Post Rachel: Algeciras and home.

Rachel flew out on Sunday January 2 and after going to the airport with her and saying goodbye I hopped on a bus towards Algeciras. I spent my last week of break there hanging out with my aunt and uncle and cousin and had an awesome time.

Along with Christmas, Spain celebrates Three Kings Day, which is on January 6. It is just as big of a holiday as Christmas and it is a common practice to give gifts for it as well. There are also parades that happen throughout Spain on the night of the 5th. They contain decorated floats with people throwing out handfuls of candy, and at the end, like in a typical Holiday parade in the United States where there is Santa, there are the Three Kings, each on their own float throwing out candy. Me, my aunt, and her mom, and my cousin Daniel went to the parade in Algeciras. We first went and ate some churros for dinner and walked around the center, and then went and watched the parade. Check it out:





I mostly spent my time relaxing with my family, but along with the parade I went to one of my cousin Daniel’s swim lessons. They were at the municipal pool and it was fun watching him do laps. Check out the pictures and the video of him diving at the end of the class. I love the wetsuit and swim cap.

I also watched some football with my uncle. I consider myself to be an avid college football fan, and I follow it very closely, but when it comes to the NFL my uncle might even out do my knowledge of college with his knowledge of players and teams in the NFL. Spanish television actually broadcasts 4 games live every weekend, a 1 o’clock game, a 4:30 game, the Sunday night game, and the Monday night game. With the time difference those games are on at 7 PM, 10:30 PM, 2:30 AM and 2AM respectively here in Spain. With the first round of the playoffs the first game was on at 4:30 that Saturday, or 10:30 Spanish time. My uncle and I stayed up and watched the entire game—the Seahawks upsetting the Saints. My uncle also has DVR so he was planning on DVRing the second game, the Colts and Jets, but when we woke up Sunday morning we found that the DVR didn’t work. That was disappointing because I was planning on watching the recorded second game before I left for Motril later that afternoon.

Overall, my post-Rachel vacation was fantastic and relaxing, but it was coming to a close as I headed back to Motril that Sunday afternoon.

However, I had an unfortunate surprise waiting for me when I arrived in Motril. I walked in the door and was greeted by Michael Lynn who told me Emily was at the hospital with our friends Bern and Pablo. I had talked to Emily earlier that morning and she said she was really sick and was probably running a fever. I told her I had a thermometer in my room so she took her temperature and it was over 102 degrees. She ended up having other problems (“digestive”) along with that high temperature and thought it would be best to go to the hospital. I checked my phone and I actually had a couple of miss calls from Emily’s mom too. Not a good thing to come home to, your good friend in the hospital because she was so sick. I ended up connecting with Bern and talked to him. He said to hold tight because there wasn't much going on at the hospital, and a couple hours later Emily was home. The doctors weren’t too helpful but did prescribe a few medications, and after a couple more days of a high fever and other symptoms she eventually recovered. Not fun though. Luckily ML and I didn’t catch whatever it was, probably just an old fashion flu.

Anyway, I’ll keep this entry short and sweet and post another later this week about my brother Jay’s arrival in Spain.

Until then, happy winter from sunny Spain.