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

Buena Vista Social Club

I think Buena Vista Social Club nicely sums up a great week of good views and lots of socialising.

Todays quote: If you have a dream, being a chicken serves no purpose. Unless the dream is to lay eggs. Fairly apt for all the foreigners I've met here who have decided to take the plunge and move to Spain.

On our way up!

I started last weekend with an expedition to 'the bunkers' which are old air raid bunkers on a hill, a relic from the civil war in the 1930s. The intrepid hike started from the metro station where we luckily managed to spot some stone blocks on the distance and headed uphill in their direction. It was suprisingly steep and hot climb but we were well rewarded with the views and a picnic (in which chocolate covered oreos played a starring role) at the top. We made it within spitting distance of the top only to find the actual bunkers blocked off, however enough people seemed to have made it through and not all of them looked capable of the death-defying climbing required to scale the fences at this point. So we explored further and found a man in a hi-vis jacket confidently pointing people in the direction of a hole in the fence. He then announced to us that we should be out of the fenced-off area by 5pm because security would be here. So a man seems to have slightly surrealy self appointed himself as unoffical pre-security to let people into the bunkers rather than keep them out. A good samaritan! 

Making our way through the barriers with the help of Mr Good Samaritan

I then had a busy week tracking down the Arsenal match in an irish bar, meeting new people and the weekly local aupair 'cerveza and bravas' meet up. I also tried out a yoga class and only realised too late when the order for eyes closed and 'ohmmmms' had been given that it would be solely in Catalan. I think I managed to follow most of it but it meant most of the spiel about relaxing and emptying the mind was lost on me as I tried my hardest to concentrate and follow the gist. It was a rather tense experience as I tried to copy the surprisingly bendy pensioners. 

Bargains in the local market

Barcelona by day

And by night

I've decided it doesn't really tend to rain in Spain all that much but rather thunder and lightning creating subsequent monsoon conditions which turns the streets into rivers. I took myself on a little walk to the sea and ended up running all the way back, pouring water out of my trainers and peeling off soaked clothes that proved my pac-a-mac wasn't up to the job! The sea looked very dramatic and picturesque, some hardy surfers were making the most of the waves.

This weekend started with another mountain expedition to Tibidabo for the boy's birthday which is a small, old fashioned theme park aimed at kids. I'm not a big fan of super scary rides so this was perfect for me! We arrived in the afternoon so it was really atmospheric watching night fall over the city from the mountain as all the fairground lights came on. It's quite a drive up winding mountain roads to the top and the setting is amazing looking down over the whole city out to sea.  

Looking down on the hill with the bunkers of last weekend

Serious concentration here

The church with Rio de Janiero lookalike
' Christ the Redeemer'

Obligatory radioactive fairground treats

 



























I really enjoyed the day out to Tibidabo and the day was nicely finished off with a night out in a beach town along the coast. 

And Nana says 'Hi', she's showing off her yoga tricks:

When in Spain...

Today's little quote comes from a visually impaired mole: Change your way of looking at things and the things you see will change.

Living abroad provides plenty of opportunities to see a different take on life, or more frequently in my case, opportunities for misunderstandings and feeling slightly out of the loop. However I'm definitely adjusting to life out here and in the areas where I have yet to get my head around things I like to think the entertainment value is usually pretty high for everyone involved.

Its a great look-working it

I think I'm getting the hang of the gym after the initial 'swimming cap incident' and have been gradually acquiring all the kit that is deemed necessary for an expedition, including flip flops purely to make it from the changing room to the pool. I have drawn the line at buying myself some flippers- the favourite tools of fairly unfit looking people to zoom past me and make me feel inadequate until I see the tell tale plastic fins. I am tempted but if I had any more to take with me I would need to treat myself to one of the little trolleys everyone uses for the supermarket run here. Spain hasn't limited itself to the tartan jobs we see in the UK but has branched out to some pretty rugged all-terrain ones to deal with every eventuality and men and women sport them with pride. I have been a bit baffled by the supermarkets and recently had to do a few laps to hunt down some moisturiser before finding it inexplicably hiding in a locked cabinet whilst more expensive and dangerous items like alcohol and razors roamed free. These long trips have lead me to discover chocolate covered Oreos which is brilliant.

I've found the town's churros van

High security moisturiser cabinet

I have been sampling some classes at the gym. I thought Pilates would be a good introduction, not too fast paced or likely to have loud music. I joined a class of mostly retired (the class was in the morning) ladies attempting to balance on inflatable exercise balls. I was hoping to keep a low profile but was immediately collared by a lady who was convinced I had been to a friend of her's wedding. I had a nice chat with her and she immediately demanded the instructor kept an eye out for me in case I got myself into difficulties. We then all had to go through the rigmarole to attempting to say 'Hilary', not a name that agrees well with the Spanish population. I then had a very entertaining hour watching people fall off their balls and constantly bicker at the teacher that the exercises were too challenging or demanding acknowledgement when they successfully managed to do one. The instructor didn't have a particularly great sense of humour and often got a bit catty with Señora X or Y's whining which made it even funnier. After the confidence boost of Pilates I've risked Spinning which was both fast paced and with loud music, and an instructor who frequently slipped into Catalan without realising. 

I'm still being kept on my toes with meals. In terms of the late meal times I'm acclimatising (also known as snacking when it gets to 7pm and I'm starving) but I'm less on the ball with the Spanish disposition to eat all their food separately. It means you can be presented with a plate of green beans or spinach for dinner, inwardly panic and eat as much as possible, and then the main event will magically appear as a second course. I get strange looks from the grandparents every lunch time for mixing my greens and meat. I was charged with making the boy's birthday cake and went for lemon drizzle jazzed up with sprinkles.The supermarkets nearly tripped me up again as I had to do a last minute dash for icing sugar but found it in the third supermarket. Apparently a niche item over here. It went down well!

My masterpiece

I stumbled across an amazing invention this week-what appears to be a high-tech (most things are high-tech to me) ironing robot. You put the shirt on the robot, he vibrates and somehow magically the shirt becomes crease free. 

So I've been here for a nearly a month and I think I am, as the mole advises, changing the way I see some things so that I'm taking the differences in life here more in my stride or just continuing to find them hilarious or baffling. All of which are working so far! Despite some very impressive thunderstorms it's still warm here and for a 'tough Brit' (who in reality is pretty pathetic about the cold) it's still beach weather. So all is well!

Barcelona city from across the water