Lunch

06.17.11 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain - For the second year, Eunice and I's last two weeks of work were filled with great lunches to say goodbye. We passed countless hours at the table swapping stories, laughing and eating great food.

We're fortunate to have made great friends and even more so, fortunate to have friends who like to eat as much as we do. The highlight was Maribel's melon salmorejo.

-Will

Carmen and Ana.
Melon salmorejo.
Carlos and Maribel.

Carol, Paco and Marivi.

A concert in the park

06.07.11 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain - The music conservatory held its final concert in one of the small plazas in San Lorenzo. The finished with by playing the 1812 Overture which is a lot to bite off for 14-18 year olds. It wasn't like seeing the Pops, but still they did a great job and the conductor provided some great moments. Do you think he grew out his hair just for this moment?

-Will

Reflections 1.
Bum bum bum bummmm...

Keeping time.
Reflections 2.

Galicia Redux

06.05.11 - A Coruña, Spain - My parents came to visit and Eunice and went with them up to Galicia the first weekend. We saw A Coruña and toured Santiago de Compostela on Sunday morning. We nearly got blown off the Tower of Hercules, but besides that we at well and took in some rays along the boardwalk.

Adios,

Will

Paseo Maritimo, A Coruña
Tower of Hercules
Pilgrim's Mass
Tapas in Santiago
Eunice on the trolley in A Coruña
Mom eating percebes (goose barnacles)

Cultural Week

06.03.11 - Robledo de Chavela, Spain - We spent our Cultural Week at CEIP Nuestra Señora de la Navahonda studying film. It culminated in a version of "Bienvenidos, Mr. Marshall" or as they called it "Bienvenidos, Mr. Will." It is a famous Spanish film from the 50s about a small town in central Spain that converts itself to look like a whitewashed Andalucian town to impress the U.S. Government officials coming to give out money. At any rate, we converted our school in a similar fashion, all the girls wearing sevillanas dress and the boys in torero outfits waving American flags. I wore my best "American" tourist outfit -- a Hawaiian shirt, camera, baseball cap and cargo shorts.

Each class also performed a film (mine did Mary Poppins) and we recorded scenes to be shown on the last day of school. Below are some photos.

-Will

Faunia

05.19.11 - Madrid, Spain - We took the kids to Faunia, a nature park/zoo southeast of Madrid, on Thursday and got to see some cool stuff. The highlight was the venomous creatures pavilion (think vipers, black widows and giant tarantulas), but the best part for photos was the butterfly exhibit. Good light and pretty insect tend to be that way. We also saw some penguins, pelicans, manatees (I had never seen one before) and aardvarks (tampoco). It was a lot of fun and the seeing the kids' faces light up made it even better.

-Will

P.S. - Field trips never get old.

You can just make out the monarch butterfly in the top left corner.
Manatee attack!
Looking at insects.
Entering the venomous creature pavilion.

San Isidro

05.15.11 - Madrid, Spain - Eunice and I went into Madrid on Sunday to check out the goings on for the San Isidro Festival. It was the last day of a weeklong celebration of the capital city's patron saint. Among the variety of cultural events, we went down to Lavapíes in the afternoon to see some circus-type street performances, then to the Plaza de España for a free concert and hopped over to the Manzanares River to see a fire display as the sun set.

People were out and about everywhere in traditional outfits (long colorful dresses for women and gray caps and vests for men) and it was a good time.

-Will

Along the Manzanares River.
Eunice.
Fire!
People watching the fire display be lit. It was a collection of floating metal sculptures, with hundreds of attached "citronella" candles that the company lit. Not a huge display, but cool nonetheless.
Two guys and a giant wheel in Lavapíes