Day 1

Hi Everyone....we had a really easy flight out with no turbulence and beautiful clear skies. It was lovely to see the snow capped mountains just as we came into land. We missed seeing the King and Queen of Spain by seconds as they were boarding their plane as we came into land!We had a typical Spanish dish 'tortilla' for dinner with lettuce fresh from Merche and Fernando`s garden.

It is very hot here too...just like England!

We will add some photos and maybe some video tomorrow.

Love from the Spanish crew!

Day 2

This morning we had our first Spanish lesson of the week with Merche. We learnt the alphabet, how to spell our names and revised things such as colours and numbers. When we had finished our Spanish lesson we had free time until lunch. Most of the girls explored the grounds and sunbathed, whilst the boys were playing snooker and table top football. After having chicken and chips for lunch, we then got ready to venture to Puente Viesgo. We walked beside the river and got ice-creams and watched people jumping off the bridge into the lake. When we arrived in the village we saw a water pump and we all took turns washing our hands and cooling ourselves down in the icy, cold mountain water. After a few minutes walking we came across a park which we decided to have a play in. Next to the park is the old station house which had a disused train parked outside which we were allowed to play on and had our pictures taken (we will try to upload them tomorrow). We walked back and are waiting to have our pizza supper. We all can't wait until tomorrow because we are catching a bus to Santander for shopping, more ice-creams, the beach and a boat trip! Having problems uploading the videos...will try again tomorrow.

Have fun in maths and English! Ha! Ha! Ha!

Day 3:

Today we took the bus into Santander town centre and boarded a small cruiser for a lovely trip around the bay. The weather is still glorious and we are all looking very healthy. After that we enjoyed our picnic lunch in the Magdalena Park and met with lots of Spanish children who were also having fun. Then we went to the beautiful sandy beach for a paddle and castle building. The beach was empty when we arrived around 2pm but was packed by the time we left around 4.30ish. Merche and Fernando took us to see the hungry seals who were about to have their fish supper. We also saw some sea lions and cheeky penguins! After a short bus ride back into the city Merche treated us all to a wonderful double scoop ice-cream - yum-yum. We arrived back home at 8pm tired, noisy and ready for our supper. PS Mrs Sutherland had the fortunate experience of being blessed by a Spanish pigeon with a dodgy stomach!! (It is supposed to be good luck so she received her gift with good humour - luckily kind Michael had packed some super strength detergent in his suitcase!)

Day 4:

Today in our Spanish lessons we learnt how to say where we live. We also learnt different animal names in preparation for our trip to Cabarceno Park tomorrow. Then we went out to the basketball court and it was too hot to play so we just sat in the shade. For lunch we had homemade lentil soup which some of us thought was wonderful! As well as that, we had chicken fajita and fresh fruit salad. After that we had a short rest and then we had an interesting walk up to the prehistoric caves. In the caves we saw paintings from 30,000 years ago. Most of them were bisons, deer and handprints. In the caves it was cold and damp. It has a constant temperature of 14 degrees celcius and humidity of 85%. The main part of the cave was excavated from 1903 funded by the prince of Monaco. We walked back to the village to buy ice creams and souvenirs. We waked onwards to the park where we played for a few a minutes.  Evening meal tonight was prehistoric animal nuggets with chips. We are keeping our fingers crossed that is doesn't rain too much tomorrow as we are going to the wildlife park and the weather forecast isn't very good. All for now more tomorrow. Adios!

Day 5:

We anticipated a really wet day today as the weather forecast had predicted heavy showers for the region. Fortunately the rain only arrived this evening after we had returned from Cabarceno Wildlife Park. We were picked up from the house at 11.30am after having first had our lessons. Today we were learning the names of body parts. We also did some more singing and dancing. We really enjoy the song called Vuela la luna. The minibus took us on the short journey to Cabarceno and we just had time to get to the arena for the Birds of Prey display which started at 12.15pm. We waited eagerly for the first birds to appear and when they did we shrieked with excitement as they swooped over our heads. We saw a whole range of birds from vultures to eagles and black kites. The keepers were throwing bits of meat for some of the birds to catch and some of these landed in amongst the crowd and the birds came right onto the seats! It was a little scary but good fun and lovely to see the birds so close up. After the birds we had lunch. In the picnic area there were lots of children and teenagers having their lunch and we got chatting with some of them and they took a group photo of all of us.
 
After lunch we went into a mini cinema to see a very sad film about conservation and ecology and learnt some scary information about animals that are hunted for their furs and about carelessness that causes the death of other animals. For example, Pepe was a hand reared elephant that had been in Cabarceno who died at four years of age when he swallowed plastic bags that visitors had dumped.
 
Then we got back onto the minibus for our safari around the park. We drove short distances and stopped off to see lots of different animals bears, lions, tigers, giraffe etc. We loved the bears...there are 60 brown bears living in the bear enclosure which was a huge mountainy area. It was quite difficult to spot them as they were camouflaged against the reddishbrown rock. There were two young bears who looked like they were having a wrestling match as they were standing on their back legs playfighting. We decided they should be put on a stage 5 for using hands and feet.
 
We also saw an amazing sealion display. The music before the show was very lively and there were lots of Spanish children dancing in their seats...it looked like fun. The first sealion was called Lucas and he was almost blind but he was fantastic. He waved and clapped and smiled (yes really) and did a few other things. The second sealion was called Patricia and she was even more lively (she was a lot younger) she managed to do a slow dance and a rock and roll dance with the trainer!
 
Then we went home after visiting the shop which was really expensive although some people did buy ´teddies´. Dinner tonight was lasagne and there was also homemade lemonade,
 
We are all looking forward to going home but we will also miss Spain.