THE NANA's AND THE PAPA's.....: August 2011

Someone's sarcophagus?

Christine, Sean, Dani, ?, ?, ?

?, Sean, Dani, Salvador, Christine, ?, ?

Christians victory over the Arabians!

Sean amongst the 'Christians'.

An olive tree.

Hamon. Sean loved it! (And he left some at home in my refrigerator when he moved to BYU.)

Dinner... you name it, it's in there! Shrimp, Lobster, Crab, Oysters, Clams, Squid..... Piya

Sean captaining the sailboat!

'Carting!'

Why do our kids get to do the things that we want to do, and we don't do them? I'm still shaking my head! (I guess part of the answer would be that he worked really hard this summer and saved his money; I did not.)

Sean left on Sunday, July 31, 2011, to travel to Palma de Mallorca to visit our exchange student, Dani Avellaneda Canudos. This trip has been in the planning since Dani left here in June of 2010. His flight over was very ordinary and uneventful, thank goodness! He flew from Columbus, Ohio, through Newark, New Jersey, to Barcelona, Spain, and arrived in Mallorca on Monday, August 1, at 1 pm. (They are 6 hours ahead of us). I am going to try to copy the posts that were emailed to us regarding his trip. That will describe everything the best.

July 12 - Dear Melanie & Lyle,

It is perfect for us. Please get the tickets as soon as possible we are looking forward to seeing Sean here at home.
Best regards, Salvador

July 30 - Dear Melanie,

We are looking forward to meeting Sean next Monday. Here it is my email address in case you want to tell me or ask me something.

We will enjoy every minute I am sure.

My best regards to all your family,

Cristina.

August 1 - Sorry I cannot get service with my phone at all. There are 4 or 5 different carriers here, but I can't connect with any of them. Neither could I access wifi at either of the airports. But I am here safely and we just got done with lunch. I have sent a request on skype to be able to call you. Love you, Sean

August 2 - Well, things the first day were pretty good.. We had lunch at an Italian restaurant, very authentic and very good. Dani and his dad and I met the rest of his family, Christine, Javier, David, Alicia, and Ruben there. I wish I could say I know all of those for sure, but hearing some of them in Spanish is hard to tell sometimes. After lunch we came back to Dani's dads apartment, which is pretty sweet, and I took a nap while Dani went to the doctor. After that we went to dinner at Christine's (they don't all live together) and came home to sleep. Today we went on a tour of the big cathedral that is all over google if you google Palma de Mallorca. Salvador has connections that got us in for free I think, and took us to places that nobody else gets to go to and see things almost no one else gets to see. It was awesome. We got to bypass all the red velvet ropes and go through the places that are being restored that are blocked off to get to different areas. We ended up on top of the whole thing, walking across the top of the roof. There aren't many places in Palma that are higher than where we were. It was an awesome building, and I have lots of pictures. After that we went to a Japanese restaurant, which seemed fairly authentic. After lunch we drove to a place called Pollenca where they had a big festival celebrating the Christians victory over the Arabians. There were tons of people (even more were drunk) crammed into the streets awaiting Joan Mass's call to battle where the Christians (dressed in white) met the Arabians and fake fought. It was quite the experience. Afterwards we went to dinner with Salvador's brother, Javier, in Alcudia, finished at about 12:15, and came home to Palma. That's all so far. We are going to play soccer tomorrow and who know's what else. At some point they've mentioned bullfights, scuba diving, and lots of other things. Everyone is very nice, and David, Christine, and Dani all speak pretty good english. Salvador speaks very little, and the rest speak some.

Love you,
Sean

August 3 - Well today we slept in a little.. We drove a long ways to have lunch at some Nautica club at a marina, which seemed odd to me to drive all that way to have lunch and then drive back.. But then we went to do a little sight seeing in the military property.. I didn't know that Mallorca had the cliffs that it does. It reminded me of the Napoli coast. Then we did a little scuba diving and played a soccer game on a team with Salvador's brothers and some friends. I do believe I more than kept up with them. Glad I'm not some American that sucks at soccer, that could have been embarrassing. But that's all for today. Dad, you would be having a hay day here with your camera I think. And I'm starting to automatically replace words in my mind with the Spanish counterparts that I know. Its weird. And they want to know if I want/can go paragliding with Dani and Salvador's brother. Salvador is kind of warning me against it, but Javi (Dani's uncle) is telling me its more than safe, he does it every week. I told them I better ask you before I say anything.. Hope things are well, things here are more than fine!

Sean

August 5 - I was wondering what is going on in my week the week I'm home.. I know I have to pack, but is there anything else I have to do, cause kids are starting to plan things and I don't know what to tell them as far as what I can/can't do?

August 6 -

Hola,
I forgot to write yesterday. But not a whole lot happened. We woke up late and went to lunch and then went scuba diving. We only had time for one dive. I don't know if it was the best dive I've been on, but it was pretty cool. We saw lots of eels and some cool schools of fish. But Dani is having issues with his ears, so it was only Salvador and I that went scuba diving. He said later that that was the best we've communicated was under the water with the universal language of scuba diving haha. But then we went back home and met up with some of Dani's friends and went out to eat and then walked around the city. Today was really similar, we woke up late (I think it has something to do with the fact that dinner is never finished until after 12) and went to lunch with most of the family at some club along the beach somewhere. Then we drove around and saw some things while on our way to pick up something for Salvador's work. We got back to the house around 6 and got a nap in before heading back to Pollenca for a concert. More of a performance I think, of a Vietnamese lady playing the classical spanish guitar and another lady playing the piano. They were amazing. But once again dinner was afterwards starting around 12. I don't know exactly what this next week brings; I know we are playing soccer on Thursday, we have caves to go see one day, a big castle to see another, and we are going sailing tomorrow.

You guys are in Virginia/Washington D.C. now? How is Tanner? When does dad leave for Utah?

August 10 -

Sorry I haven't emailed in a while.. But Sunday we went sailing for a long time and swam a while, I wish I could have been to Kevin's farewell. But that's all really, it was a lot of fun. Monday we went to see a big castle, but it was closed, so then Dani and I took a train to a town called Soller. It was a long ride, but pretty cool. We had lunch there when Salvador met us. We went to Christine's for dinner. She made the same dish Dani made for us; it was really good. Tuesday we met Salvador's brother and headed for the south western coast I think, to go cave exploring. We had to hike on some cliffs and then eventually made it down to the shore. Then we had to swim out along the cliffs for a while and eventually swim inside this cave. It opened up into a pretty big cavern and the formations inside were awesome! It wasnt as big as the ones we've been in, but the stalactites/stalagmites and other formations were the best I've seen by far. And we had to swim through pools to go further; they were clear and smooth as could be, but freezing. Dani and I found a big cliff to jump off of on the way back. After we got back to Palma we rested for a while and then went 'carting' is what they called it. We got in little race cars and went around a track that they had set up. It was a race, but they also had bumpers to ram into each other. Those little cars went fast too! And they were low to the ground so you could make pretty sharp turns with them too. Then today we went to visit the castle we were going to see on Monday. It wasn't as cool of a tour as the cathedral (they had a lot of stuff blocked off), but it was still fun. Later tonight we played another soccer game, of which I scored three of our four goals and I believe I got the assist for the other one! It was a lot of fun and we won this one 4-2. Now we're just chilling at Dani's with Salvador's brother, Cesar, his girlfriend, Dani and his friend Javi, a girl that is somehow related to Dani, I didn't catch the connection, and Salvador will be back soon.

One of their close relations is the director of the big aquarium in Palma (the biggest in Europe they said? I don't know), so I think we're going to see that tomorrow. Other than that I don't think there's much left to do.. I think we picked the perfect amount of time to be here.

I might have a date on Monday in Columbus, not sure if its going to work out, if I can. And Kyle is having a party on Wednesday night. Just letting you know what I've been hearing and let you know before I get home on Sunday.

Also August 10 - I take that back, I didn't get the assist.

August 13 -

I don't know when I wrote last, but the last few days have been pretty fun. We went scuba diving a few days ago and went to an aquarium. We didn't do too much yesterday and today. We did some walking around today and I got some things.
I was also wondering what the plan was for the young single adults campout on friday was. Any news on that?

See you soon

Sean flew home on Sunday, August 14. He was supposed to arrive in Columbus at 8:30 p.m. that night. He got through Barcelona just fine (Yea!). He got stuck in Newark, New Jersey for a day and a half. Found himself a room for the night, and stood in a standby line on Monday morning trying to get on a 6:20 a.m. flight. He made it, but then midway through his flight to Columbus, they announced that they were going to have to return to NJ because of mechanical problems. He finally did get home by noon on Monday after 40 hours in airports.

HE HAD A FABULOUS TRIP! (He made a great decision between a vehicle to have at school or a trip to the gorgeous resort island of Palma de Mallorca!) Christine has told him that of course he will come back to visit next summer and each summer thereafter, because they are family! They treated him like family. We are grateful to them!