Amandita in the Orange Grove

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So, last post was kind of lame, couldn´t concentrate with a crying baby behind me and the Barney DVD skipping... stressful life I lead.

I guess I´ll start from the beginning... before Sevilla. I arrived on the 13th May and was picked up at the Cordoba train station (after having explored the Madrid metro to its full extent AND the Madrid Atocha Renfe train station for a good two hours). The drive from Cordoba to Palma del Rio is picturesque, long sprawling hills and orchards of all kinds. Really wonderful. Everything is green. Our house is in the middle of an orange grove, like I wrote in my previous post, and kind of on the outskirts of the actual centro cuidad of Palma del Rio. We live further in the orange grove than Ramon´s sister who lives two minutes away and ALSO has an au pair!! Wonderful.

So on Friday morning I explored Palma del Rio with all of its beautiful, historical architecture. I took plenty of pictures, of course. There is a big cathedral in the middle of town which is really stunning. I look forward to taking MORE photos in the future.

The children are really wonderful. The girl, Cecilia, is my new best friend and has announced to her parents that we are indeed sisters. Very cute. Her favourite thing to do is to look at my Spanish-English book and make stories and listen to me mispronounce Spanish words. She is a wonderful professora. Ramon(niño) is also wonderful, is not that into listening to me sometimes, haha, which is fine. Understandable. He has an archeaology kit that we unearth dinosaur bones with... it is thrilling and very messy, my two favourite things. We play in the pool a lot and play tennis (which I am surprisingly still compepetent at). Life is good.

Like I wrote already, I went to Sevilla on Sunday. I spent a ridiculously long time there. First I went to all of the tourist areas, the gardens, cathedrals, the river promenade, etc. They were all stunning and I took a LOT of photos there as well. After those things, I decided that rather than taking the bus back to the train station I would walk through the city. GREAT idea! The buildings were so beautiful, there were so many hidden, TINY streets that were just so fantastic and really made me want to live there... hahaha.

Monday, I went with Nuria (madre) to Cordoba for the morning. It was really fun, found more shops than I had in Sevilla. Bought a pair of shoes, FINALLY threw away my yellow shoes that were falling apart and starting to smell :/... TOTALLY looking forward to buying a sick pair of sandalias and etc etc, I have my eyes on a few things. Anyway it was really fun, Nuria speaks a VERY limited amount of English (like none) and I speak a limited amount of Spanish... so it provided for an interesting trip! It is good though because I tried to speak as much Spanish as possible and I think it was relatively passable!

In terms of the food I have had here, it has been unbelievable!! Really wonderful, which I guess was expected but I am LOVING IT!!! Plus, (this is either good or bad, I haven´t decided yet) Ramon (padre) loves chocolate just as much as I do!! On the weekends he lets loose and we have red wine with dinner and afterwards he has been treating me to various regional alcoholic drinks... Last Friday it was Patxaka (I think, something like that)... Saturday, Limoncello from Sorrento.... yum!

This weekend we are going to their new flat in Malaga for a couple of days to chill at the beach and IKEA (WOO HOO). They need to furnish said flat.

Anyway, I think that is all I have to say for now. xxx

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