Fairwell to Family

"Hello World" (This is my first blog, not a Tiger reference)

So we have had 7 eventful, rainy, ant infested, beautiful days. To end the adventure we went to the market this morning and walk through a miles of scarves, stripped sweaters, very cheap Chinese shoes and water puddles. One more scarf for the road... why not! The girls seem to really enjoy the super bargins on anything shiny. As with most days of this trip, it rained, then poured and socks and shoes where wet. Luca got drenched when a tarp heaved, there were some extra tears there.

Just so you know, Jane and Mike were super gracious by taking Luca for a day so Don and I could escape to Madrid! We had a very good time, drinking coffee, eating meatballs and trying to sleep in between slamming doors and very loud Spanish people. I managed to drag Don on a shopping trip, a walking tour AND a art museum! I am so glad I married a super d duper guy!!!! The high speed train was also fun, and we got movies! How could life be any better.


For this afternoon, we began with lunch at "Bruno's", the boss attempted the "snake trick" but I already jumped 5 feet for that. We will be returning for dessert and coffee after supper - best dessert in the world!

The highlight for me was an hour car ride to the end of Portugal, iterally, the most westerly point of Europe. The cliffs were enourmous and there were huge waves and sea spray. The water was the most beautiful colour and the waves relentless crashed against the cliffs making sea stacks, caves and sink holes, everything appealing to my rock hounding nature.

We are now eating our last supper... peanut chicken, Mike's specialty.

It has been an amazing holiday. It was so good to spend time with our "bestest friends" who planned so many fun activities, showed us increadible sites and gave us endlessly fascinating conversation. So sad to leave.

Jennifer (the other twin)

fun with cousins

hey,

hi its luca. I am in portugal with josephine and emily. Yesterday we went to the markets in largos and faro. They were selling lots of stuff and all of us bought scarves. ( they are really cheap here) and fish (yuck) then after that we went to the zoo. It was in largos but it only had monkeys and birds. We took lots of pictures and saw some really cool things. My favorite bird was the toucan. it looked so real it looked fake. The only freaky part was that i almost stepped on a dead rat! After the birds we went to see the monkeys. They didnt have cages, they were just on islands and they didnt run away. But the absaloute best part of the day was we got to feed ring tailed lemurs!!! They were really cute and they loved bannanas! One even held my hand. Thats all for now.

bbyyee

The Eagle Has Landed

December 24

After 30 mislaid hours and some big tears, the Sawatzky family arrived in Portugal!!!! The large amounts of snow in central Europe, and the airline's inability to deal with a little bad weather, robbed us of a day and a half!!!!! They got to the aparment at 2 am and we stayed up until 5 am talking and catching up before they passed out from exhaustion. The next morning Don and Mike promptly got on the rented bikes and took off. They experienced some pounding rain but still had a great time. Jen and I walked out to the beach and got ready for our Christmas Eve dinner. We had rabbit, potatoes, beans, salad and bread. Everyone said the rabbit tasted like chicken? Oh well. We then opening presents, played some games and talked until late. Awesome Christmas!!

Jane

Christmas festival in Portugal

Dec. 19th

Well today was interesting experiencing how the Portuguese celebrate Christmas. We went to a Christmas festival in a small medieval town north of Lisbon. Before getting to the actual site we walked through the winding streets looking at all the little shops, sampling hot chocolate, cherry liqueur in chocolate cups, and Portuguese Christmas baking. The main site was just outside the city walls where they had skating, sledding, skiing, fake snowmen and very interesting mascots. Mike had to go skating to show off! He just skated circles around everyone smiling away at his prowess on ice. Most people were just clinging desperately to the boards or falling....they were smiling though. The girls went sledding on wooden ramps...no snow in site and got attacked by a mascot who we think was supposed to be an Inuit/Eskimo. We spent most of the time eating a variety of things just to try them. I initially want to go to the Christmas musical that they had but I got voted down. That was good because we could hear it being performed and all were relieved that mom lost out on that one.

Jane

two days of Lisbon

Day one: Into Lisbon we go

It is an unpleasant thing, waking up in the morning. Especially when one has a sore throat as I did. Luckily the weather was on my side (for once) and it was unpleasant and rainy. Eventually, it stopped and we left for the capital of Portugal. When we got off the train, and went to the tour bus stop, we met the person who was driving us yesterday! So we traveled with him for a while, then we stopped at the only department store in the city to find some underwear. We didn’t find one pair. It was all grotesquely large *Ewww* Then went out side to the other bus stop and waited, and waited, and waited for the blue line bus to come. Eventually it came and we jumped out of the cold on
to the double Decker bus. But unfortunately it was the last stop and the bus waited for another half hour at the first stop. It was raining though, so we stayed on. We wanted to go to the aquarium, because it was so miserable, and it was cheap. When we finally got to our destination, we walked quickly into the museum and paid 22 euro for all of us, better then the 92 we paid in Barcelona. When we walked in, the first thing we saw was a VERY large tank with manta rays, sting rays, a sunfish, sharks and assorted large and small fish. The sun fish is very ugly; it can grow up to three meters and weigh up to 2 tons! Then we went into the Atlantic exhibit, they had lots of puffins and fish. The birds weren’t even fenced in! They we went into the arctic exhibit. They had penguins and real ice. The next exhibit had two otters that were sleeping. They were very cute. Then we saw a… oh what is called, the fish in Finding Nemo called Dory. They had free range birds in that one too. Between the exhibits, we could see more of the first tank, which was in the middle of the aquarium. Then we went downstairs and saw the bottom of all the tanks. The penguins were very cute as they went in and out of the water. The otters had woken up as well. Then we saw it, a cuttle fish, and relative of the octopus. It was the first one any of us had ever seen. Then, as if the aquarium couldn’t get any better, we saw a giant pacific octopus. It was bright red and was swimming against the glass. Did you know, each of its suckers works independently? After that, they had a behind the scenes thing with baby sea horses, baby sharks, and blue jellyfish and………….. Baby cuttle fish!!! They were the cutest things in the aquarium. After that we left and had to wait another half hour for the bus to come back. By then it was rush hour and we were stuck in traffic for an hour. When we finally got home it was already nine :o and boy, were we hungry. We had pizza, it was good. Then we went to bed.

Day two: Here comes the sun.
I was feeling even worse today, and mom didn’t want to do anything, but lie in her bed. The weather eventually called them both out and we were allowed to go on the internet. In a couple hours, Dad got us out of the apartment with the promise of milkshakes. Unwillingly, we came, and it was beautiful. We stopped at a little restaurant by the beach, were a dozen or so surfers we having fun in the massive waves. We had lunch there, hamburgers, fries and a chocolate milkshake. A good thing about being sick is that Mom and Dad don’t steal you drinks and fries. We stayed for a while, then Dad went to the store while Mom, Emily and I went back to do our homework, and Mom to get her camera. Luckily for us, the math wasn’t working so we did our magazines instead. Now we're having dinner, G2G (got to go)

Josephine

Granda & Seville

Dec 12 & 13

Hola,

On December 12 we went to Granada to see the Alhambra Palace. We were lucky to get tickets since you are supposed to book at least a day in advance. The Palace is an amazing example of Islamic architecture and we were astounded by the intricate carving on the walls. The palace was also filled with fountains and pools which were fed by an elaborate aquaduct that ran under and over the ground. The fortress was also impressive and the view to the Sierra Nevada mountains was incredible. They picked a good spot for this place.





After a few hours at Alhambra we went off to Seville. It is a lively city especially during the Christmas season, and there were lots of people on the streets, music and buskers. The girls enjoyed mini donuts and Mike found a Starbucks....big coffee. We spent the next day exploring Seville to find things to do in anticipation of coming back with Don, Jen & Luca. Oh...one fun thing in Seville today, we got stopped by a group of people as we were trying to walk down a street because they were filming a movie!!! Cameron Diaz and some guy (can't remember the name) in a movie called Knight & Day and they were waiting for a motor bike chase down the street. Interesting.

Cordoba & Gibraltar

Dec.7 Cordoba

We dove to Cordoba, and walked through a ghost town because it was a holiday, and everything was closed. We made our way to a ½ cathedral and ½ Mosque. It was absolutely splendid, what with the ingenious watering system in the orangery and the simplicity of the Mosque. In face the only thing that wasn’t beautiful was the cathedral part. When it was first built, it was a cathedral, but then the Muslims came and tore it down, putting up a Mosque in its place. When the Muslims where conquered, it was turned back into a cathedral. Then, to attract more tourists, the tore down most of the cathedral (did I mention that when it was turned into a cathedral again, it was a renovation, not a demolition) and it was a Mosque again. They left the chapel and the nave though. So, after that, we went for lunch. This was more of a drink because the Spanish weren’t ready for lunch yet. Unfortunalty, it was incredibly smoky, but there was Wi-Fi, so we staid for a while. Then we did a bit of shopping where we didn’t buy anything. We then went home.

Dec.9 Gibraltar

It’s a two hour drive there, but as they are a part of the UK, they speak English and use pounds. They also have a VERY large rock that dwarfs the town and has apes (Makacks) on it. When we arrived, we spent a good half hour looking for the elusive tourist’s office, before stopping a sort-of information place. So, they directed us to the cable car. When we where there, a sale's man intercepeted us and told us that the cable car was more expensive then his car and, if you take the cable car, you have to walk to the sites and pay those seperately. So we went in his car, to the pillars of Hercules, where you can see across the nine mile long striat of gibralter. Then we drove to St. Micheal's cave. It's been around since the Neandertals were around, and it is amazing. Some of the colomns look like a lopsided cake! It's very beautiful in there. Next we went to see the monkeys. Then tour giude go the monkeys to jump on our heads. They aren't potty trained!!! No one had any acctidents though. Then we went to the Great Seige tunnles. It was boring, then we drove down the rock again.

After, we went for lunch in the Gibralter Arms. I had british fish and chips. It was very very good. Then we went to the glass factory, but it was closing.... *Cries* then we went home.

It still doesn’t feel like December!

Day 1
December 4, 2009
Today was also kind of disappointing. We started out by going to a technology museum because they had a Galileo exhibition, but it wasn’t very interesting and it was extremely tiny. My favorite thing in the museum was a pink camera that was in a make-up case. Then we went to a modern art museum *Yawn* there were a lot of paintings there and I have decided that modern art is just too weird. Then we started to walk to our new hostel it took a very long time, but we made it there eventually. We walked up the stairs to the first floor and we asked the reception person which floor our hostel was on. It was on the Eighth floor!!! We climbed all the way up to the hostel and went into the reception, but it was really hot in there!! We got our keys and went into our room, and Josephine and I slept for a bit. Then Mom and Dad went shopping and we stayed on the room. After watching Merlin we had supper and went to bed.


Day 2
December 5, 2009
Today we drove, and drove, and drove, and drove, etc. All we saw was olives, so Mom got out and tried one. She pluked an olive from a tree and popped it into her mouth. She didn't like the olive at all. Later we found out they are only good for olive oil. There are 80,000,000 olove trees in that part of Andulusia alone!!! Then we got lost, but Dad called the people who own the apartment and we drove there. We went to go buy some food then we had supper and Mom and Dad and I sat in the hot tub. Then we went to bed.

Good bye.
Emily.

dissapointments

Today we went into Madrid again. We got off at the the palace, but we then found in wasn't open!!! It was closed for a government thing. So then we went on a self guided tour of Royal Madrid. We went to the tourists office to see if the theme park we wanted to see was open. It wasn't. Grrrr, neither was any other thing for children, unless it was outside Madrid. So we went to the archeology museum. It turned out to be free, something to be happy about, until we found that the museum took no more then ten minutes to go through. So, we went to the garden, still hoping the boats would be open. To our surprise........ They were open!!! So we spent a happy 45 minutes rowing around a pond. Then we went to a hot house, but alas it was another disappointment, it was an art exhibition (In my mind a garbage heap) that used bottles to make compasses *yawn* So we went back to the Prado, stopping at a restaurant for lunch. Today we did the second floor, they seem to do themes in art....... dieing, ill, war, and religion. With a few exceptions of Saturn eating his children! *Ewwww* Then we went back to the hostel with Saturn eating his children in our heads. Josephine a not arted out person *gasp*

The Good and the Bad

Hola,

We've had poor internet in the mountains, hence no blog, so I will now play catch-up. We were in a very small town about an hour north of Burgos in Northern Spain. We went there to see a Neanderthal site that brother Jim told me about. Unfortunately I could not find a good website with info about the site and it was closed. It was only open on the weekend and we missed it by an afternoon! Very disappointing. The next day we had more success. We went to see a Monolith or Megalith (not sure) from Neanderthal time which they don't really know anything about, and a very cool cave that was close by. We were the only ones on the tour of the cave, no one else would go in the cold and snow but Canadians! We were all fascinated with the stalagmites etc. but the best part were the tiny little bats hibernating in the cave. They would have fit in the palm of your hand. We then drove around trying to find a Roman village, but couldn't but we did find the start of the Ebro River. Josephine and I had a snowball fight - her aim is really improving - and then we headed back to our apartment. I made up a jeopardy game for mike and the girls with questions from the trip to pass some time in the afternoon. We then left for Madrid. The weather slowly improved as we drove south about 3 hours. We did a very good walking tour of Madrid during the siesta time, and then went to the Prado for an hour and a half. The Prado is amazing. It has a lot of the famous paintings I studies in the Renaissance course that I did. Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" is beautiful and very strange. If you've never seen it you should look it up. So we're now back at the hostel getting a few computer things done and then going to bed so we can enjoy a full day tomorrow.

Driving

Today we left Pinsecola and drove four hours to a town that starts with Z, but I don't know it's whole name. When we arrived in Z, we checked into our hostle. We then got really cool chip cards that we can use for the internet, doors, and lockers. Then we went out for lunch, as we were VERY hungry. The reccomended reastarunt had an hour long wait, so we reaserved a spot and had some chicken pasties at a store near by. After, we went shoping and bought some candy. Then we went back and had our yummy meal. We all had bread crumb stuff with a mixture of ingreadeats.



I had shrip and tomatoes, Emily had eggs, Dad had an egg and a very small sausage and Mom had meat and something else. Then we went for a walk. We saw the bull fighting ring and walked around the castle wall. Then we went back, and Emily and I went on Horse Isle (if anyone cares we now have a million dollars of HI money) Tomorrow, I think we have a five hour drive..... *Sighs* AHHH the color button is GONE!!!

Oh well, Josephine

Bikes and Chocolate!

Today we rented bikes but first we had some hot chocolate with deep fried dough! I really liked the deep fried dough better than the chocolate because the chocolate tasted funny. Then we rented two blue tandem bikes, we rode them for an hour beside the beach. It was really fun!!!!!!!!!!

Bye!
Emily.

Rented bikes

Yesterday (Jane’s birthday) and today we rented a couple of Mtn bikes and decided that the mountains around us needed to be explore. So that is what Jane and I did. We were riding out of town and saw a path that was snaking its way up a mountain and decided that was for us, so we just headed in its general direction. After a 15 min ride up hill most of the way we found the path that we saw earlier! So we went up the mtn side with our rented bikes and in about 20 minutes we were on top of this lovely mtn. It was tough going though; I was in my granny gear climbing away when all of a sudden we took a corner and found our selves at an even steeper part of the climb. Well there was only one thing to do, no not get off and walk, but that we needed to zigzag up it! However zigzagging was hard to do since the road was full of loose rocks and gravel! Well we made it up the path and as we were just enjoying the view we heard this guy coming up the path he was huffing and puffing even yelling, so we actually thought there were more coming after him, but it was only him. After we said hello we noticed that he was all scrapped up and covered in dirt. So we gathered he fell on the way up and we were happy we didn’t.

On the way down the mtn we had a grand view of the Med. After we made our way back to town we decided that it would be a challenge to ride up the hill to our apartment. I think it took us longer to ride up the road than it did to ride up the mtn. Man this was difficult, besides the dogs barking at us which there is one crazy one that we bug each day, we had to start zigzagging all the way up and again once you thought you were done the hard part, wham there was another steeper section. Well we did make it up the road to our apt. had some water then headed back down. Darn that ride up was sweet. The ride down was easy and fast but there were so many yields you couldn’t go to fast. Don you would have loved the decent. I think you could only ride this road during this time of year since the traffic is non existent.
Today we rented the same bikes and did the same route except we road up the mtn twice then headed back to the most difficult climb up to our apartment. Tomorrow we will be heading out again.
These pictures do not do the climb justice but I thought you might enjoy them. Oh and the last pic is of the town that we are overlooking early in the morning.

Miss you all!!
Mike

That's a nature preserve??? Mom's birthday

Today, we went to the Delta Marsh (or tried anyway) it was also Mom;s birthday. We got up bright and early, then proceeded to drive the the marsh. When we arrived, we found that the little town around the marsh was boarded up, except for the restaurant and the tourists office. The person in the tourists office spoke not a word on English, so we left to another of the towns on the cultivated nature preserve. (Growing rice is not my idea of a nature preserve) We drove through a couple towns, all the tourist information's were closed, so we went for a walk on a beach in the preserve. Unfortunately, the beach was insight of a gravel pit. That sort of put a downer on things, but we found four cuttle fish bones anyway.(Cuttle fish only have one bone a piece) We then had lunch on the beach, there were tables and we saw a diver going up and down(Or his feet anyway) in the same spot, it was rather funny. We then went to a stable for a ride it was fun, but there was a misunderstanding, and we accidentally told the man who only spoke Spanish that we wanted to walk the whole time!!! All three of us (not dad) had white horses. There was also the most beautiful horse I've ever seen there. He was a dark Pasafino stallion, he was almost perfect, except one hoof was a little crooked. My horse and Emily's horse's were mares,, and Mom's was a gelding. After that we went home, then out it dinner, it being Mom's birthday and all. I enjoyed the Chinese very much. Josephine

Josephine

A Room with a View

Hello all,

We are in Peniscola, Spain and have a spectacular view from our little aparment. We arrived here on Sunday afternoon and then spent the rest of the day walking around the little town. It is quite touristy but there aren't any tourist here so it's ok. We did rent a 4 seater bike - the girls enjoyed the free ride. Yesterday we drove to Valencia to explore. We hit a few markets and then made our way to the Science museum. The buildings reminded us of Gaudi - cool. The museum was very interactive and the kids had a great time. Today Mike and I are going to rent bikes for a few hours and the kids are staying back at the apartment to do homework!! Don't feel to bad for them, they would rather do homework than ride bikes! Crazy.

Jane

Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me... I could go on and on with this but I have to comment on what we did today.
Today we went into Barcelona to see a few sites and go for dinner at a place recommended by our friend Tim.
We were a bit slow getting out of our house today so we got into Barcelona today about 11am. We walked around the Gothic area and saw some fantastic buildings, Gerald would have loved to be here to see them all!
Then we went for a wonderful lunch at Polla Riko's it was the best chicken I have had. Sorry Esther!
Then we went to Gaudi's park which was wonderful and full of great items. Then we went on a walk of the modernism building for two hours. It was great to see some buildings from the late 1890's to the 1920's. There are some excellent examples of Gaudi work, as you can see!
Then we went out for a great meal, I had steak with pepper sauce, Jane was a little, disappointed with her meal she ordered some different items. There you go don't order stuff you don't know you never know what you will get. Always order what you know best. Tomorrow we might be going to the beach. That is all for now.
BTW I have the best wife ever, and you can not dispute that.

Mike

Mount Surrat

Today we went to a cool looking mountain, called Mount Surrat. We kept saying, all day that aunt Jenifer would like the mountain.
We left for the mountain at around ten, on the way we stopped for bread and doughnuts. Mom had a bite, and said it was the best doughnut she had ever taken a bite of. The mountain was lumpy and looked like a lot of partly made hoodoos. We looked around, while Dad parked the car, and then started up a short trail with a cross, it said it would take 40 minutes, but it only took us thirty, so we went to another one, which required a slightly hair-raising, almost vertical trip using a cable car. The St. Jerome trail took two hours, and it was very tiring, the view was very nice though, we went to the top of the highest hill/mountain thingy. It was a good day, but I'm really tired. I also just figured out the color on this program

Josephine

Cubisim sharks

Today was our first day in Barcelona, we first went to the Picasso museum. We walked around there for a long time, I don't really like cubism it's weird. He started out with realistic paintings then he went to cubism then engraving then ceramics! If you saw some of his earlier works at a garage sale you wouldn't even notice them as Picasso's! There was about three rooms full of cubism paintings that were copies of a famous painting. All the dogs in the paintings looked really funny. Barcelona has very interesting architecture....don't the balconies look like skulls?

Then we went to the aquarium it was almost exactly the same as the other one we went to, but in this one they had Octopi!! Which are Mom's favorite animals! They also have more sharks, I was kind of disappointed because it said there would be Nautiluses and Cuttlefish and I didn't see either of them! They also had penguins which were cool. They had tiny seahorses and larger ones, my favorite part was.... the octopi and the sun fish!!!!!!!
When we left the aquarium we saw Christopher Columbus pointing the way to Canada. (I think) Then we went to a market where there were a lot of different foods such as: Smoothies, Prawns, dragon fruit, and fresh coconuts.
Buhbye!
Emy.