Things I will miss....

As my departure date rapidly approaches I’ve been thinking about all the things that I will miss about living in Toledo, and so I decided to write a list (some of these are a little sarcastic, can you guess which?)

• · Being able to go out of the house without a big jacket most of the year.
• · Free tapas with your drink
• · Buying beer in a litre bottle for a euro
• · Not having to decide if I want to go out until 2am because none of the parties have started until then anyway
• · Outside clubs, ‘nuff said
• · Coming home at 7am after dancing all night and passing out when you get home
• · Being able to speak Spanish with people!
• · Dodgy Spanish hair-dos (more like hair-don’t’s)
• · Nosy neighbours
• · The tiny streets (beautiful, but they mean you’re very likely to get run-down)
• · Reggaeton
• · Camelot (a club bearing more than passing resemblance to a cave which hosted the majority of the Erasmus parties)
• · Erasmus people
• · Erasmus parties
• · Botellon
• · Running by the River Tragus (Rio Tajo)
• · How short the men are
• · The long walk along the river which gives you the most amazing panoramic views of the city (Camino de Don Quijote)
• · Being able to go food shopping at half 8 because Carrefour doesn’t close until 9
• · Not being ID’ed every five seconds when I go out, or even when I want to buy alcohol
• · How beautiful Toledo is and how lucky I feel to live here
• · How relaxed the professors are, to the point where they always turn up 20 minutes late for class
• · How the banks are only open until 2 and never on weekends......
• · Being able to turn up an hour late to everything and no one even bats an eyelid
• The sunset
  
• · Being able to say “Oh I’m living in Spain at the moment”.....

Seriously, the closer I get to leaving, I realise how much I will miss EVERYTHING here, even the things that at the time really p me off....But by the same token, I am very ready to go home to England, and to continue on with my life, wherever it will take me. I’m hoping the road leads back to Spain, even back to Toledo, who knows? I would love to live here again.

Toledo, you will always have a piece of my heart.

:D

It's raining underwear....

I had an exam this morning. I then went to the shop to buy some food. When I got home, I saw my neighbours, a woman and her husband, by the front door, so I rushed forward so I can go through the door with her, to save me using my own key.

Her: Oh, hija, you have a thong that fell down, I pinned it on the bars of the window in the courtyard for you.

Me: (confused, thinking about how I don’t hang my underwear on the line) Erm, ok, but I don’t think they’re mine...

Her: NO! No, you will see that they are yours when you look at them, come and look at them!

Me: (walking to courtyard, and see the pants) Erm, no, it's not mine....

Husband: Look, it’s your underwear!

Her: (to husband) She doesn’t understand! (to me) TAKE THEM! Take them with you, if they’re not yours then they’ll be your flatmates!

Me: Erm, I don’t feel right taking someone else’s pants...

Her: TAKE THEM! Goodbye....

Are we at that point in society where we’re forcing pairs of underwear onto each other?
The mystery continues....

P.S. They still aren’t my underwear, no matter what she tries to tell me. If anyone out there knows whose they are, please get in touch!

Ode to Toledo

I don't often write any more, but this was something inspired by Toledo....

You walk down the cobbled street,
The sun beating down, heat seeping into your skin,
Warming you, flowing through your body into your bones.
You look up, up at the buildings, built in the days of before,
The representation of the past and the promise of new beginnings.
Signs tell you the road, but you don’t care.
You don’t need names. You know where you’re going.
You keep walking, people passing; you are alone.
You are lost in your mind, only accompanied by your thoughts.
Such a beautiful place.
How did you end up here?
You reach a river, the light bouncing off the surface; shimmer.
The bright blue sky, the burning sun, the glimmering water.
How did you end up here? Such a beautiful place.
Buzzing, sounds of insects, gliding their way through life.
How nice to have the whole sky as your destination.
The warmth is still with you, sweat beads glisten on your skin.
How did you end up here?
Sounds of cars, people driving by; you are alone.
Alone with your thoughts.
Such a beautiful place.
No road signs now, you know where you’re going.
How many people have walked this road before you?
How many will walk this road after you?
The infinity of this unique moment. A moment which is now, and forever.
You arrive.
Such a beautiful place.

My Erasmus songs....

These are a mixture of personal favourites that I've listened to a lot whilst being here, songs that are played a lot in clubs, or have simply come out since I've been here....and some are a mixture of all three :) Enjoy!

Rainy Spain!?!

Hola,
This is a particularly English post- it's about the weather. In case any of you reading this are not English, the stereotype about the English obsession with weather is very much true. If there's ever a lull in the conversation, the silence is often filled with, "Oooo what a nice/horrible day it is today!"
Anyway.
The English have this idyllic picture of Spain, of a country made up entirely of beaches, and one that is sunny all year round. Well, for a start, I live in the centre of Spain which, unless you are a bit rubbish at geography, means that there are no beaches around here.
But also, it is RAINY. The past few days it has been stormy, we've had thunder, lightning, torrential rain, the works.
This lead me onto discovering that the Spanish have a saying which goes, "hasta el 40 de mayo no te quites el sayo", which literally translated is "Until the 40th of May, don't take off your raincoat", and so which really means, until the second week of June there isn't good weather all the time. How bizarre is that? Who would've thought Spain had normal weather?
The truth is I realised pretty quickly, after the September sun wore off, that Spain was a bit like England in that it too had rain sometimes. Granted, not as often as England, which is something that I have been SO happy about. I really do hate rain, and it rains far too often at home for my liking.
But anyway, I guess this is a post to highlight to all those people who just assume that I'm out tanning on a beach, that Spain does have places to live away from the coast, and that the sun does not always reign supreme.

I'm still pretty pale actually. Well, for me anyway.
:D

The beginning of the end...

Hello,

This is another post that I’m writing instead of revising like I should be....procrastination ftw....

Anyway, this post is about my leaving Toledo. The end of my Erasmus. Today I have officially a month before I set off for the colder and more rainy climes of Inglaterra. A month may sound like a while, but when you’ve been here for ten months already like I have, it’s a drop in the ocean.

I can’t even begin to explain how long I’ve wanted to and looked forward to living in Spain. I think it must have been since I was 14 that I decided I wanted to live in Spain, and then once I started university and had the prospect of a year abroad in Spain dangled in front of me I was ecstatic. I was nervous as hell, don’t get me wrong; I didn’t sleep for the two weeks before I moved out here, I was so scared. I’ve lived on my own before, and in Spain before, but not for as long. It was scary. I’d have to find somewhere to live, make new friends, speak Spanish all day every day....I would say it has been one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I settled in quickly, became accostumed to speaking Spanish every day, even made the huge leap into buying very Spanish food to cook and eat by myself. It has been a huge learning experience.

The thing is, I’m not sure I want to leave. But I’m not sure I want to stay. I don’t know if you’ve ever been torn between staying somewhere and moving somewhere else; if you have, you’ll know how I feel.

I am ultimately a very English girl- I was born and bred there, my whole family is English, I have a network of friends both where I live with my family and where I study. I am English by culture. But I also adore Spain, the language and the culture. And I especially love Toledo- I fell in love with it here as soon as I came. Even on my darkest days, just being here in this beautiful old city, surrounded by gorgeous scenery has made me realise how lucky I am to have the experience of living here.

The studying part of it....well, the least said about that the better. But the other great part about Erasmus is the social life- I don’t care if teachers tell you to concentrate on studying and to not go out that much, you just can’t do that if you really want to get the full experience. Sure, I moved out here to meet Spanish people, but in the end I got a lot more than that- I’ve met people from all over the world. People I never thought I’d get to meet, people that I never thought I’d find a common ground with. But I have met some very interesting and overall funny people. This experience wouldn’t have been the same without a single one of them.

A lot of people have already started to leave. Whether it’s for trips that they’re doing before their long journey home, or whether they have just gone straight back home, it’s official- it’s the beginning of the end.

I hate goodbyes. Especially to people whom you don’t know when, or whether, you will see them again. I try to stick by the old adage “Don’t be sad that it’s over, just be glad it’s happened”, that is to say, to be glad that I got to meet these people in the first place, and to not be sad that I might not see them again. The world is every smaller these days anyway, what with technology, and the fact that travelling across the world is getting easier by the year!

I know that when I go home, I will be sad because my Spanish experience (for now) will be over...whether I live here again or not is to be decided. I always said that this year would be the real test to see if I could live out here my whole life. And the truth? Well, I can obviously do it. You get used to the culture, and my Spanish improves the more I stay here. I think eventually I could make a life for myself out here. The question would be whether I would ultimately want to do it. Who knows. I can’t bear the thought that I will never get to see Toledo again....but I do believe that a place is really the sum of the location, and the people that are here, the people you spend your time with. Even if I were to return in the future, would it be the same?

I doubt it.

I have so many memories from here. I can’t believe that soon it will be over...However, I am excited for the future. And whatever it may bring.

:)

"I would prefer even to fail with honour to win than by cheating"

Hello,
So I had my first exam of this term today. I won't go into how I did in that exam....that's too painful.
I did however want to share how lax the Spanish are when it comes to their exams.
In England, at least where I go to university, you're not allowed to take anything bar a pencil case (clear), any books you may need (novels, legislation etc) and maybe your phone, but that is to be left underneath your chair, so there is no way you could use it.
Here? Oh, you bring anything and everything in. Your bag, your phone, your kitchen sink, whatever. Well, they don't quite allow you to use your notes in the exam. That would be too good.
The teacher clearly said at the beginning of the exam, "Don't have your mobiles in clear view", as she went around handing out the papers. None of this, "Don't turn over your paper until it's time to begin" nonsense. Everyone sits there flipping through the paper as the rest of the class recieves theirs. There is no "Start NOW!", you start whenever the hell you want.
Now, I did not see this, my classmate did, but apparently one clever Spanish student decided to get his phone out, take a picture of every single page of the exam (with flash) and then, we assume, proceeded to send it to a classmate/friend to give him the answers. All this, and the teacher was walking up and down the classroom, and we'd all been told specifically not to have our mobiles out.
Oh well. I hope he passed, because I'm not sure I did! Maybe he can give me his contact number for next time?
:D
P.S. I am of course joking, I don't condone cheating in any way. Oh, and it's scorching hot here at the moment, I literally feel like I'm melting. I only tan when I go out for my hour long walks around the river (which I do about twice a week) so I'm not even *that* tanned. And I'm living off salad because anything else is too heavy. It's a good life!