Tocamos el mundo!

On this beautiful, Blue Monday, it is just about right to write something about last week to cheer us up. So, last week we've (meaning: Concejalía de Juventud, Ayuntamiento de Villanueva de la Serena) launched our project for high school lads, called "Tocar el mundo". Yay!!!

So what is it all about? 

Well, we have invited all EVS volunteers from ASERMUN, who live in Extremadura (Villanueva, Cabeza del Buey, Castuera), to come to schools and give a little presentation on their country. That was quite a journey!

First stop: Poland. Although at first I was a little bit nervous, I managed to do my presentation without visible shaking. Together with my students, we travelled from A to Z through Poland (where J was Jazz, M was Masurian lakes and O was Opener Festival... well, I tried to be up to date) and then we draw a poster inviting tourists to Poland. My students were great and very, very talented :)

Second stop: France. Chloé made students fight hard for their poins in the competition about France (especially singing French song and introducing choreography was a challege!).

Third stop: England. Rachael talked about English breakfast, rain and other stereotypes; she tried to answer all diffucult questions about English economy and alcohol-drinking limits.

Fourth stop: Germany and Sweden. Lukas and Gabriel's dreamteam introduced a lot of information about their countries, alongside with a "regional touch" about their hometowns! They also spent quite a lot of time answering students' questions and didn't seem tired of it :)

We also had some nice publicity: they wrote about us on the website of Ayuntamiento and in the biggest newspaper in Extremadura - Hoy. Yay, guys, we are famous! (And as usual - I owe you big time.)

So, we travelled quite a lot las week with students of Instituto Pedro de Valdivia... Next journey - in Feburary, with the students of San José!

November sun

November in Villanueva means:

- understanding more and more Spanish. However, the extremeño accent is still a challenge for me. Mental note: drop the  "s" every time you want to pronounce it.

Done.

- enjoying the sun. We still (sometimes) get warm mornings, as well as long, lazy sjestas, that feel like summer and redish sunsets (with an autumn chill). November in Spain is not a "I-hate-getting-out-of-bed" month. Or a "It-smells-like-a-wet-dog" month. It is a totally enjoyable period of the year, with golden leaves and churros and chocolate caliente in a package. It couldn´t be better.

- learning economical/political/sociological terms (recortes, sindicalista, deuda), watching the publicist struggling in TV news and going on a strike on the 14th of November. You can not really live in Spain now without being politically aware about the importance of elecions in Catalunia or without hearing about the public affair including a porn star, Chinese mafia and diamonds (that´s a hell of a title for a criminal novel!). "May you live in interesting times".

- doing some serious research for my future "How to travel/sleep/eat cheaply around Europe" guide. Serious research included: eating an inappropriate amount of pastry, one milion orders of cafe solo, and going to Merida, in order to explore Roman ruins. And calmares ala romano.

- listening to "Buenas noches, Oscar Martinez" - did I ever mentioned my weakness for a low-quality music hits? Well, this radio show on Cadena 100 provides me an unstopping flow of them, including my brand new obsession:

Hopefully, when my level of Spanish improves, I´ll be listening to something more ambicious.


(No, I won´t.)

Villanueva de la Serena - city of many charms

For the last two weeks Extremadura was one of the few sunny regions of Spain. Happy, happy me.

So how is my life in Villanueva? Basically I am struggling with a two-week jet lag... Ok, I should stop fooling myself and deal with the fact, that my body was totally unprepared for the whole Spanish siesta-nightlife rythm. For the past two weeks my and my flatmate were trying to go out at night to enjoy the famous Spanish finde (weekend - fin de semana), but more that once we have failed and spent (far too many) evenings watching Spongebob. (Cartoons seem to be the only thing we are able to understand.) Last weekend, we finally drunk the hell lot of coffee and managed to go out.

(The fact, that after an hour of walking around the town we have ended up in the bar closest to our home, ordered non-alcoholic drinks by mistake and got back home before 10 pm - before Spanish children even consider going to bed - doesn´t count.)

But while I´m awake (which doesn´t really happen very often), I managed to walk around Villanueva and make some decents shots. The city has both old and new parts, and they beautifully coexist next to each other.

The bench (almost-like-in-park-Guell) photoshoot I am particularly proud of. ;)

My favourites are:

- Palacio Consistorial "La Jabonera" - what used to be a soap factory, is now a scene of cultural events.

- Horno Santa Eulalia in the Plaza del Maura - best place for coffee and gossips, and comfortable spot to observe the slow pace of life at Villanueva and its participants: elegant 60-year old woman (red lipstick, cigarettes, little dog), nuclear families (dummies, strollers, loads of laugh), teenagers (Blackberries, hormones, too much hair gel), group of elderly men (Estrella Galicia and endless discussions about last night game.)

What else you can find in Villanueva, besides coffee and people who look like characters from the film of Almodovar? Well, everyday life pleasures, in all shapes, colours and sizes.

Add a flamenco show (last night, fiesta del Barrio del Pilar - our district) and cruasan relleno de chocolate (pretty much everyday) and you have a happy, happy me.

Little red riding backpacker in Madrid

What kind of thoughts come to your mind when you think of Spain? Sun? Warmth? Beautiful, cloudless sky? Well, Madrid decides to make a suprising entrance into my life and welcomed me with rain, clouds and greyness. I honestly was not prepared for that, so under a pile of sundresses and flip-flops I digged a raincoat out of my suitcase and went out to explore what a capital city has to offer.

Greyish Madrid.

Puerta del Sol (sin sol).

But there was a way to fight the weather-based depression...

... and the world turned a little bit brighter, although an umbrella was still a "must-have".

After wandering a while the narrow streets of Atocha, I literally bumped onto Museo del Prado. (For the art lover, the No Name Hostel on Calle de Atocha is superconvenient, as it is just a 10 minutes walk from both: del Prado y Museo Reigna Sofia). I went there twice, both times between 6-8 pm (it´s free for everyone at that time), since I could not get enough of it. I suppose I could make a habit out of it and go there every evening a year round, since its beauty, variety and colours are overwhelming. First thing I went to see was my beloved Rembrandt:

I never know how to embrace this mysterious light of his paintings - this warm, inviting blaze of light that makes female cheeks rosy, faces ofold man full of wisedom and young - full of hope. 

Just one piece of Rembrandt is worth going, not to mention being scared by Goya´s pinturas negras, seeing live the Veronese´s greeness, or trying to figure out what are the Spanish boys are laughing about, watching Bosch The Garden of Earthly Delights (I had more than few guesses).

The next moring, however, was much, much better. The best way to start a Sunday is... el Rastro, a Notting Hill of Madrid. It´s flea market, where you can buy everything from fashionable clothes to jewellery made out of aluminium cans, from antique furniture to Spongebob-shaped pillows, and many, many more.

I badly wanted those door, but they wouldn´t fit into my suitcase.

My South Corean friend, whose photo-pose reminded my of the good times in Taiwan.

Beautiful, beautiful hanging beds & chairs

Fooling around Madrid, I could not see the obvious. The social climate nowadays is very tense, and even if I hadn´t walked by Plaza de Neptun last Saturday and see the desperate, angry crowd there, I could figure it out just by looking at the streets.

Aquí no hay playa anymore.

Breakfast with a view

Summer in the city (Warsaw, Poland)

 

 

 

 

If I was able to make love to a bread, this would be the one.

 

Note: "The little book of..." is about to be transfered to Villanueva de la Serena, Spain. So keep your fingers crossed - I promise to be as efficient, hard-working and up-to-date blogger as I can.