Wednesday evening and Thursday at Vaughan Town

Wednesday evening, our last hour before dinner (8-9p.m.) was entertainment hour.  Peg had some photos from the two years (2010-2011) she and her husband spent in Panama as Peace Corps volunteers.  Her sister Kay had slides showing some of the creative artwork she did - all by welding scrap metal into a variety of beautiful large pieces of art.  Then a group of five Anglos and Spaniards did some humorous improv about a doctor's office visit.  Finally, six of the beautiful women serenaded us in a most humorous manner.

Thursday morning, I went for my morning walk at 7:30.  As I looked east at the Guadarama Mountains, the sun was up but above the interesting cloud cover that hung of the mountains. 

 By mid-morning, those clouds brought us light, swirling snow all day long.  It never amounted to much (maybe an inch), but it added a nice white coat to everything.

As I continued my walk, I found an interesting collection of buildings.  La Cija Taller d Porcelina (www.lacija.com) makes decorated porcelain items.  It was too early to go in the store to see their wares, but I was intrigued by the design and construction of the buildings.

I also discovered that our resort has several different areas for kids, including a soccer camp, tobogganing, animals, etc.  It is obviously a busy resort - I am told that they are sold out in the summer.  They have 49 rooms in the hotel where we are and 29 rooms in the Posada (inn).

After breakfast, we had a regular morning - although for the first time all week, I had two periods of free time.  After lunch, we had our last one-to-one and then two of hours of listening to the Spaniards make their 10-12 minute presentations.  They were all very good.  The one by the man who has done an Ironman triathalon in Germany caught my attention.  And one woman who told us about her school based on Summerhill in Suffolk, England (we studied that when I was in college in 1971) and the Sudbury Day School in Framingham, MA - the big innovation is that the school is multilingual, which is why she was here improving her English - www.lalibelula.com is the website for her school.

Our Scavenger Hunt in Segovia

Our Vaughan Town activity for today was to visit Segovia.  We were assigned to groups of four, given a list of places to take pictures and then went for the 10 minute taxi ride to Segovia.  The rules of the scavenger hunt was that we had to find the different items and take a picture of the item or location of the other three members of our team.

The first item we photographed was the requirement to be with another team.  So this picture includes the other three members of my team (Peg, Kay on the left and Fernando on the right) with another team; this was taken while we were waiting for our taxis.

Another item on our scavenger hunt was a photo with our taxi driver.

We needed our picture in Plaza Mayor, so we took this picture from the bandstand in the middle of the plaza.  The Spanish flag is just over my head and if you zoom in, the sign over the window says Plaza Mayor.

We needed a photo of the main cathedral.  This one is huge - we spent about 30 minutes inside, quickly exploring the two dozen chapels that are around the central area, as well as the cloistered court yard.

Another item on the list was to get a photo of the team with someone working in a shop.

We also need to find the famous El Hidalgo Restaurant.

Here is a second photo of a worker in a shop that sells souvenirs.

We needed a photo of Calle Real. We had been told that the street name changed once you got into the old city; Google maps confirmed this.  To verify we were taking a photo of the correct street, we found this plaza that had a sign telling us that the statue in the middle of the plaza was pointing up Calle Real to the Plaza Mayor (throughout Segovia, there were info signs in Spanish, English and German).

Another location was the Torre Mudjehar de San Nicolas.  This info sign verifies that this building was the correct one.

And this is the famous Segovia aqueduct built by the Romans circa 100 a.d.

Although just a short visit (less than two hours) it was a nice break from the schedule of events at Vaughan Town.

Vaughan Town Day 2 and 3 at El Rancho

As expected, I am having another wonderful experience with Vaughan Town.  While many Anglos and Spaniards are finding it too cold, I am enjoying the cool weather including snow.

I am still exploring the resort. This is one of the three bars I have found so far.  Note that the name is El Bar Del Rancho.

This is the reception and front desk area.

They have all kinds of artwork, both inside and outside the resort.

They have their own shops where you can buy various crafts and art work.  They have a store where you can buy basic supplies, food and beverages.  This is another cafe/bar - it opens at 8:00 a.m. for those of us who want coffee before breakfast (it is not available until 9:00 a.m.)

Here is one of the full service restaurants.

Here are some of the participants at our private breakfast area.

I have been to many of these programs with Vaughan Town and Pueblo Ingles.  But this is absolutely the best resort and the best lunches and dinners.  Here is cod with garlic and olive oil from Monday night's dinner and the unbelievably fantastic dessert.  I will need to return here again.

I have also been out walking and exploring the village.  Tomorrow we are going into the city of Segovia.  Below is the local preschool I found while walking this afternoon.  It is a very picturesque and bucolic village.

Another visit to Spain

I left Phoenix Wednesday morning, Feb. 20.  During my four hour layover in Philadelphia, my wife called from Scottsdale AZ to let me know it was snowing there.  This was part of the storm that dropped several inches of snow in Marana AZ (just north of Tucson) where the PGA golf tournament was delayed.  I arrived in Madrid on Thursday morning, Feb. 21.  I spent the bulk of Thursday, Friday and Saturday finishing up grading exams and papers for the classes that had just ended.  But while taking a break, I walked through Puerta del Sol plaza and took this picture of the blood donor bus for my friends at the Red Cross in Burlington.

I made it to the Carpe Diem Cafe for the Friday night English Speaking Group and Saturday evening (yesterday) to the Vaughan Town reception and tapas.  I ended up taking two anglos back to central Madrid to show them around, assuming my usual Sherpa Tom role.

Today, we got on the bus and have successfully made the trip to El Hotel Del Rancho in Torrecaballeros, Segovia, Spain.  This is an excellent four star hotel and resort.  We had multiple choices for all three courses for our lunch.  For the second course, I chose swordfish with asparagus, onions, squash and shrimp - very, very good.

The hotel/resort is quite interesting.  There are many murals on the exterior of the many buildings.  This one has many famous faces.  As best I can tell, starting at bottom left, they are Fidel Castro, Marilyn Munroe, John F. Kennedy, Imelda Marcos (?), Queen Elizabeth, Martin Luther King, Archbishop Richelieu, Gorbachev and the mystery man - if you know, please leave a comment.

The hotel rooms all come with full bath and shower (unusual for Spain - usually you just get one but not both).

My room has a queen size bed, closet with safe (and bathrobes and slippers), desk, TV and minibar.

 And here is the view from my window - yes, that is snow on the roof.  Torrecaballeros is located just west of the Guadarama Mountains and National Park.  I have done Vaughan Town at Rascafria which is on the east side of the mountains.

And what does it cost me to spend a week at this four star hotel? For all six days and five nights, I must speak English with the Spaniards who are working to improve their English skills.  For being willing to speak English for the week, I get the week in a four star hotel with meals and wine with all lunches and dinners.  It is a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

A mishmash of events from January and February

I failed to keep up with my blog for a bit; I could use the excuse that I was busy teaching five classes (two ended Fri. Feb. 15, one ended Sun. Feb. 17 and one ended Fri. Feb. 22 - so now I just have one class going) - but I had the time.  I was just lazy.

When Helen was here, we visited Jane McNamara to watch the New England Patriots game on Sunday Jan. 20.  That was the day when it was 55 degrees at Foxboro Stadium outside of Boston but only 40 degrees in Phoenix.  The Patriots won that game.

My long time colleagues and friends, Tom and Rachel McCarthy, just retired from what had been the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and is now the Citizenship and Immigration Services division of the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.  We began working together in 1987 and even though I retired in 2004, we have remained friends - but they just now retired (they are young).  Tom has always had a BMW and they are now in Europe to take delivery of a new BMW at the factory, and using it on an extended vacation in Europe.  Before they left, I got these photos of an older BMW owned by a neighbor in our condos in Phoenix.

I went back to Vermont Feb. 6 - 11 for a meeting of the VSC Advanced Standing Committee, to administer the LSAT and give platelets at the American Red Cross.  I managed to be there for winter storm Nemo.  This is the storm that dropped 36 inches of snow in New Haven and 25 inches in Boston.  In Burlington, it was less than a foot - no big deal (central and southern Vermont got much more).  Here are some photos I took while out walking our dog Shadow.

Back at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, I am a Tuesday Docent.  That means that whenever I am in Phoenix, I spend Tuesdays at the DBG with the nicest bunch of volunteers.  We give tours, man stations (exhibits) and help visitors find their way around the garden.  One cooler day, two docents were dressed nearly identically and asked me to take their photo.  Yvonne and Leslie matched right down to their shoes.