Spain, sisters, and silliness :)

Sorry for my long blogging absense, but I'm going to skip over the holiday's and get right to the good stuff. This last week I was lucky enough to get to visit my wonderful big sister in Spain! From the corny yet appropriate running-to-hug greeting at the airport it was an amazing trip.

My plane flew into Malaga at 23:53 on Tuesday Jan. 5th where I was met by Viola, Mary (Angelines), and Ewan (Viola's friend from England who was also visiting and had flown in a few hours before me). For the whole hour-long car ride to Viola's home in La Roda she and I sat in the backseat and talked nearly non-stop the whole way. We probably would have continued blabbering barely stopping to breathe if I hadn't been left speechless
at the amazingness of her new house! It's like an old school Spanish house, super authentic with lots of color and character, just like Viola! (If you want to see pictures of the house they're posted on her blog: spaincali.blogspot.com) Needless to say it's a perfect fit in my opinion. After the tour we sat on the couch and kept talking until about 3am...little did I know that would be the earliest I would get to bed that week.

The real party started the next day, literally. In Spain the children get their Christmas presents on the 6th of January, the day the wise men visited the baby Jesus. So in what I would call, though I am no expert, typical Spanish fashion, there was a huge celebration! There was a parade and Viola and her friends had built a
float to look like a gingerbread house and were all dressed up in costumes to look like fat chefs :) Unfortunately they didn't have a costume for me or Ewan, so we got to wear ones from years past and participate in the parade. I was a clown and he was an elf!
We walked through the town for nearly three hours throwing candy (or ladling in Viola's case) to everyone in the town, even the old folks were out there scrabbling around getting candy off the ground. It was quite a change from Belgium, first off it was about 10 degrees warmer (in Celsius) there was sunshine, and then just the architectural differences...I loved how all the streets were lined with orange trees and white (or light colored houses) I've gotten really used to the dark red brick houses here which look even darker when the only light in the sky has to filter through a heavy layer of gray clouds. Anyways, back to the parade, as I've said it was great to be there with Viola but it was almost even better to see how much of a life she has there, I swear there isn't a single person who doesn't know her. She even has a fan club! Some of her students (she teaches English) kept popping out of nowhere calling "Be-ola, Be-ola!" only to wave and giggle and disappear into the crowd again.
I know I'm verging on sounding like my mother here, but honestly it warmed my heart to see how happy my "twinnie" is :D That is probably one factor that made my visit even more amazing!

From that night on we didn't get to bed before 4am. Our days were spent hanging out in La Roda with her friends going out to bars or just staying in and playing cards with Ewan and Francisco, her nephew, watching funny videos on youtube, and above all laughing. Apparently we are supposed to laugh for fifteen minutes everyday, though these past few months I definitely haven't been meeting that requirement...when people tell jokes I have to concentrate really hard to understand it all and then I usually end up missing the punch line or not really understanding the Belgian humor, though in Spain I think I definitely got myself caught up :D

Besides laughing our panties off, I had a wonderful time with Opie (Viola). Like I said before, we talked a ton, had loads of fun teasing each other and Ewan..it was definitely some awesome sister bonding time, we even traded some clothes! She gave me a pair of her "fat pants" that are now too loose on her while I gave her one of my "skinny shirts" which is too tight on me-apparently chocolate isn't good for your figure, who knew!? Seeing as Opie is 8 years older than me in the past she has seemed more like a second mom rather than a big sister though after this trip I would certainly say that that is in the past :) I only have one word to describe this change: fantabulistic! :D



Now I really cannot wait until I go back for a second visit in April when Lucy will be there too, two sisters=double the fun!