May 27, 2025
Our first full day in Seville started with a super slow morning. The kids enjoyed watching Grizzy and the Lemmings while Kyle and I had coffee and read on our patio.
We let the kids pick out any cereal they wanted at the store yesterday, and they selected Cookie Crisp. We showed them a few of the old Cookie Crisp commercials this morning and they loved them and kept asking to see more. They yelled “Coooooooookie Crisp” throughout the day, too. Salami slices were also a market selection.
After a restorative morning for everyone, we eventually had a homeschool session. Ollie wrote a birthday letter to his cousin Margaux who turned 18 today! Even though we haven’t done a proper homeschool session in a bit, Len remembered all of his words and was starting to feel quite cocky, “this is soooo easy.”
Eventually, we hit the streets in the early afternoon to explore and find a playground. En route to the park, a woman stopped us on the streets. “Excuse me, were you in Zimbabwe a few weeks ago? I remember the little boys from the airport!” The Victoria Falls airport security line was a low point for us, so my face must have shown how embarrassed I was. But Christina laughed it off saying we were all at our worst during the hours long Vic Falls security line. Another reminder how small the world can be at times!
We picked up convenience store ice pops to cool off after our 15 minute walk (it had reached ~97F at this point). The boys were stoked to discover a Spanish ice pop that was really 5 in 1– a small bag filled with 5 mini ice pops of different flavors.
The city has fabric sunshades covering some alleyways and many of the restaurants have water misters installed at the ends of their awnings. The boys raced along the streets from mister to mister trying to stay cool; their running effort likely cancelling out all of the temperature relief gained from the misters.
We found a small playground but it was fully in the sun and had metal beams that were terribly hot. Instead, we played a few games of Uno in the shade. While playing, Len kept running back and forth to the park fountain where he would full up his hat with water and dump it on his head, “This is so cool you have to try it!”
Kyle then had a rugby catching contest where he would toss the boys the ball from progressively further distances. Both boys far exceeded our expectations and Ollie has learned to catch with just his hands without help from his body.
When we were ready to head home, Len grabbed my hand and said, “Lets go mon ami!!!” and we walked back to our apartment and some air conditioning.
We’re hoping to inverse the order of our days here going forward– wake up, breakfast, explore Seville in the morning hours before peak temperature is reached, then back to the apartment for lunch and homeschool. The later nights will likely make this tough, though.
Back at the apartment, Kyle took the boys to the rooftop pool while I walked to the market to pick up ingredients for dinner. He said they could see tourist groups at the top of the Giralda waving to them and the boys had fun waving back at everyone. We had a quick taco dinner complete with the boys’ favorite red cabbage slaw (“just like in America!!”) before then heading down to our gelato spot for dessert by ~9:30pm.
