Trip to the Park

Yesterday, on Sunday I went to the park with Carmen, the 24-year old girl who lives next to me, her boyfriend, and the kids.  It was really wonderful to be around people my age!!!  Although communication is a litle difficult because I only understand about 20% of what is being said!!  The Spanish here is pretty different & spoken very fast, so it will take a few days for me to get more accustomed to it.  Carmen and her boyfriend are so nice, fun, and bubbly.  I really enjoyed our little adventure together!

It was so lovely to get out and see a little bit of Ecija because I still have not been downtown, so this was the first time I was really saw any of the city.  The park was nice, although there is not a whole lot of equipment for the children to play on.  However, the parks here do have exercise equipment, which was so interesting to me & such a good idea!

Beside the park was a river.  Carmen's boyfriend said that when his grandparents were young it was clean enough to swim in, but now it's too polluted.  This is Carmen, her boyfriend, & the kids.  Her boyfriend broke a bone in his hand playing soccer!

Here are just some pictures that I took on our walk to & from the park of pretty scenery...

I thought at first these were orange trees, but they have seeds that look like squash seeds.  Maria, my host mom, told me that they are orange trees that bear sour fruit and so most of the people do not eat them.  But they are beautiful nonetheless!

Church Bell