Canterbury Rotary

I apologize for the lack of blog activity this past week. I was in Canterbury, England visiting James on a surprise visit. That is why I couldn’t mention it on the blog, but now you know and now he knows. My visit to Canterbury was two fold, see James as well as visit the Canterbury Rotary Club. This past Tuesday I enjoyed lunch with the club and exchanged banners with their president. Note; he wears a large crest that says “President”, maybe the ORBRC should invest in one… Also, a lot of the other members had ties with the Rotary emblem as well as a smaller one below it which might be the sign for England or Kent, I’m not sure. Their large wooden wheel that can be seen in the pictures bears this same crest. Anyways, I got there a bit early since I had to walk there and I wasn’t exactly sure how long it would take. Everyone I asked said “up this road, a ways…” which wasn’t very encouraging. James came most of the way with me, but his hairline fracture held him back the last bit. I figured it was a straight shot and I could handle it by myself. When I got to the meeting place, which was the Kent County Cricket grounds, there were several buildings so I asked at the main office where in fact the meeting was to be held. They directed me to the correct room and there I met two very energetic and nice Rotarians, one of them being the vice president. I spoke with them and got an apple juice from the bar. Everyone gathered in the room at about 12:30 and we were seated for lunch at 1pm. We were served minted lamb with mashed potatoes and veggies. Mint is not something I would thing to put on meat, so it was a bit weird at first, but then my palate got used to it and it was alright. Didn’t add any extra mint sauce though, that was a bit much as far as I was concerned. After lunch we had dessert and as my table was the last to be served our meals we were the last to finish and the last to get dessert. I had a bowl of fruit, which was quite a luxury after living in a college apartment for a few days where fruit is quite scarce and ramen noodles and pasta in abundance.

The club has about 60 members, and it seemed like not everyone was in attendance. As I learned, it was the first time they had ever met in this particular room and its possible that some others showed up at the wrong room and saw no one was there and decided it was a holiday. The room was quite nice, overlooked the cricket greens. Doesn’t hold a candle to Melton Lake, but it was nice nonetheless, and it wasn’t raining, which I was afraid of. At the end of the meeting a nice Rotarian, whom I had not met during the course of the meeting offered to drive me back, which was quite generous of him. So that was that and I was on my way. Their club functioned much more like ORBRC than the club here in Granada… maybe that’s just because I could understand what was going on…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIMMY!!

yesterday, 10/10 was my little brother Timmy's 12th birthday. Just thought I would share some pictures with everyone. And maybe you can convince him to get a haircut! He looks like he really enjoys the iPod nano we go for him when we got mom's computer over the summer. Sneaky us, he had no idea!

Rainland....err...England

As some of you may already know, I planned a surprise trip to Canterbury to see James. He didnt know i was coming and was very VERY surprised when i just showed up at his apartment. He was probably more upset that he was the only person that didnt know I was coming and acted as if they had all pulled a prank rather than a surprise. boys. But, while I am here, I do not really have access to internet, so there probably won't be any posts until i get back to Spain next week. Also, i will be visiting the Kent Rotary Club on tuesday, so that should be interesting. All i can say is i miss that Tennessee weather. Spain has good weather as well, but here, all it does is rain...

Salobrena

Saturday October 6

Today we went to the BEACH. The weather had been so good Friday that we decided it was in order to take a one day excursion to the beach before it got too cold. We met up in front of the school at about 7:15am to take a bus to the bus station. I should probably explain who “we” is. “We” is all the students learning Spanish at the Sociedad Hispano Mundial so; Myself, Rebecca, Felicity, Daniel and Ilona. Rebecca is a 3 month scholar from California and Felicity is a 6 month Rotary Scholar from Cali as well. Daniel is from Plymouth, in Southern England, and Ilona is from Holland. From the bus station we got a bus to the nearest beach, Salobreña. If you were to draw a line from Granada directly south to the Mediterranean you would end up in Salobreña, a quiet coastal beach town on the Costa Tropical, just a bit east of the Costa del Sol.

We arrived at the beach by about 10am and it was a little bit chilly and cloudy, but still nice. As the day wore on it got warmer and much more pleasant and a few daring souls tested the Mediterranean. It took me a while, but I took my dip, even if it was only once. The water was crystal clear, you could see the pebbles and your feet along the bottom. Felicity and Dan decided to swim out to the buoys that marked the limit that was safe to swim to.

When they got back they informed us that they saw a 4-5ft long eel. Well that about did it for me, no more water! Like I said, the water was so clear that you could see anything, even a creepy water dwelling creature. Personally, I’m most recently used to the muddy Atlantic, where you cant even see your own feet in water that’s 6 inches deep. The water was colder than the Atlantic during the summer, but it was much less salty. It wasn’t painful to go underwater and then open your eyes like the Atlantic is.


While we were soaking up sun we noticed a parade of some sort that was passing by the beach. It seems to be the season of festivals in Spain and we decided it was a festival to honor their patron saint. The horses also made their way on to the beach which was interesting and terrifying at the same time since some of them didn’t seem to want to obey the person on their back…

We stayed on the beach until about 4:45 when Daniel, Felicity and Ilona decided to take a hike, and I mean HIKE up to the top of a hill to see some castle. I could see the castle pretty well from the beach and I wasn’t exactly wearing good walking shoes. Rebecca and I decided to head back to the bus station and find a little café there to have some tapas. After a wrong turn and a 45 minute detour and a walk in the correct direction we finally found the supermarket we had visited that morning and bought some water and potato chips. The potato chips were probably not the best option seeing as we were already salty, but man, they were good.

We met up with the other three at the bus stop and then headed to a café to have some food and a coffee. We mulled around there for a bit and caught the last bus to Granada. Happy and sunburned we slept the entire way home. I’m not sure what’s in store for tonight, but I think its flamenco dancing. Not to be confused with flamingo dancing, MOM.

Reunión Rotaria

Last night I went with Felicity to the Rotary meeting. It was pretty much the same as last week. But, this week, unlike last week, I was able to take some photos and even snuck in some video footage.