Beach, Bikes, Birthdays, Baths, and BBQ's

Well the summer heat finally arrived here in Sevilla and it looks like it is here to stay for awhile. We have a week and a half more with the students and then soon after we will be headed to the U.S. ourselves. It has been really great so far and we have been having lots of adventures.

Beginning on a sad note, we had to say goodbye once again to our good friends Gui and Leah. They (hopefully) are thinking about coming back to Sevilla one more time while we are here next year. We also hope to visit them in Brazil as well. Some adventures just aren't as fun without them. We rented a car and headed to one of southern Spain's top beaches, Zahara de los Atunes.
After the great day at the beach we invited them over to our apartment where our Turkish couchsurfer, who is a food and travel writer and also an amazing cook, made us some amazing Turkish food. We had a great time eating together on our rooftop.

An organization was making a gigantic pan of paella down the street to raise money for an orphanage in Haiti. Sarah and I found it after following the scent from our apartment.

We were going to share a plate but they gave us two anyways. It was delicious and we had a bunch left over to bring home.

We have also been enjoying some of the new bike paths along the river. We are getting a little attached to our bikes and now we want to fly them home with us. They have been really useful in exploring the city.

Tough guy bike pose

There was a free circus in the Alameda so we checked it out with our pastor and his family. The basis was two policewomen trying to secure the area for some politician to come and speak. There were some awkward parts but otherwise it was pretty entertaining.

Picture of the city from our rooftop.

We were invited by friends to a choir concert at a conservatory nearby. The choir was celebrating their 25th anniversary and this was the last night where all of the past members were invited to sing along with the present members. They sang in a beautiful patio in the middle of the conservatory.

After the concert everyone was surprised when a catering service started to bring out trays of food from the back. When people realized what was going on they got a little excited and the waiters wouldn't make it 5 feet before being mobbed and cleaned out. One waiter, especially tired of being attacked by one woman, surrendered an entire tray of appetizers to her just so she would get out of his way. Regardless of the mob we were able to have our fill of drinks, yummy hors d'oeuvres and gazpacho till we couldn't take any more.

We the pleasure of hosting some friends from Costa Rica, German and Lilliana, for a week. Sarah met them when she was studying in Costa Rica in 2003. Lilliana is the sister of Martín, who is the worship leader at Sunrise Community Church in Tulare and was part of our wedding. They treated us to lots of amazing food during their stay. In this picture we are eating some tapas in the famous Barrio Santa Cruz.

German, who is an amazing cook, also managed to make some great meals in our tiny kitchen.

The took us out to dinner on our last night together for Sarah's birthday. Our first stop was another restaurant in Barrio Santa Cruz where we enjoyed a pitcher of yummy Sangria.

Then we showed them one of our favorite restaurants in the Alameda called La Madraza. They gave Sarah a funny singing birthday card. We had a lot of fun with them and hope to see them in Costa Rica soon!

The staff at Acento threw a little birthday party for Sarah. They bought her a nice shirt for summer and also pitched in for our visit to the Arab baths.

For Sarah's birthday I had made reservations at the Baños Arabes (arab baths) for a hour and a half spent in the baths and a 30 minute massage. We also got to drink some really good tea.

You can check out the baths online here. Obviously we weren't worried about taking pictures while we were there. But needless to say it was amazing. Thanks to all who pitched in!

Later that day we had everyone over for a birthday BBQ. We are beginning to be famous for our "American style" BBQ's. We blew a few Spanish minds when we put pineapple on their burgers.

In this picture you can see Sarah in her pretty new birthday dress.

We had a lot of fun decorating the roof with lanterns. Otherwise it gets pretty dark at night. Thanks Ikea!

We were also celebrating our friend Kike's (Kee-kay) birthday.

For the last picture I will leave you with none other than one of Tom Cruise. He and Cameron Diaz were in town promoting their new movie Knight and Day, which was partly filmed in Sevilla. We went with the students to the cathedral where they were re-enacting some of the action scenes for the press. We are excited to watch the movie to see where we can recognize the city.

19 days until we are back in California!