Yes, well, it has been a while, I knew I would be crap at blogging regularly but I will carry on every now and then, it isn't as if anyone is hanging on my every post so I am not too concerned!
I have now spent my first summer in Spain - a culturally interesting experience.
In Spain August = stop working for the majority of people. Madrid literally empties and the beaches and mountainous areas fill up, the airports, train and bus stations not to mention the roads become bedlam as everyone heads off on holidays more or less at the same time.
It is something that doesn’t really happen at home, not to the same extent anyway. The nearest we get are bank holidays which people can’t be bothered with anymore because a) ‘they’ decide that this is the perfect time to do essential track and road maintenance rendering travel a nightmare and/or b) the weather is rubbish. Here b) at least is not a problem.
The weather was glorious for the most part, we had two cloudy days in 3 weeks and the temperatures remained hot and sun cream was still necessary because of the UV, nothing that would stop you from going outside. Home, by contrast, seems to have had some truly awful weather with rain and floods and all sorts. What is going on with the weather in the UK?! More to the point for those who have been lucky enough at home not to be flooded there was a general gloom and greyness which just carried on through the whole of August, I went home for a few days and it was just so depressing the constant gloom.
The summer in Spain is when people, who generally work pretty long hours, spend time with their families and extended families. The people who rented the flat below ours on the beach managed to cram in at least 10 people (these could seriously only have been room for 6 but they managed it), grandparents, cousins, children, brothers and sisters, you name it; they all get together on the beach for August. In Madrid however, you can finally get into bars that are usually packed out, not only that, you can get a seat, and you can park close to where you are going. Driving in the centre (usually a pretty kamikaze move, at least for the cars) becomes a tranquil, nay, calming experience, nobody's there so the roads are largely your own. It's a strange experience being in a city that usually houses a good few million people when there are only a few hundred thousand people rattling around in it.
Going back to work, now, that was interesting. Here they call it the ‘vuelta al cole’ or ‘back to school’ – and it literally is here; the kids go back to school and the parents go back to work, all at roughly the same time. It is really weird when you think that in the UK we all take our holidays at various times with everything at work continuing more or less as normal. While summer hols are always popular (and expensive) we all take a couple of weeks anytime between June and September generally, not all together at once in August. Interesting. I think I liked it. You know your not missing anything because no-one else is working so you can really just relax and disconnect rather than constantly wondering whether something at work is going drastically wrong. It’s good. It’s nice. You all come back and chat about your holidays at once, gives you a sense of shared experience somehow.
