Dus die vlieg wil naar de drank en wat deden ze dan, die Spanjaarden. Die legden er een dekseltje van voedsel op! Is dat leuk of niet!”
Category Archives: Spain
Fire!
Don’t worry. Except for a generally hot climate caused by the sun I haven’t seen any fire yet. Only on the TV. I live and work in the parts of Gran Canaria that are not effected by the big fire raging in the south of the island.
Calima
Today it is horribly hot! Luckily it’s only extremly hot in the south of Gran Canaria. This morning in the north it was nice and cool. I left home at 6:30 and when I arrived at 7:30 it was still a little dark. I did not see any sunshine. However, when I opened the door of my car there was such a hot air it was unbelievable. Without the sun such a terribly hot air I could not believe it. It’s almost impossible to remain outside a long time.
I was told it was the ‘Calima’ which is the name for a meteorological effect where hot air all the way from Africa is blown across the ocean and passes the Canary Islands. The result is a few days with a lot of heat. Pfff.
Las Palmas de Gran Canarias
I’ll be in Gran Canaria from the 6th of April until the 14th. Ana wants to evaluate her future job and I will go and enjoy the sun for a week. Afterwards we’ll return to Madrid and we’ll have a decision to make. Do we or don’t we go to Gran Canaria for quite a long period. Who knows. In a few weeks I expect to have an update.
Ammer and Bar
Last weekend Ammer and Bar were visiting us in Madrid :-). We enjoyed their visit a lot and we believe that they also had a good time, even though the weather was absolutely terrible. I never saw so much rain falling in Madrid.
What is a man to do when it rains all the time… well, we played games and drank some beers in the local butcher shop. A very nice time.
Metro Madrid calculation
Every morning I take the metro towards the center of Madrid. The metro line closed to my home is ‘Puera del Sur’ (the dark blue line on the lower left). I walk from my home to the metro in 10 minutes. First I travel by metro to ‘Plaza de España’ and there I change to the yellow line towards ‘Sol’. From ‘Sol’ I walk in 5 minutes to my school.
The metro lines in Madrid are pretty good. Every 3 minutes a new metro starts the line. The distance between stops are also around 3 minutes and a change to another line is also 3 minutes.
How many time do I travel every morning and how many metros do I encounter during my trip? (click on the small metro map for a big version)
The Spanish life
Life in Spain is really relaxed. Eating and drinking is very important and things are just very very laid back. Meetings that are planned on some fixed hour are always flexible. People showing up half an hour or en entire hour late is more common than people arriving on time.
I like the lifestyle. The only weird thing is that sometimes I feel like I don’t belong here in Spain, and I’m living a weird version of the Spanish life. Everyone speaks a strange language, has different customs and sometimes my world just feels different. I am no longer a tourist but I’m definitely not a Spaniard. It leaves me with a strange feeling.
I look forward to visiting Holland again soon. Afterwards we’ll just have to see and I’ll try and find some work in Spain. It’s going to be an interesting adventure.
Two weeks
Still two more weeks of classes and then I plan to visit Holland for 9 days. I’m looking forward to this visit!!
Having drinks, climbing, rafting?!, visiting family, visiting friends, arranging things, doing some Spanish cooking (Paella and Tortilla), etc. etc. Huuuh!
Rain
Yesterday we were forced to enjoy an entire day of rain. It started the day before yesterday with some very light showers but yesterday the weather made a turn for the worse, and it just rained and kept raining the entire day. No a very nice situation if you only own shirts and don’t even have a coat, let alone an umbrella or a rain coat.
The Spanish people seemed happy though. Not because of the traffic jams, or the water flowing in all the streets, but they were happy with seeing water again after such a long time. Their water supplied had almost been empty.
I hope the drought will return and I’ll be able to enjoy the sun again soon.
Vacation
Again it is Monday and I find myself back in Madrid. The last two weeks I was on a nice trip visiting the south of Spain. We (Ana, Glori, Sofie and me) rented a nice pepecar and drove a nice tourist route visiting Cordoba, Sevilla, various beaches and Granada.
My next trip will be a weekend in the Netherlands. I wonder if I’ll meet and familiar people in the Berger on Friday night.