Spagna 4

Ok it is high time I finish writing about Spain, seeing as these are events that occurred over a month ago. And I have other things to write about, especially our group trip to Naples, Amalfi, Pompei and Capri! We all know this is not gonna be succinct so here comes another gargantuan post.

Day 10, April 9, 2010. After a breakfast of the Coco cereal Pepi had bought especially for us (their whole family is on an extremely severe regulated diet regimen so when the boys saw this cereal they nearly died of desire), little Richard came into the kitchen to shyly ask me if I wanted to play "Hotel." And for the next ten hours that is what we did. Yeah it was a hotel-themed version of Monopoly (which I've never even really played...) so it went on and on and on some more, but it was cute. And what a good sport Alex is, letting his brother revel in the victory of winning and making all the comments he wanted to hear about how badly he was beating everyone. He had won about an hour in but wanted to play until every last one of us had not one piece of property or unit of money. And who were we to stop him. Then Henry took us on a walk through their small charming town. He gave us bright yellow and green caps to wear, haha. We didn't really mind looking like fools. The whole time all we heard was how boring and dull life in Aielo is, and sure, it is a pretty low-key lifestyle, but it was just absolutely lovely. We went into this old warehouse/store and Henry talked to the woman there, who got us free samples of "Kola coca" aka "the original Coca Cola." We don't know if this is actually true but it was still pretty rad. It tasted like slightly alcoholic syrup. Then we wandered down a steep dusty road by an old stone church and down to a stream where little flies were buzzing in our faces and the boys resumed work on their stone "bridge." We helped by handing them rocks. Outside the house it was warm and sunny and we passed a citizen every now and then. We had lunch back at the house with Pepi's parents. Her mother has advanced Alzheimer's, which was so sad to see. I think it's the cruelest disease in the world. But there were moments when I swore she wanted to smile at me. The grandpa seemed really nice and we even communicated a little in Spanish. We had yummy salad, lentils and fruit. I even played piano, and me and Alex played a song together on separate keyboards. Basically throughout the course of our stay there I was granted all the beloved things from my childhood: piano duets, recorders, Spongebob, Roald Dahl, Looney Tunes, chess. I (slash Alex...) played chess with Richard. Then they wanted to play tennis, so off we went to the nearby courts. There weren't nets so we just hit the ball against the wall, alternating rackets frequently and mostly just watching Alex and Richard scrambling to be the first to hit the ball. Richard was kind of dejected by his lack of abilities in comparison with his brother so Alex kindly agreed to play hide and seek. Then a version of sharks and minnows they called "wolf," where one person is the wolf and can't move beyond certain lines while the others try to run past. It was adorable. Back at home I continued reading The Fantastic Mr. Fox and then we watched some more Spongebob and The Simpsons. We were overwhelmed to find that Pepi had brought us back clothes and bags from the store where she works! How unbelievably nice is that? So we tried them on for her. I have a red and white shirt that Henry said "will have the boys chasing you down the street. As usual." haah...sure. And an orange beach bag with butterflies. :) Dinner was pork in a yummy sauce, veggies, and delicious caramel ice cream. Then Henry set us up with the TV and we watched this HORRIFIC Katie Holmes movie. And of course, finished it.

Day 11, April 10, 2010.
WELL. Somewhere between 1 and 9 AM my stomach decided something I had eaten was not ok. To this day I don't know what it was. But whatever it was made me throw up. Won't go into the details for ya but all in all, not one of the more enjoyable experiences of my life. Luckily Camilla and Pepi were amazing and took care of me. In this sense I'm almost glad it happened there and not with my host family in Italy, who wouldn't have been able to do anything really. To have a nurturing mother figure was exactly and all I needed. She gave me warm lemon water and a bicarbonate "clay" drink, but I never really felt myself the whole day. Or even for the next TWO days. Luckily I was still up for going to the beach, after a game of Spanish Trivial Pursuit with the boys. It was a long drive, which I didn't expect, and I felt dangerously ill at one point and the constant curves in the road didn't help. Thank God it passed. On the way we played I-spy and guessing games. We had lunch at this nice restaurant with beautiful views of the ocean. And this is not the first time following a time when I've thrown up and have proceeded to eat a HEFTY amount of food the next day. I had salad, bread dumplings with mushrooms, some of Pepi and Richard's pasta dish, and cinnamon ice cream. We were the only ones there and the food was delicious. Then, the beach. We walked around as a family. The boys climbed on things and we mainly sat and watched. There was a bit of an incident when Alex got stuck on the climbing structure dangling by his legs upside down and it took a while for his parents to realize he was stuck because he just likes attention. But then his face contorted into a cry so Henry went to rescue him. Phew. Then we drove to a different town for another beach and had "tea" at a little snack place. Again, probably not the wisest idea for my stomach, I got the typical thick thick Spanish hot chocolate. SO good. The beach towns were very pretty. On the drive home we told stories and imitated Spongebob characters. Happy to amuse. My stomach kind of hurt again, and dinner was tuna fish which doesn't make my stomach happy under normal circumstances. But I managed to eat some yummy prosciutto, zucchini and tomatoes. And a microscopic amount of ice cream because I can never pass up dessert. The four of us ended up talking until 12:30.

Day 12, April 11, 2010. I woke up with stomach pain AGAIN but luckily it went away. I ate breakfast with Henry helping Alex with his Spanish homework to the left and the grandmother across. Then we went on an expedition to a town called Bocairent with Henry and the boys. The town reminded me of one of the many little Italian towns we've seen. It was pretty but a little too hilly for my liking. Our destination was the caves. The boys were going on about the "caves." Being little boys I assumed the caves were only impressive for little boys, just something they had happened to stumble across one day. Wrong I was. They were serious CAVES alright. If I had known what it would be like, I would have sooner...I've been thinking for about 5 minutes of what I would have sooner done...jumped into a pit of molten hot magma. Whatever, something bad. What baffled me was that there were SO many people waiting in line to go into these things!!! They're these little (keyword, little) holes in the side of a cliff in a valley-like area. Lots of exhausting stairs and long pathways were involved to reach them. Up a final set of metal stairs and you are at the mouth of the first cave. Inside you can stand and it's pretty sweet, ok cool it's a cave yeah alright I can do this. There's a ladder that goes through a hole in the ceiling and I'm like ok yeah that's cool, kind of adventurous, let's do this. I go up the ladder and there's a woman at the top telling me in Spanish (I still understood! woot!) to lean back as if I were sitting and push my legs into the wall and sidle myself up. Done. Next problem. Turned around and realized standing up to my full height would not be possible given the body-cave ratio. For the next eon (yeah I don't know how long it actually was, no more than a half hour) we would be crawling on our hands. and. knees. through tunnels designed by mole people. Ok, ancient Moors. It's where they stored their food. Did I tell you guys I'm claustrophobic and one of my greatest fears is being trapped inside an ancient Moorish cave? Haha well, elevator. Anyways I'm not even kidding, right now, just thinking about it, I start feeling ever-so-slightly panicked. I was NUMB with terror and it took all the will in my power to not just start hyperventilating and screaming and crying and oh God it was bad bad bad. Henry had to pull me and Camilla (mostly me) up by my elbows twice to get us through various connecting body-sized holes. (sidenote: you have to be in top-notch physical form to enter these things and I feel like they should have a SIGN of some sort warning people because if I'm not mistaken, there were many elderly people in line). And every time I got my body through a hole I'd ask "when's the next time we can we stand up?" And then there were lots of people. So you'd just have to calmly sit, waiting, on the bumpy stone floor. Luckily there were openings to the outside. And luckily I'm not afraid of heights so this was somewhat comforting because if worse came to worse I could just fling myself the 40 feet to the ground. My dad, on the other hand, is highly claustrophobic and afraid of heights so this would be his own personal hell. When we got to one particular cave where it seemed that only 3-foot-tall, monkey-ish Alex and Richard could get through the next hole, I decided right then and there that there was no way I was going any further. And GOOD THING because we were running late and there just so happened to be a prehistoric fire escape right there. We got out, I took a deep breath of mountain air and praised Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Peter, Paul, and all the other apostles and kissed the sweet earth. But hey, it was an adventure. I can't say I conquered my fear, but I sure faced it. Back at home we had lunch with the grandparents again. The grandpa (Angel, cool name) asked how the beach was yesterday, and I told him it was very pretty, en espanyol! Then we had to pack up and say goodbye :(. Pepi is one of the kindest most selfless people I've ever met and I'm so lucky to be friends with Camilla. Despite the vomiting and the cold, the vacation was perfect. Henry drove us to the airport and Alex came with us. WE WATCHED LOONEY TUNES IN THE BACK SEAT TOGETHER WITH HEADPHONES. I didn't even get carsick. :) :) :). Loved it. They came with us right up to the check-in line. A plane, two trains, and two buses later, we were back in Firenze.

Yesterday I sent a postcard to Pepi, Henry, Alex and Richard because I want them to know that I'll never forget that last part of our trip. Traveling really is the best part about being here.

Th-th-th-th-th-th that's all folks! For Spain at least.