social butterfly season

Been really enjoying ourselves these last few days.

On Wednesday, Cassie and Caleb arrived. After settling in at their hotel, we shared a snack at our place, then all went to the center to walk around. We stopped at our favorite cafe in Plaza Tripi (Plaza George Orwell) for a real meal. We like it there because there's little traffic, good people watching and room for Lily to roam. It also made for a good place for Cass and Cal to recover from their transatlantic journey, and prepared them for a walk through the Born. From there, headed to Barceloneta, stopping in a plaza for Lily to play in a park and the big kids to play frisbee. Walked past the sea, then headed home for the night.

Met with them at the beach on Thursday evening and enjoyed watching the sea change color as the sun set behind us and the city.

Megamart arrived on Friday night so we had everyone over to ours for a hangout. On Saturday we all went to the Sagrada Familia, sat in the sun drinking coffee for a half hour squinting up at the face of the church, contemplating whether or not to go in, then decided to just walk through the city and get lunch. Lily made a friend in the park outside Sagrada Familia and we played 'bomba' with balloons.

Had a long leisure lunch in a plaza in the Born. Introduced our guests to the clara (a shandy-like drink made by mixing beer and lemon Fanta). Lily enjoyed dancing with her parents on a platform in the plaza. Then headed down to a chiringuito by the beach for warm milk (Lily), coffee and more beer.

After bidding Caleb and Cassie farewell (they were off to visit Cass' uncle in Paris) Megamart passed out and we did Lily's dinner and bed. Matt (our new roommate - been here a week and are loving having him around - from Shropshire and is fellow teacher at OHC) made a curry and we had our friends Claire and Paulo (Australian coarse director at OHC, her Brazilian man who's here doing his PhD) over to share it with all of us, including Megamart. We had a great night, eating Matt's curry, trying the champaign/vodka/lemon sorbet dessert drink Claire made using a really nice sparkling wine she recently got in Italy, and playing a Brazilian card game called Truco that Paulo taught us. We stayed up late.

On Sunday we ate a big breakfast then went with Matt, Megan and Marty to meet Timo in Plaza Tripi as he's moving back to London in a few days. From there it was off for ice cream, and then to the beach for burying Lego men and picnicing. We all passed out last night after watching The Prestige.

Lily's been doing really well in school, had fun walking, eating and beaching with friends this weekend, and in general is pretty funny right now. She's been telling us about school and told me the other day, "Mom, Eva says 'seieu'." Eva's her teacher and 'seieu' (say-oo) means 'sit' in Catalan. 'Yeah," Lily said," She says 'seieu' right here". I thought it was pretty funny that she said 'sit' in Catalan but translated the rest to English. She also has told me that Pau cries for his yaya (nana); she asks Nil, "Whatchyou crying 'bout?; and that she enjoys dancing with her jacket in class but sometimes Eva says 'No, Lily'.

Photos to come soon - have to get them off Matt's camera, but he needs to buy a card reader for his computer first.....


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