June activites part 2 - Sun & Fun

As I promised, here we go with the non-work part of June! :)

I started the month with the Barcelona trip, which was practically the last trip of my volunteering time. The rest of the weekends I spent relatively calmly (meaning I didn't travel further than Madrid), but not any less exciting.

The second Saturday I went to Matadero Madrid to see some short movies. Normally I'm not a big fan, but a friend of mine convinced me, so I gave in... they were much better than I expected. We saw like 5-6 movies, and except for one very weird one, I liked the rest. They were all made by Spanish directors, however the topics were very diverse, from food to strange love stories and gay rights in Russia.

The following Thursday I went out to have lunch with Vanessa and Ana (with whom I had the quilling sessions in May) here in Illescas. We went to an Asian all-you-can-eat kind of restaurant to celebrate Ana's graduation, it was very nice. The place was very good, but they had a strange ordering system. I imagined that they'll have all the food there and we can just go and pick whatever we want, but no. They gave us a menu and an extra sheet where we could tick the dishes we wanted and indicate the quantities. The only rule was that we could "only" order 15 dishes per person... :) We ordered 15 altogether for 4 of us (plus desserts ;)) and it was more than enough, so I wonder how can one person eat 15 dishes... :)

Then on the 19th, Marta (one of our English students) invited us for a dance show, where both her and her daughter were performing. It was the annual show of the dance school, so we had all age groups and all kinds of dances. I really enjoyed it, especially the second part, because that had mostly Spanish dances (sevillanas, flamenco) and for the flamenco they even had a live guitarist and a singer. It was amazingly nice, and since I haven't been to any Spanish dance show before I was totally impressed. Both Marta and her daughter danced really really well, so I'm very happy I got invited. :)

Also June was a farewell month not only for my volunteering project, but for two friends of mine who decided to take up a new adventure in Canada. :) We had their farewell picnic in Retiro last Monday with a bunch of cool people, it was a lot of fun, I actually almost missed my last bus, since I didn't really feel like leaving... :)

The mandatory group picture of the picnic participants :)

Then this weekend I went to a walking tour called "Urban Safari": it is about street art in Madrid. I found this initiative randomly a couple of months ago and got very curious, but till now they haven't had any suitable dates... so when I saw that they finally have a tour on a Saturday, I signed up. Normally they have these in Malasaña (which is the most artsy district of Madrid), but now they had this one in Lavapiés. I was a bit disappointed, because I would have wanted to get to know Malasaña better, but since I had absolutely no clue about street art in general, it was very interesting, regardless of the district. :)

Our guide explaining about the signatures of each street artist: some have small figures, some have special ways of signing their names and some have their specific colors.

An abandoned shop decorated by street artists

Random masterpieces :)

Some "ordered" street art: the fence of a cultural center is decorated by different street artists.

Barcelona

My brother turned 18 this year and as a present from our parents he received a trip to Barcelona. As a nice addition I got to go with him, so last Thursday I took off. With a lucky coincidence Filiz had her flight to Germany on the same day, so we got to go to the airport together, which was pretty cool. :)

I've been to Barcelona before, but it was 6 years ago, so I didn't remember the city much. Though I had some places in mind that I couldn't visit the last time, so now they were on the top of the list.
Also since my brother is a huge Barca fan, we had to go to Camp Nou and take a tour there, get him a T-shirt and of course we had to watch the Champion's League final on Saturday. :) In the beginning I had my doubts on how I will handle these (since I like football but not that much), but in the end I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Also in return I dragged him to Sagrada Familia, Parc Güell and other sights to see, so we both had our fair share of fun.

Here is our trip in pictures:

Inside Camp Nou - the picture doesn't show it that much, but the stadium is very impressive, it's enormous

There is even a museum inside with the history of Barca - these are some of the trophies they won

Sagrada Familia - always under construction

The amazing arches and colors inside

View from the high above - in the 75m high tower of Sagrada Familia

The obligatory "beach and palm tree" photo

Delicious paella

Parc Güell

Arc de triomf

Huge fountain in Parc de Ciutadella

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.

Easter trip - Sevilla and Córdoba

I knew Easter was a big celebration in Spain, but I couldn't quite believe it until I saw it myself. I'm not religious, so Easter for me usually means a holiday when I go to see my family; however seeing religious festivities here this year was a very interesting cultural experience.

In Hungary Easter is practically celebrated on Sunday and Monday: we usually eat a lot of eggs and ham, color eggs and on Mondays men go and throw water (or in cities perfume) on women so that they won't fade. :)

Here is Spain is very different: they celebrate Easter Thursday and Friday as well (they call the entire week Semana Santa - Holy Week) and there are processions all over the country: they take huge statues of saints and virgins and carry them around the village/town/city along sometimes with music or they sing. These statues are accompanied by people dressed up in special cloaks and hats that covers them entirely, except for their eyes. They carry processional candles or sometimes crosses as well. To be honest with their dresses I found them more scary than holy, but this is really my personal opinion on this. :)

I heard these processions are a bit different in each region and as I was traveling those days, I got to see them in Sevilla:

There were a lot of curious people (like us :)) mostly taking photos.

Aside from Easter celebrations these days were very nice, we spent one day in Sevilla and 2 in Córdoba with a very good friend of mine who came for a visit. :) Both cities are amazing and it feels like already summer there.

Since we didn't have much time, we did a free walking tour in both places and then went to visit the most common sights (Alcázar, Cathedral in Sevilla, Mezquita in Córdoba, etc.) and of course ate a lot of extremely delicious food. :)

Here is the trip in pictures:

Sevilla

Plaza de Espana - the most impressive square of Sevilla 

Selfie with Jerick in front of the Cathedral

Inside the Royal Alcázar - a couple of months ago the new season of Game of Thrones was filmed here :)

Amazing tiles and arches.

The beautiful (and huge) gardens of the Alcázar.

View on the city from Torre de Oro.

View from another angle and sunset colors from a viewpoint called "Las Setas" (the mushrooms :)).

Córdoba

Ruins of a Roman temple

Former bullfighter square

Random street selfie in the Jewish quarter

While queuing to see the mosque... Palm and orange trees everywhere, the latter blooming, so there was a wonderful smell all over the city :)

Inside the Mezquita: arches, more arches and in the middle the Christian cathedral "insertion" that feels like entering a different world.

In the gardens of the Alcázar of Córdoba

View on the city and the gardens

Across the bridge by day and by night

Light show at the Alcázar at night

Green courtyards