La Velá de Triana

Laura went on an extended field trip to Costco (yes, there's a Costco here, the only one in Spain). It's about 7km from here, so she got there via a combination of walking and using the bike share. She didn't get much, but she was able to verify that our US membership works here in Spain. She also noted a few items that are hard to find around our flat like bagels, chocolate chips (for cookies) etc.

I stayed home. I had already been out for my run and was more interested in a relaxing day on the couch, haha. I did actually get some groceries in for us to tide us over Sunday when all the stores are closed. I used the bike share to get to our go to market, Mercadona, which is about 1 km from the flat. I also did some of the weekly cleaning of the flat, vacuuming, toilet etc.

Laura made some refried beans out of pinto beans yesterday. (Refried beans are another thing that you can't find easily here.) I had bean burritos for lunch (tortillas are easy to find) and they were pretty good. With the rest of the pinto beans, Laura made chili. We had that for dinner and it too was very good.

Laura and I went back to the Mercadona this evening to pick up a couple of things. On the way home we saw this fancy horse and carriage:

You do tend to see these a lot on the Sevilla side, but not too often on the Triana side. Also, not this fancy. We noticed that there was a wedding going on a couple of blocks down the street and surmised that this carriage was heading to that event.

The official start of La Velá de Triana was at midnight. Laura and I just went out to see the bridge lighting. It's really busy out there, lot's of people. Pictures are still uploading and I'm going to bed. Will post pictures tomorrow.

Ya Gotta Regatta

Mario brought us a desk to put into the other bedroom. It's a beautiful converted sewing maching table. I really appreciate having it. I like the physical isolation in the other room while I work. It makes me more productive:

I walked with Laura to her language class this afternoon. On the way home I was determined to pay attention to some of the smaller details that perhaps I've been ignoring in the vast sea of newness. An example of one such detail is the sundial way up high on this building:

Here's a closer view:

The shadow was basically correct up to daylight savings time. Of course, being tucked up under the eave like that is probably less than ideal for a sundial, haha.

Preparations continue for la Velá de Triana (as I have learned is this event's official name). This is some kind of stage:

The first event was a regatta on the river. Rowing teams compete with each other using the same pair of boats adorned with LED lights. They do 3 lengths of a course. The best part is when they do sharp turns around buoys at the end of each length:

I did a time lapse of a couple of lengths of another race:

Here's a video of one team making a turn:

In a later race, we watched one poor team miss the buoy and spend an inordinate amount of time trying to go back around.

Things are still hopping out there. We just heard the marching band go by and the main street here is quite crowded this evening.

Immigration Office and Amazon is everywhere.

We successfully completed the next step of our year-long Spanish visa process. We presented ourselves at the immigration office and completed our application for a Spanish national ID card. There was a bit of a line when we got there, but the single person working at the office was kind and efficient and our 3 o'clock appointment was done around 3:30pm. We even got fingerprinted. The last step in the process is to pick up our ID cards. We go back to the same office on August 27th to pick up the cards. Then, the visa process that we started way back in January will be complete. Whew!

If you have Amazon prime in the US, free shipping to Spain is not a thing. However, if you login to amazon.es, the Spanish version of Amazon, they have their own prime thing. Just to see how it worked, I signed up for a free month of prime for the Spanish site. I ordered a little tripod for my cellphone so I can take better pictures at night. I ordered it on Tuesday afternoon and the UPS guy dropped it off today, free shipping.  This packaging should look familiar:

 This evening, after Laura got back from her language class and had her dinner, we went down onto the street to try a classic spanish dessert, chocolate & churros:

 The churro was hot, so was the chocolate. Pretty tasty:

 In case you were wondering, this is what a Spanish mailbox looks like:

 Decided to take a few night shots with the cellphone on long exposure using the new tripod. Here's our bridge (the best bridge day or night):

 Here's part of Triana along the river:

 I'm looking forward to getting some low light shots of the fair that is supposed to begin on Saturday.

Vinyl in Sevilla

Preparations continue for the festival next week. Today workers were decorating the bridge:

The green and white paper balls are carefully put around incandescent bulbs:

I walked with Laura to her language class today. We got there early and wandered around the neighborhood. We found a store with actual vinyl records:

I guess if there are gonna be 500 year old cathedrals across the street you don't want to abandon vinyl too quickly. We also found a tea store that definitely has whatever tea you're looking for:

Here's the front of the building that contains Laura's language school for future reference:

I met her here 3.5 hrs later after class and we went out to dinner.

The bridge decorators made good progress:

We went out again for a walk this evening. We saw a store with fancy Cons for kids in the window:

and for adults:

Had another good math day. Hopefully one of many this year.

The Parrots of Sevilla

I went out for a run along the river this morning. On a whim, at my usual turn around point, I just kept going along the path until the "river" ended at it's northern end (I'm now calling the body of water near our house "the river" even though it's technically a spur of the actual river the runs to our west. So I ran to the end of the spur. My plan was to find a bike share station near there and just ride home. Before doing that I encountered a flock of parrots:

Also at the end of the river is a large park. In the park is a massive sculpture called the Huevo de Colón:

It's probably around 150ft tall.

After this, I found a bike station and rode home along the river. I had a good day with math. Met most of my goals. The one that I didn't get to was replaced with another activity, so no net loss.

It's back to being seasonably warm which today meant 96 degrees. As a Walla Walla veteran, no big deal. This evening I took the trash out. Things really get hopping around our neighborhood in the late evening. All the cafes were full. I walked out onto the bridge for a bit. I also took a picture of a building at the foot of the bridge that just got a new paint job. It looks pretty good: