Hotel Sylvia

The up-side of sabbatical (is there a down-side you ask....well, no, actually, there isn't). The up-side of things generally already "up" is the visit of friends to said sabbatical location. We've been particularly lucky. The year was started off by a visit by my Danish host-brother. He was 11 when I lived with his family (I was 18) and well, he was cute, but also annoying..more than once grabbing the lunch I'd prepared off my plate! I know, not a real offense, but I was 18 and everything is annoying at that age. I really didn't know him and when I saw him again in 1998, he was busy and we still didn't meet as adults. But here he was arriving to Sevilla, a full-grown man, interesting and fun and a Danish designer to boot. We had a wonderful time. After Jorn (cross that o with a null sign for correctness), we had Laura and Pachi our Spanish friends, followed by Gene and Janis (almost Trianeros themselves) and also a couple of nice evenings with the infamous, fearless herpetologist Norm Scott and his wife, Joan.

Christmas brought the much-awaited Lynn, Jason and Ross and well, we've already talked about how GREAT that was (also how much I paid for it in liver and thigh size, but no money to eat in Paris solved that).

Now that the new year has turned, we've gotten to see Lynn Loveless, a biologist friend of Don's for the past 30 years. With Lynn we got to explore Italica, the Roman ruins right outside of Sevilla where Hadrian and Trajan were born... one of the largest amphitheaters still around--think 25,000 seats and lion dens below and Cordoba, with the best kept mosque from 1000ad times, hundred of red and white brick arches with a bonafide Catholic church plunked into the middle where I kept thinking, "man, this would be a great place for a yoga class."

We now await the arrival of Leif and Kirsten, my Danish host-parents, on Tuesday...to be followed shortly thereafter by, Mor Mor and Bio (my parents) and then Laura again, and then Jacob (18 year old filmmaker son of my friend Ruth) and then Jessica, coming under the auspices of 'graduate student doing field work with Don'...but really, I'm more looking forward to great company & conversation, and then John and Carola for a quick night of tapas, flamenco and who knows what else?, and then Stephanie & Alessandra down from Paris for their both birthday weekends and then (HOPEFULLY) Fabio from Italy and then quite possibly Marc and Noah from Boston.

Sound crazy to you? Not at all to me. I feel only lucky. Lucky because all of these people bring energy and life and wisdom and laughter and on top of it all, they know me. So, when I disappear for a time-alone-nap, no one bats an eye. They go off and entertain themselves, come back with interesting wines to drink, cheeses to nibble, wait for me to wake up and get out into the Spanish night.

I ain't complaining 'bout nothing, as the Don would say, and hey, there are still some weekends unbooked, so if you've got a frequent flyer ticket, here's the address. Rodrigo de Triana 87. Clean beds are waiting and there's a pretty damn good cook in the kitchen.