Mr. Kuk's Excelente Aventura

After spending our first month in Spain bouncing between two different cities and four different apartments, our family was in no mood to travel once we finally settled town in our own place in Fuengirola. We enjoyed settling into a weekly routine in our new city and only took a couple small day trips to nearby Mijas Pueblo. As the calendar turned to December, we were ready for a weekend adventure. One of Becky's old friends from a study abroad program in college lives in Granada, which is one of the most visited cities in Spain and is only a couple of hours from Fuengirola. The city also is home to the impressive Alhambra, one of the most visited tourist attractions in Europe, and in the shadows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. All of those factors combined to make Granada the perfect place for our first side trip in Spain. Fortunately, I had gained some experience driving to the food bank in Malaga as part of my weekly volunteer activities for a local charity. Otherwise, I do

This post is a little bit different.  I have created a video to give a glimpse into daily life in Spain.  You will see where we live in Fuengirola, our favorite nearby areas in the city, and some activities that I take part in during the week.

When we arrived in Spain on September 26th, we had four weeks to find an apartment for the next nine months.  Our plane landed in Madrid, but the next day we boarded a bus to Málaga, a port city along the Mediterranean coast.  From Málaga, we took a much shorter bus ride to the nearby town of Fuengirola for our first full week in Spain.  Málaga province along the Costa del Sol.  Málaga city and Fuengirola are on the map. Over the next four weeks, we would be alternating weeks at AirBnb apartments in Málaga and Fuengirola to determine where we wanted to settle for the rest of our year in Spain.  When we originally began to plan our year abroad, we had thought that we would live in Málaga, which is the largest city in the province and is a similar size to Baltimore.  However, I had arranged to volunteer at a school one day per week in Fuengirola, which is forty minutes from Málaga by commuter train.  I had also made contact with the director of a homeless ministry in Fuengirola an

Our bags were all packed and ready to go...actually they had already been packed for a month now.  After moving out of our house on August 25th, our family had been nomadic for the past month, bouncing between family and friends in addition to my solo trip to Guatemala.  Yet, now, it was finally time to depart for Spain!   Here we go! My aunt dropped us off at New York's JFK Airport after a final hurrah in Ocean City, New Jersey, and we settled in to wait a few hours until we could check in for our 11:55 PM flight to Madrid, Spain.  We passed time by riding on the elevators and escalators with the girls.  On the way back from the food court, I noticed on the display board that our flight had been delayed until 4:35 AM.  "Oh boy," I thought, "this is going to be a long night." After a while, I thought that it would be a good idea to see if we could check-in early to our flight so we wouldn't have to try to get Lydia and Evelyn through security after

For the first leg of my sabbatical adventure, I set off without my trusty sidekicks.  It was a little bit intimidating traveling to a land where I had a limited ability to speak the language, but I was confident in my planning and preparation. Guatemala is a beautiful country!  I only saw a small part of the country, though, because the mountainous terrain and windy roads slow down travel significantly.  I spent most of my time in San Pedro La Laguna, along the shore of Lake Atitlan, possibly the most beautiful lake in the world.  In fact, author Aldous Huxley said, "It really is too much of a good thing."  While I was in San Pedro for language school, I was able to explore other locations around Lake Atitlan.  If I were to share all my memories, this post would be more like a book, so I am only going to share three favorite activities and two lessons learned by the shores of Atitlan. The best way to get to San Pedro is by boat Three Favorite Activities 1) Sunrise h

I am about to take off on a year-long sabbatical adventure with my family as we live in Spain for the 2019 – 2020 school year.   When I announced my sabbatical at the end of the school year, students and parents asked how they could follow my experiences.   This blog is the answer to that question.   I will try to share stories, pictures and videos from my sabbatical.   The blog is geared towards the school community (hence using Mr. Kuk in the title), but it will also be a good place for family and friends to keep up on our adventure. In this post, I want to give an overview of my plans for the year. What is a sabbatical? The word “sabbatical” is derived from the Biblical concept of a Sabbath.   In a tradition that is still observed by some people, the Israelites were commanded to reserve one day for rest and worship after six days of work.   This concept applied not only to the days of the week, but also to years, as the Israelites were also to observe a Sabbath year in