SPAIN!

Spain was the trip of a lifetime! We stayed in a small town called Avila in the north of Spain. While we were there we brought our bad weather with us. It snowed for the first time in 20 years. And of course we celebrated with snowball fights and sledding!

Every morning we went to school at nine and had two breaks before school was over at two in the afternoon. Even though school started at nine we had to get up at seven because we had to walk almost a mile to school. We took subjects such as grammar and conversation. We learned a lot more Spanish just by being surrounded by the language and speaking it all the time.

We walked on the wall that surrounded part of Avila to get a bird’s eye view of the city. We also visited the city of Toledo, one of the older cities in Spain. Many of us bought the custom made swords that are crafted in Toledo. We visited many of the synagogues in Toledo and learned about the Spanish inquisition from out tour guide. The city of Toledo had many hills and was very difficult to walk through.
We also visited the city of Madrid where we visited the Royal Palace. We took a tour of the palace which contained over 1000 rooms (we didn’t visit all of them). We also visited one of the most famous and beautiful cathedrals where many saints had been buried. Many of the walls and ceilings were coated with gold and beautiful sculptures and architecture. We also had a night of shopping in Madrid before we retired to our hotel for the night.

Wall Of Avila

Royal Palace

Toledo
And of course, the best part for us kids, the nights on the town! Unlike in the United States, school started at nine so in turn our curfew was more lenient. We went to a disco with Marta, Carla and Carlos, the friends we made in Spain. There we made new friends in David, Johnny, Enrique, and Miguel. We also spent our nights at a local hang out called Paraguas, it was the closest place for all of us to meet. There we watched futbol (soccer) games and played darts or pinball.