Today I can’t blame difficulty accessing the Internet (I might have said this before, but access to wireless is very hard to find and very pricey in Spain – we Americans clearly take it for granted!) for not posting for three days!
Today is our fifth day of classes in Spanish and we are exhausted — physically and mentally! But somehow we are enjoying it!
We have breakfast each day at 9 am with our homestay, get dressed and go to the school to study and for Rich to check his business out online. We return to our homestay for these incredible lunches (Lunch is the huge meal here.) We are staying with a lovely woman, but we must work hard with our Spanish in order to enjoy her company! I must say our decision to live with someone was a good one. As tiring as it is; we must try to practice our Spanish in order to figure out what we are eating, and what we do to do in her home to be polite, etc.
Maybe of not much interest to anyone more than our children are photos of parts of our days here in school this week. This is the apartment house we are living in. It is one of four in a complex. We live on the 9th floor and there is this teeny tiny “lift” that takes us up and down each day. 
It is about a 10 minute walk from the apartment to the school. First we cross a big intersection, then have a walk through a lovely park with a playground next to a huge town building. Next we walk across a foot bridge that crosses the “river” which is really a huge concrete basin. It does seem to have more water in it each day but we don’t know why.
And by the way the weather has turned quite cold – in the 40s during the day. We understand that it snowed in Madrid earlier this week!
Then we stop at a bakery which we discovered to get an afternoon snack. This week they have us in classes from 3 to 7 pm which is during the later part of siesta and most of the shops are closed until 5 pm. (Many open from 5 to 10 at night.) So we figured out that we had to buy a snack for our 4:45 break at 2:30 before we go into class.
And the next picture is the front of our school. The last picture is Rich standing in front of our favorite bakery shop.
We hope to sleep in a bit tomorrow and then spend the weekend walking about Granada. The Alhambra is sold out days ahead, and we don’t have a ticket to see it until the 15th, and then for only an hour! But there are gardens and other sights around it apparently that are free so at least we can go see some of it. And, there are many plazas and churches to walk about and see as well.
We are having fun. Our brains and bodies are quite “casado” (tired); but it’s a nice kind of challenge that we really haven’t had for some time. A challenge that’s just for enjoyment and not to solve some life issue. That’s a great idea to get a picture of us with our hostess – we really like her. She tried hard to talk with us and is a great cook!
You look like you’re having fun! Exhausted fun, bu fun! Make sure you get a picture of the two of you with your hostess! You’ll want to remember her by it 🙂