This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the island of Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. We couldn't have asked for a better time and the weather was wonderful! Our flight left at 10:40 Friday morning, but we had to take the bus to Madrid at 6 a.m. to have enough time to take the Metro to the airport station once we got to Madrid. Once we made it to Madrid, we had to check in and get our boarding passes stamped before boarding. It was about a three hour flight and we found out that the Canary Islands are an hour behind Spain time, so we gained an extra hour for our first day.
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| View from the Plane |
After checking into our hotel in Santa Cruz, we spent Friday exploring the cities of San Cristobal de la Leguna and Santa Cruz. San Cristobal is more of a historic city, and of course I would find the free museum over the history of Tenerife! It was really interesting to learn a little about their history and of course it didn't hurt that it was free.
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| View from our Hotel Room Balcony |
After getting our very American McDonald's for dinner, it was time to sleep before our busy day Saturday. We went down to the south part of the island for a whale/dolphin tour and to see the beaches for our day trip. We wanted to go see the volcano in the middle of the island, but we couldn't find a bus that goes close enough because of its high elevation. It wasn't too difficult to get to the south side of the island and to where our tour was near the Playa de las Americas. After wandering around the stores and the beach, it was time for our tour. We saw whales and dolphins off the coast of Tenerife before going to swim in the ocean. I've never been in the ocean before, and I was surprised by how salty it really is. I think that I decided that I like swimming in freshwater, but I like seeing salt water more. Our guide was extremely nice, and he spoke six different languages! What really struck me about being in south Tenerife was the amount of languages that were being spoken; there was English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and some African language, if not more. On the boat I was able to speak Spanish to a French guy that spoke Spanish to bridge our native language barrier. The culture differences alone made it worth the trip to the south, not to mention the views and weather! It hit 75 degrees when we were on the boat, so it was definitely hard to leave the beach.
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| The Beach |
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| We made a snowman to remember everyone back at home :) |
Somewhat reluctantly, we headed back to Segovia Sunday. We left for the airport around 10:30 in the morning and made it back to Segovia around 8:30 at night. Although it was exhausting, it was all worth it. Back to class this week for me, but more adventures to come!
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| Adios from Tenerife |
