Arriving to Spain was like going
back to summer. The weather at home got unusually cold by the beginning of
September, so when I arrived to Barajas with all my luggage and all dressed up - because of course it’s when one’s traveling with a low cost airline you consider yourself a living luggage too :P - it was a pleasant surprise to see the sun shining and the infinite blue sky.
Luckily we found each other easily at the airport with Helena, who is the owner of Ecocompartimos and the person who helps me the most here. :) Not much later we were already enjoying a nice Spanish lunch in Illescas (I won't really get into details of what I ate, as I'm planning to write later about food ;)). After this we went to the flat so I could pack and settle down a bit. The flat where I live is really-really nice, it has 2 floors. All the common places are downstairs: the kitchen, the living room and a small terrace; then there are 2 rooms with 2 bathrooms upstairs (as I'm not here alone, I have a fellow volunteer, Dilya from Russia - you can check out her blog too :)).
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| Our kitchen |
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| Our living room |
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| The view from the terrace |
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| My room |
Illescas itself is a very nice town, it is quite small (with ~25 thousand inhabitants), but this makes it is very cozy and I constantly have the impression that everybody knows everybody here. :) Also people are very nice and friendly: I spent my first afternoon in the Ecocompartimos shop already and everyone was very welcoming - although I have to add that if I didn't speak any Spanish, for sure it would have been much harder to find my way around. Ah yes, because it turned out that I spoke Spanish approx. 10 minutes after my arrival (no matter how much I tried to hide it :)), so since then I speak in Spanish most of the time here. This is actually great for many reasons, first of all because like this for sure I will learn the language perfectly very soon, but it also makes my life a lot easier to be able to ask for things/directions and actually understand the responses. Of course on the other side it is very tiring too, as it requires a lot of concentration, but I hope this will change.
The other thing I like in Illescas is the rhythm of the days: shops normally open around 9-10am and then everything closes around 2pm for the siesta (yes, they take this seriously! :)) and then from 5-6pm everything is open again till late in the evening. To be honest I was a little afraid when I first thought of moving here, as I was always a "city girl" and I got used to all aspects of the "big city life" (shops open till late, lot of activities, etc.), but I have to say the way of life here corresponds with my lifestyle more than I thought. There is always life on the streets till late in the evening, as there are many bars and places where people can go out (and they actually do, even families with small kids). And there are quite some activities and courses during the day as well, so for sure I will be able to find some interesting ones. :)
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| The main square |
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| The old town hall building |
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| Some random streets :) |
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| Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad (where there are a few famous El Greco paintings) |
