Pre-Visit trip to Tenerife

Pre-visit trip to Tenerife in May, 2018

Papito and I had spent some time in mainland Spain years ago, but we had no idea how the island life will be. We decided to take our summer vacation trip to Tenerife to have first hand experience with life in the island. We focused the trip on getting to know the city where ULL is located, San Cristobal de la Laguna and the capital city of Tenerife, Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

Santa Cruz is a port, it's at sea level, with more of a bigger city feel and very pleasant weather year around. San Cristobal de La Laguna, is a very charming little town located just 15 minutes away from Santa Cruz, and due to its elevation, the weather is about 10 degrees cooler. Santa Cruz and San Cristobal are joined by a tram line. The weather in the entire island is always about 70'F.

During our stay in Tenerife, Papito had several meetings with administrators, professors and staff at ULL. He had a good start on the objectives of his project in the Spring of 2019. The kidDOS and me focused on getting to know different places where we could live and visiting several schools. After the time we spent in the island, we decided we would like to live in Santa Cruz and for the twins to attend Colegio Hispano Ingles.

I learned a lot about locating and negotiating for a rental place. We made two offers during our trip, and those did not work. We are convinced that some type of negotiation is required to close a deal. We also like the possibility of not having a car. We want to try living in a place where we could walk from place to place and for Papito to take the tram to the university campus.

At the end of the trip, we spent some days in the closest beach to Santa Cruz, called "Las Teresitas". The views are so picturesque, and the sand is very soft. The beaches in Tenerife are made of volcanic rock. However, they have created some sand beaches by importing sand from the Sahara desert. Las Teresitas is one of this manmade beaches.

Smiles,