Merry Christmas from the Basque Country!

All of the Christmas lights have been switched on, Christmas trees have been erected in the main squares, and the Christmas markets are in full swing, so I can now finally say that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Spain! Generally Christmas isn’t taken so seriously here. All of the festivities start a lot later, apparently it’s only acceptable to start talking about Christmas in December which goes against everything I've learnt growing up in Britain - the country where Harrods opened its festive shop this year in July (my students were appalled when I told them this). The Basque Christmas markets are decidedly less Christmassy selling practical items like jewellery and general food rather than Christmas decorations and mince pies. 

I’ve been shocked by how different Christmas is here compared to England because I thought it was a pretty standardised holiday. However, in Spain, Christmas Eve is a lot more important because that is when you eat Christmas dinner and watch the King’s speech (or the leader of the Basque country, who is conveniently broadcast at exactly the same time as the King). They also have another holiday over the festive period on the 6th of January where they celebrate 'los tres reyes magos' or the three wise men with more presents and another big meal.

The biggest surprise for me, however, is the fact that the Basque Country has its own version of Father Christmas called Olentzero. The Basques are so stubborn with their traditions that not even the powerful advertising force of Coca Cola has been able to reach these parts. The story goes that Olentzero is a Basque peasant who lives in the mountains and brings presents to the good Basque children on Christmas Eve. Pretty similar to Father Christmas really except that he lives in the Basque mountains and only serves Basque people. I would argue that in this sense he's not as charitable as our version and should maybe rethink his generosity.

Zorionak!

Ens vam anar a Barcelona!

If google translate hasn't let me down the title simply means 'we went to Barcelona' in Catalan. There was another holiday last Thursday (standard Spain) so Laura and I decided to begin exploring the country with a trip to Barcelona. We told some university friends of our plans; luckily they hadn’t forgotten about us and booked to come with us. 

Laura and I arrived a day before everyone, so what’s the first thing 2 English girls in Barcelona in December decide to do? Hit the beach of course! Despite being next to the sea we still managed to get very lost trying to find the beach and ended up walking for about 2 hours (if you know either of us I’m sure this won’t surprise you - in Bilbao, we once found ourselves in the middle of a motorway after walking for an hour because I was convinced I knew the way home). But we eventually found it and it was very sunny.

Our friends arrived the next day, and we got a lovely surprise when 2 more of our friends decided to take a spontaneous trip to see us. After visiting the Sagrada Familia we were very Spanish and had a lunch that lasted about 3 hours. We then went to the Christmas Market which was absolutely massive. It was amazing but, unfortunately, the clear blue skies and 15 degree heat prevented us from getting in the festive spirit. I’m actually excited to come home to minus degree temperature, ice, and being forced to use mulled wine as a heat source because that’s all part of Christmas.

At the Christmas market we quickly learnt that Catalan Christmas traditions are very different from anywhere else in the world. The first evidence of this was when we found lots of stalls selling small ornaments of famous people with their trousers round their ankles going to the toilet. They had ornaments of everyone from The Queen to Gandhi in all their glory. We found no explanation for this other than at Christmas time people like them.

If that wasn’t weird enough we also saw lots of stalls selling logs with faces on them, and we learnt about the tradition that on Christmas Day these logs ‘poo’ a present which is found underneath them. The Catalans clearly have a strange obsession with Christmas toilet habits.

Barcelona has a reputation for pickpocketing and we weren’t let down because we were ‘lucky’ enough to see it happen on two separate occasions that night when my friend Callum got his wallet stolen twice (don’t worry, he got it back both times). Granted Callum was being stupid the first time when someone said they liked his belt so he lifted up his top and started talking about it. He obviously didn’t think this slightly strange and was surprised to find his wallet had gone, but luckily he managed to steal it back. The second time someone just took it from his pocket in front of him, they weren’t discreet in the slightest. Unfortunately this time he had to get into a fight to get it back, but he won and was allowed to keep his money. Warning: The danger of pickpocketing is real in Barcelona so don’t be stupid!

The next day I did possibly the best activity I’ve done since I’ve been in Spain and went go karting around Barcelona. That’s right; someone actually let me drive on the road in a go kart in Barcelona. This will probably scare everyone that knows me as I’m not the best driver in the world (my driving instructor actually said that I was one of the worst drivers he’d ever seen pass), but that didn’t faze me. I’ll admit that I didn’t get off to the best start when I crashed into Rosie and Callum’s go kart because I couldn’t work out how to use the brakes, and at one point I forgot that I was driving on the right hand side of the road so almost crashed into a queue of waiting traffic at some traffic lights, but I eventually got the hang of it. I managed to do better than Callum who drove his go kart down a one way street when a car was driving the other way. The go karts can’t reverse so Rosie, Callum, and the man from the other car had to get out of their vehicles and physically turn the go kart around. But these incidents were all part of the fun and go karting was an amazing way to see the sights of Barcelona. The go karts are all installed with a GPS system where a woman tells you where to drive so you follow the correct route. We chose to visit the Olympic park and drive along the beach at sunset which definitely made me feel like I was part of a really cool movie.

After the most amazing time in Barcelona Laura and I came back to rainy Bilbao to find that Spain was enjoying yet another national holiday. While I enjoyed the holiday on Thursday, having 2 in 3 days is a bit much and the second one definitely wasn’t appreciated considering we had no food in the flat. I’m not exaggerating when I say on Sunday all I ate was 2 biscuits until 6pm when my flatmate kindly made me dinner. Spain, if you insist on closing all shops on Sundays it's not a great idea to close everything on Saturday as well!

Las Escaleras Mecánicas

I’ll admit that this is a slightly random post but I still find it strange after two months of being here, so I thought I’d share how I get to school every day. To begin with I take a bus or get a lift from Bilbao to Ermua, pretty normal thus far. However, both of the schools are situated on the top of a massive hill; so, to get up this big hill the town council have kindly provided not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 (!!!) escalators right in the middle of the pavement. I’ve never seen outdoor escalators like them before, and I’m not sure if the steepness of the hill justifies the walking assistance, but the escalators are very convenient for me and they’re even covered by a roof so can be used whatever the weather. Although, they have forced me to become even lazier and when one doesn’t work, which occasionally happens, it has the potential to ruin my day before it’s even begun.

Also, I have a confession to make. After my very positive previous post I have to admit that I did actually get very homesick for the first time this weekend. It’s not so much that I wanted to be at home, but the fact that I couldn’t contact the people I wanted to when I wanted to that made me emotional. I didn’t have the best Saturday for various reasons, and all I wanted to do was hear a familiar voice tell me that I was being stupid, but that obviously wasn’t possible and at that moment in time it felt very unfair and pretty much like the end of the world (I’ll admit that it was my fault no one was on skype because I chose to have a breakdown at the inconvenient time of 1am). However, after talking to my parents and some of my closest friends on Sunday I now feel so much better and a lot more rational (it probably also helps that it's not the early morning and I slept last night). Despite not being there at my most crucial breakdown moment because they were too busy partying (selfish), I have the best friends ever.

I knew this year would have its ups and downs, but it’s safe to say that I’m not making any immediate plans to emigrate to Australia. 

I am thankful for...

My amazing family. My beautiful friends. My life in Spain. And in the UK.

I celebrated my first ever Thanksgiving this year by going to an American friends' flat and eating a feast that lots of people had contributed to. Apparently Thanksgiving's even bigger than Christmas in America and it was so nice to be surrounded by friends from all over the world who could come together to enjoy this tradition. It made me think how lucky I am to have relocated my whole life to Spain, and yet still be able to enjoy myself just as much as if I were at home.

Strikes and Something Cultural

There’s no two ways about it, the Spanish economy is in crisis. The majority of Spain has over 25% unemployment, but yet the government still insists on making cuts to every sector, meaning more people lose their jobs so have less money to spend to replenish the economy. This also means that almost every week there is some sort of strike happening. Last week it was a general strike so all bases were covered. While in Britain people might find other ways to protest, the Spanish are insistent that striking is always the answer. This is a tiny bit inconvenient for the average person who isn´t striking when their commute is hard enough without buses suddenly stopping in the afternoon, leaving said person stranded in a tiny Basque town. Cheers Spain. However, the strangest strike I’ve come across so far is when the students go on strike. The students protest against the poor education they’re receiving by missing a day of school (pretty illogical, no?), so they make a decision two days before planned strike, give in some paperwork, and then get a day off school. It's really that simple.

Despite some inconveniences my friends and I are still embracing Spain and we’re trying activities that maybe we wouldn’t normally do anywhere else. We’ve had some successes with the trip to Ermua for the festival and on Friday we went to the ‘Guggenheim after dark’ - a party in the museum which takes place once a month. I found that it was just the right balance between being cultured and getting drunk. However, we have encountered some failures in our desire to be Spanish. It has led to us unknowingly participating in feminism week at the cinema and watching a film about a woman who loses her dog, and then finds it again, only to leave it where she found it (literally the whole plot of the film). Accidently watching a silent movie at a quirky little cinema by our flat based on Snow White, who in this film is a bull fighter that falls in love with one of the dwarves. While planning my year abroad I never imagined I’d be sat in a cinema watching an interesting interpretation of a much loved classic while eating sweets in the shape of fingers. Very surreal. And finally, on Saturday night, we found out about a free concert taking place. We were pretty excited until it turned out the woman would just be screaming whale-like sounds into a microphone to the same tune for an hour.

I guess you can’t fault our efforts!

Parents, Pigs, and Peculiar Pintxos

I was lucky enough to have my parents come to visit me for a few days last week, directly followed by a spontaneous visit from a friend who’s spending the year in Asturias, so it’s been very busy here. My parents brought with them lots of English goodies and even more clothes. So many clothes in fact that my drawers now won’t shut properly - It looks like I will struggle with packing to go home in May even more than I did to come out here. And with Rosie I became a tourist again and went up the funicular in Bilbao where you have an amazing view of the city.

It was good to see familiar faces and catch up, but this weekend it was nice to once again embrace the culture of the Basque country with a trip to Ermua on Saturday for the annual Feria de San Martin - a traditional festival in the town. I get on really well with the students I teach (possibly a bit too well as I don’t think it’s usual protocol to ask a teacher if they want to smoke weed with you after lesson, but I'll take this as a sign that I'm a cool teacher), and they were selling at the market to fund their school trip so I promised I’d come along and buy lots of things. However, I didn’t really anticipate being peer pressured into spending 5 euros on a lottery ticket. Never before has winning the lottery felt so important. Despite spending too much it was so lovely to see all of the traditional clothing, hear the traditional music and eat tola, a Basque pancake with chorizo. 

But one tradition in particular seemed pretty strange to me and my friend Laura; keeping a very overweight pig in a pen in the centre of the plaza that people had the opportunity to win (and consequently take to the slaughter house themselves) in a raffle. Poor piggy.

The Basque love of all things meaty was once again confirmed later on in the day when some friends and I went to a pintxo fair at the Exhibition Centre. Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas but instead of coming free with a drink you have to pay for them. People here argue that the quality of the Basque tapas are worth paying for, but when you're a student who lives off of supermarket own brand food that argument seems pretty invalid. Different bars and restaurants had set up their own stalls with a selection of 3 of their best pintxos for people to try. I opted for what I believed to be a small passion fruit cake with a creamy topping. It wasn’t until I took a bite that I realised the creamy topping actually contained ham and bacon. I would argue that meaty passion fruit cake is definitely not worth paying for. Luckily I learnt from my mistake and when my friend offered me another small cake I was careful to dissect it properly and saw that underneath all the meringue it contained crab. Who invents these things?!

5 things I miss about England

I’ve been out of the country for over a month and, apart from the obvious friends and family, it’s the small things I’ve found myself missing, like…

1) A kettle. Most Spanish people don’t understand why anyone would own a kettle because they never drink tea. I’m not the biggest tea drinker so I don’t miss it for that - I actually quite enjoy having to make tea with a saucepan because it makes me feel like I’ve earned my cuppa. I miss it for making food. Boiling the water in a pan takes double the amount of time and, stupidly, I only ever start cooking when I’m hungry, so those extra 5 minutes feel like a lot longer.

2) Shops being open between 2 and 5, and at all on Sundays. If you haven’t bought food for Sunday beforehand you will starve. Fact.

 

3) Being able to ring my friends and family when I want. Calling home now has to be a big, planned event on skype and conversations have to last at least half an hour. This has been detrimental to my relationship with, for example, my brother who has just started uni himself so neither of us have any time (he’s only in his first year though so I think he’s probably using this as an excuse not to talk to me). At home if something interesting happened it’s so much easier to have a quick 10 minute phone conversation.

4) The pace of life. Everyone always complains that British people never have any time for anyone and everyone’s always on the go. I quite like that. It means everyone gets straight to the point and things happen faster. Here, spending 3 hours eating lunch is no big deal and the ‘hasta mañana’ attitude means that everything takes double the amount of time.

5) Politeness. When you are walking in Spain people will not move out of your way. Staring for an awkward amount of time is acceptable. If people need to spit in the street multiple times nobody thinks anything of it. People will tell you exactly what they’re thinking, as I found out the other day when a Spanish man told me I looked really ill. Thanks for that.

Doing as the tourists do

I’ve now been in Bilbao for 4 weeks and I can finally say that I’ve seen the landmark the city is most famous for – the Guggenheim museum. The museum celebrated its 15 year anniversary this weekend so entry was free and the first 3000 visitors each day got free cupcakes. Unfortunately going to bed at 4am meant we missed out on the cupcakes, but we still queued for 15 minutes in the rain exhausted and hungover which I think was quite an achievement. And, honestly, I was a bit disappointed with the museum.

The Guggenheim is an incredible building, and you can’t miss it when you walk the streets of Bilbao so I guess I was expecting something slightly more amazing. The actual structure of the building inside is still incredible but the exhibits, in my opinion, were pretty forgettable. I’m probably not the best judge because I don’t really appreciate art in general, but I was happy that I didn't pay 8€ to walk around what, at times, I thought resembled an IKEA warehouse. 

The teaching side of things in Bilbao has been going ok. At first I loved talking to the kids’ one on one because it’s easy and I love talking, but there’s only so many times you can pretend to be interested in someones favourite music. So I’ve asked if I could start taking some whole class lessons instead, and next week I will be teaching the students about Halloween. I never thought I’d see the day when I actually want to take on more work. I did have one mishap, however, last week that still hasn’t deterred me involving the teacher asking me to explain the meaning of words like ash, flood, and volcanic eruption which is quite difficult for someone who never paid attention in GCSE science lessons; so I stumbled my way through giving explanations such as "ash is what you get in a fire". She then asked me to write on the whiteboard words to do with the topic natural disasters and had to correct at least 5 of my spellings (in my defence they were words like lightning and tsunami). When a native Spanish speaker corrects your English spelling I think it’s a sign that you’ve officially been studying foreign languages for too long.

How to survive without internet

So, we’ve been without internet ever since we moved into our flat 11 days ago and despite the obvious annoyances of not being able to speak to family and friends our lack of internet has actually turned out to be a bit of a blessing in disguise. Instead of staying inside watching English programmes and skyping we’ve been forced to find other things to do. Consequently, we’ve seen more of Bilbao and have gone out almost every night since we’ve been here. This has also prevented us from getting home sick because we’re so detached from everyone that right now it feels like nowhere else exists.

Only after we spent a ridiculous amount of money on copious glasses of wine (wine in Spain is cheaper than water) to justify spending so long in cafes with wifi did we realise that the bar next to us has wifi that we can reach from the lobby of our apartment block. So as I’m sat on the floor in the lobby (we’re now probably notorious with our neighbours as the weird English girls) I will give a brief update of my last two weeks. I moved into the flat. I went to the schools for introductory lessons - turns out my schools are both taught in Basque which isn’t ideal for improving my Spanish. I went to the training days. I met more people. I went out. I slept.

I realise that my brief update doesn’t make it sound like I’m having a great time but I’m now beginning to believe everybody that says the year abroad is the best time of your life. I had my first proper week teaching this week and spent most of it discussing One Direction with the students. Going on first impressions I think I’m going to enjoy this ‘teaching’ thing. 

MY ROOM!

Kitchen

Lounge

View from my balcony

I'm ok

After my more panicky blog posts I thought I’d let people know that I am actually fine now, and have managed to sort my life out in the 6 days I’ve been here.

I’ve found an amazing flat with 2 other British language assistants and a Spanish girl. It’s right by the bus station, which is perfect for my commute to Ermua, and about 5 minutes away from the Athletic Bilbao stadium (another great reason why my male friends should visit). I’m so relieved that I’m not homeless anymore but having to spend a week in a hotel as well as pay for the deposit on the flat and one month’s rent means that I am officially broke and considering putting money from my English overdraft into my Spanish bank account until I get paid in November. And yes, I have managed to open a Spanish bank account after signing about 50583373 forms without understanding any of them, and being forced to put 100 euros into the account in order to get a debit card which I may never actually receive because I wasn’t 100% sure of my Spanish address at the time, so I ended up inventing the flat name and number of the block. I got the street and postcode right though, a minor success. I also managed to get the dreaded Numero de Identidad de Extranjeros without too much hassle or queuing, which was a nice surprise. Although I’d filled in and photocopied the wrong kind of residency form, but the nice lady printed off the right one and I was allowed to fill it in there and then.

And, most importantly, I’ve managed to make some friends! Everyone in Bilbao, both British and Spanish, have been so lovely. I’ve so far met 4 other British Council Language Assistants and we were invited out last night, randomly, by a woman working in Santander bank; very welcoming.

Next task: Start work tomorrow. Before I can do this I must make sure that I catch the right bus, get off at the right bus stop, and find out where the schools are in the town. 

ESTOY EN ESPAÑA!

I finally made it! I couldn’t bring myself to cut down my luggage so I turned up to the airport quite a few kilos over the allowance, and amazingly didn’t have to pay any extra charges. The woman behind the desk obviously felt sorry for the girl on the brink of tears dragging 4 bags behind her, and didn’t want to add to my problems.

So, today was the day when I needed to start my mission to find accommodation. After a very successful morning where I managed to get a Spanish sim card on my second attempt (who knew you needed a passport to get a phone number?), I went to the Universidad del Pais Vasco with Laura, a fellow Southampton University student who I met for the first time via social networking a week ago, and her mum to look for posters offering accommodation. What I’d been told previously was in fact true and there are loads of posters advertising flats and rooms so we took down some numbers. Then came the tricky part: I had to actually ring real life Spanish people and have a proper conversation with them. This is where my success ended. I have so far only rung two people and the conversations were going so well until they said something I didn’t understand, which led to a long, awkward pause. They then proceeded to say something else which I didn’t understand; I panicked and hung up both times. Therefore, I’ve decided to give myself a break because obviously this speaking Spanish business isn’t for me, and from now on I think my use of the language should be limited to writing emails only.

On a side note, people back home will be pleased to know that it isn’t all lovely and sunny in Spain. Today I got caught walking for 15 minutes in torrential rain. It might not be as bad as the flooding at home, but you wouldn’t expect anything less from Britain. I, on the other hand, did not sign up for rain on my year abroad. 

My packing nightmare

Despite being prepared enough to already check in two suitcases with the airline I’m flying to Bilbao with, I recently found out that I can still only take 23kg! I was under the impression that you could take full suitcases but it appears that I was being slightly naïve because airlines apparently aren’t that generous. So, needless to say, packing has been extremely difficult because I can justify taking almost everything I own. 

No one else seems to understand the tribulations of moving my life to Spain, least of all my parents who have been very unsympathetic to my packing problems. Obviously I do think that taking 10 pairs of shoes is essential and in no way excessive. And no, I can’t wait for when they come to see me in a month to bring some of my shoes because I will clearly have an occasion to wear all 10 pairs within the first week. 

Ok, maybe I am being slightly irrational but my nightmare has not just been limited to packing. I still have nowhere to live when I get to Bilbao. While I’ve always seen myself as someone cool, calm, and collected, who didn’t need to be overly organised, not having accommodation is one step too far. It doesn't matter how many people tell me it's easier to find accommodation when you're actually in Spain I still have visions of myself being homeless and roaming the streets of Bilbao while simultaneously having to plan lessons. 

This crazy lack of planning (even by my standards) has forced me to get more organised in all other areas of my life so that when I arrive in Spain I’ll have less to worry about. Therefore, this weekend I will get some euros so that even if I am homeless I won’t be starving and will be able to replace the shoes I've been forced to leave behind. I will sort out all the paperwork I need to take and work out what an NIE actually is and how I can get one because it seems quite vital for opening a Spanish bank account and getting paid. I will sort out flat viewings for the day after I arrive in Bilbao. And, I will try to cut down on the amount that I deem essential packing. Or I might just pay a fortune in excess baggage at the airport. I’ll weigh up both options before I reach my final decision. 

2 weeks and counting!

I have two weeks left before I embark on my big adventure to spend the next 8/9 months in Spain - ok so the title of the blog may be slightly incorrect - and am freaking out about how fast this time has come around. Summer has gone by in a haze of travelling, and catching up with friends and family before I leave. So, before I go I decided to start writing a blog because I’m so bad at communication normally (I went 6 weeks without ringing my parents earlier this year) that I’m worried I’ll come home in June to find myself without any friends and family to update about my travels.

For my year abroad I originally wanted to go as south in Spain as possible but, as many other people will know, students who want to be language assistants have very little say in where they will end up. Despite the initial upset about being placed in the Basque Country I am now really looking forward to living there, and it’s probably for the best that I’m in the north because I’d fry in the southern sun anyway.

The two secondary schools where I’m teaching are in a town called Ermua, about a 45 minute commute from Bilbao itself but I've decided to live in Bilbao, the capital city of the Basque Country, for a number of reasons:

   1.   Living abroad is scary enough without living in a town where I’m the only English language assistant.

           2.  The idea of only being friends with the other teachers or older students that feel sorry for me isn’t very appealing.

            3.  I’m working 12 hours a week (luckily they don’t put students who are used to lots of free time under too much pressure) so I don’t think the commute will be an issue.

           4.  Bilbao generally has more things to see and do so I can put my free time to good use. Obviously in between writing my dissertation...

I was lucky enough to spend the first 6 weeks of my summer holiday travelling around South America so I’ve adopted the attitude of if I can do South America then I'll be fine in Spain, which has been quite detrimental to my preparations really. I haven’t yet organised accommodation, I don’t know anyone in Spain, my Spanish is pretty average, I don’t know where Ermua is in relation to Bilbao or where the schools are, and I haven't yet been in contact with either of the schools. I’m also not really sure of how to pronounce Bilbao which could get slightly awkward. I definitely think I should be more worried than I am given the circumstances but the overriding feeling I have is excitement. However, I’m sure that will all change in the days leading up to the big move…