After a long week of language class, electives, and afternoon activities, we finally made it to the much anticipated weekend excursion. Today our group took our bus to Bolonia, a small village on the coast of Andalucía known for its incredible beaches and cliff views, but most prominently its ancient city of Roman ruins. Once we got off the bus, we headed straight for the museum of the Baelo Claudia ruins and ancient city remains, where we spent a few hours touring and learning about the bath houses, burial methods, and daily life in the Roman Empire that was built right here in Spain some 2,000 years ago. Afterwards, some of our most adventurous students took the opportunity with our staff members to climb the dune overlooking the ruins and the beach. As I write this, we are back on our bus headed towards Cádiz, ready for some rest, dinner, and free time with friends.
Highlights from earlier this week include surf lessons on Tuesday afternoon, watching the Eurocup semi-finals together in the Plaza de Mina in Cádiz (where many of our students met local Spanish friends!), and a group dinner on Thursday evening. We continue to be thrilled by the effort and passion we see in our entire group, for example how several have reached out to us asking how they can do something special for their host families.
The rest of this weekend will leave more time to play fútbol with our new Spanish friends (the consensus is that our students beat them in basketball, but they beat us in soccer), meals both at home with our Spanish families and out in the group, and some more local excursions to some of Cádiz’s hidden gems.