Planning a Trip to Spain with Kids

Our nephews (9 and 10) attend a school where literacy skills are taught in English, but several other subjects, including math and science, are taught in Spanish.

It's a joy to see the boys use their skills. In 2016, they slipped unselfconsciously into Spanish when speaking with a server from Spain in our Edinburgh hotel.

In 2019, my partner and I will travel with our nephews and their parents to Spain. The trip will broaden our nephews' horizons, and provide them with practical opportunities to develop their Spanish. It will also be a fun, family vacation.

For me, it takes a mental change of gears to imagine a kid-friendly trip to Spain. During the past few days I've had the rather pleasant task researching seaside towns where we would begin and end the trip.

Madonna Writhed Here

I'm staying in an idiosyncratic 12-room hotel in the town of Ronda in Andalusia, Spain. My suite fills three floors in a tower: first floor, entrance and bathroom; second floor, sitting room; third floor, bedroom. I'm going to get a lot of exercise tonight.

I'm pretty sure my bed is the same bed Madonna used in her Take a Bow music video from her 1994 album, Bedtime Stories. Part of the video was shot in the hotel.

You must know the scene: it's the one where she writhes on a bed in her underwear.

[Warning: NSFW below the fold.]

Travelling with Cultural Baggage

One of the challenges of travel is having to bring myself with me. If the trip is going to be more than passive entertainment, I have to try to erode my preconceived notions, prejudices, blindspots, and cultural programming.

This week I felt shock when I first saw the scene pictured at the top of this post. I had to remind myself I was in southern Spain, and not South Carolina.

Maybe this is just bad taste fancy dress. Then I saw whole families dressed up.

Mapping My Next Travels

On a freezing February day in Minnesota, it feels good to think about upcoming travels to warmer places. Today, I've been assembling digital and print maps.

As usual, my winter trip has several phases, each with its own mapping requirements. The trip starts in the Florida Keys and culminates in a walk from one side of Britain to the other along a national trail, the Hadrian's Wall Path. This sounds grander than the reality: the path runs from coast-to-coast at Britain's narrowest point.