Friday, April 6, 2012

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!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Letter home before Morocco


1st 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.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

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.

Flamenco in Sevilla

Although we arrived a bit late (just a few minutes into the first performance) this was a great experience for the kids and myself!

The dresses were amazing, the stomping was loud, and the Spaniards moved their feet incredibly fast! We all laughed as we tried to imitate their dancing as waited for our bus to pick us up.

The hotel for this one night in Sevilla is AMAZAING. It reminds me of the Embassy Suites in Minneapolis, with marble floors, Thousands of rooms, and a large atrium in the middle. The rooms are cool too! Such a contrast to our one night in Granada last night, where the hotel rooms that barely had enough room to walk around the bed, much less room to unpack a suitcase and back pack. Tonight's room in Sevilla is a large "living room" area (with a fold out couch with that comes out as TWO singles) and then stairs up to a loft bed room and a half bath. All the rooms are like this and we are all across the hall from each other. The upstairs bed is just like last night's beds in that it is two singles pushed together to "look like" a double.

Toledo

Lay-out of the REST of the trip

Day 5- Granada then to Sevilla (Tues)

Breakfast at hotel (buffet in lower level)

Tour of La Alhambra (weather is not rainy, but cool)

Walk down hill to Plaza Nueva for 2 hours of free time (lunch on our own and shopping)

Board the 3-hour bus for Sevilla

Stop at gas station for snacks & bathrooms

Go directly to the Flamenco Show in Sevilla

Dinner at hotel at 9pm

Day 6— Sevilla – Torremolinos (Wed)

Tour of the Cathedral in Sevilla

Walking tour of Sevilla

Bus transfer to Torremolinos

Day 7—Torremolinos – Morocco - Torremolinos (Thurs)

Short tour of Gibraltar--a commonwealth of the UK

Ferry from Gibraltar to Morocco

Camel ride, snake demo, & market shopping

Ferry and bus ride back to hotel in Torremolinos

Day 8- Torremolinos (Fri)

Beach Day

Day 9- Spain –USA (Sat)

Travel Day

630am-830am Malaga-Madrid

1030am -230pm Madrid to Miami

8pm-1045pm Miami to MN

Sleep at Comfort Inn Bloomington

Day 10-Minnesota to Three Lakes (Easter Sunday)

9am-1pm drive in cars

Monday, April 2, 2012

Day Three--

I'm a bit mixed up with the days, but will keep posting when I can. We have trouble getting online each night, as there are other large EF groups staying at our same hotels. This one in Granad we all had to be in the lobby. The kids are able to use my laptop and my mom's iPad to CALL any landline or cell phone for 3 cents per minute. They can also add this feature to their own skype account using a credit card and/or a checking account, however it will just be easier to use these two devices. :-) IF WE CAN GET ONLINE. :-)


Today we are off to La Alhambra (a Moorish castle from the 1200's) then we travel by bus to Seville for two nights.


This is what we did a few days ago... I will fix typos and organize the days later. We are up early-leaving the hotel, and to bed late (getting in to the hotel). Last night we watched an Easter Procession of the Virgin Mary through the streets of Granada!

We slept until 7:15, breakfast at the hotel at 8:00am, departure at 9am for the Plaza Espana, (statue of DonQuijote, Sancho Panza, y Miguel de Cervantes). We also got a panoramic view of the city of Madrid seeing things such as the the Arch of the city, welcoming visitors from the east in Barcelona, the three water fountains beautifully decorated with satues representing the 3 Mythical people of earth water & fire, the Parque Retiro, the Atocha Train station, the Prado Museo, the Catedral, the Gran Via (5th Ave. of Madrid), and of course, the Palacio Real.

Then we had an one-hour tour of the Palacio Royal, which is the Royal Palace built buy King Charles the III. It very much reminded me of the Palace of Versailles in Paris, and it was in fact modeled after the French designs.

The tour continued on the bus past the Plaza Mayor and back to the Puerta del Sol, where Amaya, our tour guide walked us to a restaurant for lunch. There we ate boiled pork chops (in a red sauce), sliced potatoes, sautéed mushrooms, followed by desert of rice pudding. The girls were then very excited and anxious to be let on their way for 4 hours of FREE time and shopping. Remember, Madrid is very much like Paris, so you can only imagine the damage they did on the Gran Via. J

The weather on this day was GREAT. It was 75 degrees and sunny. We shopped, and shopped and shopped, until we needed a break. Some of us sat for a while in the Plaza Mayor having a soda or a snack to rest our walking feet. The Plaza Mayor is the red, square court yard, where bull fighting used to take place in the 1700’s before they built bull rings.

Then we met back at the Puerta del Sol (the zero marker) at 7pm to walk as a group of 37 for Tapas. Our Tapas dinner was located in a dungeon-like building. There we ate the set menu (not common when eating tapaps, but was the case with our large group) of bread, chorizo (sausage), calamari (squid), jamon y queso (the Spanish cured ham and cheese), and tortilla (an omelet with onions and potatoes).

We ended our time in the Puerta del Sol on Palm Sunday. This was like being at Labeau Field during pre and post game activities! All Madrillenos were out with their families, enjoying the night life of the square. We took the Metro back to our hotel. It was two stops, change platforms, then two stops to change lines, 10 more stops until our stop at Las Tablas. It was several students’ first timee on a subway and we noticed how much cleaner the metro trains and stairwells got as we headed to the outskirts of the city where our hotel was located. We stayed at this hotel (Castellana High Tech) for two nights. We packed at about 11pm, made phone calls, and hit the pillow for a good sleep before our 6:15am wake-up calls.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Day Two


Today we are headed to the Palacio Royal (the Royal Palace with over 2,000 rooms and famous works of art) followed by a stroll at the Retiro Park (like Central Park) where the kids can rent boats and lounge around and people watch.

Day ONE--Travel Day


Day one:

We had plenty of time to get to the airport. We left from McDonald’s in Rhinelander at 6:06am on Friday, and were taking the 494 Exit at 10:01am. We parked at the hotel (Comfort Inn in Bloomington) and were able to catch the 10:30am Shuttle to the airport. All 16 of us fit on one shuttle bus.

We made it through security just fine, although most kids were told to combine all their toiletries into ONE quart size bag.. his got some kids a little stressed out. All kids swiped their passport at the Kiosk to get their boarding pass. This was a learning experience for them and they all did fine. Although we were able to chose our seats at that point, it was too big of a group to try to rearrange.

We made it through security with just three people being stopped to be checked more thoroughly., Jackie Boyer (my mom) with a replaced hip, Kjersten Olson, who didn’t take her laptop out of it’s case, and Bekah Forsyth because she had too many zip-lock bags.

We ate lunch at the food court just past security at the Minneapolis airport. Next we all headed down to gate E16 where we had plenty of time to freshen-up, buy books, and relax before boarding for our Texas flight.

That flight was 2.5 hours and we were served some sodas. Most of the kids were spread-out throughout the cabin, but seemed to do just fine either sleeping, reading (The Hunger Games was a big hit), or visiting with the people next to them. Hailey, Peyton, and Brig all had to check their big suitcase, as they were told it was too big.

After landing we easily found our next gate, met my mom Jackie, and boarded within one hour of landing in Dallas, TX. This flight was huge. We met another EF group in the lobby and realized it might be easy to switch seats with some of them as we seemed to be assigned all in the same area. This worked out great on our big plane with a row of 5 down the middle and double seats on each side. There were some movies shown on the flight that the kids were able to use their ear-phones to watch, but most kids slept or read. We left TX at 5:30pm and arrived in Madrid at 10:30am. Kjersten and Hannah now were asked to check a bag too. This created a problem at landing as they gave us the wrong gate number for pick-up. After finding the right baggage claim, we were missing one of our 5 bags, it was Hailey’s. So, after reporting the bag missing, we met our EF Tour Director, Amaya. She gave the luggage claim people her sell phone and we were off.

We are VERY tired. Traveled all day, ate pealla, saw the Velazquez at the Prado Museo and look forward to seeing the Palacio Royal tomorrow!

Monday, March 19, 2012

Pre-trip picture

Pizza party farewell @ Sankey's

Parents and student travelers come gather for a farewell pizza party Tuesday, March 20th at 5:30pm at Sankey's. We will discuss our departure time and location for next Friday, March 30th.