El Campo... even better than we expected

Dear Friends,

As many of you know Elizabeth and I have been eagerly waiting to visit "el campo" with our señor and the rest of our spanish family... little did we know what the day would hold!

The events of the day are as follows:

 30 minute drive to el campo with Mateo, their son, who it turns out speaks english! Oh my! We had no idea!  However, he chooses to still speak spanish with us because he isn't great at english.  

Tour of the very old house which was handed down to Manolo and his siblings from their parents... a little creepy with lots of catholic church symbols and artifacts.. but still very gorgeous.

Tour of the land which included helping manolo cut the horse food/ grass stuff with a machete, seeing all the gardens, watching them wash the horses, feeding and "riding" the horses, etc

sidenote: a little story for your enjoyment... 

Manolo asked us if we wanted to get on one of their horses... bareback.  Due to some intestinal issues elizabeth graciously declined.  I however, not wanting to miss an opportunity for fun, agreed even though I was wearing a dress.  I managed to lunge onto the horse with Mateo's help without flashing anyone and still maintaining my dignity.  Unfortunately I hadn't been told that this was the most skittish horse in the world.  after several pictures but before I could prepare myself... the horse freaked out from the flies, reared up, fell over and threw me off.  Thankfully there were no serious injuries.

Lunch with the Family and then siesta for about two hours.

Cherry picking in the fields with Manolo! (We have the best picture of us with Manolo and the cherry trees...he is in the middle of eating a cherry with his mouth open in a perfect circle. It is priceless!)

FYI: By this point in the day, I had broken out into hives everywhere! Apparently I'm allergic to only foreign horses, because I didn't break out when I rode them in colorado.  My eyes were swollen and I had rashes all over my legs and face..i was a mess! 

Lastly, we drove home with Mateo, ate dinner, then did homework and went to bed. 

We have a full week of school this week....it's going to be a long week.  We're getting tapas with one of our Spanish friends tomorrow and maybe going to the creperia (for crepes) later this week.  big news... We put new sheets on our beds today! haha it's funny though because they dont have dryers here so the laundry is just a bit crunchy!  Its ok though because we're so thankful that our senora does our laundry:)

I think that's about it for now.  We're going to Seville and Cordoba this weekend with our AIFS group! 

Adios amigos,

Janelle and Elizabeth