El tiempo vuela...

Wow, so much for a post a week. And now a month has gone by...

Lets see. When I last wrote we were in Andalucía.
That was a great trip, enjoyed by all. In total, we visited Sevilla, Granada, Córdoba, and a couple of little towns in the olive producing region of Jaén (I thought that I had seen olives before, but oh man, Jaén is unbeLIEVABLE. Everywhere is covered with olive treees). In Jaén we visited an olive oil factory (vinyard? oliveyard?) and saw the process necessary to convert olives into Euros. We also saw two towns with medieval centers that were interesting, and cold.

Very cold.

Well, okay, very cold for Spain, when you're improperly dressed.

Spain experienced a very rare cold snap during our trip to Andalucía in which cold winds descended on Granada, Córdoba, and us. It actually snowed north of Córdoba (we saw that from the warm safety of our train). We, of course, went to southern Spain fully prepared...for spring. I can hear the echoes of my family's voices now..."Thanks a lot Dad, for telling us not to bring winter clothes." Poor Ben suffered through a week of short hair and cold wind. Poor Ben, but poorer Dad.

After the Andalucía trip we returned to Zaragoza and to a more school-like schedule. There's not much to say about this period, except to say that Ben and I got to take a couple of terrific ski trips to the Pyrenees (to Formigal and Cerler), and we continued our weekly ration of "futbol-sala" games (Ben's 5-on-5 soccer league that has come to own our Saturdays).

Oh, and we had a leak in our apartment.

A big leak.

A leak that has probably destroyed one of the rooms in our downstairs neighbor's apartment. Apparently it has been going on for some time (read: years) without being addressed. Ah, the joy of landlords. After spending a full day vleaning out the "junk room" in our apartment in order to turn it into a cute little bedroom, perfect for a 10-year old who has been displaced so we can accomodate guests, we have now lost the cute little bedroom to water damage. The wall has been ripped open, the wallpaper torn down... and now we wait until the owners decide to fix it.

I'm not holding my breath.

One other thing of note to report is that Andee and I went out for Valentine's dinner (about a week after Valenltine's day, but what the heck) we arrived at a very nice restaurant at 8:45. We were tuned away. We were too early, they didn't start serving dinner until 9pm at the earliest. The earliest. Mind you, this was a SUNDAY night, not really a big, late night out in Spain. And it was a week after Valentine's, so no big reason to go out late. We were just (once again) the early Americans.

The dinner, for those of you who are still reading, was terrific. We ate at an Argentinian grill (well known in Spain for good food). We plan on going back sometime.

When its not so cold, and when we can stay up and eat until after 9pm.