Erasmus+ Leaders In Language February - March 2023

The teaching week is quickly wrapping up for me, and it's hard to believe that I only have one and a half days left of teaching. My observation with Fran went well, and I was both reassured about my work as well as gaining confidence to apply my feedback for the future. The weather is also looking up, as I can finally take off my hoodie during the day and not be cold. Even the mornings are lighter and warmer, with pretty impressive sunrises to greet me as I get ready for school.  The afternoon should be more exciting as some of us are going to go for a geocaching adventure! For those of you who don't know, geocaching involves going to specific locations to find hidden items. Once you find the item, you log it and try to find another one! Some can be quite well hidden but it's a fun way of feeling like you're in a videogame searching for treasures.  After that, the evening is even more exciting as we are getting together to have a pizza night at our flat! My stomach can...

I like cats and one happy surprise I have come across whilst in Valencia was the abundance of cats roaming around the place. But unlike the cats you come across in England, these guys are less tempted by the pspspsps I make and will maintain at least 2 metres distance with you. That being said, they are fun to come across when you least expect it, almost like little spirits you encounter in your journey. I even saw a cat sized hole in the wall that looked like a little home for cats!(Photographed below) Maybe this isn't the only one in Valencia...

We had it drilled into us before we came out here that teaching is about survival. And as you all know, the first rule of survival is about maintaining a healthy mental attitude. Well, I think I’ve been doing okay – up till now, that is. Because, as we head into the final week of this Spanish spectacular, I fear that the first cracks may be starting to appear in my (don’t snigger!) hitherto impregnable psychological armour. Here are some of the more worrying signs (or is that symptoms?) …   A growing and seemingly intractable addiction to corn flakes, which, being more of a muesli muncher, I hardly ever ate back in the UK. Mistaking the Mediterranean Sea for just a fairly sizable lake (I’m not making these up). Strange dreams – including one recently where I was trying to explain something to a clown with a green and white plastic face … This recurrent fantasy about the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , the bit near the end when Indy and Elsa step into the inner sanctum and...

 It dawned on me how little time we have left. We've only just starting hitting the cool cafes around Moncada! But with my third work week officially over, I'm taking the metro home looking forward to the weekend. The need to go souvenir shopping looms ever closer, lest I get massacred by everyone I know for not getting them a small trinket. Although...some of the bazaars around here do sell interesting items...

I have been here for two weeks and managed to not write a single blog post… Can I use the fact that I have been doing so many new and exciting things as an excuse? No? Well I shall have to list some of them entonces. First carnaval in a Moncadian primary school: much insanity, polyester and a full on parade round the town at Friday midday. Plus I got to complete a lifelong dream of playing the drums in a band. Admittedly at the gig of my dreams, my bandmates weren’t ten year-olds and I didn’t have a red-painted nose, a wig or a green sparkly tie (long story), but the audience was just as appreciative. First school-contracted cold: turns out that Spanish children are just as germ-ridden as British ones, and I spent most of my first weekend making my way through Consum’s cheapest pañuelos and regretting letting Ángel with the runny nose give me a hug. First bar outing: as a pub-going, London-frequenting person from the south of England I find myself numb to the often astronomical price o...

Had a strange moment of déjà vu this afternoon as I was chilling out on Gandia's seafront. I was sitting on a bench watching the world go by, like you do, when this small white fluffy pom-pom of a dog walked past me … followed seconds later by another dog that looked just like it . So what's going on here, eh? Could it have been the same dog, I hear you ask. Could we be looking at a potential glitch-in-the-Matrix situation here? Will I have to start running away like mad, leaping grasshopper-like from rooftop to rooftop, from sinister government-type figures in black suits and sunglasses? Almost certainly. Except that pom-pom dog No. 2, unlike pom-pom dog No. 1, was wearing a teeny-weeny bow tie. So maybe they were two different dogs after all. In which case, I've definitely been watching too many films …