Sun, Sea and Sight-Seeing

When the downpours that leave you soaked pass by, the sun always comes out. After the storms last week we've had some great weather for exploring. Nana the dog is now allowed on the beach after summer and we've been making friends with every dog owner in town and making ourselves slightly unpopular when I don't spot a sunbather in time and she rushes up to say hello, covering them in sand in the process. 

Normal service resumed on beach runs

The week kicked off with a birthday at my friend's 'intercambio' night in her local bar. Intercambios in various formats are really popular here and aim to get groups of people together who have an interest in learning languages. Some are very strict with speed-dating style timers to signal the change of language and some aim to unite people with similar hobbies. This one was really relaxed and fun, we were fairly popular as the only native English speakers! Its really encouraging to be able to speak Spanish in a laidback environment where you aren't desperately trying to get a point across and miscommunication could result in dire consequences. I've been slightly disconcerted re-learning my illness vocabulary by being asked by the mum if I'm 'constipada' like her daughter. I initially thought this was the European tendency to want to share more information than us reserved Brits before remembering 'constipada' means to have a cold.

It's not a birthday without cake!

I'm still unsure as to what to blame for my difficulties investigating sailing opportunities here despite there being a selection of marinas down this stretch of the coast. Opening times are the first barrier (not very generous) and I eventually made it to the marina in my town and awkwardly hovered in the office for a good 20 minutes whilst the receptionist took a call and ignored me. I've then had a look round a couple of others but they seemed pretty quiet. My most recent investigation however might bring some results. I was passed from office to office before being pointed in the direction of a promising looking sailing school. I then had a confusing conversation in which I came close to volunteering that I had my own boat and was a top professional before we finally managed to come to the understanding that I would like to be crew in a more novice capacity on other peoples' boats. I'll wait to hear!

Blondes sunbathing on the beach

No language barrier with this one

It isn't always a purely language barrier conspiring against me, I've started to aim to restart my driving career! The host mum has kindly put me on the insurance for their (thankfully old and already a little bashed) 4x4 and bravely volunteered to help me practice. Our first attempt resulted in an entertaining cruise around a nearby industrial estate-with the windows down but no music blaring out. I wasn't given any warning of our first expedition so didn't have time to look up some vehicle-based vocab but usually the context helped me figure our whether we were talking about the clutch, brakes or accelerator. We re-mastered gears up to third and had some interesting parking attempts with the mum trying to act out the manouevere herself to get it straight in her mind which instructions to give me. I sucessfully parked in a few spots with both of us slightly unclear as to whether we had orginally aimed for the particular space we ended up in. 

Beautiful beaches in Sitges

Spiders festooning the streets

On Saturday we were up bright and early for an aupair expedition to Sitges, a picturesque town to the south of Barcelona. The original aim of the group had been to try and check out some of the fantasy and horror film festival taking place over the week, if they managed to find a film screening it would be my cue to head to the beach as horror films tend to send me into a state of panic. We found surprisingly little evidence of the film festival apart from halloween style street decorations which looked really strange in sunny Spain rather than a more autumnal setting we're used to.

A decorated balcony

So when the film festival proved to be fairly elusive-it may have been more of a night time thing-we set off exploring. Sitges was really beautiful and we had a wander around the narrow streets and beaches, fitting in lunch, ice cream and dinner along the way. We were in top tourist mode, making the most of all photo opportunities. Working as an aupair is Spain puts you in an unusual position as you spend your weekdays living like a local with the family and then take advantage of any evenings or weekends to explore. 

My new favourite Spanish verb is: aprovechar=to make the most of or take advantage. Once you're aware of it you hear it all the time! I really like this attitude and feel vindicated in my decision to go to the beach when it's sunny in the morning when the grandma assures me that I was justified and that I must 'aprovechar'.

AuPairs on tour

Flying the flag