wednesday

Another day gone.  After tomorrow my days left in Sevilla will be down to single digits.  I still can't believe how fast the time is gone.

Today the swiss girls left.  It's a little weird being back down to just the 3 of us.  Got to say goodbye as I was rushing out the door, running late as usual.  Today the kids came dressed up for semana santa.  Most were dressed as costaleros, the guys that carry the pasos.  There was one girl in full nazareno outfit which was pretty cool.  There were also three little girls dressed as mantillas which is very traditional dress for women on holy thursday and good friday.  There was also a little girl dressed as a member of the bands that play with some of the brotherhoods.  I'm really enjoying getting to learn along with the kids a little more each day about all of the different aspects of holy week.

I get to cross an extra day off of my days left of work countdown.  They told me not to bother coming tomorrow because there's this huge strike planned.  I don't even know if I'm going to leave the house tomorrow.  From what I heard, things might get a little crazy.  And I don't know exactly when or where things are taking place and I don't know what all might be affected by this.  There was also some awkwardness at the end of the day with the lady that works in the afternoons.  I probably shouldn't say much, not that I really can because I don't really know what happened, but I know that she was talking with the directors and it ended with her in tears and us running late getting the kids out the door because I didn't know if she was going to be coming back and I wasn't 100% sure which kids were leaving and I don't know how to fill out their agendas that going back and forth from home with them.  So even though I felt bad for her and wanted to help, I feel like there was only so much I could do.  And then I was left with one little girl for a few minutes after all the other parents came and I thought the directors were standing right outside the door because they had been talking to the parents and such so the first time the bell rang I assumed they were going to be there to get it but when it rang again I realized it was the little girl's mom and then I felt bad making her wait and usually her dad picks her up so this woman doesn't even know me and I'm sure she wondered what I was doing being left in charge of pick up but whatever.  What's done is done.  I just wonder what exactly happened and I hated seeing this woman that I spend a considerable amount of time with every day, the only one that I feel like I have the opportunity to have real conversations with, I hated seeing her so upset.  So I'll be curious to see what friday brings.

On to happier things though...  After work I went to the cathedral.  I spent a little time walking around the church and then climbed up to the top of the giralda.  It was super crowded though.  There were so many people and especially a lot of tour groups.  There were multiple groups of students and also multiple asian tour groups which is always fun.  So it was kind of hard to get good spots to get pictures from the giralda but I did get some good ones.  You just won't see them here yet because I'm to lazy to put them on the computer.  Maybe with my day off tomorrow...

After yesterday I swore off spending any more money on souvenirs.  But the cathedral has a gift shop.  And the cathedral is located in a very souvenir shop filled part of the city.  So yes, more money was spent.  Much more than I would have thought.  But now I really do think I'm done.  Except for another trip to the fro yo place and maybe a couple meals here and there and another bottle of water.  But that shouldn't add up to too much.

I will also have to stop by the bakery by my house again though.  It's probably a good thing I did not discover these pastries until now.  Otherwise, I might have bought one like every day.  At least once a week.  I mean they've always been tempting and looked really good from the window.  But today since I didn't really eat lunch and it was too close to supper time to eat a lot by the time I was on my way back to the house, I decided to get something from the bakery to accompany the apple I had saved from breakfast.  Such a good decision.  I forget what it was called but it was like a rectangle doughnut like pastry frosted in chocolate and then filled with chocolate.  And I mean filled with chocolate.  Like oozing chocolate as soon as you bite into it.  A little bit of heaven.  Good thing I waited til I got to the house to eat it thought because it was kind of messy and I'm sure I would have been walking around with chocolate all over  my face if I would have just sat in the plaza to eat it.

Dinner was funny because R and J were working on sending a little photo message to a friend of theirs, I think I one time several years ago she was a student that stayed with them and they've kept in touch and become good friends.  But they wrote up this sign that said we'd like to share with you and they tacked to this big ham leg thing.  It's seriously like the whole leg of this pig or something and really kind of gross but they got a picture with it to send to this girl as a joke because she's a vegetarian so it's probs gonna freak her out a bit.  H and I just had to laugh about it.  I mean what else do you do when there's this big animal leg, hoof and all, just chillin at the dinner table with you?

Also at dinner J gave me a book with all of the semana santa routes and such outlined and it just has some more general information about the different days and all the traditions and stuff.  It should make for some good reading in the next several days.  He also said that the church next door would be mounting their statues and such on the paso tomorrow so I might try and go see that.  And I guess that church does their procession on tuesday of holy week and they usually go right by the church and watch it leave the church to begin the procession so that should be cool.  I know it's going to be really crazy and that no matter what I probably won't be totally prepared for all that it entails, but I'm still really excited and definitely looking forward to it.  It will definitely be a grand finale for the trip.

Until tomorrow then, hopefully I'll have some pictures to share since I'm not planning on doing much worth sharing.  Whatever this strike might bring about, I'm grateful at least for the opportunity to sleep in and have a lazy stay at home day.