45 hours with youngsters

Last Thursday and Friday I went on an excursion with the 5th and 6th graders at my school. We headed off to Barcelona at 4 am in the morning and most of them were chatting away, oblivious to the unholiness of the hour. Stopped at 7 am for breakfast on the road and afterwards they put on a movie, which none of them slept through. I, however, plugged in my earphones and went to sleep (they were showing Meet The Spartans).

We visited the Maritime Museum and went on a ride on Las Golondrinas, a kind of ferry that takes you around the port. I also fell asleep on the ferry but conveniently had my sunglasses to hide the fact. Then after lunch, we had a visit of Pueblo Español, which I would have fallen asleep during if we hadn't had to walk around all the time.

On the bus to Salou, where the hotel was, I also fell asleep. The kids didn't sleep though. They're insane energy machines. (At the hotel, which was full of fat tourists and pensioners, they put on an ABBA spectacle/dance at night, so we were forced to listen to ABBA for 2 hours before being able to fall asleep. The kids asked me the next day if we'd gone downstairs to dance after we'd sent them all to bed. I said 'Me? HA! I went to bed earlier than you.')

The next day we went to Port Aventura, a theme park about two hours from Barcelona. It's been about ten years since the last time I went to a theme park and I went on ALL the rides. It was awesome. On some of them, you get absolutely soaked. I don't remember rides like that from my childhood. Other rides were the same- the rollercoaster that goes at 140 km per hour, the one that lifts you up 100 metres then drops you (I remember learning about how that ride uses magnetic force in physics).

We arrived back in Logrono at 1 am on Saturday morning and even though I was exhausted, I'd gotten so used to the sound of children, it took me a while to get to sleep with the silence.