Weeks 2-3

I meant to post more frequently in this blog, but I guess we have been busy (or I have been lazy)! We are slowly settling into something of a routine. Last week we did more formal homeschool lessons, but we still took time to be tourists and explorers in our new city. On Monday we went to the beach, at Will's request. Barcelona sits right on the Mediterranean and its beaches are beautiful. We compromised with the kids, who never want to walk anywhere, by walking downhill to the beach and then taking the metro back home after. The walk allowed us to see a number of interesting sights, but it was longer than we expected and we were pretty ready to be there by the time we hit the beach. Because it's February the beach was mostly deserted, which was nice. But of course the ocean was cold, which disappointed Will. I don't know exactly what he was expecting, but he didn't swim for long. Nonetheless, we enjoyed sitting in the sun on the sand and relaxing after our walk. We skipped lunch and were starving by 4:00, so we stopped at the first restaurant that we saw--a burger place. Not authentic Catalan or Spanish food, but we were hungry Americans and it worked very well.

The rest of the week was less adventurous. For one thing, we needed some down time to recover from the beach death march. We took care of some business, including researching and choosing a school for Spanish classes for all four of us. Matt and I went on some walks on our own toward the end to the week and continued to learn more about the city. Thursday evening we tried one of our local Catalan tapes restaurants just a block or so from our apartment. Delicious! It was a tiny little place (by American standards) and the only employees that we saw were the two co-owners. They were working like crazy to serve and cook and the food was fantastic. When we told them we were new to town, they welcomed us very warmly and told us to come by if we ever have questions or need anything. This warmth seems to be representative of the Spanish people we have met, all of whom have been just lovely. We definitely plan to patronize this local business regularly during our months here. And if you come to visit, we will take you there and you can enjoy the local cuisine with us.

This week we started Spanish classes. They are Mondays and Wednesdays. The kids have a private tutor from 10-11:30 and then Matt and I have a class from 11:30-1:30. We found a school with good online reviews only about a 6-minute walk from our apartment, so the kids have no problem walking home on their own after their class. I think they enjoy the independence. We leave them with math assignments to work on during our class, to Spanish+math=homeschool on Mondays and Wednesdays. It's pretty intense, so that's actually a lot of work. We are doing English on Tuesday and Thursdays. Science and social studies get sprinkled in throughout. For example, we went to the Barcelona Museum of Natural History on Sunday, which was a lot of great science. It was also an interesting cultural experience, especially because the boys made friends with a couple of local kids at the playground just outside the museum. They talked together for quite a while before the cold temperature finally drove us home. They arranged to get together at the same time, same place next Sunday, though, which I think is great.

At Barceloneta Beach

Will waiting for his burger after the beach (sorry it's sideways)

Beautiful walk to the metro after the beach

At Natural History Museum

Park where the boys made friends after the museum

Catalan yumminess at our new favorite restaurant