>first of all, to July and Bardo…muchas gracias forsending me an actual piece of paper mail. I got ittoday. what a lovely surprise. and so much appreciated. it is hot water boiling hot here today. i was taking a siesta after lunch, but Selene had a screaming fit about something ridiculous. luckily, her brother washere to reason with her so I did not have to listen toher fight with her mother for an hour. God save me if I ever had a kid like that. today, when I walked out of my house, a house painterworking on the house across the street made some comment, so I said, ‘Hola’ and as I went down the street, he shouted after me, ‘beautiful!’. that was worth leaving the house for. it’s much more customary here to tolerate that rather than get upset about it. i’ll take the compliment. he was supermodel cute too,so that helps. today, i learned that the Sra. does our laundry as part of the deal. hmmmmm. that kind of freaks me out. but i guess i have to do it. she probably does not want random people messing with her Hoover washing machine. Megan, the fourth student in the house, is back from vacation with her parents. They have moved on to Portugal, and she appears to be happy. It is her first vacation with her Dad in ten years, and it is involving the first with her step mother ever which I think has been hard for her. We talked for a longtime last night, and I assured her that those kinks work themselves out if everyone can find the adult inside themselves and digest every change slowly and deliberately. Last night was the last night of the Freakin’ Feria de Abril as I came to call it, not so much with love. It brought way too many people (millions) into my neighborhood. Some of them not so nice. Anyway, at midnight, they extinguished the lights that decorated the whole park and did a 30 minute fireworks show. As there had been other people staying in Megan’s roomwhile she was gone, I thought that they had moved herbeds around. I thought I heard her moving around furniture around and went upstairs to see if she needed help. Turns out, through my earplugs, the gargantuan FIREWORKS only SOUNDED like furniture being moved. She was dead asleep and it sounded as if WorldWar XII was going on. I tried to see the show fromour upstairs terraza but I could not. So I went back to bed. I need my bottle of water I left at the film place. Bought a bus pass today so I can flit all over town without having to pay every time. Works well for me. No fumbling for change, and you save a lot of money. Did I mention that I ate an octopus in Cadiz. Not a whole one, but it surely was tasty. Did I mention that if you call me on your lunch break, it will be 7pm here in Sevilla? Did I mention that AT&T has some great international calling plan where you pay $2.95 a month and it onlycosts .14 cents to call Spain? Did I mention that I may go to Morocco May 10-12 if I feel comfortable paying the $180 it costs? AFRICA. just like I have always wanted to see. with guides who know what they are doing.