One of my favorite weeks in Spain was with John Elliot and Mom. For a moment my two halves came together and my family saw a glimpse of the Spanish world that I have been raving about for this past year. While they were here, I realized that despite occasion frustrations I CAN speak Spanish! It was really exciting translating between someone who spoke no English and someone who spoke no Spanish. John Elliot, however, is always a surprise to me. He has an incredible talent for language, remembering words he heard once and guessing the topic of conversations I would have. In one museum, I started feeling bad about myself because he was translating the Spanish captions better than I was. Me, to myself: “How does he do that??! I mean, there are some words similar to English, but come on!!” One, it’s because he’s intelligent and two, because he’s a snake; in reality, he was reading the English captions and “translating”. Hahaha.
How do you sum up a week? We went to the Museum of Fine Arts, the Cathedral, the Alcazar, the University of Sevilla, the Plaza de España, Maria Luisa Park, the Toro de Oro, neighborhood Triana, and the old Jewish neighborhood. Culturally, the nicest thing that we did was watch a high-quality Flamenco dance. Flamenco is very beautiful and it wonderful sitting in the 3rd row with Mom on my left and Elliot on my right. It sounds like a busy week, but we took it really slow, doing whatever, whenever. We mossied around, stopped for coffee and would often end up having good serious discussions. We drank a lot of coffee this week because our hotel had a surprisingly good and free coffee bar which we visited it at least once a day, sometimes twice. There were 4 or 5 different kinds of coffee, different teas and free little cookies as well. So, life was good. Yet not to my surprise, they did not were not OK with the customary slice of toast and coffee for breakfast. So, I explained to the waiter that we are Americans and we want something more sustainable. He laughed at me and brought out meatballs and a delicious spinach/garbanzo bean dish. 
Elliot and Mom got to meet Marta, my señora, and see where I live. Marta invited us over and we had dinner and talked for while about nothing in particular. I was surprised at home much English Juano, Marta’s 13 year old son, knew. It was a good night. They also met my interchange student, Octavio, with whom I go on coffee dates (half in Spanish, half in English). This night, he took us to an awesome tapas bar in Triana (not a topless bar, Mother. Hahahaha). He ordered us two different types of croquetas, a goat cheese dish, and stuffed eggplant. It turned out to be one of the best meals that we had that week. At the end of the night, he made me sad by saying that he wished I was staying longer... ahhhh.
The last Spaniards Elliot and Mom met were Elisa and Irene, the most important thing that I wanted them to do on this trip. We went to Los Colonias, a famous Sevillan tapas bar and ordered gazpacho, croquetas (I could never eat too many), and some other tapas. A few days later, their mom, Mari who I love, sent me a facebook message saying :“las niñas me han dicho, que tu familia es muy cordial muy guay jajajajajja.”-- (The girls have told me that your family is very friendly and cool, hahahha). What great girls ♥
On the weekend, we went to Granada, the last city reconquered from the Muslims. It was pretty cold there, but very beautiful with the Sierra Mountains in the background. We got a bomb hotel that had an American style breakfast, which made us all very happy. Mmmm, eeeeegggs. We looked at a few churches and went to La casa de los Tiros. Bar none, la Alhambra was the best thing that we saw, the old fortress that rests high up above the city. It’s so impressive with its different leveled gardens and high walls, and windy cobblestone paths. And ahh, the view of the city from the towers...
It was really strange having Elliot and Mom here. I loved it -- solid family time. It made me miss home a bit, but it was pretty great showing them around. Funny to finally be the one who knows where they are going...
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