random sevilla happenings

here´s a short post in honor of some of the little things that have happened in my life in sevilla during the past few weeks. i´m working on a serious london post, but it´s going to take a while and i find myself in the middle of my last week, which also happens to be finals week, so it may take some time to get it posted. in the meantime, here´s a smaller but still fun look at my life!

hanging out with the niños:

rosario has four grandchildren, and two of them spend a significant amount of time at the house. these two, carlos and jaime, are incredibly cute though somewhat rambunctious and crazy little boys. carlos is four and jaime is about 18 months. carlos loves to play with chelsea and i, but jaime is really shy. in fact, if i look at him and we make eye contact, it´s enough to make him cry! however, last week, jaime finally came out of his shell and we became buddies! it was the best! i tickled him and he kept running and jumping into my arms. so sweet and incredibly endearing. so here are the photos documenting our playtime.

this little guy is carlos. he loves to attack chelsea and i. here he is, grabbing onto my leg in an attempt to bring me down. good thing he´s four--that means i win a lot!

this little guy is the shy one, jaime. he´s so cute! rosario and i had such a blast watching the two of them running around in a wild frenzy. they totally tore the house apart! there´s a reason rosario calls them her two terremotos (earthquakes). oh, this is the first time jaime let me touch him!

aren´t we cute! carlos is, of course, standing on a chair. he´s a total ham for the camera, as you´ll see in a few photos...

me and earthquake #1!

me and earthquake #2--aren´t his chubby hands and cheeks so cute?

here´s carlos, being a total ham for the camera. he loved having chelsea take his picture!

jaime in his happy place, playing with some toys and the t.v. remote control!

hanging out with the shuman family:

the night after i returned to sevilla from madrid after saying farewell to my parents and kevin, my friend liza invited chelsea and i over to hang out with her family. we played a card game called yuker (sp?). i´d never heard of it before, but it was fun, and i plan to bring it back to the west coast (liza claims that it´s a midwest thing). afterwards, we went out for dinner at a really awesome tapas restaurant. it was so wonderful to hang out with her family! they were so cute!

me in the tapas restaurant with our really awesome pork rolls. doesn´t sound so awesome, but trust me, they were!

liza and i strategizing over our hand. we made a mean yuker team!

across the river:

before family week, i decided to head across the river to explore the neighborhoods los remedios and triana, two famous neighborhoods in sevilla. liza lives over in los remedios, and she kindly agreed to meet up with me and show me around. it was fun!

cool tower located right off the triana bridge. i´m hypothesizing that it used to be some sort of tower used to guard the river... i could, of course, be totally wrong.

my favorite bridge in sevilla: puente de isabela segunda (better known as the triana bridge). it connects sevilla and triana.

awesome house on calle betis, the nightlife hotspot in sevilla. i´ve, of course, never been there after dark, but it was cool during the day too!

view from across the river! yay!

juice, crepes, and the flamenco museum:

the friday before family week, i went to sevilla´s flamenco museum with a group of students. it was a pretty cool museum, filled with lots of video footage documenting the evolution of flamenco dance. it was fun because we went with our dance professor and she had lots of interesting things to say. afterwards, a group of us headed over to bliss, my favorite cafe in sevilla. they serve fresh-squeezed juice and really awesome crepes for cheap! it was so nice! i just hung out and had fun with the girls...

afton and i enjoying our really awesome juices. mine is a combination of apple, lemon, and ginger juices... super tasty! it makes me want a juicer!

all of our pretty juices in a row! i´ve become a regular at bliss (so has chelsea) and we totally have our favorites. mine is the one on the closest end, and her´s is the green one. funny how i can recognize them! ivana´s drink is between mine and chelsea´s, and afton´s is on the end...

here´s the flamenco museum group! we´re all striking our best, most impressive sevillana poses (though mine is a little bit more flamenco-y...).

me enjoying the really awesome pair of flamenco shoes on display at the museum! they are seriously so huge. they could totally be used as a crib, which would be really funny and totally awesome... i´m considering it for my future...