RAIN in SPAIN? (stays mainly in the plain)

Hola! Today was some good, some stress, mostly good.
1) Today was another 7:30 AM wake up, not as difficult as I would have thought because I am excited every day to get going. I am definitely feeling more comfortable in the house... little things like feeling confident enough in the kitchen to grab a glass and put oj in it with ice, just the way I like it, instead of timidly waiting for someone to invite me to help myself. Then as usual Maica dropped the kids off at school and then me off at the mouth of the path to Kaja's. (Kaja just informed me that there are 5 types of poisonous snakes in Spain... Soooo that sucks) I don't know if I have just become a master navigator of paths or I walked especially quickly, but I made it to Kaja's house in about a half hour. So quickly in fact, that I arrived while Kaja was still there! Part of Kaja's responsibilities is to bike her kids to their schools. Pablo (or Pablete to differentiate him from Pablo Sr) is 2 and SO hilarious and cute and rides on the back of Kaja's bike, while Sara who is 6 and very cute as well but significantly more difficult to manage rides her own bike. This morning, in typical fashion, Sara wanted to bring her prized toy, handcuffs (i dont know why) to school, but her mom (Patricia) had said no, leaving Kaja to enforce it. Sara does NOT respond well to not getting her way. Sooo although 9:30 is when Sara was supposed to be at school, it ended up being the time they were leaving to go to school. (Shout out to Kaja... I feel your pain).
2) Anyways, having just hiked the vast Sahara Spanish plains, I decided to go in Kaja's house and wait for her to get back. It was a nice relaxing time, I just bummed around on Kaja's computer while sitting in this nice indoor porch kind of place, drinking some juice. Kaja got back and we had some breakfast, then decided to tackle the enormous challenge of planning out our weekends for the rest of the summer.
3) This turned out to be very stressful and time consuming, not to mention extremely aggravating because the internet was a bit dodgy and many of the websites we were trying to use were either a) Not working properly b) not making any sense c) In Spanish or d) all of the above. In addition, we only have 7 weekends but about 20 places we would like to go. The places we are most determined to go to are: Seville, Grenada, Barcelona, Morocco, Portugal, and one weekend around Madrid, Toledo and Segovia, one weekend not yet decided upon.

And NOW... KAJA's QUOTE OF THE DAY!!!!
"trying to buy eurail pass is enough of a hassel, add the confusion of not knowing spanish and it is impossible. i think i would rather ride a horse!"
Yayyy! Actually in real life we were trying to find a way to hit two places in one weekend by riding horses from one to another... then we realized that neither of us are really horse riders nor do we have the time or money for a 9 day horse adventure. Oh well.

4) Eventually we settled on just figuring out this coming weekend in Seville. We found an extremely cheap bus ride (six hours! Ay dios mio) and booked a hostel so it looks like we are good to go! Then we congratulated ourselves with a bowl of popcorn!
5) I left at about 3:15 to catch the bus to Las Lomas, where Carmen and Rafa's school was and where the abuela would pick us up. It all worked out that the abuela and I were about 20 min early to pick them up, which was pretty awkward because we didn't really have anything to talk about (what with the language barrier and all) so we just kinda sat there, her doing a sudoku and me making a list of songs to sing to Carmen and Rafa in my notebook. Then finnnnnally it was time to get the kiddies so we picked them up and drove back to the abuela's house. I played basketball with Rafa and it was very fun, of course I let him beat me (Not saying that I am especially good at Basketball... it's just hard not to sink every shot when the net is as high as my head). It was really fun though! Then Maica drove up to pick us up just as it started to rain! I thought that Kaja must be very happy with the rain because she has been here for a few weeks and said she misses the rain, but for me I was very NOT happy in my shorts and t-shirt. I was pretty cold. It is supposed to rain tomorrow too! Bummer.
6) Maica took us to some other woman's house, I forget her name. Rafa is having a joint birthday party type thing with the other woman's son on Saturday (I wont be there) and the two mothers were planning treasure hunts and such. This family had three sons and an Au Pair too from around Boston! She just graduated college and was really nice. They had lots of toys and games, including a foozeball table. I played with Rafa, who was pretty good... I almost didnt have to try to lose. Haha. Then I played against Carmen who was completely incompetent at foozeball... I like to be nice to kids and let them win, but literally I would not touch the ball and she still could not maneuver the little soccer players to get the ball into my goals. So I had to resort to "accidentally" shooting the ball into my own goal about 7 times so she could win without the game taking an eternity. Oy!
7) We left at around 7:30 PM when it was still raining to go home. Rafa Sr was making dinner, aka microwaving a roasted chicken (haha pretty far from your legit roasted chicken mum). As always, kids dinner was first. I have never seen someone struggle with eating chicken ever before as Rafa Jr did with his dinner tonight. He gagged, he coughed, he cried... I dont know what his problem with chicken was, but that boy did NOT want to eat it and his parents made him finish every single last bite. When I asked Kaja for her quote of the day, she asked me for mine. I said, "The life of a spain traveler is tough, but not as difficult as getting a wee boy of 7 to eat his chicken." Heehee.
8) While Rafa was fighting his epic battle with his small mound of chicken, I helped Carmen into bed, she didn't want to sleep, so I told her I would sing her a song. I sang "Somewhere over the rainbow" and literally when I left her room she was asleep. I rock! Unfortunately, then Rafa joined her and woke her up. (Normally they have separate rooms, but now I am in Rafa's room so they are sharing, consequently neither of them go to sleep very well or stay asleep very well) The Au Pairents and I sat down for dinner, the chicken actually was yummy, much to my relief after seeing Rafa practically go into epileptic shock with every bite. I helped clean up after dinner and talked a bunch with the Au padre about Kaja and my plans for travel. I mentioned how we were trying to go to lots of places because its a rare opportunity to be in Spain for the summer. Rafa Sr has always been pretty quiet around me, I sometimes thought he didnt like me or thought I wasn't worth having around or something, but then he said, "But next summer you can come back!" or something to that effect, which just made me feel really welcomed and assured me that I was liked! Now I am exhausted and ready for bed. Buenas noches!
Julia