Saturday, June 5, 2010

Portugal - Surf Trip

After final exams and before the kiddies go back home for the summer, there are spring cultural trips. For the second year in a row, I have been fortunate enough to go on the surfing trip in Peniche, Portugal. We spent 4 days at a surf camp with surf lessons in the morning and various activities in the afternoon.

Here, at the surf camp getting our first instructions


Here, the troops are packing up after a day of surfing



Ethan, me and one of our surf instructors


Cool thing on the street


Here are the leaders of the trip, Paul (also a math teacher), me and Ethan. We shared an apartment below the student sleeping quarters. Here we are (after the kids went to bed), reading and knitting....well, Paul was doing the knitting.





on the beach


some of the kids on the beach


This is me, but I promise I can really stand on a surf board too




We're pros now


And each night, we all dined together at the long table....all 27 of us






sunset from the surf camp


Sunset on a different night on the beach








The beach was a very close walk so we enjoyed some very nice evenings playing soccer, football, volleyball, doing running races or building human pyramids. This photo was a self timed photo taken by Sara, the student at the very top of the pyramid.


Just some other cool pictures




On one of the afternoons we went to Berlenga Island. We took an hour long boat ride to get there. There is a bird sanctuary there.



The waters got a little rough at times
















We toured around through some caves at Berlenga Island in the smaller boats


A few photos from Berlenga Island










And on the boat ride home, we passed a lot of birds




Group shot at the surf camp


In Lisbon having some lunch


Views of Lisbon




Castle in Lisbon








And our last night of the trip was spent in Lisbon (actually the last two nights were). However, on the last night of the trip, we went to a nice dinner and saw Fado music.


We saw this on the way to the Fado club in Lisbon

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Chateau D'Oex

Got away from Leysin for a night in early May.....spent the night in a little hut in the mountains in Chateau D'Oex. It's just a short drive from Leysin and quite close to Gstaad.

We stopped in a little town called Sanaan on the way.





The very touristy Gstaad Golden Rail Pass train went through town.


In Gstaad


Mountains and tea from the hut


The hut




Erin, Jamie, MFK, me and Howie


We loved this door


Jamie practicing his jumping skills


Took a little wander through the mountains


The Canadians.....Howie, MFK and Jamie






We played in the WWI and II bunkers...not sure the Swiss government knew about this.


Breakfast


Erin and the Swiss flag


Looking at Leysin from Chateau D'Oex