I had a hard time sleeping last night after both Luciana and Liesl sneaked down and got into bed with us about an hour after going to bed. They came down sometime between one thirty and two in the morning. By a little before six I gave up on getting any additional sleep and just got up and went up to the kitchen and did some work for a few hours in the morning. Then around ten or so I switched to Tropico 4 and played for a few hours, which was nice and relaxing. I made really good progress today on my campaigns.
I had a tough day with there being some major construction work going on in the plaza. There is heavy equipment out there ripping up the plaza. Looks like they are going to be doing something really fancy there but it is unlikely that there will be anything but construction until we have long since left here given the scale of what they are doing. It started yesterday or the day before but today it really took off and was so loud.
The girls’ friends came by today. We heard them calling out in the street. “Ciana. Liesl. Can you come out?” It was so cute. We are really excited that the girls have made friends and are able to go out and do things. This is really something.
The girls started by going out to the plaza to see the construction that is going on. Then they told us that they were going to the playground. So we let them go. It is going to take a lot of getting used to having them just out and about on their own.
At one point I went to check on them but could not find them. So I did some wandering around town but eventually found them coming back up to the playground. They said that they had gone to someone’s house for a bit.
A while later Ciana was brought back to the house by an adult! This was surprising. Dominica went with her to see what was going on. It turns out that the group of kids had gone to the “Casa de Pueblo” which is roughly the community center. It is near the playground and in the same “complex” so I am sure that the kids that they were with thought nothing of going there but we were not familiar with this place and would not have known where to look for them kids. Dominica found Liesl in English and computing classes that the other kids were taking. Liesl was a bit upset because she did not want to go there but hadn’t known what to do and she did not know that Ciana had asked to go home and what had happened to her.
So it was quite an adventure for our girls today and a big learning experience. This all started so quickly that we have not had much time to work with them as to what to do and what to say and how to handle themselves.
Rachel and Shawn walked down to Órgiva today which is quite a long walk. It is many miles but, more importantly, it is a massive change in altitude. Going down is not so bad but returning is rather a crazy walk.
After they returned and I was done with work we went to the Meson for drinks. We got there early enough that we were able to get tapas since the kitchen was still open. The guys that we have gotten to know from around town were there – the same group that Ryan and I met on our first night at the Meson several weeks ago.
We ended up buying a round of drinks for the guys. Then they bought a few rounds for us. One of them ended up joining us at the table to discuss English rock and roll. Everyone in La Alpujarra just assumes that we are British as there are absolutely no Americans here whatsoever. I do not believe that we have met or heard of another American visiting the area yet since we have been here. Even in Granada we really did not see Americans.
After the bar closed down the guys invited us back to one of their houses to show us the awesome view. Everyone kept raving about how nice the view was from his house. So we checked out his one house, which had an amazing terrace. Then they all took us down to a lower house where he actually lives and showed us that one.
We ended up hanging out there until about four in the morning. Had a good time getting to know the local crowd. We are much more a part of the village than we were before.