Flamenco!

The following post was written by our Adventure Associate, with only the barest amount of editing for fact checking and legibility. Enjoy!

...

And on our second day at Sevilla, my mom said we were going to a flamenco show but at that moment, I thought I miss placed the G and the C for the flamingo when it was actually a flamenco I miss placed it with flamingo*. And before that we went to the flamenco museum. And it even allowed us to go into the dressing room and see you all of the dresses and earrings that the dancers use.(it was just a fake dressing room.) and they had like screen things that show dances of flamenco dancers. and then we went to story up, and there was little machines that taught us how to twirl, even though it was just a little screen. and then we went into a special room, where there was a wooden box with a crank that had two little wooden feet on it to and then when you put it on his particular rhythm you just turn the crank, and it makes the wooden flamenco shoes dance. then we went back to where we enter the museum and then we got the best seats for the flamenco dancer show. and it was so fun there was even human singers**. I’ve never^ gone to a show with human singers besides my mom’s musicals. and it wasn’t on speaker so unlike LA at my school. and my mom was so nice she bought me my own pair of castanets. They’re like little things that you very gently^^ slap together and make sound they use that in the show so that’s why I wanted to get them. then after the show my mom said hey animal do you want to take a flamenco dance class? And I said yes so today which is 7\4\23 it was amazing  but after my heels got so red from the flamenco shoes because it was my first time, actually wearing high heels, even though they were like half high heels***. I was like flopping around in the shoes, even while I was dancing.(not purposely). and I love the new word called, “ole!” which means like, “wow amazing great good”. and professional flamenco dancers use it while they’re dancing. I think the clothes they are wearing are very very fun. Everybody in the world should hear the word flamenco or, if they are lucky, GO SEE A SHOW!

Love, Animal

*She was actually very disappointed it wasn’t an animal show, but when she realized it was dancing, she was excited again.

**and a guitar player

^not exactly factual but keeping for posterity

^^Animal and I have different definitions of the word “gentle”

***She made an excellent joke about them being “reverse Luboutons” as they were red with black bottoms

See our dance video here!

¡Bienvenidos de Sevilla!

 Hello from Sevilla! After our bus arrived from Faro we were all quite famished - especially our newly-minted adventure associate. We also couldn't check into our apartment until 15:00 so we had enough time to grab a quick lunch at the bus station. We then summoned an Uber (no UberXL option in Sevilla) and met our driver outside the station. There's not a great place for non-Taxis to pick up their fares so we quickly loaded our bags and the stroller and we were off to find our apartment. The old part of Sevilla is filled with churches, squares, and very narrow meandering streets. I recognized our building from pictures online through an alleyway as we drove by on the main road, but the driver's GPS couldn't quite line us up with how to get there so we ended up walking the last hundred meters or so. We have a very nice two bedroom one bathroom apartment with a kitchen and a little living room. We took a quick siesta and that evening we explored a park and the general neighborhood. We had tapas for dinner which Sarah and I enjoyed....Bunny still needs to improve on her adventure-eating. As CEO I'm encouraging her to make that a 2023 KPI. We did do some exploring of a local parque infantil, but it was so hot out that there were no other children to play with and we could only play for a few minutes before coming back for some water.

Sunday morning, we were a little worried that everything would be closed, but it turns out that most restaurants and cafes were open as well as many of the little shops in the old city. We started our day with a standard fare of coffee, chocolate and churros before venturing out on our first Sevilla adventure.

We did an app-based guided tour that Sarah found which took us to many points of interest around the city.

After a siesta we went out to dinner where Bunny decided she might like Paella, but ended up eating grilled chicken. After dinner we went on a paseo in a horse-drawn carriage to see the sights. Our caballo was named Romero. Bunny was very surprised that a carriage with only 1 horsepower could go so fast since there were some parts where we were traveling on regular roads with cars.

This morning I woke up early to go for a run and then we went to the same cafe that we went to yesterday for churros, chocolate and coffee. We then caught the city bus to the Mercado de Triana. When we arrived, many of the stalls were still closed or just getting opened up for the day but we got a lot of little things including some wild boar salami, a cono of jamon iberico, a variety of olives for Sarah, some sliced dragonfruit, some queso sevilla 1972 and a few other things to keep in our kitchen for future meals. At a few of the fruit and vegetable stalls there were some tomatoes that were bigger than anything we've ever seen. After a brief discussion with one of the vendors, we determined that those tomatoes are "Miracles from Sevilla." We'll take their word for it ;-) We finished off our trip to the mercado with some coffee for Sarah and I and a jamaica for the associate.

We then hopped on a different bus back to our apartment and had a small lunch before we take our requisite afternoon siesta. Bunny is very excited to go to the Flamenco museum later today, although she was somewhat disappointed to learn that there's no flamingos dancing. More to come later in the week on that!

Our Algarve Adventure

 The contributors emeriti were kind enough to book a large bus capable of handing all their luggage as well as the standard ShapiroAdventures backpacks for the trip to Algarve. Our driver left us off at the Pine Cliffs Resort where we stayed in the residences. While there, my sister arrived with her husband and baby boy. Bunny had a good time reading some age appropriate literature to DJ and her little cousin.

At the resort, we were able to eat an excessive amount of food while also enjoying the beach and the pool.

 Animal enjoyed playing at the Porto Pirata (kids club). Once a week there is a reptile show at Porto Pirata where you can hold different reptiles. Sarah was very scared of a monitor lizard that seemed quite docile (very atypical for this breed of lizard). Animal got to hold a ratsnake and I supervised Dorian holding an iguana - the first time he's held a reptile.

All in all, it was great to see the contributors emeriti as well as my sister and her family. After our time in Algarve ended we caught a cab to the Faro bus station and hopped on what we thought was a 3.5 hour bus ride to Sevilla, however due to the time change between Portugal and Spain, it turned out to only be a 2.5 hour bus ride! More to come from Sevilla!