Allie in the South of Spain

My in-laws recently converted their old study into a big, beautiful walk-in closet. I have mentioned it before but built in closets aren´t incredibly common here in Spain; there is not one in our new apartment. Let´s just say that I am envious that they have this awesome space with enough room to hang things and actually not have them wrinkle right away. Sigh. Now they can really see the clothes that they own (which is a lot).  My mother-in-law is a good shopper in that she knows how to find a barg. She has tons of shoes, dresses, pants, tops, handbags etc and she always looks very put together. She has been accumulating her collection of clothes for years. As she was organizing things in her new closet she even showed me a pair of boots that she had bought when my husband was very young. Over the years she had forgotten about them but planned on wearing them now that they were out of storage. I am sure there were more of these re-discoveries as she pulled stuff out of cupboards...

Sometimes Jose and I accidently end up wearing similar clothing. It is never planned and generally entails a like-colored shirt and jeans. Most of the time one of us will change unless it is a last minute thing when we realize we are matching. When this kind of thing happens, I get sort of creeped out. Here in Spain it is really common for parents to dress their children in the same outfits so that they match. We aren't talking about twins who are wearing the same onesie, something I can't imagine doing. (Don't you want to make sure you can tell them apart?) Here in Spain you might see a troop of kids all in the same dress and cardy or pants and shirt combo. They will have the same shoes and jacket sometimes, too. I can't figure out why they do this. Is it because they can get a bulk discount for buying several sizes of the same clothes? Is it sort of like the people who go to amusement parks all wearing the same shirts emblazoned with: Bubba's wife, Bubba's s...

After having kind of wimpy work schedules the last month or so, Jose and I are in the final push before school´s out for summer! Yay! We only have a couple of months left (school goes until the end of June). We were also able to purchase our flights back to Michigan thanks to our tax return! Double yay! Lately we have been talking about how great it will be to be there for almost two months starting in July. We can´t wait. In preparation we have been starting a sort of summer bucket list. Surprise, surprise, a lot of our list involves food. 1. Eat Reese´s peanut butter cup blizzards. Honestly, is there any better combination? 2. Assuming that it has opened, we would like to go to the new Cheesecake Factory. 3. Enjoying all the summer flavored beer. Can you say OBERON? 4. Living out on Daphne´s new raft at my parents´house. She isn´t really going to be big enough to enjoy it yet so we will help break it in. We also heard that my dad bought her a slide for it. Yes! 5. Going ou...

Like Semana Santa, the Feria (or fair) is a quintessential part of spring in the south of Spain. Originally the feria was the time when people would come to the big city from the countryside and bring their livestock to sell. So many people gathered was a time for celebration. Sevilla´s feria is probably the most famous and largest in this region. It is happening as we speak (write) and goes on for about a week during which we aren´t working, yay! For some it is the social event of the season or even the year. There are people who live for the feria and wait for it all year long. The feria consists of getting dressed up (for women this usually means a flamenco dress) and going to hang out in a tent called a caseta. They play typical music and you drink, eat, dance, socialize. There is a very festive atmosphere during the day and at night. Kids can ride carnival rides, you can spend a lot of money. For those who like it, there is nothing better. Like a lot of cultural phenomena her...

First off, I wanted to thank everyone who called or wrote to wish me a happy birthday Monday (I realize this post is a bit late but we had a special English themed week at school and things have been crazy). I had a great day! First I went to school and was literally bombarded with cards and hugs from my students. I had told a few girls the week before that my birthday was coming up and the news spread like wildfire. Throughout the day girls continued to wish me a happy day. It was cute. It made me forget the times I have wanted to throttle them. Plus my co-workers surprised me with a gift and we ate the cake I made together. Please note the different ways they invented to spell my name. After work Jose and I went out to eat at a Moroccan restaurant. The food was so good! We haven´t been eating out a lot lately so this was a treat. I am actually surprised that there aren´t more Moroccan restaurants in Sevilla, I mean it basically is to Spain like Mexico is to the United St...

My birthday is tomorrow. I will be turning 27. Does that now make me in my late twenties? Ah! Here in Spain oddly enough it is the person celebrating the birthday who is responsible for treating their friends on their special day. I guess we do the same things as kids in the States by bringing cupcakes to class but here this tradition continues into adulthood. In order not to be shunned by my co-workers (who I love) I figured I would make something to bring tomorrow. Anyway, I decided to make myself a birthday cake which has been a more complicated process than what I originally expected. I shouldn´t be surprised since this tends to be the case.  First off, I love funfetti cakes. When I was back in Michigan for my sister´s wedding I bought two boxes of Halloween cake mix (it was half off since we were shopping the day after Halloween) and brought them back to Spain with me since you can´t have a birthday without funfetti. This afternoon I baked the cake, adapting pretty well to ...

Yesterday Jose and I had about 10 friends over to have a housewarming party. We decided to have a beer tasting theme and ordered pizzas. We bought a ton of different kids of beers from all over the world and tried them throughout the night. Though we haven't finished all the projects around our apartment (like hanging lamps and curtains) we decided to have a housewarming since my birthday is Monday as well. It was sort of a joint celebration. Cheesecake birthday cake!     Some of the selection of what we tried.    Needless to say, Jose and I both slept in quite late today after celebrating so much last night. We had a great time and hope our friends enjoyed themselves, too. 

For those of you who don´t know, Jose and I both gave up sweet things for Lent. It was hard but we actually stuck to it. As luck would have it, right when we were wrapping up our 40 days, the town next to where we were staying in Portugal was also having a sweets festival. We decided we had to go and try some. We hopped in the car and drove the 20 minutes north to Alcoutim which ended up being a really nice place to visit. Alcoutim is a small city on the river that divides Spain and Portugal. You can get a pontoon boat to take you over the border in fact. It was quaint and the two desserts we tried were very good. Here are the little stands they had set up selling cakes, cookies and other yummy things. Here is Spain, literally you could swim there. Alcoutim was definitely worth the visit and we plan on going back. Driving back to Vila Real we took a scenic route which was beautiful. After all the rain in the past month everything was green and flowering. We l...

Since we had almost an entire week to spend in Portugal, Jose and I decided to explore a little bit more than we had in the past. We decided to take one day and drive west along the coast to see a bit more of the Algarve (which is the southern most region in Portugal).  We left after breakfast and loaded into the car with Cooper. Our first stop was Lagos which is famous for its beaches. They´ve got these big, rocky, cliffs right in the middle of them. They were pretty cool but I am sure get very crowded when it is beach season. We only stayed long enough to take a few pictures. Since we couldn´t bring the dog down to the beach we decided to continue on to our next stop. We continued west until we got to Sagres. The actual city itself doesn´t have a lot to offer, a couple of surf shops, some restaurants and a hotel. What people really come here for is to visit the fort which stands right at the edge of some cliffs right next to the ocean. I couldn´t get close to the edge...

Jose and I spent the better part of our week off in Portugal, leaving on Tuesday and coming back today (Sunday). We stayed at his parents' apartment right over the Spanish/Portuguese border in a small town called Vila Real. We spent the first few days relaxing, avoiding the rain, reading and watching movies. Here is the city´s plaza to give you an idea of where we stay when we go. It is pretty small, you can walk everywhere (including the beach) and it is quiet. There are tourists but we don´t usually go during busy season so we mostly have the place to ourselves. We made sure to enjoy a beer in our favorite little bar in the next town over, Monte Gordo. We also stopped in and had lunch at the Indian restaurant that we always visit when we are in Portugal. Yum! Plus we went to the beach. Be sure to check back for part 2 of our springbreak adventure in Portugal!