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martes, 28 de mayo de 2019

Madrid Ain't That Bad - Marci

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During my EVS, I've been to Madrid quite frequently and I have to say, I didn't become the greatest fan of the place. In fact I've kind of thought of it as the London of Spain... The similarities are pretty obvious: great cultural and arts scene, with fantastic museums and galleries, but it's a pain in the ass to get around, it is super crowded, with expensive rent and lacking character compared to cities like Granada. That said, Madrid has kind of grown on me over time!


I was in Madrid for the first time about 4 years ago, as I was on my way to Íllora and Granada for a youth exchange. I only saw a couple of things, like the Cibeles palace and the Retiro park that I really liked. A year later I did a trip through Spain (see a funny attempt at vlogging from that trip HERE) and I actually got to spend some time in Madrid. I used those two days pretty much exclusively to go and see exhibitions that were on at the time, like Bosch, Caravaggio and a photography exhibition, along with some smaller galleries and the permanent collections of the Thyssen and the Prado. Those were an intensely cultural two days...



Since then, I've been back numerous times during my EVS. Especially since my girlfriend started working there, I've visited fairly frequently! That meant that I had to realize how expensive it is to rent there and how much commuting it takes to get around when you don't live in the center. The metro system is pretty good, but some of the lines are being repaired and the integration of the local light railways (Cercanías) and the metro system leaves a lot to be desired. It is also quite pricey to eat out and do things there, compared to Granada, but that's not surprising - after all it's the capital!



What really made me like the place is the number of parks and green areas! Of course, most people know about the Retiro, but looking at the map, the whole city is just full of them. I think the coolest one is at the edge of the city called Casa de Campo, which is feels like a little wild escape to the hills, when it is within walking distance of the Royal Palace and the city center.




The galleries and the art scene is still great, and neighborhoods like Salamanca or going to the Rastro when the market is on is definitely very cool and hipster! We've spent the last weekend just walking around, going with the flow and seeing both old and new places. Sure, I think Granada is a 100x cooler place, but I have to admit, Madrid has grown on me a little.

lunes, 27 de mayo de 2019

Voting in the EU Elections - Marci

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Just a day after the EU elections, the results are starting to trickle in... In some countries, the results are very surprising, in some it was completely predictable. But that's not what I want to talk about here. After all, I am not trying to tell you who is right or wrong here, even though I have pretty strong opinions on that as well. Ask me about that over a beer if you are interested...

The question is more about the fact that people should go an vote in elections. I had to get on a bus, take a 5 hour ride up to Madrid and go to the Hungarian consulate and cast my vote. Before that, I needed to get through some paperwork to even be able to vote in the consulate. Why go through all this trouble? After all, that one vote doesn't change much, right?

Well, one vote by itself indeed is nothing in the big picture, but if everyone had the idea that their vote didn't matter, nobody would turn up. People complain about elected politicians, but do you really have a right to complain if you didn't turn up? I think not. Hell, even turning up and drawing a penis on the ballot as a protest vote is still better than not turning up. I just think that if you didn't bother to turn up, don't complain about things until the next elections.


I really agree with this Jonathan Pie video. Young people are terrible when it comes to voting participation. I can see why my generation is disgruntled with politics and don't care, but this is how things are: you have to go and vote if you want to change something, because more often than not, the people who you don't like are also going to vote, electing people you don't like. Brexit is a great example, young people literally just slept through the whole process.

We've done a bit of work here at Las del Tul to promote EU elections to the Granada youth and I really hope that we've convinced at least a few people to go and cast a vote for whichever party they favor. We've had speakers from pretty much all the major parties in debates and talks, discussing their plans and programs with the local youth.

If you went to vote, go give yourself a pat on the back, well done! If you didn't, well, there is always next time... Except please don't complain for 5 years, until we have the next elections!

miércoles, 22 de mayo de 2019

Almería Activities - Marci

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Seems like the last month was full of instances that I went to the coast for some reason... Until April, I've only been to Malaga on the Andalusian coast and now I've suddenly added Almuñécar, Almería and Nerja as well, in about one month. I know, I know, that's not a terrible problem to have!


But, the trip to Almería a few weeks ago was actually a serious activity. Sara and I travelled there to hold a presentation to a group of young people about Erasmus+ opportunities as well as a separate workshop to their teachers, who wanted to know more about the program in general and especially about the Erasmus+ internship program and how to best search for partner organizations. When I say Sara and I held the presentation, I basically mean that Sara did the presentation, while I said a few words in my Tarzan-Spanish and then I continued to take pictures.



The event was held as part of the activities around Europe Day by Almería's local government and I thought it was awesome how much work and resources they dedicated to celebrate this day and turn it into something useful - this certainly wouldn't be the case back home in Hungary.



After the event, Sara and I spent a bit of time exploring the city, going up to the Alcazaba (the fortress) which was very interesting. You could see the whole city from there, along with the port and the arid landscape surrounding the city. Sadly, we couldn't really explore much more, because I had a pretty badly injured knee at the time, so I was just hobbling around slowly... So instead, we got an earlier bus back to Granada.


The busride itself was also interesting, because first Almería is surrounded by all these greenhouses, where a lot of fruit and vegetables are grown. Once we left that area, it was straight into a desert environment where actually a lot of Western movies were shot back in the day! I can definitely see why they chose it as a location, it seemed very much like the Wild West out there...

lunes, 6 de mayo de 2019

Día de la Cruz - Marci

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On the 3rd of May in much of Spain they celebrate the “Día de la Cruz” (Day of the Cross), also called “Cruz de Mayo” (May Cross). It is especially important in Andalusia and Granada is very famous for it, being popular both with the locals and people travelling here just to see it. But what is it really about? It is a religious festivity that basically involves decorating a cross and creating a huge installation around it, which people go around and see, and in some places, it also involves food and dancing. And why do people do this? Well, that’s a tougher question, with a mix of Christian and pagan traditions being mixed. I think for most people, the religious significance is lost by now, but it still continues to this day. If you want to know more about it, you can check HERE or HERE – I just wanted to see the festivities themselves.


I set out to explore some of the festivities with Aisling in the morning. We didn’t really know what was going on, we just wandered around the city, finding some of the crosses in the city center, then we headed up to Albaicín to see what was up there. In the Albaicín they seemed to be only doing the celebrations in school yards, although there were a couple of those – in other parts of town there is a variety of types of installations and they even have a competition. In the competition they have four categories: streets or squares, patios, shop windows and schools.


After lunch, we headed down to the Realejo neighborhood and met up with Dani and Antonio, who gave us some much-needed backstory on the whole celebration and showed us around. It’s always better to see these things with local guides! We wandered through Realejo, looking at the patio installations. Generally, they would consist of a cross decorated with red flowers, along with a huge variety of stuff around it – from desks, cutlery, food, copper pots all the way to statues and plants.



We also looked at some of the street installations, although there weren’t that many of them. We saw the winning shop window – which was funny, because the shop window itself didn’t seem like such a big deal at first, but then we realized that pretty much the whole house above it was decorated. Dani was telling us about how this year there seems to have been a decrease in the number of installations over previous years, especially when it comes to street installations.


While it is cool to see these and I like how many people our out on the streets enjoying a day exploring Granada, I don’t fully get the hype about it. Once you’ve seen a couple of the crosses, you’ve seen them all – almost all of them look the same and while there are a lot of differences in the stuff around them, seeing at least 10 of them, they became a bit boring. Apparently, in some of the villages there is more variety to them, but in Granada the competition rules seem to stifle more creative approaches to the festival.


It also seems like the celebration was smaller this year than in previous ones, so all the dancing and partying that I heard about wasn’t really there – in the schools, people were mingling, eating, drinking and chatting, but it would be rare to see anyone dancing. By the street and patio installations, people were just looking around and of course shop windows were the same too. Overall it was an interesting and unusual festivity to see, but I’ve heard so much hype about it before that I feel like it just didn’t live up to the expectations that I had based on what people were telling me about it.






jueves, 2 de mayo de 2019

Almuñécar Trip - Marci

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Contrary to what many people believe based on my Instagram feed, EVS is not all about travelling and exploring Spain – I spent a day or two a week doing something like that, and mostly just to places really close to Granada. But occasionally I do venture further, and this time we decided to go on a trip together with Kürsat and Hanna, as well as Ivana, another EVS volunteer from Slovakia who was in Granada visiting us. We decided to go to the coast, to Almuñécar to enjoy the beach and chill out.


The trip to Almuñécar is pretty easy, it is about an hour and a half by bus from Granada, so it’s actually not that much closer than Malaga. Of course, if you have a car, the difference would be bigger. But the ride is really beautiful, because it goes around the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and through the mountains with lakes and great views all the way to the coast.


My first impression of Almuñécar was that it is quite a resort-town. People come here to spend a few weeks getting sunburnt on the beach, and clearly it’s not peak season yet, so it wasn’t very crowded. A lot of the buildings are these big ugly apartment complexes, although later we found much nicer areas. But first, it was time to go to the beach! Also, later I heard there were some cool hidden spots that we missed, plus with a car, you could explore all the coast and the nearby mountains, which looked really epic!



We went to the beach to chill out, chat, read, have some snacks, swim a little and of course, get sunburnt – the latter was not on purpose of course. The water was quite cold still, but perfectly fine for a little swimming. Eventually, we decided that we need food, so we found a small local restaurant which made great calamari and ate way more than we should have…



I am not the type of person who is able to sit on the beach all day, so unlike Hanna and Kürsat, I didn’t go back to the beach, instead I went exploring and Ivana also joined me. We walked through the old town around the fort, which is actually very quaint and picturesque. Still plenty of locals around, with small winding streets and lovely buildings. Sadly, since we were there on a Sunday afternoon both the fort and the archaeological museum were closed, so we just walked on.


There was a cool viewpoint on a little peninsula with some rocks sticking out of the sea in front of it. It is a great spot to watch the sea from, but also gives you a good overview of Almuñécar. We also walked up towards the Velilla tower but realized soon that we’d miss our bus if we climbed all the way. We did find a little “unofficial” viewpoint though, which offered an interesting view After that, we just joined Hanna and Kürsat and all of us got on the bus back to Granada.