Tapa heaven, Santa Semana & RAIN on our parades!

Tapa heaven, Santa Semana & RAIN on our parades! We finally got to sit down at a sidewalk tapa restaurant a few days ago (well, I did.  Joe did laps with a sleeping Theo in the carrier).  The tapas were rich and wonderful.  What a great culture!  Here's what I had: bacon wrapped dates drizzled in honey (I'm a big fan of salty & sweet together and this was similar in taste to bacon that just happens to get with syrup on your pancake plate), fried eggplant with Brie also drizzled with honey topped with walnuts, leeks au gratin (served on a plate so hot the cheese was crispy on the sides), slightly spicy peppers served warm with sea salt, and a chilled tomato soup.  YUM!  We also love the quickie tapa places where everything is on display and you help yourself to whatever you want and then when you are ready to pay, they count how many toothpicks are on your plate.  Each tapa comes with a toothpick and they are $2 Euros each.  Fun for the whole family!  Now I'm on a mission to have real churros with hot dipping chocolate!  Joseph will be in heaven. We also are in the midst of the Santa Semana (Holy Week) celebrations.  I'm not sure exactly because we haven't actually been able to see any of it live yet but I think it goes something like this: each church has these elaborate "floats" with statues of Jesus & Mary & tons of candles - some of them 100's of years old - that parishioners walk under carrying through the streets all the way down to the cathedral in the center of town.  They then walk back to the church with it.  Some of these round trips can take up to 12 hours.  The strangest thing about it for me is  that the men are dressed in these creepy costumes that look like they are on their way to a KKK rally.  No joke!  White or black robes with pointy hats with slits cut for eye holes.  They are proudly walking around and every time I see one of them I get chills.  The festivities started on Sunday and get bigger every day until Easter.  Sunday was really fun.  We were able to hang at a tapas bar right in the thick of all the excitement.  People were everywhere drinking & eating in the streets.  It was great people watching. Actually the trip is kind of a disaster right now.  We are thinking of throwing in the towel and coming home.  Not really but at least once a day one of us is like "forget this let's get out of here!"  Despite all of the happy, fun moments, Seville has not been as good to us as Barcelona.  It's not Seville's fault, well except that its been raining since we got here and our living quarters aren't as functional.   We've just had a rough week.  Now both boys are sick and neither will ever sleep (even though Jos has dark circles under his eyes).  How can they outlast us every day?  We are both exhausted and they or at least Joseph is still going going going until late at night and then has night terrors all night which wakes Theo up.  We keep trying to see some of the Santa Semana (Holy Week) parades but it is either raining when we try or one of the boys is asleep (usually the former).  We are fine with a little drizzle, we've been walking in it since we arrived.  But I'm talking rain.  Not going sightseeing with two sick boys in the pouring down rain.  So the alternative is keeping them entertained in our small living quarters without driving ourselves mad.  I'm not ready to bail out of the trip yet, but I am ready to get the heck out of Seville!  Thank god for the food here, it's our only comfort right now, when we can actually get to it.