the Spaniards were notches above....

This "paso" or what we might call a float went by about a block and a half from our house!

We were fortunate to go with Spaniards who really know their stuff!! They took us to the best spots to see the "pasos" and gave us a bunch of background info. Cecilia was Jordan's professor for beginning classes 2 semesters ago, and Enrique is her husband. We love hanging out with them!

A view of the street along the side of the cathedral... you can get an idea of how many people were in the city!

This is one of our favorite views of Semana Santa! Cecilia and Enrique took us to this spot and said just wait until you see the "paso" with the tower in the background! It was incredible.

After we spent a full day of Semana Santa in Sevilla, we headed for Portugal! This time we went in bus instead of renting a car, it was a little less stressful :) This is Jordan in Tavira, the first city we couchsurfed this time! Although we had stayed with the same guy last time in the same tiny town that happens to be the octopus capital of Portugal... we even tried octopus this time! Not bad at all, we actually kind of liked it...

Then we headed to Lagos, where we spend time beaches just like this one and wandered the super cute downtown. We stayed with a super sweet couchsurfing couple right on the marina!

Then 2 weeks later..... my parents came to Sevilla! We took them to Barcelona right away and showed them our favorite sights that we scoped out last October... here mom and I are in Park Guell (designed by Gaudi)! P.S. We stayed with the same couchsurfers that Jordan and I stayed with in October as well... we love them!

Mom and dad admiring the "Sagrada Familia", Gaudi's famous church that has been under construction FOREVER.

After 3 days in Barcelona, we took them back to Sevilla (almost getting held up by volcanic ash!) Here dad and I are in the royal gardens or "Alcazar"

Mom and dad in the gardens

This is also part of the royal houses. This is Eloisa and Tiago, the couple from Portugal that we stayed with in Lagos. They came to visit Sevilla and we got to spend time with them here as well!

Then we took the parents to the cathedral and made them climb all the ramps up to the "Giralda" or famous tower that is part of the cathedral. There are amazing views from the top!

My host mom from when I was a student invited the parents over for lunch! Her name is Amparo, and her boyfriend's name is José :) They are some of the funniest people I know!

We also took them to the Museo de Bellas Artes (Fine Arts Museum). It has one of my favorite plazas right out front!

Later we took them to El Parque María Luisa which is so beautiful and we had great weather! Couldn't help but sneak a quick kiss :)

Also there was a big festival going on in town called "Feria" which is kind of like a county fair with a section with rides and junk food and ferris wheels etc., but on the other side there are tents (called "Casetas") filled with people drinking and eating and dancing Sevillanas, a kind of flamenco! We went with my intercambio, Bea (front right), Gui and Leah (front left), Jesus (behind Bea) and Arturo (behind Jesus). Bea's dad works for Renfe, the train company here in Sevilla and his company has a "caseta" that they can invite people to. It was tons of fun!!

Later that week we went to a small village called Aracena! I had been there when I was a student, and it was fun going back with Jordan! We took a couple students with us. Aracena has caves that we took a tour through, ruins you can climb on, an old church, sweet little patios and tiles.... we had a great day!

A couple weeks later we went to Gibraltar! It is famous for its monkeys... they liked us.... I wanted to take them home :)

The last week of school and exams flew by! We had our final Encuentro (the worship night we do on Wednesdays). It was sad. I made them all tape paper to their backs and write each other notes. We played emotional music. It was like.... high school year book signing all over again....

Here is a view of the school Jordan took from up on an apartment building of a friend of a friend! We live in a beautiful city!! Hasta luego...