The Chaney Clan: Spain Part 1

Since we have been back from Spain for a while now I guess I should update the blog and tell a little about what we did.

First let me say. We crammed SO much into just a few day!! And man did I figure out that I am an American...my reference for time is very skewed. We would be looking at something and they would say the date of when something was built, I would put that in my mind, and then have to think...What 6th century BC!! Oh wait that is Before Christ!! Wow that is old!! I guess my frame of reference is 1492 or something like that...which is also significant is Spain because that is when the Christians finally got all of Spain back from the Muslims. But they already had lots of stuff that was really old at that point!!

We had a GREAT group!! We had 12 students and 4 other adults besides CJ and I. The adults were all really fun and easy going and the students all got along. There were obnoxious moments with some kids...but isn't that with all groups of kids. The kids were great, they all got along, and since they were not all good friends before we left they just all became friends, which was great to see.

We spent two days in Madrid. What a fun city. We stayed on the outskirts of town so we got to see the city by Metro which is always fun. The first day, after our REALLY long flight, we had a walking tour of Madrid and went to a museum. I think we might have been more interested if we had not been SO tired!! (Plus I am not really into seeing paintings of naked people...but that is just me) We had to convince our guide to let us stop early and take us to dinner. He did not want us to eat until about 8 PM!! We were SO tired and hungry...I do not think any of the kids stayed up late that night.

The next day we went to see the palace. This palace is just used for ceremony. It was amazing the work of art that this palace was. No pictures of the inside; they were not allowed.

After this we got on the road for our next stop, Cordoba. It had an amazing mosque/cathedral. Inside there were thousands of arches and pillars. When the Christians came and reconquered this area instead of tearing down the mosque they just purified it and made it a cathedral. Then a few centuries later someone wanted a Gothic cathedral so they made one in the middle of the mosque. I found that amazing that Christians and Muslims worked together to build the mosque and the cathedral. They lived and worked together, no problem. Oh how the world has changed.