España

8 is my lucky number.

Spain is the eighth country I've visited in 2013 so there is no surprise that it continued to impress me.

I felt very lucky because I stayed in a small town called Almoradi with Raquel and her mother. Raquel worked in my class earlier this year but decided to return to Spain a few months back to be with her mother and escape the grey skies of England. I can't blame her for going back there, it's beautiful. Her mother is the sweetest woman in the world and the most energetic 74 year old woman I've ever met. Her name is quite long and she insisted I call her Santa. She spoke no English but still talked to me in Spanish and we understood each other, it´s all in the facial expressions and hand gestures and of course Raquel's translating. To give you an example of their hospitality; as soon as I walked through the door Santa proclaimed I was part of the family and that her house was my house.

I arrived late afternoon on Tuesday so we spent the time checking out Raquel's home town of Almoradi. It's a small town close to the coast about 40 mins South of Alicante. She drove me to her favourite beach at Guardamar and I could see why this was her chosen spot to relax, it's a lovely spot.

Raquel´s house

Guardamar Beach

We also spent time going to meet her nieces and nephews. I love kids (no surprises there) but man these were some cute kids. First we met Eloy (7) and Lydia (4), two very energetic kids. They knew a little English so could say 'my name is...' and 'how are you?' but one of the cutest things was when Lydia sung me the 'heads, shoulders, knees and toes' song. I caught it on camera, adorable!!! I then played with their vet clinic which had loads of little animals they wanted me to translate for them. Eloy then showed me his football skills. Raquel had told me a lot about them in England and showed me many pictures so it was so nice to finally meet them. We left some very hyped up children and went to call on her other brother and there I met Paula, a shy 7 year old who showed me her skipping skills. Seeing all of them made me think of my cousins and I'll admit, I missed home a bit in that moment.

Lydia, Raquel and Eloy

A few days prior to my trip Raquel had sent me through a few links about everyday life in Spain, in particular their eating patterns. I had a quick browse through these and when I arrived she told me more about it and that I shouldn't expect to eat dinner any earlier than 9pm. As you can imagine when 9pm rolled around I was starving but it was worth the wait because I was treated to Santa's Spanish omelet and various other foods special to their area. It was fascinating to watch Santa make the omelet and I got some tips to help me make it when I get back home. After dinner she started on a pork and turkey paella for lunch the next day and made me sit down and take notes (with Raquel translating). I was ready for bed and they were waiting for their favourite tv show, Master Chef, to start. It wasn't starting until 10.30, timing is VERY different in Spain!

Spanish Omelet!

Santa giving me careful instructions

Paella in the making

Back in England I'm having a bit of trouble sleeping and I think it's because it's getting light so early. Well, the good thing about my room is Spain is that it has no windows so I can sleep I disturbed by the light. I think it's designed like that to keep in cooler because it gets very hot here. So I slept well on my first night and had a lot of energy for exploring Alicante on Wednesday. We walked to the bus stop to catch the 11am bus. Raquel had told me how hardly anyone uses public transport over here because its pretty unreliable and irregular and it really showed at the bus station because it was dead! There were only 3 people (Raquel and I included) on the 1 hour bus to Alicante. I don't think our fares would have covered the petrol it would have cost. It was nice catching the bus because Raquel could point out things and tell me about the area. 

We were met in Alicante by Edu, Raquel's friend whom she met in England but is originally from Alicante. He could tell us a lot of things about the city and showed us some good sites. We went out to one of his favourite spots for lunch and enjoyed some traditional Spanish rice and soda/wine mix. We ate so much I really could have done with a siesta! Edu was really funny to listen to because he had learn English in Dublin. His English was perfect but it was just funny the things he'd picked up in Dublin. He was also quite a character because he works as a IT engineer for a London based company but can work from home and has somehow managed to trick them into thinking he's still working in London but is actually living in Spain. He had to leave us for a conference call at 4pm so we wandered around and got ice cream until our bus home at 7pm.

Alicante waterfront

Walking along the waterfront

I liked these pink flowers

Bank of Spain

Funky blue building

Cool architecture

Church

Impressive dome in the church

Council building

Old ship

Nice spot

Theatre showing 'Beauty and the Beast', wish I was going!

Alicante's main church

When we got back we walked around Almoradi and passed the main church and popped in to a few shops that her friends owned. I couldn't believe how blue the sky still was at 8.30pm. One place we stopped at was a sweet store and I went a bit crazy at the pick'n'mix bit. They had the equivalent of malteser and m&ms to pick so I got heaps of them! When we walked through the door just after 9 dinner was on the table and we talked to Santa about our day.

Lollies!

Alicante cathedral - 8.30pm!

Thursday was another hot day so we decided to spend the morning down at the beach, go home for lunch at 2 and them head to a mall to do  spot of shopping and meet up with my other teaching assistant, Sarah, at about 5. Sarah is English and her sister bought a house out here earlier in the year so it was great to be able to catch up with her. We then spent the rest of the time looking around the shops and I got a few bargains. It was a lovely afternoon. We got back and had another late dinner and I had the best sleep I've had in a long time. 

Guardamar Beach

Paddling in the waves

Friday was another scorching day so we spent the morning down the beach again. I even got in the water this time! We had to get back for lunch at 2 to have Santa's speciality, seafood paella. Oh wow, I could have eaten that all day long! Apparently when Paula was eating it she spilt some rice in the table and ate the rice off the table and said, 'It's just so good I need to eat it all'. After lunch Santa disappeared and returned with a small rectangular box and 'madre, madre' and gave me a small gift for my mother. She'll have to wait until I get home to get that though ;)

Santa, Paula and the paella

Nice pic

I needed a sleep after all that paella, sunshine and beach. We decided to head into Almoradi for the afternoon and called in on one of Raquel's friends and had an iced coffee. We found out that there was a parade/fiesta on that Raquel's niece, Paula, was going to be involved in so after coffee we headed to her eldest brother's house and walked with him and Paula to the sports ground. It was a parade of all of Almoradi's sports teams, and Paula gave us big waves and smiles as she walked past. I also happened to see Spain's ex-Volley ball team's captain; Venancio Costa. After his fame he decided to come back to Almoradi to support local sports team which I thought was pretty nice of him. 

The three girls

This is the FIRST photo Raquel's mum has ever taken!

Paula :)

The kid with 17 on his shorts is a future star... With the ladies ;)

Venancio Costa

As we got back to Raquel's house her other brother, Mario, arrived with the lovely Lydia and Eloy and his wife, Christina. We decided to go out for a few tapas and it was a real family affair because we went to their uncle's restaurant. Her eldest brother was there with his wife and Paula and all the kids were running around while the adults were enjoying a few drinks at the bar. They all practiced some English with me and me a bit of Spanish with them. I invited them all to New Zealand so maybe one day we might see some of them or their children.

Lydia trying on my jewellery, below is Lydia and I practicing her counting :)

My Spanish family :)

When we got back we watched Spain's equivalent of 'The Voice' and I enjoyed seeing some contestants sing in English or Spanish translations of English songs. I didn't want to go to bed because I knew when I got up of have to say goodbye to Santa and Raquel.

It was a hard goodbye with Santa hugging and kissing me saying 'su casa', which translates to 'your house' and also saying I'm family. I have decided that I will definitely be going to back to see her and her family in years to come. This trip was one of those once in a life time thing. I will never forget my few days with Raquel and her beautiful family.

Me encanta España X

Exploring Norfolk!

It's mid term holiday time and my one week break started with a lovely weekend away up in Norwich with Jade and Rich (my favourite couple in the whole world - remember how they came to meet me my first weekend in London?). We'd organised the trip up a few months back so it coincided with the Norfolk festival which meant we had events booked for both Saturday and Sunday night and we packed so much into the glorious sunny days (yes, I did just say sunny!) I feel like I've been away for way longer than 2 days. I'm just on the train back to Reading now, it's a 3 1/2 hour trip so thought I'd use my time well and get started on writing the blog.

I arrived in Norwich at lunch time on Saturday with a rumbling tummy so it was a good thing our first stop was a Thai restaurant. I thought this was a very nice touch since Thailand was the first place I met these two. Oh and the food was delish! I had a garlic chicken dish. It really hit the spot. We did a lot of walking in the afternoon checking out the city centre and the old streets and saw some of the many churches (apparently in Norwich there is enough churches for every week of the year and a pub for every day of the year). It did seem that everywhere I looked there was an old church. It's a nice city centre because everything is very low because of an old law that means nothing can be taller than the cathedral spire. There were a lot of people out in costumes and I asked if this was normal but Rich assured me it was because of the festival but I'm not too sure about that ;) 

Old tudor streets with cobbled roads

Random polar bear in the street

Norwich Castle

 The cathedral was a real treat, set in beautiful gardens and was made out of such a light stone that the inside was nice a bright. The stained glass windows were also noteworthy because the images on them were on such a grand scale. We were also lucky because they had a choir performing as we were walking around so it was a real treat for the ears. When we left the cathedral we noticed an old array of telescopes set up outside pointed up towards the spire and as we were looking at them a nice d lay beckoned us over to look through them. Turns out that a hawk has laid it's eggs in a box up there and they've started to hatch. The telescopes are trained to spot the mother hawk and sure enough as I looked through I saw her up there looking down at her hawks. You'd never have noticed her there had you not looked through the telescope so that was a nice surprise to end our visit at the cathedral. 

 

Norwich Cathedral

Large stained glass windows

The choir singing

Hawk eye

Good ol' Wellington

 The day ran away from us and after a delicious dinner of trout and salad we were on way back into town to go to our show of the weekend; 'Beyond' by Circa. This was in an old circus tent in a city garden and walking into the tent I felt like I'd walked back in time. Everyone was in 50s attire, I liked it. It was quite an odd show of acrobatics with people wearing animal masks and performing to Frank Sinatra. I don't know how people get to be so flexible, there was one woman who was an absolute machine and was hanging on a trapeze and holding up one of the men my her teeth. Circus performers are on a whole other level. I thoroughly enjoyed it though. After the show we headed out to check out the nightlife in Norwich and on our way past about 20 different hen nights. It was a fun night but we couldn't be out too late because we had another action packed day planned for Sunday.

Jade and Zara

Waiting for the show to begin :)

We were on the road by 10am after a traditional English breakfast of bacon sandwiches. Jade and Rich were set on giving me a quintessential English experience and I don't think I could have gotten an more English than my Sunday outing of stately houses, fish'n'chips on the beach and the Philharmonic London Orchestra. 

Blickling Hall was our first stop of the morning and my first ever stately home. We didn't go inside this house because we had another, more grand, one to see later in the day but we did walk around the grounds, play croquet and check out the spring fair next door to the manor. I couldn't get over the gardens and how well manicured they were but also as we walked down the paths how many colours there were. 'How nice it would be for this to be my garden,' I thought to myself :) What a life! At the fair we saw a cider press in action and got to try some of his fresh apple juice. I could have drunken that all day!!!

My first stately home!

Up close and personal

The garden path

Lady Zara...

Practicing croquet

The cider press at the spring fair

We stopped off at a nice spot for lunch, a place called 'Beyond the Garden' which was made up of a farm shop and a restaurant. It had quite a Martinborough feel to it. We gauged on good food and dessert and were so full we decided to walk into the grounds of our next stately home instead of driving in to try move some of the meal. 

Holkham Hall was our next stately home and remember how I said I was impressed with the last one? Well this one was on a whole new level of grandness. This family had had royalty stay with them. Wow. It was about 3/4 mile from the gate to the house and you walked through huge fields to get there. There was lake in the grounds and on the grass next to the lake a cricket game was taking place (ha so English!). We walked around to get a view from the bank behind and the size of this place was phenomenal. We sat for a while on the grass just looking down at the house taking it all in. Now this stately home still has a family living it so is only open to the public 3 days a week and although it was grand it still had quite a lived in feeling. As you walked into the hall you saw a piano that had a note inviting you to play (I needed Simon with me) from Lady Polly. There were also quite a few family photos of them around the place, they have 4 quite young children. Of course we only saw a small section of the house but my mind was spinning around thinking about what the rest must be like, especially the kids' bedrooms!

Cricket in the front yard

Willows by the lake

Holkham Hall from the back

Jump for Holkham

Inside the entrance hall

The piano

This is nice of Lady Polly

I'd like to dine here

And have a bath here

They even had a hall with dresses on display!

Pretty!

Two stately homes is enough for one day so we decided to check out some of the Norfolk coastline. In less than 10 minutes we were at the seaside and I was impressed to see golden sand. I could not believe how many people were out an about, it was great to see so much cricket been played on the beach. Rich was determined to get me eating some fish'n'chips near the beach and luckily we managed to find an award winning place to get some from. We had to eat quickly so as to get back in time for the orchestra and Rich assured me as I ate my first chip covered in salt and vinegar that I was a bit more British now :)

Cute little beach houses

Something we whipped up...

Jade and I on top of a sand dune

Nice day!

Oh yea!

We raced back to Norwich and made it to the orchestra just in time. I wasn't quite sure what to expect but felt very cultured by the end of the evening. The Philharmonic performance was in an old church so the acoustics were amazing and on the way home I learnt that the conductor is very famous and performed at the Queen's Jubilee. How lucky was I to have been in such great company!!! 

We all were fast to fall asleep after that full on day but needed to be up bright and early for a morning of adventure boating on the Norfolk Broads before I started to head back home. We had to be at the Broads by 9am to ensure we'd get a boat and with such good weather we knew everyone would have the same idea. We made perfect time and were off on our boat cruising the Broads in no time. The Broads are a waterway system that were created by the Monks to drain the water of the land and have been continually worked on since the 17th century, so it's a very old system. Rich drove for the first part and then I decided to have a go. Wasn't too bad considering it was my first time behind a wheel in 5 months (no crashes Dad). It was peaceful cruising along the Broads, feeding the ducklings and goslings and noticing all the different green of trees. It really was the perfect way to end my weekend away in such a beautiful part of England. I've seen quite a lot of the Motherland now and I have to admit, it is rather beautiful! 

Captain Rich!

Nice cottages along the way

Thatched roof!

Living the good life!

Zara's at the wheel...

Feeding the (Ryan) goslings!

Aww!

Even an ice-cream boat!

So thank you Jade and Rich for been the BEST guides and giving me such an English experience. 

Now, it's time to go get ready for Spain and some proper hot weather. It'll be another early start for me tomorrow so I make my flight in time but hey sometimes you must make sacrifices for the good stuff ;) 

Tomorrow it's my 5 month been away from home anniversary. Time has flown!!!

Adios amigos!

X

Lords - a truly unforgettable day

So I have been to Lords, the home of cricket. I'm very happy that I can give that one a big tick off the list of things to do and places to see. The day started very well with the quick fall of the English cricket team. Then New Zealand got in to bat, I got my banner confiscated and everything kind of went downhill from there.

"Sorry love but I have to take that off you"

I wasn't too upset with my banner getting taken off me but me and my friends were talking about how at a place like Lords you can really see a visible divide among the classes. It's all very posh and you can tell cricket (in England) is very much a gentleman's sport. However, I was a bit sad I wasn't allowed one more picture of my sign. In the end I decided it was a good thing I wasn't left to hold it and people know I was a kiwi because when I thought things couldn't get any worse for New Zealand they did. Talk about feeling sick in your stomach! It got to the point when when a ball was bowled and it wasn't a wicket you could breath a sigh of relief. I went with a friend who I trained to be teacher with back home, Nicola, and her boyfriend, Andy, and we just watched in disbelief. Our exciting outing at Lords was cut short and well we all in shock and devastated. NZ had done so so well up until that point. We said to each other how happy we were that the rest of NZ would have been sleeping oblivious to the outcome until the morning and were wondering about the news headlines. I've just read the write up on stuff.co.nz, heartbreaking stuff.

Nicola and I trying to stay in good spirits at the break

Our high score was 13... What the hey?!?

I really felt for Brendon... He spoke well though

When NZ were all out we waited around for the speeches but weren't ready for our day at the cricket to be over so hung around Lords, opened a bottle of wine and sat on the grass enjoying the sunshine. We had to make sure we made the most out of our Lords experience! On our walk around the grounds we spotted the Ashes trophy, that was a high light.

I hope Australia thrash them!

It is safe to say that I will never, ever, forget my day out at Lords... :(