We wanted to head out and finally settle a few things today. First was our phone, which evidently did not get setup correctly at the train station in Madrid. Second was our Travellers Checques fun!! After a quick buffet breakfast the lady at the front desk pointed us in the direction of the Orange SIM card store. It wasn’t too far off the beaten path and was in the old city, a place we wanted to explore anyway. Zeke, mapman, took the map and lead us through the maze, and I’m not kidding when I say maze, of streets. There’s not a single one of them going in the same direction as another. It’s as if it were a big jig-saw puzzle. The nice thing about the always clear skies in Spain and in particular in Seville is that you can ALWAYS roughly get your direction just by which side of the street is shaded. Without that or a map… utterly lost. Zeke found the Orange store easy enough and Kate attempted the transaction while the kids and I waited outside playing I Spy. The only rule… It can’t be on a person as this was the heavy pedestrian zone and all sorts of folk were streaming by. As we played we noticed a man with a big backpack sit down on the corner of the street directly opposite us. He looked to his left A LOT, and looked to his right A LOT. Then finally decided to throw down a tarp on the street corner and started dragging Hand Fans and Belts out of his bag and putting them on display. The kids were curious to know why he was looking around so much. I already had my suspicions. In a little while, we noticed him grab all ends of his tarp and within a matter of seconds disappear down a side alley. Less then a minute later 2 Policia walked by completely oblivious to his presence. Jane went over to see if he’d dropped anything in his haste to depart, and peered down the alley. Sure enough he was standing just a bit down the alley looking casual and soon setup on the corner again. Within 10 minutes he had to vamoose again as a policia car drove by. Again he returned after a bit and set up shop. This time he became more bold and laid out his sunglasses as well. I was thinking, that’s one heck of a way to make a living. He did make a couple of sales in the 30 minutes we watched him. Kate came out flushed with success having navigated the process of refueling our SIM card minutes completely in Spanish. She’s good!
Our 2nd task didn’t go as well and nearly ended our fun altogether. After several banks turning us down and each teller referring us to another bank “only a few minutes walk away” that also turned us down, including a bank with exchange rates posted right by the door we more or less melted down. Our final attempt was a store credit card and exchange window inside a mall. They explained that things weren’t working but might be working again by 3. We decided to hang out awhile in the air conditioning and get something to drink, then see if things were working again. I successfully asked the door lady whether they had a restaurant and she directed us up the escalator to the 5th floor. Zeke pulled out his Spanish and asked if they take Visa. Si. We sat at the bar and got an expensive lemonade slushie for each of the kids. We bought a few necessities, like more sunscreen. It wasn’t yet 3 and the exchange still wasn’t working so we headed back out into the heat trying to pick streets that had shade on one side or another. We’d travelled quite a distance in our search for money, so the trek back was not short and everyone was exhausted, physically and mentally. I was thankful that the break in the mall seemed to refresh Theo and Maeve well enough that they weren’t demanding a ride. Closer to our hotel we bumped into a SuperSol, one of their supermarkets and bought some fruit and milk for lunch. The supermarket is a great place to build your vocabulary. We then headed back to the hotel with our haul of groceries for lunch and Siesta.
The kids didn’t exactly Siesta unfortunately, and filled their heads with more Disney Channel in Spanish of course. I headed for the lobby for internet access to post a few blogs. Later they came down semi-refreshed and we decided to head out and see what trouble we could find. Kate remembered seeing Los Gallos (the roosters) Flamenco show on our walk home from the grocery. It had come highly recommended from our Seattle friends, Mark, Jo and Laura (thanks guys!!!). It was incredible. We found the early show started at 8 and since it was nearly 7:15 already we were worried about finding food in time to get back to the show. We decided to hustle back to the hotel and eat the remainder of our groceries, change into our “dress” clothes
and made it back with minutes to spare. Theo and Maeve were semi-entertained. Theo noticed how loud some of the dancing was and would rate the dancers by loudness. And Maeve would clap along when others clapped, but the rest of us were enthralled. I remember the first dancer coming out. A small petite lady, but she had so much energy and passion. We did notice a relationship between the size of the lady and the loudness of her stomp. The poor petite lady was loud but barely registered compared to some of the others. Still her technique was fantastic and just amazing to watch as were all the others. The 2 hour show went by too quickly. We headed home feeling like we’d salvaged a wasted day. No, better than salvaged; the flamenco dancing had elevated the day to one of our favorites.
cool. just read this to mom, dad, and Gracie.
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