Not our best day

June 27, 2018: Today was not our best day. We woke up around 9am, packed up and checked out of our pensione in Seville. We walked to the car that James had parked on the street two nights ago. We were happy to see that it was still there and not stolen, until we discovered the window was smashed and someone had broken in. We spent about an hour on the sidewalk trying to figure out how to use our phones to call internationally to get Peugeot on the line to help us and calling the police to file a report. They only stole a bottle of wine that was in our glove box, one that had been a gift from our friends on the farm.

We had to drive to the police station where Molly and I got out and waited 2 hours for a copy of our police report. Once we were finally called in, no one spoke English. The cop was right out of a movie character; he was so grumpy and mean and completely impatient with the fact that I spoke zero Spanish. He literally had a dark storm cloud over his head. I was using google translate on my phone and trying to explain what I needed. Finally he found our repot and we were on our way. Meanwhile, James took Casey and Julia to the car dealership to get the glass vacuumed up and cardboard put in the window so we could continue to Salamanca. We had already paid for our hotel room so we decided it would be best to get the work done in Salamanca as it would take a day for the replacement window to come in anyways. We drove the 4 1/2 hour north in a straight shot instead of stopping as we had planned. We would not have been able to leave the car unattended with our stuff in it with the cardboard window. I have not seen much of Salamanca but I love it. The pedestrian streets are great, there is a giant plaza with cafes lining every side. The World Cup fever is in full swing. Every single cafe has at least two giant tv's showing the games. Molly did a report on Brazil at the end of the school year so she is a die hard Brazil fan and loved the group of 25 teenage Brazil fans fully decked out cheering in the plaza. James had some delicious tapas, the kids had gelato and played while we watched the end of the match. European nights are special. Cool weather, surreal lighting and surroundings and a contagious energy that has us all up waaaay past our bedtimes every night.

Seville

June 26, 2018: Not too much exciting news to post from Seville. We explored the city on foot from about 9-4 today. We wandered through most of the major sights/neighborhoods. They have great parks with oranges hanging from trees, beautiful flowers in bloom and fun fountains. We love the narrow, winding cobblestone streets especially in the Santa Cruz barrio near our pensione. We sat down at outdoor cafes a few times to recharge with a coke or tapas snack. James somehow got all of us to try a snail. Meanwhile, he ate an entire plate. Everyone was tired so we came back to the hotel for a siesta. After a nap and shower we went to a flamenco show at Casa Del Flamenco. It was a cool, intimate place and known to be some of the best flamenco around. It was an hour long show with all the different parts of the flamenco highlighted (guitar, singing, and dancing). Afterwards we wandered to an outdoor cafe for more food and to watch the Argentina-Nigeria World Cup game. Then we headed over to the plaza where the Giralda is and listened to some outdoor music. It is so hot during the day that it is nice to wander around when things are cool. It gets dark so late here that we have been staying up so late. We did not come back to the hotel until 11pm.

Rock of Gibraltar

June 25, 2018: We woke up late per usual after another late bedtime. Breakfast in the hotel and set out for Gibraltar around 9:15. I had studied some info about the logistics and nothing I learned turned out to be true. We parked the car in Spain and walked over the border. Went through passport control and into the UK territory of Gibraltar. We took a bus into town near the base of the rock. One interesting thing is you cross the airport’s runway on the bus, just as you would crossing a major street. The town is cool to see with the old sea walls still in place. We got off the bus and started heading uphill. We quickly found the Union Jack Staircase and up we went.

The kids were enthralled with the wild apes on the mountain. They make the tourists act nutty; with some taking insane risks getting so close for the ultimate selfie. Crazy considering the warnings of attacks. We kept the kids far enough to feel safe about it. When we had to pass one or two on a tight stairwell we felt nervous but turned out ok. We hiked all over the rock exploring all sorts of gun batteries, suspension bridges, and ape hideouts. It was a hazy day but we could make out Africa from the top and the incredible views of the bay and all the container ships. We had lunch by the gun at the top and then descended via the Mediterranean Steps. The entire circuit from the bus stop took us 5 hours. The kids did a great job. We got back to Spain and they played on an awesome rope playground with Gibraltar in the background. Then we drive north to Seville. We found our pensione and headed out into the streets to watch the end of the Spain-Morocco World Cup match at an outdoor cafe. Everyone is exhausted but it’s hard to get to bed early here.

A Farmer's Life For Me...

Moron de la frontera June 13-23: I only spent 3 days on the farm in Moron de la Frontera. The farm life was a good learning experience and life experience for the kids. It is a very hard life. And in the south of Spain, it is very hot in the summer. !

A little background on the family we stayed with; Anne and Jose have 5 kids. Jose was raised on the property. Anne grew up in Belgium. We all spoke mostly French to communicate although they all wanted to practice their English so we did that as well. Luis is the only son and 16. Daughters Maya (14), Elena (13), Ines (11) and Chloe (5). They are all really nice kids and were very nice to our girls. Ines loves hanging out with Julia. They were instant pals and the language barrier was no problem. We had a few sit down meal with their entire family and some meals alone in our house. We stayed in a separate home on the property. It was very rustic and not many people would have been happy there. James and the girls made the best of it. It is very hot and very buggy. Not mosquitoes but flies. There was electricity and water. No screens on the windows, no fridge, etc. And it was dirty. There were giant spiders living inside. If I found just one of these in my regular house I wouldn’t sleep. But we let them live and it wasn’t a problem. Sleep was hard to come by because of the heat and bugs. Casey has been attacked by bugs. On her head (neck and face) she has 68 bites Last night a dog sat outside barking non stop for an hour at 3:20am. Anne and Jose have only started hosting woofers this past January.

They rise early to work as much as possible before the heat of the day. One morning James went out at 5:30am with all of the men and gathered the hay into bales and stacking them. The girls and I went with Anne and moved the goats down out of the hills into a low pen to milk them. It was total chaos when we got the goats into the pen. We had to find the mothers who were very full of milk and then find babies to nurse off of them. Once a baby drank and lifted her over the fence and dropped her outside the pen. They saved the two fullest goats for milking for the family. Anne let Molly and Casey try but it was hard for them. They did get a few squirts of milk out and were pleased with themselves. Julia had already had a try on a previous milking trip. Julia is a regular farmer and so comfortable with all of the animals. She drags the goats around by one back leg (per instruction).

I’ll tell you some of the farming tasks we’ve done. Weeding and watering gardens, picking fruit and vegetables, we feed the chickens twice a day and gather their eggs. We move the sheep or goats from one field to another. The vet came one day and checked all of the sheep and gave them medicine. We have loaded many bales of hay from the field onto the tractor and brought them to the barn for storage. Julia and James both had turns driving the tractor for this.

Now this may seem like a lot but it wasn’t. On a typical day we would work from 7:30-10 or so then do nothing until maybe 6:00 pm when they would work again until 9:30 or so. In between they rest, eat and do other regular life stuff. But for us, who are only there for our farming experience, it was way too much down time. We were bored a lot. We went to the grandmother's house one day to swim (the pool had very little water), one evening we attended the youngest child’s end of year dance performance. That was a cool local scene with an outdoor show and people lingering around having beers. It began at 8:00pm for a 5 year old! We left at 10pm because our kids were exhausted and the festivities were still going strong. We really enjoyed our time getting to know this family. They were so great and we did some fun things. We decided to leave a little early because it just wasn’t worth it to wait around all day to work more. We’re on vacation after all and wanted to sleep in a bug free and air conditioned room. We left around 4pm today after nice goodbyes. We had brought some gifts (GA and Brunswick bookstore clothes) for their family and they gave our kids some Spanish books and fans.

We drove to a town called Villanueva Del Rosario. We checked into our hotel, had a pizza dinner in town, and are going to bed full, cold and bug free. June 24: Today we went hiking in El Torcal National Park. It is kind of a small version of Bryce Canyon, with limestone rock formations molded over time. Great temperatures with a nice breeze. We found fossils in the rocks. Then we drove down to the Costa Del Sol for an afternoon at the beach. The kids and James have been hot since arriving in Spain so it was fun to cool Off. We loved the people watching with all the European bathing suit styles etc. The highlight for me was when the kids reported that they “saw a lady Lala’s age with no top on!” Hilarious. We headed east towards Gibraltar knowing it was tomorrow’s destination.

Moron de la Frontera, Spain

June 19, 2018: Our summer adventure has begun! We will be in Europe for 8 weeks this summer. We are spending about half of that time "WWOOFing". WWOOF stands for World wide organization of organic farmers. We get room and board in exchange for working on the farm. We will be on a sheep and goat farm in Spain and later on a dairy farm in France. James and the girls flew to Europe last week. They arrived in Seville and were picked up by our host, Anne and taken back to the farm. The host family lives outside of Moron de la Frontera, which is about 50 minutes south-east of Seville. All of my accounts are from the two conversations I have had with the kids and the pictures they have sent me. I have not seen anything first hand yet as I am leaving tonight to meet them there. Our family has been sleeping in a separate house which is about 5 minutes walking from the host family home. I guess it is pretty rustic. The farm is very remote and they work in two shifts; a few hours in the morning, lunch and siesta, followed by working for 3-4 hours in the evening. It is very hot there so they rest mid day. So far they have helped feed the chickens, shear 60 sheep, tag them, etc. They've hiked to a swimming hole and explored a town called Priego de Cordoba when our hosts had to attend a local agriculture meeting there. Here are some photos of the first week in Spain.