Beach Day

Friday--

We were able to sleep in today, the only the day of the whole trip! The weather is nice, sunny and about 65 degrees. The walk to the beach is a small side-winding cobblestone street, where no cars pass. The is only a pedestrian street, although there are other streets where the cars go. The small shops are open today, which was a bit unexpected as it is Good Friday. Along the beach, there is another shopping promenade where there are shops and restaurants on both sides, along with the traffic going both directions.

There are several places down there that rent beach chairs and umbrellas, and there are showers to clean off your feet at most exits from the beach. It is about a 10 minute walk DOWN from our hotel (if you don't stop in any shops).

This hotel (Hotel Adriana) I would not recommend for any one. There are plenty of other shops around, and this one is NOT very clean. My room didn't have any hot water nor water pressure. It was impossible to shower. The food buffet was also the least impressive of all of our 4 hotels. I will be sure to NOT give this hotel a high rating when completing the evaluation form for EF.

Tonight we will meet at 7:30 in the hotel for our "last supper". I'm not sure what time we need to leave for our 6:30am flight, but I'm thinking it will be about 4am. Time to pack!

Letter home before Morocco

1^st night in Torremolinos

Hi,

We arrived at our last hotel. We will stay here for the next 3 nights. We have 545am wake-up calls and will be departing the hotel for Morocco at 645am. 2 hours by bus, 45 minutes by Ferry, 30 minutes by bus, a short Camel ride, African market & bartering, lunch, and then the return trip. It will get us back to the hotel for a 9pm dinner.

Amaya was able to get a dance disco techno open for just us at 1030pm tomorrow. The girls are really excited! I am excited as it will be just us...all 37 of us from DC & Three Lakes.

Then a free day in the south of Spain. We are about 10 blocks from the MEDITERRANEO, but the weather may not be what they want for a beach day. In fact, it would be much like us laying at a beach and/or boating on the 3lks Chain THIS TIME OF YEAR...it can be done, but is a bit crazy!

Thanks for sharing your children with me...I love seeing their eyes as they become worldlier and get the “LOVE OF TRAVEL” bug! :-) They are all wonderful, courteous, fun kids!

Mrs. Losch

Sevilla

Sevilla (Wednesday)

No rain…this was the good thing! Although it was not hot nor sunny, it didn’t rain like it did in Toledo for our walking tour and it was pouring buckets when we got off the bus for our Flamenco Show in Sevilla.

We started the morning with the best breakfast buffet yet. Remember, this was at the HUGE hotel in Sevilla, so I guess it was to be expected. J Rose and Kjersten overslept, so that was a bit stressfull loading to bus to find that we were missing two, but “no worries” as Amaya said. The tours can wait. We picked up our local guide and she gave us a panoramic bus tour along the Guadalquiver River in Sevilla of all the Country buildings that were built bor the 1938 World Fair. Each beautiful palace tried to “one-up the other with the most unique and elborate pavilion. These buildsing are now mostly owned by the City of Sevilla, but at one point were the country’s consulet and in some cases, still are.

Our first stop of the morning was at the Plaza España—one of my favorite buildings in all of Spain. This was the “building” that Sevilla built for the 1938 World Fair—again, trying to out do, and give a great impression to all the visitors was very important. This building is still used for government business on a daily basis, however the part we saw was beautiful fountains, bridges, and decorative benches for each Region of Spain. There are carriage rides for “rent” here and throughout all of downtown Sevilla.

Next we went to the Alcazar. This Christian Palace was built in the MOrjado style (combination of Moorish and Christian styles), but in my opinion (and to an uneducated eye) looked more Moorish than Christian. In fact, the only Spanish words throughout the building are at the very entrance, where as the world ALA and quotes from the Koran are present throughout the entire building in all the tile and decorative structures in each room. Unlike La Alhambra, this palace has always been under Christian rule and has always been occupied by a Christian King. In fact, to this day, when the royal family comes to Sevilla, the Alcazar is where they stay. Of course we didn’t tour the second floor of the palace, as that is where the furniture and private stuff is for the royal family.

General Life --La Alhambra MORE

Gardens on the way to General Life

There used to be other buildings here, however when they burned down, they were replaced by the gardens that we see here today.

General Life --La Alhambra

La Alhambra is a Moorish Castle that was built in about the 10th Century. Granada was the last city that the Christian Monarch's needed to take control from the Arabs inorder to conquer ALL of Spain. This finally happend when Boabdil (the boy king) gave the keys to the city to King Ferdinan and Queen Isabella on January 2, 1492. It is said that Boabdil's mother said to him as they walked away from Granada, looking back over his should for one last look, she said, "Do not weep as a woman for that which you could not defend as a man."

La Alhambra

This was taken just before our tour started today. This was in the 1st on oldest Palace. Then we went into the second one, which was, of course, out done in the third one as the best. This was where Charles the Fifth had his honeymoon and he fell in love with the beauty of the Moorish style of architecture. HE ordered to have another castle built here, but it was never finished.