¿Hablas español?

Me with my Spanish fan 

Welcome to another entry of my blog here in Bordeaux. I don’t have as much happening as I did last time, but that was only because I left it WAY too long to update. Even so, I still have news, including doing a bit of travelling to a country that I should have visited years ago. 

I would like to start this off with a little intro to something. It’s called Franglish and it is a weekly event in bars and cafés across the UK and France to help conversation. Essentially, it’s like speed dating in that you go to different tables and talk to people for a certain amount of time: 7 minutes in English… et puis 7 minutes en français. A lot of the Ectarc group had been in the past few weeks but it was my first time last week and I absolutely loved it; if you are close of any of the possible areas and you’re competent in both languages, I would definitely recommend it. I even managed to use my Italian a bit when I was talking to an Italian girl (the idea is for French and English native speakers to talk but I think I only spoke to 1 or 2 French people out of about 6)! If anyone wants to know more, go to: http://www.franglish.eu/. You will not regret it! 

TAPAS!!!!!

Happy Birthday Jasmine!!

The day after, we all went out again because it was Jasmine’s birthday; we went out to a tapas bar nearby and then for a drink afterwards. A couple of times when we were in the restaurant, I thought I was in Spain, not only because the tapas was amazing, but as it had Spanish pictures on the walls and pretty much all the menu was in Spanish – thank God we had people in our group who were studying it because mine wasn’t good enough there and then – and it wasn’t until the waiters came to take our orders and stuff when I remembered I was in France! 

Bienvenidos a Espana

However, if this had been Saturday, it wouldn’t have mattered; because, for the first time ever, I WENT TO SPAIN!!!!  

From the top of Jesus Hill

My friend from Ectarc, who works at Hertz, managed to hire a car for the weekend and invited people to come to San Sebastián for the day, which is right on the Spanish/French border in Basque county. It’s quite a small town, with a beach and a big hill with a statue of Jesus on the top; we had a brilliant day on the whole, but I think it would be best to get the worst out of the way first. It took FOREVER to get there. Normally, it takes 2 hours to get to San Sebastián from Bordeaux, but it actually took 5 because of all the traffic, whether due to an accident, the gazillion tolls, or the roads being general brujas. It was a good thing we made an early start (and by that I mean getting up at 6am), otherwise we wouldn’t have had long there at all and it almost wouldn’t have been worth going. So from that, and the late coming back as well, I was shattered, and still am to be honest.  

Cuidad bella!

However, despite that, it was a brilliant day. We first met up with our “tour guide” Sonia, who was a friend of some of the Ectarc people who had come with us, and is staying in the area, so she knew exactly where to go. Then we had REAL tapas in a REAL SPANISH tapas bar – I’m not sure if I would have been able to eat squid and mussels if I was anywhere else – and as you can expect, it was delicious. Then we climbed up Jesus Hill (brilliant views btw), got some souvenirs and spent lots of time at the beach, all in typical Spanish heat. I was really happy as well to FINALLY use my Spanish, even if it is terrible. Having said that, I think the only problem I would have had was at the tapas bar when the waiter was explaining to me how it worked, which Sonia had already explained to me in English; but I got by other than that so I’m really pleased. I’ve become more determined now to learn it properly – if I can get it to the same level as my Italian is, I will be very happy =D 

Our little group at San Sebastian 

Lovely cool water
- and I only went in for a paddle =P

As you can probably tell, I had a brilliant day, even if it did leave my knackered and I refused to leave my bed on the Sunday. Work is going ok, not much has changed other than I have been asked to translate their press dossier into English – it’s not the worst translation I’ve done but because it’s long, it might take a while.  

I hope to have more exciting stuff coming soon, let’s just see what happens 

Charlotte