EVS mid-term training and Málaga

Last week we had our mid-term EVS training. This time we went to the South, we were in a village called Mollina about an hour away from Málaga, close to the mountains. To be honest I expected nice spring weather down there, but of course as we were in the mountains it was quite cold most of the time. :P However it was very sunny and the few days we spent in Málaga afterwards were the warmest winter holidays I've ever had (not counting Peru, but strictly speaking I didn't go there in winter :)).

A glimpse of the "complex" where we were staying in Mollina, it was full of palm, lemon and orange trees :)

This training was quite different from the on-arrival one: first of all there were 120 volunteers in total, which was a looot compared to the nice family-like group of 23 in Santiago. :) However there were some people from the previous training, so I was very happy too see familiar faces. :) Secondly, the content was also different: the first training was mostly about getting information and this was more about reflecting on our experiences, evaluating our projects and think about the future (both of our projects and our own a bit).

Group picture of all the volunteers

Most of the time we were divided into smaller (~15-20 people) groups and my group was just awesome!! :) It was very diverse both in terms of ages and nationalities (not to mention personalities) and I think we were a good mix. We had good atmosphere and team dynamics even during the "serious and boring sessions". Our trainer Patri was very energetic and she managed us very well, I also think she was a good fit for our group. :) We even did a quite emotional goodbye: we formed a circle and each of us had to go a round with eyes closed and the others had to guide him/her or dance or hug or whatever they wanted to do, it was very nice. :)

The sessions were also interesting, of course we had a lot of games to get to know each other and not to fall asleep in between sessions. And then we were analyzing our projects, thinking of things we could do differently or better, figuring out some next steps, giving ideas to each other and so on, it was quite intense.

My group collecting what we learnt so far in our projects

On the last day we collected what EVS means to us and made a "hot-air balloon" 

For some parts of the training we were divided into different groups: on the second night we had a "CulturCreative" night where we had to present the communities where we are staying in Spain along with the other volunteers from that region. In my case it was Castilla La Mancha and we had quite a hard time figuring out what to tell, because this region has no sea or famous food... and we were not allowed to use a computer or a presentation, so we had to be creative. :) In the end we managed, we found a legend of El Greco and played a scene from Don Quijote (where he is trying to fight the windmills :)). The others were very creative too, some prepared with costumes, some with funny Spanish expressions or some things in Catalan and Gallego, it was a lot of fun. :)

Community of Valencia dressed up as paella and beach :)

Galicia - with rain and some expressions in Gallego

"Sightseeing" in Madrid

On Thursday we also had an activity in Málaga (with again different grouping :)), we had to make pictures and a video to make some publicity for EVS, here are what we made with my group:

And on the last night we made something like a flashmob: we were divided into 4 groups and each group had to learn a small choreography in a certain style for the same song. The categories were ballet, flamenco, robot and zumba. (You can guess which one I chose... ;))

After the training we decided to stay in Málaga for the weekend with Dilya and Theresa (a German girl we know from Santiago). On Saturday 2 other girls - also our friends from the previous training - Anna (from Austria) and Leonie (from Northern Ireland) joined us too. We also met up with some other volunteers randomly as we walked in the city. It was a very nice and relaxing weekend, the city is beautiful, the weather was quite good too (especially for February :)), I had a wonderful time.

As usual here are some photos:

My fake "summer" beach photo - though the kids in the background really went into the water :)

Amazing view on the sea and the city from each side of the castle

Roman Theatre

Inside the Alcazaba

In the Interactive Museum of Musical Instruments - we could try all kind of classical and "tropcial" instruments here :)

The obligatory group-selfie with Theresa and Dilya :)

Madrid and Toledo

I realized that I wrote so far about all the places I've visited, except for Madrid and Toledo. :) This must be because they are both quite close and I have visited both of them several times (especially Madrid), so it doesn't really feel like traveling... But as both cities are great, here are my impressions and some photos:

Madrid

Well, Madrid is as amazing as any capital can be. :) I just love the city, it is perfect for any kind of activity: there are huge parks to walk around but also many bars and all kinds of events to hang out and meet people. It is always very vivid, during the day and during the night as well and is very liveable.

I don't really feel like writing a long list of what I have seen and visited here (as I'm not even nearly done with seeing everything :)), so I will give you a glimpse with a few photos:

Puerta del Sol - the very center

Plaza Mayor

Plaza de la Cebada in La Latina, a really cool square to hang out, they have also music on most Sundays

Palacio Real - though the royal family doesn't live here :P

Plaza de Cibeles - town hall

The symbol of Madrid :)

Wall in Lavapiés, a very multicultural and artistic quarter of Madrid

Retiro Park - it actually reminds me of Heroes Square and Városliget in Budapest

Royal Palace at sunset

Casa de campo - an enormous park in the middle of the city

View from the cable car over the park and the city

Toledo

Toledo is like a nice little treasure box, it is just beautiful. Although the fact that I had to go to foreign office here to arrange my papers (as Illescas officially belongs to the province of Toledo) takes away a little bit of its charm, but well. :) The city is still very nice, walking in the old town feels like time traveling and it's also a wonderful mix of Spanish, Arabic and Jewish architecture and history. Not to mention it's on a hill so the view is amazing from the top. :) I still have a lot to discover here as well, but as I will have more friends visiting me in the upcoming months, I will have the chance to get to know the city more.

Beautiful view on every side of the hill :)

Charming narrow streets

The Alcázar

The Cathedral

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. :)

Ups and downs of being a volunteer abroad

Inspired by Dilya's post about her adventures with visa, this post is dedicated mainly for those who are planning to go on EVS/abroad or preparing to leave already. It’s not very much about practicalities (as your organization will prepare you for these), but more about emotional ups and downs.

Volunteering abroad is great, meaningful and rewarding in many ways. Most of the time I love being here and I am very grateful for this opportunity and if I could go back I’d definitely not choose any differently. But there are some rough times when I feel that nothing goes well and I miss a bit my “old and easy life”. And I know this is normal, yet knowing it does not make this any easier.

As in the beginning of January I just got through such a period, I have been thinking a lot about this topic lately and about my experience as a volunteer in general. So here is a list of the good and bad things I experienced so far, I hope you will find it interesting and/or useful:

1. Freedom: This might sound like a cliché, but living far away from everything and everyone I know gave me an enormous amount of freedom. I have been always very independent, but here I really feel that I have full control over my life. This is something I find scaring and deliberating at the same time.

2. The people who are the closest to me are far away: I think this is the hardest for me to handle. Even though I can talk to my family and friends almost every day, it is not the same as seeing them in person regularly. On the bright side though I’m not so far away from home and I know that strong relationships don’t depend on the distance.

3. Start everything from zero: This is actually something I enjoy. Building up new habits (or re-building old ones), new ways of working, new relationships, new hobbies. And balancing this out with everything I already have. It takes a lot of time and effort. And patience – especially with myself. :)

4. Language barriers: No matter how well I speak Spanish or English, there are just days when nobody understands me no matter which language I speak and this is frustrating. Also some people always look at me as if I were an alien. But I learnt here some expressions that I’m pretty sure no language school would ever teach me. :)

5. Losing fear (or handling it better): As I’m in a completely new environment, most of the time I have to step out of my comfort zone to do things: working in Spanish, making new friends, sometimes even shopping for a small thing. :) Doing new things are always somewhat scary, but when you have so many of them at the same time you just stop being afraid, because you realize that so much fear would stop you from actually living your daily life.

6. Value of money: Well yes, from a volunteer’s salary it’s sometimes hard to make ends meet, especially because I had full-time jobs before, so I'm used to a different way of life. Although I’m much more creative now in finding alternative solutions for practically everything and I am happy with it. I think this somewhat brought me to a new level of consciousness with money.

7. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”: I didn’t decide to go abroad to find myself or get to know myself better in the first place (as I’m continuously working on this for quite some years now :)), yet it is still fascinating to notice how the things I thought were my strengths and weaknesses transform. Also some days I feel completely lost.

8. Intensity: I'm not really sure why, but I feel that the days here are more intense. I enjoy more the good things, suffer more from the worse ones and my mood changes more often than it did. But this means that I also value time more, move on faster from the bad and take chances I wouldn't have taken before.

9. Small town life: This was something I was a bit afraid of when moving here, as I lived always in a city. Well, in winter there is not much to do here in the town and sometimes I feel bored or paralyzed. On the bright side going to Madrid is always an option and I also hope that spring and warmer weather will bring back life to Illescas too.

10. Cultural differences: Again a cliché, but as I love diversity this is something I consciously observe and enjoy. Though here I didn't have any big cultural shocks, sometimes the lack of organization and postponing things to the last minute set me on edge. But the fact that people are nice, helpful and easy-going usually compensates for this. Oh and the food (as an essential part of diversity) as well. :)

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. :)