Activities in May

It's very hard to believe that May already passed by and I'm almost at the end of my project already... anyhow, let's see what happened! :)

At Ecocompartimos I'd say things go "business as usual": we had English and the kids (this time I finally have a pic with them thanks to Dilya :)) and had the 2 monthly intercultural chats as well: the first one about life after death which was not a very intercultural topic, yet it was really interesting. A lot of people came, so we had a lot of controversial opinions and points of view. The second one was about movies: it went like the one with the books, everyone recommended a movie (or two) from his/her country. I'm looking forward to watching them. :)

Our group of kids

Talking about life after death

Besides these, we had a fashion photo shoot: Dilya, Mabel and I dressed up in some of the clothes we have at the shop to promote a bit our "spring collection". It was a lot of fun and the photos look like they are from some kind of magazine. ;) Also now I know how painful models must feel in those shoes that don't quite fit but look nice on the photos.... :P

Here are some of the final pics:

And some from behind the scenes:

I also helped Charo (our Spanish teacher) in taking over the Banco del Tiempo tasks. She already started to coordinate some things and I'm happy to see that she likes it (and the task suits her too). 

I was asked to continue with the quilling/creative classes for May within the Banco del Tiempo, so I had 3 more sessions. At the last one the girl was so nice, she gave me some of the pictures we made together as a present. And we also agreed with her and her mom that we'll get together some time in June before I finish my project to have lunch together. :)

From personal perspective May was again an active month: the weather felt like summer already, so everyone got active. :) 

At the second weekend we went to a Soul Food picnic in Retiro with Dilya and Amber: there were around 50 people mostly from the USA, bringing typical food from the Southern region: banana pudding, fried chicken, mac and cheese, stuffed eggs and many more.

The day after I went again to eat: this time to a street food festival called MadrEAT. It was very nice: there were trucks all over the place with all kinds of food and drinks. The only bad thing was that we had to queue for everything, as there were many people. However the location was perfect, because it was shady and there was a lot of space to sit down in the grass. :)

Cool food trucks

After the festival enjoying some pancakes with milkshakes :)

The third weekend of May was a huge celebration in Madrid: it was a holiday of San Isidro, so there were all kinds of festivities all over the city. We went with Michaela and Filiz to walk around a bit and ended up in a concert at Plaza Mayor. A famous singer called Ainhoa Arteta was singing first some opera songs and then zarzuela (which is similar style to opera), it was very nice.

Plaza Mayor packed with people

And finally at the last weekend of May we had 2 farewell parties: first for Amber on Friday, as she left to enjoy the summer in Italy in a summer camp. And then on Saturday for Filiz, who'll go home to Germany in a few days, because she finished her project. I'm sad that we already had to start this "farewell process", but on the other hand most probably in a few months I'll see the girls again.

January activities

And again another month passed. Even though January was a quite slow and quiet month (at least the beginning) it went by quite fast.

The first week of the month was quite interesting as here there was still a Christmas atmosphere until the 6th, when the Three Wise Men (Los Reyes Magos) came and brought gifts just like Santa Claus in December. :) This was even a bigger holiday then Christmas itself, so everyone was very excited about it. For me this was a little unusual as normally holidays end with New Year's Eve so after I'm not very much in a Christmas mood anymore, but it was nice to experience something different. We also ate some roscón which is the traditional sweet cake with whipped cream to eat on this day. :)

Roscón

The Ecocompartimos team enjoying the roscón :)

After Reyes life kind of slowed down, so there were not so many happenings: I finished the translation of our new website to English, we were planning our activities for February and also used this quiet time to finish our YouthPass wall, tadaaaaa:

Now we have the first 5 months of our project nicely documented on the wall. :)

In January both our English groups got very active, we had a debate event together with the English reading club of the library and people enjoyed it so much, that now they are even more motivated to learn with us. Not to mention we have some new people in both our morning and afternoon groups now. And we are all looking forward to the next joint event together. :)

My group at the event of the library 

The whole group :)

We also had another intercultural chat about childhood experiences, it was a very nice one, 5 people came with quite different backgrounds and ages so we could all share a lot and had a nice diverse and funny discussion. :)

During the last few weeks of the month we got quite busy with Erasmus+ things (as the last deadline for presenting projects was the 4th of February); we helped Helena with selecting the new volunteers. It was so weird to think about this, as September is so far away (and also July when our project ends) and to be honest I don't really like this feeling of "getting replaced" hehe. :P But I think we managed to find some great people in the end, a Serbian guy and a Slovenian girl. :)
We had also a chat about volunteering and Erasmus+ in the Youth Center. It was quite nice, around 12-15 people came. This was the first time I had talk in front of people in Spanish, so I felt a little nervous about it in the beginning, but when I started talking and people started to ask questions, then I actually got to enjoy it. :)

Helena explaining to the crowd :)

Aside from work the month was a bit more active, though also not that much. At Reyes I went to Toledo with Sandra and her boyfriend Cesar to see the Belén (nativity scene) of the year and a parade. The Belén was very impressive, it took up an entire room and every single detail was very worked out. On the other hand the parade was quite disappointing we had to wait a lot and it was quite small. Nevertheless I had a good time. :)

The Belén of the year

Also we met with Filiz and Emmi (the other volunteer girls from the neighboring village Numancia) and Amber (an American girl we met here in Illescas) to go the El Escorial together for a day. It was very nice, though we arrived very late so we couldn't enter the monastery. Instead we walked around, enjoyed the view and had some pastry. :)

 
Last but not least I had my birthday in January, that helped me to move on from my "winter coma". :) I usually celebrate it with my best friends and my family, but this year unfortunately I didn't have the chance. However I feel very grateful because I got a lot of messages and good wishes. Dilya and Helena were super nice and thought of me with some nice gifts too. And my family also surprised me a beautiful bunch of flowers, which was a huge surprise and made me very happy. :)

December activities

Happy New Year to everyone! :)

Another busy month passed and also a great year ended. I have to say time flies really fast, but I'm happy for so many good things happening.

As December was mostly about Christmas preparations most events were associated with food. :) (And in my opinion this also has to do something with the fact that Spanish like to eat - and I don't blame them, their food is exquisite!)

I already wrote about the Christmas decoration workshop and my workshop with the kids, these continued in December too and I enjoyed them even more than before! :) Here are a few things I made:

We had another session of the intercultural chat series: this one about Christmas food. Unfortunately it was not such a success as the first we had about food, but we still enjoyed it and ate well. :)

Migas and puches, both typical in Spain

Russian salad of several delicious layers :)

Hungarian bejgli (or something similar ;))

We also have now double English classes on Mondays (both morning and afternoon), which are quite intense and tiring as they require now double concentration, but I still enjoy them. And the groups seem to enjoy the classes too. :) Also it's nice to see how they are developing and each time they talk more and more.

The biggest event in December we had was the charity dinner. The preparations were a little chaotic to me (or I'm still not used to the Spanish way of organizing things :)), but in the end it was a big success. 

Getting ready to welcome the guests

The super delicious meal we had :)

Marina and Helena on stage announcing the winners of the raffle

The Ecocompartimos team :)

We had a great time and Helena also liked the surprise gift we prepared for her: it is a board with "Ecocompartimos" on it, "written" by nails and thread. Now it's already on the wall in the shop and it fits there perfectly. :)

The day after the dinner I went back home to Hungary for Christmas as I already wrote it in my previous post, but for New Year's Eve I came back. I was curious to see how Spanish celebrate here, so with some friends we went to Puerta del Sol in Madrid to eat the 12 grapes at midnight in order to have good luck in the next 12 months. The square was packed with people, but the mood was great, we had a lot of fun (and I also didn't choke on the grapes, though it was hard to eat them so fast as I felt like laughing most of the time :)). After the "ceremony" we went to party and ended up dancing till 7 in the morning, so it's safe to say that I had a very good start of the new year. :)