Advertisement
Published: June 25th 2007
Hola Amigos,
Hey, before I begin, if you'd like to write me a comment based on what I've written, please feel free to do so. It doesn't go straight to the internet. I can read it and decide whether I want to post it or not. Some loser named Frankie Hejduk wrote me, but I hate him and didn't post the comment. :-)
18 JUNE - Monday • Today was Monday and we left Sevilla nice and early, headed east towards the mountain city of Granada. Frequent readers of my travel updates will no doubt recall that I studied in Granada in July of 2005. You will also remember how much I love it there. Well, we rolled up on the outskirts of town at about 130pm and all I can say is WOW! They've been doing some expansion since I left. I mean, there are all kinds of new developments and bulidings and malls to the west and south of town. Up the hill from where I stayed, there are about 25 or 30 completely new structures. Crazy. Anyway, we came here to see the Alhambra and see the Alhambra, we did.
The visit was much
too short - only about 2.5 hours - but it was made enjoyable by our guide who might have been British or Spanish or who knows what. He spoke English like Prince Charles and spoke Spanish like Rey Juan Carlos, also has clearance to give tours in Danish and can also converse in Greek and German. His appearance was very "Euro": tight polo shirt, tight jeans worn at his hips, no belt, spiked up hair, I'd call him rather thin, maybe 30-ish and - here's the kicker - he had braces. His tour was interesting and we saw most of the good stuff; the palaces, the gardens, the pools, etc. I hope some of the kids take the chance to come back some day, because Granada really is a magical place.
We left Granada and headed back southwest towards Málaga. Technically, we were headed for the resort town of Torremolinos, which is a quick jaunt to the west of Málaga, on the Mediterranean coast. As advertized, the trip would wrap up with some fun in the sun on the beach.
We got to our hotel, ate dinner and were on our own. One of the other chaperones is from Madrid, if I haven't mentioned it before, and his parents came down to spend some time with him/us and to enjoy the beach. So after dinner, Profe's Walking Club was joined by a couple of octogenarian
madrileños and the three other chaperones. Good times. We walked down the boardwalk (not really made out of boards, so perhaps it should be called a "beachfront avenue") for a bit and then we split up. I took three kids and kept walking, the others went back to the hotel. That night, the students got their wish and the hotel's bar/club was opened up especially to our group for dancing purposes. There was karaoke and getting down and whatnot. Things wrapped up pretty late, but that was okay. The kids needed to blow off some steam and release all the energy they'd been building up from eating all that bread and ice cream. (Sarcasm alert)
19 JUNE - Tuesday • Wake up call & breakfast: 830am; Everyone on the beach: by 930am To those not knowing their geography, the Mediterranean genuinely seemed not to want any of us to frolic in her waves and shallows. The cold waters of the Atlantic sweep into the Mediterranean about 50 miles from Torremolinos, and the current from Northern Africa pushes that cold water over to this point and it never gets really warm until late summer. I'm going to guess that the water temperature was about... 60 degrees. I mean, it was cold! I did the old, "jump right in to lessen the shock to my system" and it didn't work. All the muscles in my back cramped up at the same time. It was unreal. I even seem to recall shouting out to my fellow swimmers/waders that "my grandma arm areas are frozen!" Nevertheless, I swore I'd spend at least 15 minutes in the water. Thanks to treading water to keep warm, I clocked in at 30! So take that, Mare Nostrum! You might have done in most of Odysseus' crew, but you'll have to better than that to get the best of me!!!
I'm not much of a vacation kind of guy. I can't sit and do nothing. So, after about 1.5 hours more on the beach, spent playing paddle ball and toasting myself in the sun, I'd had enough and hoofed it back up to the hotel. At around 2pm, I went and had lunch with my Spanish colleague, his mother and a student. Then, back to the hotel for a lengthy dip in the pool. Curiously, the hotel's outdoor "hot tub" was in truth no hotter than the pool water. Bummer. Then, I showered up, watched some TV, and got ready for dinner - our last dinner as a group in Spain!!
Post dinner, Profe's Walking Club headed west down the boardwalk, opposite the direction we went the night before, in search of new adventures. And we sure found one! We took a ride on a little mini-tram around the resort town/village of Albenmádena. You know the kind of tram I'm talking about: looks like a train up front, has cars open on both sides with bench seating and only goes about 2 miles per hour. We saw lots of boats and vacation residences and restaurants and some odd looking people, so it was worth the trip. Plus, one thing I can say for our Torremolinos hotel, they had pretty awful ice cream for dessert. I mean, gross. It was the little cup kind. So, both nights here, PWC had to endeavor to cleanse our palates of the taste of this horrible ice cream with the taste of good ice cream. Done and done!
Apparently, while we were on our excursion, the Teenagers in Search of Booze Club had been at it again. So there was lots of drama upon our return, with the being sent to their rooms and the calling of their parents and the crying and whatnot. Kids.
20 JUNE - Wednesday • Bright and early, the bus took the kids and chaperones to the airport and they returned home. I found out later that Air France struck again. Seems the kids got up to Paris fine, but upon departure from Chuck DeG, were mysteriously delayed by a return to the gate, which caused them to miss their Philly-CLE flight, which caused them to have to stay in a motel in Philly and Air France wouldn't pay for the stay!! Jeez!! Unreal.
Once the kids left, I hopped on two trains and got up to Madrid, where I was going to spend a couple days at a hostel, then return to Barcelona for the weekend and then come back to Madrid before heading home. Those stories will be in my next update. Hope you enjoyed this one!!
love,
Kevin
NEXT UPDATE: Madrid, Barcelona & Madrid
Advertisement
Tot: 0.124s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 11; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0732s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
KK
non-member comment
I have never before heard of my grandma arm areas