Happy New Year

Well, Maggie and Lucy are back in California now and things are awfully quiet around here.  I've been
 playing music to fill the silence as I catch up on school work and planning classes.  They were here for three weeks--a good, long visit, and just as with my parents' visit in June, it got to feel normal having them here, and so now my big house feels even bigger without them.

Strangely enough...when I saw them through the glass at the airport, I didn't turn and run. ;)

For the first time in five years, I entered the New Year with my sisters.  Unfortunately, Lucy was sick with the flu...and I couldn't even stay home and make her tea because I had to help Angelines and work at the bar.  So we left Lucy on the couch with a bottle of water, my down comforter and Bela and spent New Year's Eve dinner at my sister-in-law's house.

We put the balloons up at the bar again for New Year's.

Dinner was delicious and as always there was too much food.  We ate our twelve grapes with the last twelve seconds of 2013, kissed each other, toasted with cava and then dashed out the door to open the bar again.  Maggie came out for a bit, but without Lu it wasn't much fun and she headed home early (2:30am).  The bar was slammed.  I dare say it was busier than last year!  At one point we ran out of glasses!  A and I had another girl working with us, and the three of us were going non-stop from about 1:30 to 6:00am.  We finally closed up at about 7:30 and headed home to have breakfast before falling, exhausted into bed.  All-in-all it was a pretty good way to usher in 2014. ;)

But the holidays in Spain don't end until Epiphany (Jan. 6), which is when all the kids get their presents from the Magi.  This year San Pancracio didn't do a float for the King's Day parade, but Maggie, Lu and I did go out for just a bit to see the other floats and let Lucy have the full cabalgata experience--read: getting pelted by hard candies flung by enthusiastic children. ;)  We spent the evening at home watching movies, chatting and laughing.  Truth is, I didn't miss dressing up for the parade with that company. :)

In the morning, I dragged Mag and Lu along with me to the bar to give Angelines a King's Day surprise: no need to clean and Christmas decorations all packed away.  They were good sports about sweeping up at least four kilos of sunflower seed shells and packing up deccorations, and Angelines was a happy camper when she woke up. ;)

King's day parade.

I guess it must have been because they knew Maggie and Lucy were such good house guests, but when we came home from cleaning, we discovered that the Magi had left gifts for them!  My mom had also sent a whole suitcase of gifts with the girls that we were ordered NOT to open until Jan. 6th; so we all sat around and opened presents after breakfast.  It actually felt like Christmas. :)

You're probably beginning to see that even though I wasn't "working" for the first week and a half that my sisters were here, I wasn't exactly free to tour around and do things with them.  The bar is a pretty time-consuming business, and poor A just can't do it alone.  We did manage to do a few things that first week, though.  We visited Puente Genil (about 25 min away), which is famous for its Christmas lights.  We headed out after our 5 o'clock coffee and spent the evening wandering around the street and eating roasted chestnuts while admiring the lights--gorgeous!

Snow White's chocolate castle.

I also took them to Estepa to see La ciudad de chocolate at one of the matecado factories.  Estepa is famous for its traditional Christmas sweets--mantecados.  They're difficult to describe...made of flour, sugar, cinnamon, almonds, and lard.  They're delicious.  One of the many factories in town makes a chocolate city each year that's free to visit.  So we bought some treats for Maggie to take her friends in Belgium (she made a four-day visit to Belgique while on the continent), and took a tour of the city.  It was quite impressive.  This year's theme was Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  The whole thing was entirely edible--walnut paving stones, lakes of honey and all the buildings and figures were chocolate.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't very cooperative either so there were several days when we could have gone somewhere and done something...but leaving the warmth of the fireplace to go out in the cold drizzle wasn't anyone's idea of fun.  Actually, some of the best weather we had was when Maggie left for Belgium!  Lucy and I took advantage and headed to Cordoba for the day.  We visited the ruins of Madinat al-Zahara and explored the city center.  We missed entrance to the cathedral by about five minutes, but wandering the stone streets of the judería was fun just the same.

The world's best tapa.

Our tapas that afternoon were some of the best: tortilla española and braised goat cheese served over
smoked salmon with a balsamic sauce.  Wow!  Later in the evening we had another culinary adventure when we decided to stop into a tea house before the horse show (the day's big highlight!) that started at eight.  We ordered tea to share and a chocolate pistachio milkshake.  After taking our order the waitress came back to tell us that they were out of the chocolate pistachio and if we would like to try almond avocado instead.  We looked at each other dubiously and then decided to go for it--it wasn't bad...and that's about all I can say.  It was like drinking sweet guacamole, but it really wasn't bad.

The horse show is the same one that I took my parents to this summer, but I enjoyed it just as much the second time.  Lucy loved it. :)  This time, since it's winter, it was inside and the lighting was better than the outdoor show I saw in June.  It was a great day and lots of fun (as always) to bond with my littlest sister. ;)

Maggie came back on Tuesday and brought Belgium's weather back with her... So we didn't do any more exploring, although we did go out for churros and chocolate for breakfast on Thursday, at her request.

Wine on the upstairs terrace--one of the sunny days we had. :)

For the most part, I think all three of us were just content to be together.  We cooked and cleaned and prepped my classes together.  Maggie made pasties (she works in a pasty restaurant in SLO)--they were fantastic!  I forced her to leave me with dough so I could make more after they left.  And we also made both my mom's truffle and fudge recipes to give to my neighbors over Christmas. And both girls dropped in on my last class Thursday to give the kids some "real" conversation practice.  Lucy also braved my youngest kids' classes--she left with a new appreciation of the children at Portola Pre-school!  And she was the main event at my adult class Monday night, too. ;)  We just enjoyed each other's company and A marvelled at how silly and loud the three of us are when we're together!