The Spanish summer has begun

Extremadura is known for it’s extreme temperatures (as the name suggests) and I am finally appreciating why. We are currently experiencing spell of extreme heat and its almost unbearable. It was 40 degrees today, it is also May. The locals are wearing shorts and all conversations begin with ¡Qué calor!, so you know it’s pretty serious. I checked the weather and it’s currently hotter than Morocco, Greece and Uganda. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the school classrooms were hotter than the Earth’s core.

The main problem is that it’s very dry and desert-like here; there’s no nearby beach, no lake and very few trees around the town. Unfortunately I walk to my students’ houses for private classes at around 3.30pm each day and I’m fairly sure I’m the only human braving the sunlight at this scorching hour. Everyone else is sensibly en casa with the shutters down. I actually have to apply sun cream for my ten-minute walk down the road, I also have to arrive an extra two minutes early to allow for cooling-off period during which I lurk outside the students’ house for necessary brow-mopping and water-guzzling.

I’ll try to find some silver linings to avoid sounding too whiny and spoiled: I’m lucky to be getting a healthy glow, I am grateful that this town is not at all hilly and I am pleased to have quite a decent deodorant.

But madre mía, any increase in temperature and I’ll have to be forcibly removed from the town fountain. Seriously.

Plasencia

This weekend I was reunited with three very important things: my Mum, my Dad and access to a car.

I have been without all three of these things throughout my year abroad and it has, at times, been tough. The three entities are mutually compatible, of course there’s always the odd moment when my Dad gets annoyed with the car, or my Mum gets frustrated with my Dad, but all in all it was a lovely treat for us to spend four days together here in Spain.

We explored the city of Plasencia first of all. We stayed in the beautiful Parador hotel where I enjoyed the luxury of a suite all to myself. After a year of hostel trips I happily slept like a starfish and maximised every corner of the double bed in all its crisp white sheet and plump pillow glory…

We then ventured to the Jerte Valley in search of cherry blossom. Unfortunately we were about a week too early to see the valley in full bloom so we had to settle for photographing the same tree multiple times.The landscape was still wonderful though and waterfalls happen to be beautiful all year round so we enjoyed our day of adventuring anyway.

The Jerte Valley is famous for the cherries it produces and so the nearby towns were full of cherry-related products like jams and liqueurs, there’s also the Jerte river which runs through the centre and pretty bridges all the way a long. I’d love to go back at some point in the future to see the blossoms and the cherries at their peak. It’s a lot closer to home than Japan and the airfare is definitely significantly less…

So it was another busy travelling weekend and now I’m looking forward to my Easter break for some relaxing. The hot weather is supposedly on it’s way and I am 100% ready. I’m also intruiged to see some of the Semana Santa celebrations here in my town, I have a feeling its going to be VERY different from the chocolate eggs and bunnies I usually witness – I’ll keep you posted!

10 things I’ve learned whilst living in Zafra

1. The sentence “I’ll meet you by the bull ring” is both common and acceptable.
2. If you decide to leave the house at siesta time you’ll develop a new affinity for Will Smith in ‘I am Legend’. There are no people, anywhere. It’s creepy.
3. Each week your food shop will cost the grand total of eight euros and seventy cents. Each week you will feel surprise and smug satisfaction.
4. It’s crushingly disappointing when your day of errands is put on hold because it’s a national holiday and EVERYTHING is shut. No food in the fridge? You’ve got 99 problems and hunger is most definitely one.
5. Going for a run in the countryside comes with multiple trip hazards including freely roaming chickens and rogue cattle.
6. You must repeat your name slowly and phonetically when meeting new Spanish people. You must then allow them to refer to you as “chica” because they simply cannot pronounce it.
7. You will soon realise that whole town knows each other and everyone is related to everyone (mainly due to large families in which no one leaves Zafra, not so much due to incest).
8. Skype is a wonderful thing.
9. Speaking English attracts persistent staring. Do I have three heads? Is there toothpaste on my chin? Nope, you’re just foreign.
10. Speaking English equals private lessons and extra cash. You’ll pay me to chat in my native language? Don’t mind if I do…

The new way to hitchhike

BlaBlaCar exists in the UK but is nowhere near as popular as it is in Europe. It’s a website organising car-sharing journeys. You either advertise your journey and have passengers pay to join you, or you search for a journey and find a car to ride in. Being under 25 so unable to rent a car, adverse to driving in England let alone abroad and a bit strapped for cash, my flatmates and I unsurprisingly opted for the second option…

BlaBlaCar is a good way to travel because it’s about half the price of buses and trains, you get to chat in Spanish and meet interesting people. There is of course the added risk factor; getting into cars with strangers does feel instinctively scary but if you forget about the fear and focus on the convenience then it’s all fine and dandy.

My flatmates and I have booked two BlaBlaCars to get us to and from Seville this weekend. Choosing our driver was quite a fun experience – we typed in our desired journey and were given a selection of people to choose from, each with a profile showing their name, age, car type, and other info. Deciding between Juan, Manu and Jesus became a tricky decision as we weighed up the creepiness of their picture with the suitability of their time of departure. Would we rather leave at an ungodly hour with normal-looking Juan? Or depart at our preferred time with pony-tail-sporting, cowboy-hat-wearing Jesús? Luckily all drivers have ratings and reviews and we eventually opted for Elena, who has forty years of driving experience and was described as ‘chatty and flexible’ (presumably referring to departure times rather than gymnastic ability).

So far we’ve used the service once – to catch a lift to the town of Cáceres. It didn’t start off too well; we were due to meet ‘Mabel’ driving a SEAT Ibiza but what we did not realise was that Ibizas are very common Spanish cars. After shouting ‘Mabel?’ at a rather confused looking woman who pulled up at the correct time in an SEAT Ibiza, and practically climbing into her car before she shooed us away, we eventually found the right person. Incidentally the real Mabel was great, she drove us right to the door of our destination and was friendly and chatty the whole journey – perfect.

I’ve been in Spain three weeks today and so far so good. As predicted, there has been a lot of embarrassment and confusion but I’m now beginning to feel settled and I’m actually lot happier than I’ve been all year. I hope everyone’s having a good Tuesday!

A Royal Visit

It’s not every day that you meet royalty, so yesterday was quite an exciting day here in Zafra. King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia arrived at 11.30am to officially open the Feria de Zafra (or the Feria Internacional Ganadera y 561 Tradicional de San Miguel if you’re feeling fancy).

The whole town were out in force, all desperate to catch a glimpse of the new Spanish King and Queen. It was a swelteringly hot day and we (myself and the five other English assistants here) stood for over two hours in direct sunlight battling to keep our position at the front of the barrier. The crowds became quite intense and overwhelming with tonnes of people pushing and shoving to get to the front. Being tall British people we stand out quite a lot here (often towering over the teachers in school) and up until now this had made us feel a bit exposed, yesterday however, it came in very handy. I was three rows back but still had an incredible view straight over the heads of the petite Spanish ladies in front!

When the Royal guests eventually arrived Queen Letizia walked down our side of the road greeting people, whilst her husband met people on the other side. It was all very exciting and chaotic, people were grabbing her hands, shouting compliments, attempting to take selfies – it was crazy. Amazingly, amongst all the chaos Queen Letezia remained calm, polite and gracious; she even managed not to look disgusted by the sheer volume of sweaty hands grabbing at her perfectly tailored suit. Her whole demeanour was very Kate Middleton-esque, she’s just as popular too; coming from a ‘normal’ background rather than Royal heritage.

The whole experience was so much fun and there were press everywhere, so we spent a lot of time waving maniacally at any camera that pointed in our direction. It’s brilliant that after just two weeks in Spain I’ve seen members of the Royal Family; it was one of their first official engagements as King and Queen too, so a very special occasion. Below are the pictures I managed to snap of the Queen herself, please note that the hands grabbing her arms are not mine but those of an overly-enthusiastic Spanish royalist.