Las Canarias

This last weekend, my astronomy class went on a field trip to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. The Canary Islands are right off of the coast of Morocco, but they are considered a part of Spain, and they are beautiful! We went to see the Teide Observatory, one of the most well-known in the world. The trip had a few glitches (um, not being open the telescope except for a half hour... one kid getting sent home for partying too hard...) but despite some challenges, the trip still turned out pretty well I think. It was fun to get to know the kids in the class better... That's one thing I love about this program, I'm really getting to know my teachers, classmates, etc. very quickly... it really adds to the class atmosphere!

Here are some pictures (not really in order) from the trip:

Here's a picture of us eating lunch with the amazing shore in the background (Sara, me, Janith, and Ana Maria)

The observatory... that's one of the telescopes in the background. James, me, Janith, and Ana Maria. We were freezing up there!


Here's most of the group on the trip... The lady in the red tank top is our professor, Susana. She's so nice! She's from Madrid, and she studied in Madrid, Tenerife, London, Germany, and France...wow.


This picture was taken from on top of one of the telescopes... that's Mt. Teide, the volcano in Tenerife. This picture doesn't do this view justice!


Here's the telescope we got to use... well not much actually. The weather was really humid, so we could only open the telescope for about 30 minutes... humidity can damage it. It was so cool to see the observatory... we ate dinner in the astronomers' residence and the view from the top of the island was AMAZING... the clouds were below us, Mt. Teide was beside us, and the most beautiful sky was above us!


Here's a shot that I took from the National Park... the clouds up here are pretty amazing.


Here is another shot from the National Park near Mount Teide. All of the island was formed from volcanic rock, so the upper region of the island (a lot of it is above the cloudline) is pretty desolate ... there are some bushy plants and a few rabbits running around, but that's about it! This is a shot from an area where the original "Star Wars" was filmed!



Here's a picture of Playa de Socorro. That translates roughly to "Relief Beach." Makes sense, since the waves were HUGE and no one was allowed to swim that day. The lifeguard warned us that if we tried to swim, he'd call the cops! Needless to say, we listened. However, later he started chatting it up with us when he was off guard-duty, so he really is a nice guy, he was just trying to protect people. The beaches are black sand! Though no one was allowed to swim, there was a surfing competition going on that day, so that was really fun to watch. Here's a picture of the beach:

Well, now it's back to school... midterms start next week for me, so the next 3 weeks are going to be pretty focused on school. I'm trying to figure out a way to get to Strasbourg, France to see my cousin the weekend of October 12-15... since we have a 4-day weekend and I'll be done with the first set of midterms... but for now, it's time to stay here in Madrid and STUDY! This weekend is also General Conference for church. Another U.S. girl I met at church and I might watch the conference together online in English (since they broadcast it in Spanish here)... so there might be 3 or 4 of us crowding around Catherine's computer this weekend... taking notes and listening to the prophet from halfway around the world... I can't wait! :-) Have a great week, everyone!