Finally a blog entry!!!!

Hello everyone,

Sorry it took so long to get our first blog up and running. Already our third day into our trip! But the wifi at our hotel in Madrid was intermittent. My apologies.

Anyway, the JLS group has been having a great time and has definitely displayed some strength of character. On our first day, after a 16 hour plane trip, we had just enough time to drop our things off and head into town to visit the Prado museum. After checking out the Mininas masterpiece and Goya's work, we took a short walking tour and had supper. We arrived back at the hotel at 10 pm in the evening local time. We hit the hay about 27 hours after our goodbyes in the airport. Real troopers!!!

On day two, we continued exploring Madrid. We took an bus tour that gave us a wonderful lay of the land and understanding of Madrileño history. Then off to the royal palace, the building with over 2,000 rooms and home to the Bourbon lineage. We had the afternoon free and didn't have to meet up with the explorica group until 7:30. So we decided to break off into two groups.

After ice-cream at the beautiful Plaza Mayor (thanks to Mitch's Dad) , The Howards, Angela, Jessica and Frieda went off to visit the Reina Sofia, current lodging of Pablo Picasso's Guernica. I took Tejas, Junoh, Mitch and Sarah to explore the Santiago Bernabeú Stadium. The kids thrilled in exploring the digs of the Real Madrid team, including their locker rooms, trophy hall and playing field. Check out their photo in the press box giving an interview just like real "jugadores de futbol"

These days, I tell you, are jammed packed After our respective Reina Sofia/Stadium Bernabeú visits, we headed back to the hotel and changed for the flamenco show and dinner. The kids loved the castanets and the bolero dress. So we started our day at 8 am and at the hotel at 10pm! The next day we all reported that we slept very soundly.

Today, we were off to Segovia. Check out the picture of the Alcazar (Walt Disney used it as a model for the Disneyland Castle). We were given a guided tour of the Alcazar (Segovia's castle and fortress and crying refuge for Juana the Loca, if you follow Spanish history.) We continued on to Burgos and then off to Bilbao and the Guggenheim museum.

Hasta pronto!!!