At 5 o'clock, we met our landlords Palma and Mario for a nice walk around the city. It was nice to practice my Spanish with some locals of course, but mostly it was nice to spend some time with them. We both like them a great deal.
Palma took us around to her old neighborhood. I had walked through it before a number of times, but she was able to point out lots of things that were new to me. One thing was the school where Mario teaches. It was closed and locked for the day today, of course, but he did mention that at some point he would love to show us around inside. I hope we eventually can find a time to do that. He is in charge of maintaining all of the historical science equipment that Palma says is kind of like a mini-museum.
Most of the rest of our walk was highlighted by churches that were "built" by taking over existing mosques and turning them into churches. She was able to explain lots of the differences in materials and architecture that came from parts that the churches preserved and other parts that they either renovated or built over. There is a word for this type of mixed architecture buildings, mudéjar. It was borrowed by the Spanish in medieval times - in arabic the word was mudajjan which means tamed.
After walking for about an hour, we stopped for tea and talked for a while longer. They are often busy with work and the two children that still live at home, and we appreciated the generous gift of their time this afternoon.
After the tea, we headed home and had dinner and now I am watching a live stream of Whitman Women's Tennis - technology is awesome!
