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Published: June 16th 2007
BMW/Oracle
Here we are at BMW/Oracle headquarters A week in Roquetas and we sailed on to America’s Cup!
We enjoyed another fabulous week at Comunicacion, the wonderful language school in Roquetas de Mar. Tommy graduated to adult classes while Ryan, Keenan and I continued with private lessons. I think I finally have a grasp on those 4 past verb tenses, only to find myself leaving Spain! We all have made a lot of progress on our Spanish and hope to find some meaningful way to keep it up when we return.
We had some good hang out time with our friends Graeme, Sarah, Leo and Sophie during out last week. As an added bonus, we were joined by Sarah’s parents and sister for some fun happy hours and dinners on the beach. Sarah’s parents were a great addition to our conversation, as they have lived all over the world working in the British embassies and had many interesting stories and political perspectives to share. We also fell in love with a beautiful national park called Cabo de Gata, where we hiked, snorkled and swam in secluded beaches. San Jose, the nearest town is a wonderful little hippy village that we fell in love with. Its
The Crew
Here we are with Tom Ehler and one of the crew members, a "grinder" and Olympian. laid back attitudes and sparkling white houses made us feel as though we were on a hidden island in the Aegean.
On to Valencia… a four hour drive, and yes, Keenan held true to form and got car sick just an hour after we left. The drive up the coast through Alicante was breathtaking with the Mediterranean on our right and rugged mountains on our left. We were glad to leave the ugly plastic greenhouses that surround Roquetas behind.
Valencia is the third largest city in Spain, home of paella and a beautiful city filled with bike trails, beaches and a historic part of town. We sampled three different types of paella at a lovely outdoor restaurant in the old city called La Fonda, but in the end nothing can compared to the paella we ate with sand underfoot and the ocean breeze at our back along the beach in Roquetas. Biking in a new city is one of our favorite ways to explore and seems to provide a good balance of education and play. Unfortunately, there were not any bikes with trailers or carriers large enough, so we opted for the pool at hotel to fill
Sailing
On the catamaran. our spare time.
Valencia is also hosting the America’s Cup boat races this summer, and we were able to get an up-close and personal view of it thanks to our friend Ann Miller. Ann formerly worked in PR with the America’s cup, and she introduced us to her old boss, Tom Ehman, an executive with the America’s BMW/Oracle team. Tom gave us a private tour of the team headquarters, explained some of the history and rules of the competition, and even introduced us to a few team members who gave the kids’ autographs. Later we went for a short sail in the harbor on a catamaran where we learned about the 12 different teams and saw their boats. Although it was not a race day, we definitely got a sense of the excitement of the competition and enjoyed the confluence of international teams and spectators.
Now its off to Italy… on a (no kidding) $45 direct flight to Venice to meet the Taiclets (TJ’s sister and family from St. Louis) for a greatly anticipated family reunion! Ciao bellos!
And happy birthday to Uncle Mike Conley!!!
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