Am I dreaming?

This is the life! I get to travel around Spain at the weekends, learn a new language, meet new people and work with animals! Our Spanish classes finished last week and I am feeling slightly better about the whole thing. I understand much more but my replies are scattered words rather than sentences. I will get there and would like to have better conversations by April! We spent the weekend in Granada and then started work yesterday.

First of all Granada was amazing!  January is apparently the coldest month at a ‘chilly’ 20°C but we were all walking around in our t-shirts while the locals were wrapped up in their warm winter coats.  We did what any Brit abroad would do when met with such heat, we bought an ice cream :D and ate it outside in January!! Considering that the pictures from home show snow this was a treat!

Next on the cards was the Alhambra. This was originally a fortress that was renovated by a Moorish King and was then converted into a royal palace. The Islamic architecture is so detailed and really is amazing to see.  The decoration is based on Arabic inscriptions that are then manipulated into patterns. I attempted to highlight the amount of work that went into these structures but I don’t think my pictures do them justice!

Saturday night was burns night and in preparation Matt and I had written out some poetry to read out to the group before we headed out to the bars of Granada. What happened instead was both unexpected and one of my favourite moments so far. We went to a bar in a cave and watched traditional Spanish music being played between friends. One woman was so transfixed by the music that she jumped up and started flamenco dancing in the middle of the room. To see true Spanish culture in that form was something that I will remember for life.

After wandering around Granada on Sunday we got the bus back to Úbeda and prepared ourselves for working the next day. Work consists of me and my flatmate Elysia getting picked up by the farmer (Juan) around 8am and we finish between 2 and 3pm depending on how much there is to do. That is us finished for the day. Again this is the life! So far we have; helped milk the majority of goats (around 500 in total), cleaned out the shed, met the guard dogs (I fed the guard dogs chopped up meat, I am glad the wildlife park prepared me for this sight), fed the pigs and chickens and Elysia got to help at an olive oil factory today. When I arrived I expected only goats but there is so much more. This morning we tried to collect eggs from the chicken coop but one was just not budging, even after I prodded her with a stick haha. I also got to help with the production of the cheese. It is an intricate process and trying goats’ milk and cheese that is so fresh has completely changed my opinion on them as it is not something I would choose to eat in the U.K.

Diversity is key within this role and I think I am going to really enjoy working here. The farmer and his family are some of the sweetest people I have ever met. They have had the farm for 6 years and are completely sustainable. He is an inspiration and we feel part of the family already. Rosa (the mum) has already provided us with extra blankets for the flat as we said it was chilly and they feed us breakfast every morning after we have milked the goats. I cannot get over how much can be communicated by facial expressions and gestures. I think I am going to pick up the language quicker working with the family but it is good to know that there are other methods in the mean time. 

I feel incredibly lucky to have had this opportunity and am looking forward to the new skills and experiences working on a livestock farm will bring. I know that one thing I am most looking forward to is seeing piglets and one of the females is currently pregnant!! I shall keep you all updated  :D

-Laura xox

Relaxing into the Spanish lifestyle including tapas, siestas and aprender español!

This week we have been settling into our new lifestyle. I shall try and update this every weekend and let you know how we are all getting on. First of all here are the people that I am living and spending time with for the next three months :) I think we are going to have a good time!

There are many differences between the UK and Spanish lifestyle. I am slowly coming around to the fact that everything shuts for the siesta and not only that but nobody can be seen on the streets during this time. Therefore anything you need done during the day either has to completed by 2pm or you do it when everything opens around 5 o’clock. Staying up casually until 1 or 2 in the morning is something that takes getting used to.  

Moving onto tapas, this is essentially free food! You buy a drink and get a tapa with it for around €2. This is not just with your first drink but all night if you are hungry enough. This is something that I can definitely enjoy! Talking of food I have been pushing my boundaries when it comes to what I normally eat and drink. So far I have eaten olives which I normally hate but these ones are so fresh there is no way you could resist, I also tried goat meat and it was a bit too chewy for me so I think the ones at the farm should be safe! Red wine and coffee are normally a no go for me but out here they just feel right!

The weather has been more like home rather than exotic Spain but it is winter here and the surroundings make up for it! Today we went for a walk around the olive fields ( I didn’t think that would be a sentence I would ever say) and the weather changed from glorious sunshine to pouring rain but it all added to the experience! We came across an abandoned train station which was pretty awesome! 

The learning Spanish is proving to be quite difficult seeing as I have not learnt a language since I was about 15. I am slowly getting there with the understanding of words but the grammar has completely thrown me. We are only 2 weeks in so I am pleased that I am making progress knowing my abcs and other basics but I really do hope that by the end of my time here I can answer someone rather than stare blankly at them and say ‘no entiendo’! The level of English spoken here is limited so we have landed very lucky with the guys in our flat speaking large amount of Spanish and being able to help us out when we get stuck.

Yesterday we ventured out without them, dictionaries and phrase books to hand we were good to go! Or so we thought all was going well until we tried to get one market stall owner to not take the tops off the carrots and resulted in Marcus saying ‘keep’ in different pitches in order for them not be thrown away. We failed and it resulted in a lot of laughter and us knowing that saying an English word a different way makes absolutely no difference!

Alongside our tours around the town, learning Spanish and getting to know each other with some cheap vinos and cervecas, we managed to go on a day trip to a nearby town Corzola. This is the gateway to the largest protected area in Spain. We have yet to visit the park but we did get to learn about the history of the town. We went to a cathedral that had been destroyed by a great flood in the 17^th Century, it had a really cool staircase that you could look all the way down the middle but I had forgotten how much I dislike spiral staircases! La Yedra is a reconstructed Moorish castle that we got to explore, it was awesome to learn about a new culture and the history behind it. Next time we go we are going to see the amazing lakes and take part in activities such as caving and gorge walking (hopefully it will be a bit warmer by then).

I have been enjoying taking photos in the area and this week I got to play with my new zoom lens and it has come out with some cracking results!

With and without zoom lens!

Overall everything is going well so far and I am away to make dinner for the group before we head off to a hip hop night in town. I will meet the goats and see the farm next week but for now we are making the most of our time off! 

Laura xox

Welcome to Úbeda!

Team Úbeda all arrived safely yesterday (10th January). We are a group of seven people containing four boys and three girls! Everyone has had different life experiences and they are an awesome bunch of people, I look forward to spending the next three months with them all. 

Last night we went to a local bar to experience tapas and today we had the most amazing breakfast for around £3! I am so excited to experience a new culture and based on first impressions this is going to be the most relaxed three months of my life! The siesta takes up a large chunk of our day and we don't start work until the 27th January. Between now and then we will have 30 hours of Spanish lessons. At the moment I am struggling with the language but there are so many opportunities to learn at the local market, in the shops and on the farm!

We are thinking of visiting a natural park tomorrow and the geographer in me is thrilled!! 

This is a snippet of where I get to live for the next few months. Surrounded by olive fields and terracotta, what more would you want in life? :)

Laura xox

All the boring information first!

Here it is my first blog and the beginning of what I hope to be an incredible journey!

My name is Laura and I am one of the many people who have spent their lives in education in the hope that this alone will have landed me my dream job. Oh how wrong I was. The reality is here I am at the grand age of 23 (nearly 24) and have spent the past five years completing an undergraduate degree in Geography and an MSc degree in Conservation and Management and still don’t know exactly what I want to do. Would I like to work in the environmental field? Yes but it seems to be highly competitive at the moment and my summer jobs and voluntary work just aren’t going to cut it!

Some of my friends who have graduated are travelling the world (mainly Australia and New Zealand) but I do not have the funds at the moment to have considered this as an option. Others are in graduate schemes or full time jobs that they have held for many years. The rest are completing university courses and are within professions that they have all worked hard for and enjoy! Some are in long term relationships, have bought houses/are thinking of buying houses and there are even a few babies on the scene!

Where does this leave me? Feeling a bit left behind to be honest. Therefore I started this blog to allow family and friends to follow what I am up to on my journey (hopefully) to employment and maybe to allow other recent graduates to see that they are not alone!

For the next three months I am going to be taking part in an internship that will provide me with the opportunity to work in Spain on an ecological goat farm. Is this where I thought I would be three months after graduation? Not at all but I have now stopped focussing on where I am not and focus on enjoying where I am now!

Prior to this internship I volunteered as an animal keeper for six weeks at the Highland Wildlife Park in Kingussie, Scotland. IT WAS AMAZING! I worked for free and it was cold but I got to work with some incredible animals including Amur tigers, polar bears, red pandas, bison and camels to name a few. I may never have had this opportunity had I walked straight into a job after uni.

So there you have it, a round up of what I have done and no idea where I am going but that’s okay because I am going to have a blast getting there and will keep you all updated via the wonders of the world wide web :D

Laura xox