Swimming in the Mediterranean!

The Linguist says that technically we didn't swim in the Mediterranean. Since the day was chilly, most of us did more wading than anything else. The kids, however, did swim -- so swimming it is!

For me, this was one of those surreal moments when things I've just heard about seem to come crashing into my reality, and I wonder whether this can really be happening. I was walking along the beach, looking out over the Mediterranean Sea! The sky was a beautiful blue, coming down to meet the line of dark blue water out in the distance. The mountain rising up ahead was what really took me back. I've spent plenty of time on beaches in Florida, but I've never stood on the beach and gazed at a mountain. I told The Linguist that I need to live on a beach with a mountain...in my castle, of course!

Deep Thinker and The Net really enjoyed shell hunting &
playing in the beautiful water.

Happy smiles all around the beaches...though there were
no sneeches.

Despite the cool wind, the kids loved the beach and begged to go back every other day we spent in Spain! They collected shells and The Net even found what he thought was a shark's egg case. (We later identified it as a stingray egg case.) He also found another shell that was about 1/2 an inch across and about 4 inches long. We learned later (when we saw them alive in the market) that it's a creature called a "knife."

María served us more delicious food -- fideua (not sure if that spelling is correct) -- which is a macaroni dish seasoned with saffron, that has shrimp and chunks of fish in it. Since the shrimp had eyes and antennae still attached it caused quite a stir! Rosa and Deep Thinker had to have their food segregated and ate just the macaroni. We fed the younger kids eggs and nutella bread for their second dinner and put them into bed a little earlier. We ate leftover salad from the night before around 10 p.m. Spain has such a laid-back, take-things-as-they-come feeling. I'm pretty sure I could get used to dinner at 10 and breakfast at 10 the next morning! A little different than our 5 and 5 routine at home.

Fresh shrimp from Fideua trying to escape...not.