I'm going through my pictures right now so that I can upload some and literally almost half of my pictures are of cars. Sorry mom, I know how much you dislike me taking pictures of cars but there are so many nice cars here and I have to take pictures of them all. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures of a few really impressive cars for whatever reason but at least I was able to see them. However, today we went to this place called Mercedes-Benz World which is like a Mercedes museum/showcase/showroom. We got to see all the new models and old ones as well. They even have several tracks for the brave, and rich, that want to take an extremely nice Mercedes out on the race track. Before we went to the Mercedes place we went to a little fair that was going down the street from the house. It was really nice and we all enjoyed being outside and the nice weather that we had today.

I just got finished uploading pictures of London so far. Camera 1 pictures are from my camera and camera 2 are pictures from the school's camera that I am using.

Tomorrow I'm going with one of the British teachers to take all the boys for a tour of the Chelsea stadium.

Thoughts and prayers to all those effected by the extreme weather that passed through the south.

The last two days have been incredible for me. Yesterday at the train station in London they had Krispy Kreme. The doughnuts were super expensive but I had to buy two. I have also been wanting some bbq so today at the driving range they had pulled pork. Of course I got it and was really good. Then for dinner, we had Papa Johns. Also really good.

Thursday we went to London. We had to take a couple different trains and after about an hour we got there. We had booked a bus tour were we could get off and get back on a different bus whenever we wanted. We also did quite a bit of walking and also had a boat ride down the Thames river. All in all we got to see just about everything. That also means that we were very rushed and really didn't get to enjoy the things that we saw. Once we got back from London we went and had dinner with one of the teachers. It was really good but I was ready to go home and go to sleep after having another long, exhausting day.

Today was the royal wedding so Alban, the husband of the family I am staying with, his brother in law and myself went and played golf. We actually went to a driving range that had these huge targets and you got points for hitting the different targets. It was a lot of fun and we spent almost four hours there. I even won a game.

We made it to London. One of the teachers took us to this extremely fancy hotel for tea. It was actually too nice, especially since I just had on jeans and a white tee. When we walked out the door there was 6 cars parked right outside probably with a combined value of almost $300,000. Well I'm tired. Time to shower and go explore London tomorrow.

Just talked to my niece for a second. Even though she is short with words, just like her uncle, it made me super happy!

Heading out to London in a hour. I'm going with two other teachers and about 20 kids. I have a feeling its going to be quite an experience with the wedding happening on Friday. There are gonna be so many people coming in and security is already insane.

 

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

Birthday was fun. It was raining so I laid in bed and watched Gladiator and The Godfather. It also rained all day today which is a big problem since my two loads of washed clothes are outside hanging up and I leave for London tomorrow night. I hope it is sunny tomorrow or I'm going to be in a interesting situation for London.

I posted pics from Italy on the Picasa site. Go have a look! Oh yeah, Happy Birthday to me! Sitting in bed watching Gladiator to celebrate.

HAPPY EASTER!!!

 

So I bought myself a Nike headband from the Nike store in the train station in Rome to make me feel better!

 

My beloved bag that has treated me so well for the past 14 years has finally decided that it has traveled enough with me. The zipper literally ripped away from teh rest of the bag while walking down the street in Rome. Sad to see it go but atleast it went out in style in Rome.

So while we are waiting to board the plane, which was delayed an hour, Ana realizes that she told her friend that was going to pick us up the wrong time. So we call and text him to tell him when we are actually going to arrive. So we finally make it back to Alicante, Spain at midnight and receive a message saying that our rides car is in the shop and can't pick us up. Alicante is almost 2 hours away from where we live so we are stuck. We decide to just get comfy and sleep at the airport. At 6:30 we get up and get something to eat and go ask about what time the bus comes. The bus comes at 9:15 so we still have more hours of waiting. In the end, we finally got back to Aguilas around 1pm.

This Italy trip was amazing. I am exhausted and broke but it was something that I will never forget. I got to see a lot of incredible places and met a bunch of new people. How many people can say they had dinner in Catania, Sicily, breakfast in Rome and the lunch in Pisa? The Italians were super nice and cool for the most part. Driving there would probably be one of the worst experiences of my life if I had to do it. I thought Spain was bad but they are nowhere near the Italians. It was insane.

Now I have two and a half days to rest before I'm packing up again and heading to London with twenty-some kids. Arrivederci!

Upon arrival, I fell in love with Rome. I loved everything I saw, however I did not enjoy our bus ride through the city with what seemed like 200 people crammed in on the bus. After receiving bad directions and having to walk about 15 minutes, we arrived at another one of Ana's friends apartment around 1am. She immediately takes us out to show us around here neighborhood and to let us meet some of the people she is going to school with. We come back to the apartment and start eating and talking and before we realized it, it was 5:30 am. So we slept for an hour and then got up to start exploring Rome's treasures before we had our 10:00 am train to Pisa. The first place we went to was the Colosseum which was #1 for me. I had always wanted to see it so I was really happy to finally see and touch it. We then went to the Trevi fountain which was also incredible. After that,we had a really expensive breakfast on some famous plaza and headed to the train station.

We arrived in Pisa around 2 pm after the four hour train ride. The only thing in Pisa is the Leaning Tower of Pisa so we headed straight to it. There is a really nice cathedral beside the tower too so I got some pics of it as well. The tower is pretty cool. one of the those things you would never think you would actually get to see and then all of a sudden you are with thousands of other tourists taking probably most cliched picture holding up or pushing the tower. We then went and had lunch, pizza of course, and then hopped on a bus to the airport. Finally time to come home.

We got up Tuesday morning and started exploring the city on foot. We had coffee and breakfast at a cafe and then walked around the beaches there. We didn't get to go as far as we wanted because it was blocked off, so we headed back to the apartment. We just chilled the rest of the day and I had more pizza.

Wednesday we had our breakfast at the cafe and then drove to the town of Siracusa, which was about a hour away. There they had Greek and Roman remains and a Catholic cathedral built on/with Greek pillars. We then headed back and went out for dinner. I had pizza.

Thursday we had breakfast again at the same place and then went and chilled at the beach for a couple hours. That evening we had our last dinner in Catania, guess what I ate? After that we headed to the airport because now it was time to head to Rome.

Quick summary of my trip to Italy. Sunday we flew to Milan which was very unimpressive at first. We roamed around on foot and on the bus and eventually found the hotel. After that, we headed out to explore more. Milan was probably the most diverse city I have been to. It seemed at any moment you would see people from at least 7 or 8 different countries. It was also really safe to be such a big city. I had my first Italian pizza Sunday night and it was really good.

Monday we went to see this cathedral that is famous for being old and huge. After that, we rented bikes and toured the city a little bit more. I ate more pizza. I also saw the only Ferrari of the whole trip here in Milan. We then headed back to the hotel to get our bags and head to the airport because it was time to head to Catania, which is on the island of Sicily. Once in Catania, Ana's best friend and her husband came and picked us up and took us back to their place to drop our bags off before we started exploring their town.

Buongiorno! Heading out for Italy.

Friday was the last day. The kids had class in the morning and then their graduation ceremony. After the graduation, we ate lunch and headed back to Aguilas. The kids had fun and were all sad and crying when it was time to go. We got back to Aguilas at 8:15.

I know have my 24 hrs of rest before I have to pack and hit the road to Italy. Tonight we are going to watch the Barcelona vs. Madrid game and then I will have to pack and go to bed because our bus heads out of Aguilas at 9 am.

Thursday
Today was another pretty chill day. We went back to Sagunto and went to the castle and walked around for awhile. I chilled with the kids for a little bit and then I took a 2 hour nap. Our boys won the soccer tournament and we will see tomorrow if any students got any individual awards.

Wednesday
I went to Sagunto today with a couple of the other teachers. We only got to stay for about an hour so we didn’t get to see that much of it. I played more basketball with the kids and volleyball with the teachers. Today was the first sub-par day for food in my eyes, just because everything had cheese. I pretty much just ate fruit all day as a result.

Tuesday:
I woke up at 7:40 this morning because I was told breakfast as at 8. Breakfast wasn’t until 9 so I had a whole hour of nothing to start the day off. Spent the day playing tennis, ping pong, basketball and even fit in some volleyball at the end of the day. I started off playing with the kids but they had to leave and then I played a couple serious games with the counselors. Today was a pretty chill day, besides the volleyball. I also have 3 mosquito bites. I haven’t had one of those in what seems like forever but in reality it was probably just last summer.

Monday:We had a pretty quick drive up to Sagunto (Valencia) today. In all it took about 5 hours and I was pretty much awake for it all. I thought the kids would get tired at some point and take a little siesta but it never happened. There are four different schools here and the teachers that came with the kids seem to be pretty cool so far. The teachers here at the camp are really good and only speak to the kids in English. The kids are happy and we have already had to talk to four kids for getting in trouble and we have only been here for ten hours. All I did today was eat and play tennis and ping pong. More of the same, along with some basketball, is on the schedule for tomorrow.

Spent the day at the beach today. Water is warm and it is super shallow at this beach, La Carolina. For several hundred feet, the water doesn't get deeper than your knees so I literally just sat out in the water and chilled and befriended some fish.

I'm pretty much finished packing for trip #1. We are heading out at 7 in the morning and will return sometime Friday evening. This should be a pretty fun trip.

Kind of a last second decision but I'm going on the Sagunto trip with two of my classes next week. Sagunto is a small town about 40 minutes outside of the great city of Valencia. The kids are going to a week-long English camp. This means that I will be in Sagunto from April 11-15, chill on the 16th, head to Italy on the 17th and get back on the 23rd. Birthday on the 24th. Two days to chill and then off to London on the 27th and back on May 5th. The next few weeks are gonna be busy but fun.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BROTHER AND AUNT!!!

Here is the the link for the English school's blog. Have a look at it and see how different their English is from ours.

http://collspain.blogspot.com/

Congrats to Chris Mullin and Dennis Rodman, two of my favorite players, being elected into the NBA Hall of Fame.

I started working this morning on a blog for our trip to London. Here is what I have so far.

http://europaaguilas.tumblr.com/

I'm about to watch Godzilla vs. King Kong which is by far my favorite and the best Godzilla movie.

I'm watching a special on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the reporter asked the taxi driver why he wasn't stopping for the red lights and he said, "If I don't stop, they can't rob me." Be grateful for your life and where you live.

On a lighter note, I love slingbox. I am finally taking advantage of Dan, Rack Room boss man, setting it up for me. I have been watching ESPN and Sportscenter non-stop all week. If you don't know what Slingbox is, it is a program that allows you to watch your tv from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. I have complete access to his tv but so far I have only only watched ESPN. Gotta have my sports!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42398625/ns/world_news-africa/

Article about what is going on in the Ivory Coast right now.

SO I have been sick for the past week. Turns out I'm pretty sure that I had strep throat because the medicine that I got did absolutely nothing for my unbearably sore throat. I finally got some amoxicillin on Wednesday and things got better. I just have to keep taking the amoxicillin for another week and a half. I think strep throat is #3 on my pain list, behind back spasms at #2 and kidney stones holding on to the #1 spot.

This week Cal shot a commercial for a contest for Pepsi so that was fun. I got to record, which was a lot of fun and made me even want my camera even more.