Maria's Birthday and a Sevilla futbol game

I guess it's no secret by now that Maria is my favorite Spanish sibling. Not only is she the one person Colleen and I turn to when we have a spanish question, she's also just one of the most generous 10 year olds I've ever met (well, at least she is to us). She'll always offer us more food at dinner and often times will come into our room offering us chocolate. One time she even came in just to give us the last chips ahoy cookie. And on top of all of that she is constantly keeping a watchful eye over Carmen and gets her to leave our room when she's starting to act out. Anyways, I was pretty excited to celebrate her birthday with her this past Tuesday.

When she got home from school, Colleen and I both greeted her with a FELIZ CUMPLE! We then lentils for lunch--Maria's choice. Pilar let Maria blow out her candles and eat her cake at lunch. After singing we all dug into the delicious cake Pilar had made. It was a bunch of cookies stacked up with dulce de leche and cream in between. After lunch Maria showed us some of the presents her parents had given her. Her mom gave her a few new shirts and a new pair of shirts while her dad gave her some new colored pencils. Like I said with Luis's birthday, I don't think birthdays are a very big thing here...or at least not in this house. Maria then gave us each a goodie bag that she had given to the kids at school for her birthday.

Maria with her cake at lunch

For dinner, Maria chose to have baked onions and baked potatoes...neither of which we'd ever had here but apparently its her favorite. Luis walked Colleen and I through how to eat a baked potato (even though we explained we had them in the US). Here they only use butter, salt and oil...no sour cream. After dinner Maria wanted everyone to sing to her again before eating cake since her dad wasn't home at lunch. I'm not exactly sure what reason he gave, but papa Luis refused to come sing and told Maria to hurry up and eat. She looked disappointed, and I must admit my heart broke for her a little bit. After she finished eating, Colleen and I took her to our room to give her her present.

We had thought long and hard about what to give her. For Luis skittles was an easy solution, but since then our siblings have gotten so many skittles (from both Colleen’s mom in a package and HUGE bags from my parents when they visited). So after shopping around the 7 story Corte Ingles, we finally decided on a beaded jewelry making kit. Maria said it was her favorite present she had gotten (although I don’t think we had much competition) and insisted on making us each a bracelet. 

Her present

Matching sister bracelets!

On Thursday, Colleen and I both took advantage of one of the last opportunities we were going to have to see a Sevilla futbol game. We ended up winning 3-0, but the game itself wasn’t nearly entertaining as the crowd. The fans sang out songs the entire game that left us wishing we had asked Luis to teach us some before we went.

From our seats after the game

On the lower level

Colleen has gone off to Madrid for the weekend to meet up with her Mom which means I’ll have the whole family to myself this weekend and this week. Already things are very different. Carmen spent most of the night yesterday playing Sudoku (aka pressing buttons) on my itouch. Then at dinner, Pilar played the Killers and said she really liked them. Who knew. Then she put on flamenco music and tried to get Carmen and Maria to teach me the basic steps for Feria. Slightly awkward to say the least. Today I’ve played school with Maria and Carmen (I was Carmen’s mom) and then made bracelets with them. Looks like I won’t be getting my papers done this weekend, but at least I’ll be entertained!