Here comes the sun!

Last weekend we did our final school excursion to Santander and Cantabria. It was a beautiful day, with lots of sun, laughs and excellent company! We were all very excited to see the beach and sat on the sand for a good few hours, slathering on the sunscreen and paddling in the (rather freezing!) water.

After the beach we visited the Altamira Museum which was a representation of the stunning cave paintings of Altamira. The real caves are closed to the public to prevent deterioration of the art, so the museum is the next best thing! It was really interesting and the cave art (which you are not allowed to take photos of) is exquisite.

Finally we went to an incredibly beautiful pueblo called Santillana del Mar which is supposed to be the most beautiful pueblo in all of Spain. It did not disappoint!

THE BEACH

This house is SMILING!

My lovely friends Britt and Kayleigh being..well..lovely!

Lovely garden terrace bar where we had a vino!

Boys racing leaf boats down the little canal

Making friends

The Secret Garden

The Tasker's come to stay!

This week we had Brittany's lovely parents Brian and Meredith stay with us. They came over to spend time with Britt and to travel through Italy, Spain and France and we were lucky enough to have them for a few days.

It was so nice to meet such lovely people, to hear Australian accents and to have a parental influence in our house! We were very excited to meet them and, just like Brittany, they were extremely friendly, funny and easy to get along with.

They left us this morning, which happens to mark only ONE MORE MONTH of classes in Leon. How crazy!!

xoxo

Picos de Leon

This weekend we went on a field trip to the Picos de Leon (the Peaks of Leon) with our school group.

Our first stop was at a beautiful little town called Riaña, which for me couldn’t have come early enough as I wasn’t feeling tip top after the windy roads. Our next stop was to see a beautiful look out point where we could see the mountains and the cloud cover laying in the middle. The peaks were so high that they went straight through the clouds and just kept on going.

Riaña

The weather was glorious and we set off on a 10km hike through some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen. There were streams and waterfalls, beautiful lush greenery and gardens and lots of very cute animals, little calves and foals all along the way.

Kristin, Kayleigh and I

 We stopped for lunch part way along and patted some very confident horses that came to say hello. In the afternoon we walked to a beautiful part of the river where the walkway is carved into the side of the cliff and extends for 10km to Asturias. Unfortunately only a month ago it caved in 6km along and has not yet been cleared. After being told that we walked a lot quicker on the way out than the way in!

beautiful walk

Just a slight trickle..

It was a fantastic day and the last day in Spain for my friend Kristin. At the end of the bus ride we presented Kristin with a little card and all got a bit teary but she has had a great time in Spain so it was happy as well as sad.

It got me thinking about when it is my time to say goodbye. I only have 5 weeks left of school, 6 weeks till I see my lovely Mat and 10 weeks until I am back home in Australia. The time has just gone so FAST!

Segovia

On the weekend we took a trip to Segovia, a beautiful town about 3-4 hours from Leon.

Our first stop was the great aqueduct, which was built by the Romans thousands of years ago and still exists just as sturdy as ever today. The aqueduct was built with huge stones and a fair amount of genius - no cement or adhesive was used to keep it all together. 



We then ventured to the Alcazar, a beautiful palace fortress which was one of the buildings that Walt Disney based the Disney castle on. It was the home of the Catholic Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand in the 15^th century for some time and, of course, was very beautiful.

Alcazar (Disney Castle)

Thrones of Isabella and Ferdinand

 In the afternoon we visited the Palace and Royal Gardens and arrived in time for a fountain show. There are several fountains in the gardens and we moved from one to the next to watch the displays, which only occur every few months. The gardens were extremely beautiful and we got a little wet by one of the fountains that shot a ridiculous amount of water metres and metres up into the air.

Overall it was a lovely day!

Staircase fountain

London London London - Day Four

Brittany and I went to the Natural History Museum which was so incredibly interesting and fun. The building itself is extremely beautiful both inside and out. As soon as you walk in the main entrance you are greeted by ‘Dippy’, the skeleton of a diplodocus. There are so many dinosaur bones and fossils in the museum and we saw incredible things like a South American Giant sloth, an amazing petrified tree trunk that was once wood but had now become stone, and the antlers of a giant deer. Very cool!

We saw as much as we could before leaving to meet our friends Nick and Kaylee at Madam Tussauds. I was really surprised at how fun Madam Tussauds was and we all had a great time taking photos of ourselves with celebrities, world leaders and the Royal family! I was very pleased to give Colin Firth a little smooch and give a big cuddle to the Queen Mum! There is also a ‘Scream’ section where you go through a haunted house, a mechanical ride that takes you through the history of London and a 4D movie experience based around the Marvel Comic superheroes. This was really fun as it was in 3D but there were also gushes of air, movement in the seats and water that sprayed down on you to make you feel like you were really part of it. It was so much fun and we all had a brilliant time!

That evening we went back to O’Neills (the Irish bar) for dinner where I had FISH AND CHIPS and the tasty cider once more. THEN, our group went to the Dominion theatre to watch ‘We Will Rock You’, the musical by Queen and Ben Elton. It was a fantastic show and we all had a great night!

xx 

Giant Mammoth skull

Blue Whale skeleton

 

Lovely London - Day Three

On day three the weather turned a little rainy but we didn’t let that dampen our spirits (pun definitely intended). We began our morning visiting Shakespeare’s Globe theatre and found out when we got there that it was Shakespeare’s birthday that very day! The exhibition was great and we saw many of the original costumes and props, along with documents written by Shakespeare himself (including his will) and  tons of other interesting items. We then had a tour with a lovely lady called Stephanie who was  really funny and told us about her role as an extra in the film ‘Shakespeare in Love’ which we are now determined to watch again so we can pick her out!

Bridge that features in the Harry Potter movies

The GLOBE!

This year the theatre is doing all of Shakespeare’s plays (quite a feat when usually they only do 6!) and they had a special programme called ‘Globe to Globe’ where different theatre companies from around the world came and performed the plays in their own style and their own languages. When we were there, there were Maori actors rehearsing on the stage as they would be doing one of the plays entirely in Maori and including the Haka that night!

The theatre was really beautiful and on the ground outside were several stones with names engraved of people who had sponsored the theatre. There were many celebrity names like John Cleese, Michael Palin, Judi Dench etc but I also found ‘Mary O’Connell’ which was very exciting!

After the Globe, we walked up to see Tower Bridge which we were lucky enough to watch go up and down! It was incredibly rainy and cold at that point so we didn’t take too many photos as we were getting soaked. We decided to dry off and have lunch at a beautiful restaurant on the river called ‘All Bar One’.

After lunch, we went to the Tower of London which was fascinating and saw the place where Anne Boleyn was executed and is buried. Our Yeoman Warder (Beefeater) guide was really fun and cheeky and it was great to learn all about the site.

The site where Anne Boleyn was beheaded

One of my favourite parts was seeing the Crown Jewels which were just breathtaking. One of the best crowns was the late Queen Mother’s which was incredibly blinged up! I was also particularly taken with a solid gold punch bowl that was bigger than me and can hold up to 144 bottles of wine!

That night my friends Brittany, Nick and I went to the beautiful Apollo Victoria theatre and saw the musical Wicked! It was such a fantastic show with great sets, costumes and effects. The performers were excellent especially Rachel Tucker who played the main character Elphaba. The whole cast was really talented and we had such a great night. After the first half I was absolutely speechless, something you’ll all know is very rare for me.

Britt and I waiting for the show to begin

 

 

The incredible Wicked set

After the show we waited at the stage door and had our tickets signed by Rachel Tucker, Gina Beck (who played Glinda) and Jacqueline Hughes (who played Madam Morrible). It was cold but worth it! Such a great night!