About the important things in life!

Experience is not an experiment. You can't want to make it. You make it.
(Albert Camus)

What is only known to very few about me is my love for quotes. Therefore, I would like to try to use a fitting quote at the beginning of each entry.

In this entry, I want to write down and share the most important events and insights of the past week with you.

During the week, I visited some places in the city of Castellón. You would probably expect the beach, since the city is located by the sea, or maybe just some sights. But that's not the case. I spent my week in places that are important to the family. Like the children's school, a shopping center, the football field, and the academy 'Speaker's Corner'. You might be wondering what an academy has to do with all of this. Quite simply: In this case, an academy is a kind of tutoring center/university for children of all ages and school levels. The children are not only supported in their weaknesses, but they can also learn and improve additional languages, as is the case with Catalina and Lucía with German. In Spain, it is normal to go to the academy, as school plays a very big role in Spain. I have only fully realized how big this role is in the last few days, because the children spend their afternoons studying, doing homework, going to the academy, doing academy assignments, having language lessons with me, and finally studying even more. My mother would probably say at this point: 'Studying. Yeaaah right. I know what 'studying' looks like for you. It consists of staring at a piece of paper for 5 minutes, then watching makeup tutorials on YouTube for 15 minutes, then randomly flipping through a book for 10 minutes, then stalking beautiful people on Instagram for 20 minutes, and finally reading the material with muttered words like 'Can I... I've read this somewhere before... this won't come and I can do it approximately.' But wait, I have to correct myself at this point. My mother would never say something like that, because she is not familiar with the word 'Instagram' and she doesn't know exactly what you can watch on YouTube... No, my mom and technology are not necessarily the best friends, which is confirmed by her Nokia mobile phone from the Stone Age.

Anyway, the school in Spain is very stressful and, in my opinion, puts too much pressure on the students. But what can I say, there is no perfect school system anywhere, although the Finns come very close. Therefore, the children cannot avoid stuffing themselves with knowledge in their free time, which they will not need 90% of in their lives and will forget 100% of.

Unfortunately, their well-deserved weekends are not as relaxing as one would wish - in this case, I wish. The entire morning, from 10 am to 2 pm, the Albesa family spends in a sports club on both Saturdays and Sundays, where I had the opportunity to play golf and padel for the first time. For those who don't know padel: It's basically tennis, but played in a glass box and you can use the walls. Special rackets are also used. The game is mainly played in Spain and South America, which is probably why most people, including myself, are not familiar with it.
Although I miss sleeping in very much, I am very grateful that I can/must come along, because the club is first of all beautiful, because it is located in the mountains (yes, there are mountains about 20 minutes away from Catellón), and secondly, it gives me the opportunity to train off my winter and summer pounds. It is also nice, especially at the beginning, to be able to spend time with people and not have to sit alone at home.

That the club is mainly for very wealthy people is particularly evident from the cars, which try to outdo each other in size and price. Which leads me directly to my next insights. The use of turn signals seems to be a pure option for both the average Spanish citizen and the police themselves. This is particularly evident in the mainly three-lane roundabouts, where collisions when changing lanes and leaving the roundabout can only be narrowly avoided. The choice of lane is also made as desired. Sometimes two lanes are used as one, which allows for higher speeds when cutting the curves, especially for those 'buckets' of cars (as we would say in Austrian).

Since I myself am a country girl, it is even difficult for me as a cyclist to navigate through all the driving bans and one-way streets, because Castellón is definitely a southern city, which means narrow, winding streets that are used as main roads. However, it also gives the city its own charm. And I am just one of thousands of cyclists, because Castellón has the great system of bike stations, where bikes can be rented and returned at any place in the city for 34€ per year. Another step on my 'How not to get fat during my Au Pair year?' list!

But let's move on to another topic: family and food. Yes, I am aware that these are two topics, but we are in Spain, so they simply go together. Because it's true: there really is the weekly family meal! And what a meal it is! I had the opportunity to experience it firsthand on Sunday, although probably all the burned calories were added back threefold after Sunday's exercise, but it was definitely worth it! The entire maternal side of the family was invited to the meal, which amounted to 11 adults and 12 children (including Luciana and me). The meal consisted of small appetizers (chips, olives, salted almonds, chicken, mussels, cheese, sausages, ham, ...), followed by paella with rabbit and chicken, fruit for dessert (melon, pineapple, and grapes), and cake. And to make our day even sweeter, a little later something that tasted very much like a Milchschnitte! Yes, I still suffer from severe stomach pains...

I think that's about the most important things from my first week, but if you have any questions, please write them in the comments and I will try to include them in the next post or answer them right away.

Thank you for your attention, I wish you a nice week, and I look forward to our next conversation, or rather my next presentation!

Hasta pronto,

Antonia