Adventures in Sweden: March 2019

Home Again

Since I returned home I have been very busy with work, catching up on grading and getting my marks in for midterms. I haven't been out on any adventures since my weekends have been devoted to work.

I also learned how to program a Sphero (robot) and am now teaching my class to as well. It is lots of fun and the classes are loving it. This is a crossover project with technology with the grade 5s. I am also doing a crossover project with woodcraft with my grade 4s. They are using geometric shapes to design and plan for a string art project they will complete in wood craft. They are enjoying that as well.

Mid terms are now in, so hopefully next weekend I will get out and get some interesting content for the blog.

I hope everyone is happy and healthy. Fortunately I have not been sick this winter (knock on wood) even though I think every other member of staff has been out for at least a few days.

The days are getting longer and I actually have sunlight both going into and out of school. There are still more overcast days than sunny ones, but that is changing slowly as well. The temperatures are warming and yesterday it was 11 Celsius and sunny. Today is a bit cooler, but still sunny.

I am off for a run. Have a great Sunday!

Grand Canari

Grand Canari, the last full day on the ship. Many of my friends departed to day as their cruise started here.

A view of the city and harbour from the boat.

The excursion was another hop on hop off bus. Sights from on high.

This is the old town of Grand Canari

I spent a large portion of the day on the beach. It was a nice day but a bit breezy so I didn't go swimming but I did get my feet wet in the Atlantic. Also, there were no changing stations. I also wandered the shops on the beach and stopped for a bite to eat in a cafe.

I got back to the ship for my last dinner on board. It was a pleasant evening. We went to the Casino after dinner to listen to the music and chatter. Later we went to the disco for our final hooray.

My last night to have the waves rock me to sleep. Such an amazing adventure.

Tomorrow we will arrive back in Tenerife and I will get off to go home and back to work, refreshed and renewed, sporting a lovely tan.

Lanzarote, Canari Islands

Another warm, sunny day on the islands. Lanzarote is sometimes referred to as the island of a 1,000 volcanoes. Here are some pictures from the ship of the landscape.

The majority of the buildings are white with brown or black trim. Fishing villages can have green trim.

Today's excursion was the Grand tour de Lanzarote. This had two stops. The first was at a lava tunnel left by the most recent volcanic eruption in 1824. The second was the volcano Timanfaya which is classes as historical and therefore dormant, although you can still feel the heat under the surface.

This is the lava tunnel. There is a pool of water which hosts many tiny white crabs is it.

These are the white crabs.

Here are some of the floras

This is one huge geranium

This is looking out at the ocean from the place where the tunnel is.

We have arrived at the volcano. They did three demonstrations for us. The first they dug up son volcanic rocks from just under the surface and let us hole them. They were still hot from the volcano.

The second, pictured below, there was a whole in the ground and they added some dry brush to it and it ignited from the heats.

The third, they demonstrated how geysers work by pouring cold water down tube in the ground that was hot.

This is an opening from the volcano. They were cooking chicken kabobs on it. The heat was very intense even though it was coming from hundreds of meters down.

We left here and traveled by bus up a narrow winding road to the top of the volcano. The landscape has very little vegetation since it is all volcanic rock. There are lichens attached to the rock to help break it down, but it will take many years.