Antequera

This past weekend my grandpa took me to the town of his birth, Antequera, a small town about 45 minutes from where we live, Rincón de la Victoria. He picked me up at about 9 AM, and he drove me to a cafe where we had churros with hot chocolate. After that, we drove for another 30 minutes to Antequera. What I realized was that in Antequera, about 60% of the buildings were convents for nuns. It's actually pretty cool, during Christmas season they sell these pastries called polvorenes and mantecados for money, they're really good, but kind of expensive. So we visited a couple of really pretty churches and convents, bought some polvorones and mantecados, and we went to the downtown area. There, we saw the hospital that my grandpa was born in, the house that my grandpa lived in, and a lot of really nice houses with huge indoor patios. Then we went to a seminary, but not any old seminary, the seminary of the Capuccinos, the men that went out to colonize America. But unfortunately, we only got to see the outside of it, because the chapel visiting hours were over. By that time, it was about 1 PM, so my grandpa realized that we still had time to visit his friend who's in a nursing home in the next town over. So we drove over there, which took us about 20 minutes, and finally we arrived in the beautiful old town. We then walked along the cobblestone streets until we arrived at the surprisingly very modern resting home, where my grandpa's childhood friend was staying. We walked in, and we found his friend in the smoking room, with a small handheld radio clutched to his ear. He was listening to the winning numbers for the lottery. He recognized Pepe right away, and then Pepe introduced me to him.We talked with him for a while, and then he told my grandpa that he had just won the lottery. He was obviously losing it because that's what happens to old people. My grandpa played along with it, asking him what he's been doing with all the money, and the man responded that he had bought himself a red Ferrari from Italy, and today, he bought himself and expensive Cuban cigar. I thought it was kind of sad that he honestly thought that he had won the lottery, but I guess he's happy, so it's okay. So we left the nursing home and drove over to another tiny village, Casabermeja, where we ate the best migas in the world, from my grandpa's friend Frasquito. Migas are the white part of the bread, the soft part, but fried, and served with chorizo, lomo(pork), and a fried egg. Then with our stomachs full, we drove another 45 minutes home. Ah what a day! 

Madrid

This weekend our family took a trip down to Madrid to visit my aunt Mari Carmen and my uncle Pepito's family. My mom, my brothers, and my cousin Lena all took the AVE, or bullet train, down to Madrid. They only took 2.5 hours to get there because they were traveling at 270 km/hour. However, my dad, my aunt Ana, and I rode in the car with all of the luggage, and we took 6 hours to get there. I however, was smart and I brought my iPod to entertain myself for about 5 hours so I wasn't too miserable for the whole ride. But my dad was kind of upset with me because I barely talked to him for the whole ride because I had my headphones in. But after the long six hour ride, we finally arrived at my aunt Mari Carmen's big house in a small town outside of the city of Madrid at about 11:30 PM. I hadn't seen my cousins Santi and Nacho in about two years so it was fun getting to finally spend some time with them again. But we had to get to bed right away that night because both Santi and Nacho had soccer matches the next day.

My cousin Santi (who's 13) woke me up at 8 that next morning to play XBOX 360, while big Nacho kept sleeping, so we got an early start. Santi was excited to show me his new games HALO 3, Call of Duty 4, and FIFA '08. Then, after about an hour of silent videogaming, we heard that everyone else in the house was already awake, and that Mari Carmen had went out and brought churros for everyone, so we woke up Nacho and went downstairs to the kitchen. Then, my little cosin Mateo rang the doorbell, and ran into the kitchen, in full soccer uniform, asking if we wanted to go see his soccer game at noon. That was only in a little while, so we all went back upstairs to get changed. We then went to 7 year old Mateos game, which was pretty exciting actually. Mateo scored the first goal of the game and led his team to a 7-6 victory over the hometown heroes, Cadaquiz. However, Mateo cried after the game, because he felt a lot of pressure on his shoulders, with the whole family being there and all, because they almost lost. But we all congratulated Mateo on his team victory, letting him know how well he did, to try to cheer him up. Then we had to rush home so that Nacho and Santi could eat something and catch their team buses to the field. After Nacho took the bus with his team to his field, I rode in my uncle Chico's car with Natalia's fiancé Oscar and two of Nacho's friends to the field. However, once we got to our seats, we were a bit disappointed because the coach decided to bench Nacho, only because he had been injured for the past two games. Nacho's team was tied with the home team 1-1 after the first 45 minutes, but then they lost 1-3. When we got back home, after the game, we found out from the rest of the family that Santi's team had reigned victorious over the other team 8-0. 

On Sunday, my dad, mom, and brother David drove down to the city of Madrid to go see EL MUSEO DEL PRADO. Once inside, we saw a bunch of masterpieces by painters like Goya and Velazquez. But the cool thing was that outside, there was a huge parade in the streets celebrating immigrants from Latin America. There was a section of the parade for each spanish speaking country in central and South America. We then ate at a small restaurant, and much to our surprise, there was a STARBUCKS and KFC across the street! How sad. Then we got back into our car that we bought off of Pepito, a Volkswagen Passat, and we drove back home. The next day, we had to get up early, pack our stuff and drive back home.

Physical Education

Today was a fun day at school. We started out the day with P.E., which was really intense. The class began by us running around the futbol sala court for 15 minutes straight, by that time I was already sweating. We then brought the mats out to the court, and laid down on them. Our P.E. teacher, Mario, then told us to do 30 sit ups. We did them, and then we had to do leg lifts, which work your abs. After that he told us to lay down and draw big eyes with our feet, or make big circles with our feet, but slowly, so it burns. Push ups were next, and then Mario told us that we were going to repeat the whole process again. So we finished the "warm up", and then it was time to run again, yippee! But the funny thing was was that whenever Mario would turn around or go inside the gym, everyone would stop running and take a short break. Then he'd walk back outside, and everyone would start running again. Finally the P.E. class was over, and my classmates and I, drenched in sweat, walked on to our next class, English.

Breakfast with Grandpa Pepe

This morning I just had one of the best breakfasts of my life with my brother and my grandpa Pepe. He drove by our house and picked us up in his Benz at about 9:30 AM, and he drove us to a part of the Rincón de la Victoria called El Palo, or the stick. There we got out of the car and walked over to a churrería called El Sauce (pronounced el souw-say) and sat down at an empty table. The waiter then came over and asked my grandpa what we were going to order. He ordered nine churros, three for each of us, two thick hot chocolates, for my brother and I to dip our churros in, and a coffee for Pepe to dip his churros in. About five minutes later, the waiter brought the churros and chocolate, and we began the feast. What we did was break off tiny pieces of the churro and dip it into the warm and rich hot chocolate.

Fifteen minutes later, all the churro goodness was gone, and it was time to head home. So we got back into the black Mercedes, Grandpa Pepe floored the pedal, and he drove out of El Palo, and back to our house.

Gotta love the food!

Yesterday, I got to have fried fish by the sea, at a little restaurant right on the beach, which serves the food its fishermen catch, such as squid, red snapper, sardines, and octopus. The food tastes fresh, and they prepare it for you right away.

We started off by getting in the water, where the waves were huge, and then we showered at my uncle's house that's right on the beach. We dried off, changed our bathing suits, and walked down to the chiringuito, or beachside restaurant, to eat some amazing food. After we finished eating, we ordered desserts, such as arroz con leche, or rice pudding, as well as chocolate mousse, and natillas, which are a type of vanilla pudding.

Then we headed down to the beach once more, to get crushed by the massive waves. My brother had to get out of the water, because a huge wave thrashed him, and he went tumbling. He was more scared than hurt, I think.So then my aunt Cristina went to a local confiteria, or bakery, to get these little pastries for us which are delicious. (My dad also cut himself some Spanish sausage called chorizo.)

We then got into the car and drove home to my grandparents' house, where we swam in my grandpa's pool. What a great day!

An Average Day in my Life

Yesterday was a pretty normal day. We started out by getting up, watching some Japanese cartoons dubbed over in spanish, and eating a small roll of bread, toasted to perfection by grandma. After that, we put on our swim trunks and played cards with the cousins on the front porch right next to the pool. Meanwhile, my grandma is making a big lasagna for lunch, which is making the whole house smell delicious. 

Then, our grandma asked us if we wanted to go to to the beach, and since we said no, we put on sunscreen and jumped into our grandpa's pool. After about an hour of swimming, it was finally lunchtime. We feasted on lasagna and salad on the table on the front porch, and right after, we enjoyed some watermelon and cantaloupe. With our stomachs full, we went back into the house to watch some cartoons.

But since we were  feeling so lazy, my dad and I drove down to our uncle's house where their basketball playing cousin was staying, to ask him to go play some basketball at the courts. We drove down to the courts with him and we played basketball for a couple of hours with the guys at the courts, and after some time, more people started to show up, wanting to play. My dad then remembered that we had a play to go to, so we left, dropped off Diego, my cousin's cousin, and went home to shower and get changed. 

The time was now 9 PM, and we walked down to the play. I didn't quite understand all of the play, but I understood a lot of it, and it was pretty funny. It was a bout a rich man who always thought he was sick but he wasn't, with a funny gypsy man who brings him his medicines. But the rich man had a long lost brother that he knew about, and paid an investigator to find him. First, the investigator told the rich man that the gypsy was his brother, but then, about two days later, the investigator said that he was mistaken, and the gypsy was not the rich man's brother, but this old man was, and in came a short, bald, latin speaking old man. It turned out that the investigator was a con-man, and so was the old man. They were working together to get the rich man's money.

We then headed home after a long day, and went to bed.

The Basketball Courts

Today I found out about something really sad. 2 years ago, when we came to Spain, the city had just recently built some brand new basketball courts along with a skate park right next to it. Yesterday, my dad and I dressed up to go play basketball and walked over to go shoot some hoops. What we saw was depressing to my father and confusing to me. Instead of a basketball court and a skate park, all that we saw was a flat area of cement with the pole from the old basketball hoop, and a flat area of dirt covered in trash.

My father, who wanted to investigate what had gone on, walked over to the little cafe right next to the courts. There, he saw an elderly woman drinking some water, and he asked her if she knew anything about the courts. She said that the courts were torn town, maybe a couple of weeks ago, because the people that lived next to the courts, mostly elder couples, complained about the racket that the kids made during their nap time and late at night, when they were trying to sleep. But what they weren't very aware of , was that those basketball courts, and that skate park, are just about the only recreational activities that an adolescent has to do in our small town. So the only things that these kids are stuck with doing, are making graffiti on public parks and walls, and smoking, two horrible things to do. 

So what the people who live around the courts and skate park did, was complain to the city about the racket that the kids were making, and sure enough, the city went and destroyed the basketball courts and the skate park. 

After the woman at the cafe explained to us what had happened, we slowly walked home, thinking about what a bad decision the city made in tearing down the only things a kid had to do in this quiet seaside town.

New York City

I'm going start this post off by saying that I used to hate big cities. But I was proved wrong when my family and our friends all visited the legendary New York City. We took the train from a little town near Southampton to a village named Babylon. From there we took another train to the center of New York City. Then, right in front of the subway station, my parents started to plan our day, such as where we would go first, and where we had to go to get the whole New York City experience.

From the train station we walked to a pizza place called Vita Bella which served us a great Greek Salad and an even better pizza. Once we finished eating we walked to Times Square, where we stared in awe at all of the flashing signs and light-up billboards. My parents then decided that we should go to M&M world and get some candy. We came out with sacks of different blends of M&Ms. I chose the Yankees team colors mix with peanut butter and mini M&Ms on top. 

After that, we walked to the Rockefeller Center, a 70 story high skyscraper, located right next to the famous Radio City. We took an elevator to the top, and my mom snapped plenty of pictures up there. Once we were on the ground again I begged my parents to let me go to the NBA Store. On the way there I saw the MTV building, where there was a huge line to get into TRL. I also saw the NBC building, with the set for Good Morning America in the front of it. Finally, we arrived, at the NBA Store on 5th street.(Pretty much all of the stores are on that street.)I went inside and bought myself a Dwyane Wade shirt. 

My parents then decided that we should take the subway to the Metropolitan Museum, right next to Central Park. That was my least favorite part of the day, having to stand in a subway with tons of other people, and having to rush off to catch the next train, meanwhile, keeping track of my two little brothers. We arrived at the Museum in one piece, and took a thirty minute look at their Egyptian Mummy exhibit, which was really creepy.

Right outside the airport, we got a hot dog and shake from a street vendor, and afterwards we took a bus to the train station, and took the train to Babylon, and then back to Southampton. What a day!