Nerja and Frigiliana

The kids didn't like their second day of school as much as the first. Aidan's teacher has him do Spanish when everyone else is doing English lessons. Ian didn't understand what his teacher wanted him to do, so he poked holes in his assignment and then ripped it up. Emma didn't complain about anything though.

I realize that the kids have to learn to make friends on their own, so I don't try to force it anymore. I'm going to leave it up to them. I now send them down to the patio to play, there are often other kids playing there and it is fenced in. I can also see them from our windows and they can call me from downstairs if they need anything. Aidan and Ian ended up playing soccer with some boys on the patio the other day. I wish Emma would make friends with some of the girls we often see there, but she says she is too shy.

I am really disappointed because I can't take Spanish lessons at the Ayuntamiento. I have to have a NEI number and since I don't have a VISA, I can't get an NEI number. Ugh! I guess I will stick with Rebecca, my tutor. I am hoping that more free classes open up at Sociedad del Mundo Hispano. I went there today and the secretary said there might be some openings in October.

This weekend we went to Nerja and Frigiliana. The drive was only about 2 hours away. Our first stop was the Nerja Cave. The cave was discovered in 1959. It is a giant cavern with tons of stalagmites and stalactites. It is so large that they have put stadium seating inside for flamenco shows and the like. It was awesome.

We stayed at Hotel Perla Mariana in Nerja. It is a 4 star (by Spanish standards) hotel. We had two rooms side by side, but without a connecting door. I stayed with Aidan and Emma, Collin and Ian shared a room. After checking in we went straight to the beach. It was kind of rocky and hard to stand in the water, but we still had fun. Aidan and I fed our tile and sea glass addictions. Emma and Ian played mostly in the sand. We also went to the hotel's rooftop pool and swam for a little while, but it was silent and there were only very old German and English tourists up there, no kids besides ours. We didn't stay there for long.

We met Fatima and the students and went for a walk to el balcon de Europa, a beautiful view of the ocean and coastline. Aidan wanted his picture taken with the Rey Alfonso statue on the balcon. A lot of weddings were going on that day, I think we saw three different couples in wedding gear getting their pictures taken. At an ice cream shop (there were about 10 in a row) I saw a flavor named "Winer." We walked back toward the hotel and saw a guy making ashtrays out of aluminum cans. I bought three for myself and Fatima bought each of the kids one. The man told us that we could pay what we wanted for them. The kids have had the best time playing with them. I think I'll use mine to keep jewelry and coins in.

We waited outside on a bench talking to Fatima until it was time to go in to dinner. Dinner was a buffet at the hotel, there was an immense variety of food. I ate potatas a la pobre, salad, a vegetable empanada, some pasta and bread. I tried a couple of pastries for dessert as well as some lemon mousse. Aidan put a huge pile of marinated carrots on his plate and couldn't finish them. We were all SUPER full. Collin wanted to watch a soccer game on TV, but it wasn't on so he was going to go out to a bar to watch it, but felt too tired. He stayed at the hotel and started watching another game while waiting for the highlights of the game he wanted to watch . . . he fell asleep before the first game was over and missed the highlights. In the meantime, I let Aidan and Emma read or listen to the iPod for a little while I tried to read Little Women in Spanish until I started to drift off. I think the beach really tires you out. Collin and I both had terrible nights' sleep. I was woken up by someone crying in the streets and also all the motorcycles and trucks that drove by.

We ate breakfast at the buffet and nothing looked good to either of us. They had some interesting breakfast choices since there are so many German, English and French tourists that visit Nerja. There was a full spread of cold meats: pimento loaf, turkey, ham beef, chorizo and a couple different kinds of cheeses. There was also the greasiest looking scrambled eggs I've ever seen, baked beans, tomatoes, and hard boiled eggs. We mostly ate some fruit, yogurt, pastries, cereal and churros.

After breakfast we went to the beach again, but this time to a different stretch that was a little better in the water, there was some soft sand further out from the shore. Collin and the kids built a huge mound of sand which we covered with rock flowers. They also buried Ian in the sand and tried to make him look like a mermaid. The water there was really clean and clear and we could see little grey fish swimming near the shore. We went to a corner store to buy juice and snacks and saw the ugliest shoes ever.

We ate lunch at a chiringuito (a restaurant actually on the beach with a sand floor) called El Ayo. El Ayo is a famous restaurant in Nerja. We started out with ensalada mixta which had corn, avocado, tomato, lettuce, olives, white asparagus and tuna. They actually cook the paella on a huge fire in a giant paellera outdoors. I was a little skeptical because the paella we had the other day in Granada was NOT good. The paella at El Ayo was really good. It had chicken and sea food in it. I think the best paella has separate grains of rice rather than one big sticky glob. Aidan ate paella with the rest of us, but Ian had lasagna and Emma had spaghetti with meat sauce and cheese (see picture for evidence!). I paid an accordion player to play happy birthday to Fatima since it was her birthday, but it was a little anticlimactic since you could hardly tell what he was playing. We definitely could not sing along to his playing. For dessert we all had Choco Clack, a vanilla ice cream bar with a chocolate truffle center, coated in chocolate with almond pieces.

After lunch we went to the beach again. This time, right by the restaurant. The water was good for playing and floating. The kids swam a little with the Bucknell students. After the beach, we loaded up on the bus and went to Frigiliana, a very cute little town with lots of curio shops and a weird puppet show machine. We had a nice little walk through the town. It was clean and beautiful, no graffiti or dog poop in sight. We got back around 9 pm to Granada and we were all exhausted. I think we are ok with not taking any extra trips, as fun as this one was.

Collin had parent teacher conference with Ian's teacher. She was worried that she had a psychopath on her hands because of all the paper ripping Ian was doing. She did say that he was the only one in the class that knew the letter A though. His teacher told Collin that we need to speak Spanish at home.

The weather has suddenly gotten cooler and rainy. None of the clothes on the line have dried. I am a little worried about doing laundry in rainy weather. I seem to remember baking Aidan's underwear and sweatpants in our oven in Madrid once to dry them in time for a trip we were taking. Baking clothes ruins them, of course. I eventually had to throw them away. I also remember setting up the drying rack with a fan blowing on the clothes for a long time. I would wash our clothes less, but our children are notoriously messy. I don't know how Spaniards do it, oh yeah, they only have one kid per couple.

Ian's new sassy thing that he says is, "It's a free country!" When I asked him to get out of bed this morning, he said he didn't have to because, "It's a free country!" When he was throwing rocks at Emma at the beach and I told him to stop, he said he didn't have to because, "It's a free country!" Collin told me to tell Ian that in our house it is NOT a free country, it is a dictatorship ruled by two dictators: Mom and Dad. I think Betty MacDonald could have written a good Mrs. Piggle-wiggle story using Ian's new catchphrase, but maybe it would have been too similar to "the Answerbacker."