Avila was fairly quiet and easy to navigate. The only question was where to park the van. Most of the streets were one way with no parking on the street. We stopped the van off to the side to unload our luggage and instead of going around us, lots of people started getting angry. I explained our predicament and the man right behind us showed us how to get to the "parking plaza" at the church across the street. It was hard to get it parked, but it was probably the best parking spot for the van. I was grateful for a man that was willing to talk and help instead of yell and honk. This Airbnb had the most amount of stairs... but the kids all loved having their own beds and I loved that we could wash laundry. Madrid had a very tiny washing machine (none of them have dryers). This one was much bigger and we almost got caught up on washing our laundry even if they had to be spread out over the back of the car while we were traveling to dry. Jer tried using the espresso machine to make hot chocolate, both him and Ada tried a couple of times but just couldn't get anything more than watery chocolate.
Avila was on our list mainly because Seth wanted to see a castle. I'm glad we went though. It was fascinating and I loved the sleepy village feel to the area. It has a complete medieval castle wall all the way around the old village. We got there, climbed the wall and I had Robin Hood and Maid Marrion dancing through my head. Evelyn was acting like she was melting. I figured it was mostly jet lag. She doesn't do well on little sleep. Turns out that she had brought a virus with us. She had a sore throat and a fever that we then passed around during our trip. Seth and Sam got it next, then Ada and I got it the last week. Jer got it this week at home. I tried to help her enjoy herself even if she was feeling off. We climbed some towers, but mostly she helped me take pictures of flowers and watch the stray cats egging each other on the cathedral roof. Everyone else climbed every tower they possibly could. Because it was Holy Week and Spain is mostly Catholic, there were street vendors selling palm branches woven into different patterns.
Next we explored some shops and the cathedral. It was neat to see the "floats" that they carry through the street during the week out in the cathedral getting cleaned and organized. Then as we were leaving to get some dinner we noticed a small crowd and joined them. They were having a procession. I started chatting with one of the women locals and she told me that Holy week, they always use purple robes and that the students from all the local schools are the ones that do the processions. They walk and take breaks whenever they feel like it, so a street can take a very long time. We saw them shuffle carrying a float with Christ on a cross and it took about a half hour to make it down the street. Then we heard a band coming. Sam was ecstatic. He went all the way to the beginning of the street and told me exactly which instruments they were playing and even hummed the song all the way home. The wind had started by then. This was the only really cold place that we stayed. We stopped by a little empty cafe to grab some sandwiches for dinner and ended up with pudding hot cocoa, some really yummy burgers and I had a bean soup with chorizo which is popular in the area.
On our way out of town the next morning, Jer spotted this amazing overlook. It's got a great view of the wall and I didn't realize just how big it was. We took the car drive to talk about differences and similarities of our religions and why we believe in personal revelation. Then we were able to listen to the first session of General Conference on our drive to Coimbra.
