The Alhambra

Monday morning was very cold. (I think our blood has thinned since living here) We had a 9 am entrance into the Nasrid Palace and they are very strict with your entrance time. You can spend the rest of the time wandering and walking about your leisure. The Alhambra was built over many centuries but the Palace was built in the 1300's. It was beautiful. The courtyards, the delicate carvings, and the fountains everywhere. The pictures really don't do it justice. We spent the entire morning walking around Alhambra. We then walked around the city center in Granada looking at the cathedral where Ferdinand and Isabel are buried. Right around the cathedral there are a bunch of gypsy women who are holding out rosemary to give to you. They tell you that they want to give you a gift and then when you take it they demand money. It was a good thing I had read about it before we went. We heard a couple of them getting into huge arguments with others. There are a lot of spice shops set up in the streets around the cathedral. I had a good time stocking up on some of the spices I use.

Sunday in Granada

It was a good thing that we left for church early because the church was not in the spot that the churches website said it was. We did find it in plenty of time and went to sacrament meeting. Afterwards we drove to the neighborhood of the Albaycin. This was the moorish neighborhood on a slope directly across from the Alhambra. It is a great neighborhood. We had a lot of fun wandering in the narrow streets turning every direction going uphill or downhill. Most of the homes and buildings in this neighborhood are white and the streets are all cobblestone. It has wonderful views of the Alhambra. We spent the early afternoon wandering and eating really bad spanish picture food (only because the restaurant that I wanted was closed). We had to be back at our pueblo by four because we were going on an olive tour. The younger kids didn't want to go so it was Brent, Mckenzie, and I. We were picked up and drove just to the village north of us and learned about olive trees. We tried one off of the tree, I wouldn't recommend that. Olives are very bitter. We learned how they extracted the oil in the old days and went to an olive mill from the 15th century. After the tour they gave us an olive oil testing. We sampled 5 different types of olive oils. We learned a lot and bought 2 of the different oils that we tested.

Me Encanta Granada

We had a long weekend with no school Monday and Tuesday so we decided to head out and see some of Spain. We left Saturday morning and took the six hour drive to Granada. We stayed about 15 miles south of Granada in a very small village. The house we rented was very cute and very spanish. After we settled into our house we headed back to Granada to check out the evening happenings. We ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam for an hour and a half. Not fun! After finally getting out of the jam we decided to find a place to eat out of the city center. We stopped at an outdoor mall and ate some really good italian food. After day one I wasn't so sure I liked Granada!

I have a few pics of the house we rented and the village.

Primary Program

It's my favorite time of year. The sacrament meeting primary program. I had a feeling it would be especially entertaining here in Spain and I was not disappointed. The kids here have no piano to sing to or practice with so I knew that would be challenging for them. Brent played the piano for them during the program. The funniest moment was when they sang "Follow the Prophet". They had a child get up and sing a solo for each of the verses and then everybody sang each chorus. The kids were hilarious. There was one kid who was yelling the verse, others couldn't sing with the piano. They didn't know how to listen to the tune or keep time with the piano. Brent tried to keep up but it was impossible. There was one kid who was singing so fast it wasn't even singing. The whole audience couldn't contain themselves.

Thanksgiving

We have another family that recently moved here to Valencia from the US. Dan works for the military and he is stationed here nearby. We have done a few things with this family. It is nice to have them here with us. The Strodes invited us to their home for Thanksgiving dinner along with another military family and the two sets of missionaries here in Valencia. The missionaries found out they had a big conference with the European area president. They thought that they wouldn't be able to come at all. They got to talking with their AP and the mission president (President Hinkley) and they all wanted to come as well. Thanksgiving now included the three American families, President Hinkley (He looks just like his dad), The European president and now 12 missionaries. Brent and Dan when to the chapel to pick them all up and President Hinkley and the Pres. had urgent business come up so they did not come. We missed them but we had a great time with all of the missionaries.

After dinner we played some tennis and basketball on the Strodes sport court. We decorated turkey cookies and of course ate pie.

New Moon

So our family recently took a overnight trip to madrid for a Ward temple trip. We arrived on Friday at about 6 and immediatly went to find an English movie theater. We found one and went to buy our tickets for the only showing of New Moon at 12:20 am. My mom was not so thrilled about the time but we were all stoked about seeing the movie. We called our American Friends(the strodes) and met up with them at about 11:00. First we went out for "chocolate caliente"(which was more like drinking chocolate syrup) and churros. As for the movie it was excellent! and we enjoyed it very much. By the time we left it was about about 2:30 am and the clubs were jus opening so on our way home we jammed to some music and waved to many people.

When we arrived at the temple(where we were staying) we found that the hostel closes at 12 and the we were locked out... so we had riley and Logan jump over the gate and run after the dads. A security guard saw them jump the fence and ran after them. Later the security guard was kind enough to let us in but it was close. Lets just say that we were falling asleep the next day...

Visiting Teaching

Very frustrated with the visiting teaching here. I just spent 5 hours trying to visit 2 people and we still have 2 more women to visit before the end of the month. So the day started out meeting at the church. I drove and so did my companion so we had to drive around for 30 minutes trying to find a place for her to park. After she finally parked her car we drove another 30 minutes away to our first appointment. I visit another american who moved in to our ward recently so I was able to give a message in English. After I gave my short message my companion also gave her message which was a little longer. We were there for about an hour. My companion wanted to go find and visit a woman on our list that we haven't had any contact with. She lived in another pueblo. My companion wanted to drive back to Valencia and park my car and take the metro back out to this pueblo which turns out it wasn't that far from our first visit. She wanted to take the metro because she didn't know where this woman lived. So we get off the metro and wander around town looking for the street she lived on. I was going crazy. We finally found the street and rang her door. She didn't answer. We took the message and put it in her mailbox and started to leave. There was a man on the street that told us that she was home so we rang the bell again and she finally answered but hung up her intercom on us. We walked all the way back to the metro and finally came home. On the bright side at least our other two visits are within the city.

I really do enjoy visiting teaching, but five hours is ridiculous.