Jenny visits and more

 We had a Monday night dinner at Casapuerta.  Phil hadn't been yet this season. We split the salad. Phil had the tuna tartar and steak tartar. I had the salmorejo and carpaccio. For desserts I had the tartar de queso and he had tarta de turrón.  We had a neighboring table of Scots who had come to town to golf (and drink!). Food was good, and service from Blanca (our favorite) excellent as usual.

So Jenny arrived Wednesday around 1:20 from Paris, where she had a long long weekend... 

We pretty much left right away for lunch, as being late risers, we had not eaten yet. We just went around the corner to Terraviva. It isn't a great restaurant but it is decent and they have a prix fixe lunch menu of three courses for 14 Euros. And, since it serves a lot of office workers in the area - it's quick. Choosing that we could get Jenny some time to spend the afternoon exploring the city. 

Exiting the restaurant, I thought I saw Superman getting into the back of a truck in Plaza Nueva but it was just a guy wearing Superman colors. 🤣🤣🤣

Then later we went to Brunilda for dinner, and then to MITO for gelato.

The next day, Jenny went to the Cathedral and to explore the city. After lunch she met us for coffee at Santagloria. Then we stopped at the "fancy Chinese store" before heading home. For dinner we had planned to go to Dos de Mayo but the weather didn't really cooperate so we switched that to Saturday lunch-ish after Jenny gets back from the Alcazar & Gardens. Tonight we went to Manolo Mayo where we tried a number of new dishes. We had the piononos, the fabada style dish called Alubias con Campagno, the foie gras,  the red shrimp from Huelva, and the jamon Iberico bellota. The only repeat dish was the arroz seco Iberico.  We had a bottle of cava. To round out the meal we decided that ice cream would be plenty! So we went to MITO (for a change - NOT... 

More to follow - Frank is coming to town today for a week.  He is sort of like a pen pal as we have only written each other via FB. Never met him in person - although Jenny knows him but tonight we are having dinner at Aztoea with Jenny and Frank. So that should be fun... he's a traveler and a foodie and a wino- so a few things in common. But the dinner will be in a further post as this one has enough food already LOL.

visits continue

We had a short visit with our "cousin", who was in from Madrid to play a couple of concerts at a swing music festival in Sevilla. Shared some tapas and a bottle of wine. I shared the food in another post but I didn't want these two cute boys to get lost in the food forest

Yesterday David & Lori asked me a question. Who do you socialize with here as an expat? I just laughed. My answer was: we socialize with our friends from the US. Being an expat herself Lori immediately understood.  I have a calendar just for visitors. Since I took the photos that make up this collage of our visitors I have added at least one more for the big empty space of the largest square. I remember when our friends Al Horrigan and Carol Howes bought a second home around the corner to house the steady stream of visitors they always had. We won't be doing that because Carol was cooking for all her guests (I don't) and she was acting as a tour guide (here you get a book about Sevilla and some recommendations for the "don't miss" sights.) Oh and we make dinner reservations. So we only offer a bed and bath  basically. Keeps me (the introvert in the family) sane while I get the fun of seeing friends and my extrovert husband gets all the company he craves. We see folks from the expat community here too. The culture in Spain is focused on family and our original immersion teachers warned us not to expect to be invited into someone's home or to invite them to yours. If you become friendly with someone who is truly local (as opposed to a transplanted Spaniard) you will see them at coffee or for a drink and tapa. (BTW that is something we see all the time; groups of friends out for drinks with a few bites of food along the way.) But as you can see from the calendar - we don't lack company 

Some of the days are cut off - and we still haven't gotten confirms from Angela & Lee or John & Stephanie (only tentative dates) but as you can see we are busy- We leave the 4th of May and Oscar is with us until May 3rd... so it will be a quick "get out of Dodge" style getaway. 

But back to the present, We had a fun (if fast) visit from Christian Pérez Yates. He was in town for a couple of gigs at a nearby music festival. We were able to snag him between rehearsals and performance to grab something to eat. We tried a place I always wanted to check out. Catalina, El Bar.  We had a selection of tapas, as the timing was in between lunch and dinner hours. We will see each other again soon when we head to Madrid in December with Lee Cherney for a visit with Christian, Megan Cytron and possibly their son Oscar. 

consulting on the wine- 

Dinner that night was at our favorite sushi place. We were pretty stuffed from "merienda" with Christian so I was happy to let Phil take the lead in consuming the "extra" pieces.

On the walk home from "snacks" with Christian we went by the windows on the big toy store on San Pablo.  They have been covered over as they reset the display for the Christmas reveal. And here is the first. (More windows in progress)  What I really found interesting is that the standard infant dolls look really tired (circled in blue -100€!) But for less money you can get a grumpy baby (circled in green - 95€) or for a premium you can get a happy baby (circled in red - 130€). Trust me. Spend the extra € and get the happy baby. It's Christmas 🎄🎁🎄LOL

Then on Sunday night we wrapped up the weekend with dinner at Brunilda.... After rescheduling from a week ago, we made it to Brunilda tonight. A few changes on the menu but we had some of the old favorites too. We finally had an evening where we could order postres and we both liked our choices. Mine was tarta de queso and Phil's was chocolate migas. I think my favorites dishes continue to be the risotto con setas and the salmon in a Thai chili glaze.

Next up Jenny arrives Wednesday - after we have a Tuesday adventure  with a trip to Costco!