Hola from Spain! I am just coming up to the end of my second week here in Spain and already I have experienced so many new things and witnessed a completely different lifestyle than anything in Canada.
I made the choice to do the move to Spain completely by myself. I set up an apartment over the internet and I had no idea who I would be living with. I decided to stay in a hotel for the first three nights until I felt a little more comfortable with everything. Being honest, my first day was a major challenge and I wasn’t able to get any sleep on my flight so when I arrived in Spain I had been up for about 30 hours straight. The airline lost my luggage and I found it very difficult to communicate with people at first. I finally made it to my hotel and got all checked in. After a nap I felt MUCH better and headed out to explore the city.
I really had no idea what to expect before coming to Spain. You always hear different stories, but never know which ones to believe. Here are a few things I have experienced so far:
First off, Spanish time! I am still trying to catch on to the Spanish schedules. Stores close in the middle of the day and during these times the city is like a ghost town! The restaurants don’t even open until about 8:30 p.m., which makes it difficult when we Canadians are hungry at 5:00 p.m.!
The people here are very nice and very welcoming. Everyone is willing to lend a hand and most people are able to speak some English if you get stuck! I had no problems doing anything that I needed or wanted to get done. At first things were a little overwhelming but I already feel comfortable speaking with people. I am not saying I can understand what everyone is saying 100% but with the context, I always have a pretty good idea. Everyone speaks very fast, but they will gladly slow down if you ask them to.
Last week, I went to La Tomatina, the huge tomato fight in Bunol, Spain, which is a very small town about 30 minutes by train from Valencia. It was an absolutely amazing experience, although I am not sure if I would attend this event again. It was very dangerous as there were so many people (approximately 40,000) crowded into very narrow streets. It was definitely an experience for the books! If you have never heard of La Tomatina, I suggest looking it up on YouTube. The streets really do fill up to your knees with tomatoes!
It has only been two weeks and I already love it here! I can’t wait to further explore the city and country as the year goes on! Everything is different from Canada, but definitely not in a bad way. There are things that I look at here and think, “wow if only Canada had that.” For instance, Canada should definitely incorporate time for a ‘siesta’ in the afternoon!
Anyways I will leave it at that for now and I will keep you posted on my adventures here in Spain!