May 13 2008
Hola from Andalusia, Spain!
Hello!
My name is Peppa and I am very excited to be joining all the Teddy Bears around the world! I belong to a little girl named Mozart who is traveling around the world, so I am seeing lots of fun places.
She turned 7 this past fall when she was in Austria. Guess where she found me? In Vienna, Austria at the oldest zoo in the world! Mozart loves Panda bears and there was a new baby panda at the zoo which she really liked. You can see pictures here. She could not take that baby home with her, but when she saw me in the gift shop, it was love at first sight!
I will share more about our travels to many countries later, but right now we are in Spain, so let me tell you about our life here. Do you see the RV in my picture? That is our home in the spring, summer and fall! When it starts getting to cold and rainy in Europe late in the fall, we head to the deep southern part of Spain called Andalusia because it is one of the sunniest, warmest, happiest places on earth.
We live in a village house in a tiny white village located between Malaga and Granada. This is Mozart’s second winter here, so she knows all the kids. She is bilingual in Spanish and English. She homeschools in English all year long, but when she is in Spain she goes to the local school where the teachers do not speak any English. Most of the other kids only speak Spanish, but a few are from other countries, so speak other languages, including a few from the UK who speak English.
Other wise the children learn most of the same things that you do. They like to play and jump rope at recess. They like to take field trips. They like to learn about everything and have fun. Here is a picture of Mozart’s class.
Mozart plays the violin and the piano after school. She practices the violin before school and walks to the other side of the village with her mom or dad on Thursdays for her lesson. On Tuesdays she takes a piano lesson from her teacher who lives far away in Chicago. He teaches her over the computer with skype. Mozart also uses her laptop to see and talk to her Grandma and friends in California via webcam free calls. Here is a video of Mozart playing her violin in many of the countries she has visited:
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Andalusia is famous for a very ancient dance called flamenco. Mozart loves flamenco and she gets to wear high heels and a fancy dress. She does flamenco lessons on Monday and Wednesday and also walks to her lessons for that with one of her parents. This is a video of her doing flamenco at a performance last year.
Andalusia is also famous for it’s festivals. There are many exciting festivals and Mozart and I love them. Here are two videos showing the two different festivals. The first one is
