Clash of cultures

Hello my friend,

Today I will tell you about the international dinner we made for our Spanish friends. As you already know we are living together 4 girls from different countries. So we decided to cook each one of us one traditional dish.

Done we had a perfect menu with Bulgarian and Polish soup, Hungarian and Polish second and German desert, the drinks was from our Austrian friend on EVS like us. It was really tasty.

You know that I’m in Tenerife and the Canarian people here are kind of mixed culture – the Spanish culture with reminiscences of the Latin America, very good combination. The Bulgarian culture on the other hand is mixture of too many things to can explain them here, but we have big influence of the oriental hospitality. This means that when you are guest you are like a king – everything is served if you want something your desires are law for the host.

So international dinner with friends from 7 different countries it was really funny - everyone with his culture and understandings. The dinner was in our house and we were behaving as proper hosts – serving and so on. But our Spanish friends told us to stop because we are incommoding their dinner this way – they can’t enjoy the food this way, because we are too preoccupied. Come on to take care about my guests is kind of genetically program for me, but I couldn’t convince them. They were stronger – “you are in Spain, behave proper – sit and enjoy the food”.

Yes the guests started to serve by themselves and even in the end of the dinner wanted to wash the dishes – aren’t they the most desirable guests. I’m starting to like more and more this place.

One perfect day

Hello,

Today I’ll tell you about my perfect day. Just imagine Friday, the end of very hard working week. In the morning we had short working meeting. At noon I had a meeting with Tanja another EVS and two of her colleges. We met and go to one Guachinche (place for typical Canarian food) and tried great dishes. We ate so much of this so delicious thing – meet (beef and chicken) with French fries, baked chees and salad.

After our lunch at typical Spanish time – 14-15 o’clock we go to one very beautiful beach – Santa Ana. The place is so natural and beautiful. There are maximum 10 people with four of us, because we needed 30 minutes to go down on one almost an angle of 80 degrees declivity. Yes but it costs, the black sand beach, the waves and the very blue ocean, everything was perfect. You can´t imagine what is the feeling. Yes of course we needed 1 hour to go back up with salty skin, but we were lucky that there was no sun, it was cloudy.

After the Beach we go to flat of one of the girls. We met her pet - the rabbit Asterisk, and had a great time in the swimming pool. Making pictures under the water and enjoying the music from the fiesta two houses down from her.

I couldn’t belief that it’s not a dream, but reality. It was better than a movie.

We finished the perfect day in one coffee with panoramic view of night Puerto de la Cruz. I was having my fresh juice, looking the magnificent view and still wondering if this day was real or not!

My new friends

Hi again,

I thought that I should tell you about the amazing beaches and mountain places where we were, but now I’m feeling that I have to present you my new friends.

My new friends from my coordinating organizations - Isla CreActiva, and my hosting organization AURI - are making the atmosphere here so friendly that I still can’t feel that I’m far away from home. I’m here less than 3 weeks but I feel them so close. When we came here everything was very well prepared – nice apartment with everything necessary in it. And the working atmosphere is perfect for me friendly and professional in the same time.

Last night they brought us to a typical Canarian dinner and it was great. Everything was so delicious and the atmosphere was really nice. We tried 6 different dishes and I liked them a lot – especially these ones with meet.

The truth is that the Canarian food is not so different from the Bulgarian. The main things are potatoes and rice with beef. They have the same love of cheese as in my country but using more kinds of it.

I heard about super delicious deserts but last night I didn’t have power to eat more, so I’m looking forward to try them and learn how to prepare them.

I had a great evening and I’m so happy that I work with these great people – my new friends. I still can’t belief that I have such a good luck with the project, people and the place.

FIesta

Hello again!
These days had happened so many things that I would like to share with you, but I don’t have enough time to sit and write them. It is kind of too tiring to communicate all the time in two different languages which are not your mother tongue. So I have to tell you about the Festival of San Cristo, the different beaches and hiking roads, etc. Let me start with the Festival.

First I have to tell you that La Laguna is not so big town and is really quiet city. When I’m walking on the streets of Sofia I’m always listening music and here no. I’m just walking and relaxing. The people walks slow and they are always smiling. It’s just a pleasure to walk through the streets of San Cristobal de La Laguna.

And for two weeks this town was changed. Every day there were concerts and other kind of festival activities. Unfortunately we couldn’t manage to go to all of them but we were on the best ones. “La Pandorga – Caballos de fuego” – parade of people from the little ones to the older ones. It was amazing to see how all the people from the city are together and making this very funny parade (see the pictures). There was something for everybody on this parade.

Next event that left me without breath were the fireworks. 40 minutes all kind of beautiful forms were in the sky. It was so beautiful and again everybody was so happy and celebrating together. While I was watching them I realized that like the fireworks my adventure here will be so bright and beautiful and as them so short. That’s why I decided that I’ll leave every minute of it on the best way and trough this blog I’ll make you part of it.







After the fireworks there was a big concert. It was on the Cristo square and there was so many people that I couldn’t belief that all of them are living in this town. The music was salsa, merengue, cumbia, etc. the music of my sole. I was literally in the heaven. I was just dancing all the time and enjoying how everyone was dancing. Do you know that it is true all the Spanish people can dance like a professional dancers. I was amazed just looking all the time around me and enjoying the spirit of the Fiesta.

My flat mates

Let me tell you now about the girls with who I’m living here in San Cristobal de La Laguna, Tenerife. It’s true that I know them only from one week but as we have such amazing moments together we are already kind of a family.

We are four girls from different countries and will live together next for 9 months. We are participating in the same EVS program but in two different projects. In my project called “Building Bridges” I’m working with Zsofia and our job is to help AURI for the organization of the free time of the Erasmus students in the University of La Laguna. The other project is called “Jumping for Europe” and Izabela and Marie are working in playground.

So Zsofia is from Hungary and we are almost all the time together. I don’t know how the organization managed to choose us so successfully but we are great team. It’s just amazing. We are having fun not only in our free time we have it while we are working with the great team of AURI.

Izabela is from Poland and knows Spanish very well, because she has studied Spanish philology and was on her Erasmus here. She was also an au-pair in one Spanish family all most one year and that’s way she helps to all of us when we have some difficulty with the Spanish.

Marie is the youngest one and is from Germany. She doesn’t know Spanish yet, but as with Izabela works in a playground the sweet Spanish children teach her their language and also they are trying to learn some German words. Actually I’m starting to learn German, too, but for this later.

And yes, you already know that I’m from Bulgaria. Four of us have had so much funny moments this week that I just cannot tell you for all of them in one post. But I can assure you that for this time we already make our flat home and we are real family. Even we have our own place on the table as every ordinary family. We are having at least the dinner together and trying dishes from different countries, not only ours. For example yesterday we had Mexican tortillas. We are experimenting in the kitchen and for now goes really good.

We are learning different languages and helping to Marie with the Spanish. Actually now our apartment has all over small papers with words on all of the 5 languages – Spanish, German, Polish, Hungarian and Bulgarian. With this mixing of the languages we have a lot of moments when we are laughing Rolfing on the floor.

Yes I have a lot of more things to share with you, not only for the girls, but for my friends from work, my new Erasmus friends, the paradise I’m living in, etc. but for this next time.

How everything started?

Hello my friend!

Welcome to my blog! Here I’ll tell you my personal story, the story how my dream came true. How my very ordinary life in small country changed and now I’m the paradise doing the best job in the world – organizing the free time of the Erasmus students in the University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Canary Islands.

As most of the teenagers I didn’t have very interesting life. Even I could say that I’ve had really hard moments in my life. But this is not interesting. Everybody have these moments but you have to remember that after every storm the sun is going to shine again. So after the “storm” in my life I decided that I have to change the things. I started to be a volunteer in couple of NGO’s in Bulgaria and I was really happy that I’m doing something significant for other people. During my work for these NGO’s I become well acquainted with the program Youth in Action. I went on couple of youth exchanges and understand about the other opportunities that program gives.

One of them is European Voluntary Service. This gives you the chance to go in another European country in period from 2 to 12 months to get to know the culture, people and learn the language. There are different projects which you can apply for – social, ecological, etc.

I decided that I would like to go in Spain as I love the Spanish culture, language and people. I found a sending organization and start applying for project after project in Spain, and for all of them I’ve received NO. My mentor in my sending organization – Balkan Youth Festival “Youthof the Balkans” (2011-BG-6) told me that I shouldn’t be disappointed, it’s just because it’s not “my project”. And she was right. I’ve received more than 10 NO to my applications.

And when I was on the point to give up it just happened. From one of the organizations I’ve been applied write me that I’m not approved for this project but if I want I could apply for another one which is suitable for me according to them. And when they accept my application I just couldn’t believe it’s happening such an amazing thing exactly to me. So really no matter how it sound but just never give up, you never know what’s in store for you - pursue your dreams.

After this I have to wait around three months to understand if the project will be approved from the European Commission. During this time I helped to my sending organization to prepare the 17th Balkan Youth Festival. I learned a lot during this time and I’m really grateful to all of my friends from the festival.

Now I’m here, in the paradise and I’m organizing fantastic events together with my new friends from AURI. I already met most of the new Erasmus students in the University of La Laguna and I think we will have a great time together. My roommates are amazing girls from Hungaria, Poland and Germany and we are having a lot of fun together, but for all of this I’ll tell you in my next post.