A few weeks ago, all three of us volunteers finally got the chance to participate in our on-arrival training that all EVS volunteers get when they arrive to the country. Confusingly, it's called on-arrival, but for most volunteers it is actually usually 1-2 months into the project until it actually takes place. Our training was held in Cercedilla, in the mountains near Madrid.


The training was 5 days long and we spent most of it inside the Albergue Villa Castora, which is a youth hostel, since the weather was not exactly ideal for outdoor activities. Nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable week and our trainers, Alvaro, Carlos and Patri made sure that there was plenty to do every second of the day!


We had a wide variety of workshops, some very practical, like how to use our Cigna insurance, some very philosophical and thought provoking and a lot that was simply great for teambuilding. Speaking of an awesome team, we had about 25 participants, mostly volunteers from the Madrid area, but we also had one person from Extremadura, one from near Malaga and of course us from Granada! We learned about EVS and the goals of Erasmus+ in general, practical tools for running our projects and also a lot about equality, discrimination and citizenship.



It was't all just being in and around the hostel of course, one day we also hopped on the bus and headed over to Segovia. It is an absolutely beautiful place! The most striking feature I think is the 2000 year old Roman aqueduct that runs through the town, but it was also the permanent residence of the king of Spain for quite some time, so it has a beautiful castle, a huge cathedral and just a very pretty old town center.


Really, the whole training flew by so quickly... On the way home on the bus to Granada all three of us probably looked like zombies, but if you asked us, all of us would have said that we'd stay another day!

As I went for a run on Sunday, I noticed a bunch of beautiful classic cars lined up around Paseo del Salón. Of course, I had to go back and investigate! Turns out there was an event from the 26th to the 28th of October called Ruta Reale, which is all about classic cars and classic outfits. For those who know me, it won't be a surprise that I was mostly interested in the cars!



There was a nice lineup of cars from mainly the 1930s to the 1950s, but there were some older and newer ones of course. I believe these cars were also taking part in some rally too.


Most people were of course interested in the oldest and fanciest of cars, but actually my three favorites were fairly young vehicles compared to the other ones. The first one was a beautiful red Mercedes SL.


The second is a funny one, since this was actually one of the organizers' cars, not part of the show, but I always love a classic Range Rover. It was funny to see this beat up old 4x4 parked among all the shiny, beautifully restored concourse cars.


Last, but not least, the car that was by far the most interesting to me: a Land Rover Santana Series II. It is a Land Rover, but it was actually built right here in Andalusia by a company called Santana. First, they were building exactly the same vehicles as Land Rover, but slowly they started developing their own versions. Eventually, the two companies separated and Santana developed it's own boxy 4x4 competitor to the famous Land Rover Defender. If you want to dive deeper into the story, check out the writeup that I did about the company's story on my blog.



It is always good to see old cars being preserved for future generations and I'm glad I accidentally found this event on the last day it was going on!