Hello again.

Dear Alex,

I’m back. Please don’t take my blogging absence as anything to do with your last blog; I thought it was absolutely fantastic:

“Who runs the world? Not girls, but the media and gender frameworks”

What a line. JUST FAB.

In fact, it got me thinking quite a lot. Enough to write two blogs myself, promptly decide I didn’t like them, and resume my social media silence. The truth is I’ve wanted to comment on quite a lot of what’s going on in the world, internationally, politically, interesting marketing and communications news at the moment. I mean, where do you even start? Over the last few weeks, ideas for blogs have come thick and fast – Taylor Swift’s latest addition to her campaign for Apple Music (wrote this one, may tweak it and post it in due course) the American presidential race, Hostelworld’s new campaign (again written, may post it later), Brexit issues and my internal rage over my own student loan and the state of them for future generations of students.

These have all remained ideas in my head or written in notes on my phone, and not appeared in the blogger sphere for several reasons. However, the main reason is that I have just been having too much fun exploring the place I have called home for six months.

The gorgeous Northern Spanish coast

It seems a cliché to say ‘time flies’ but for me this couldn’t be closer to the truth. How it is already June is beyond me. So this blog is an ode to everything I have discovered and done in Asturias and Northern Spain over the last month or so: a semi tourist guide of ‘musts’ to do if you ever come here. Whilst I am acutely aware of all that is happening in our world today, for the next two weeks at least, this is my world and I couldn’t feel any luckier that it is.

A true highlight of living in Northern Spain is the food. They champion the long lunch here and I’ve never paid more than 16 euros for a three-course meal with drinks and bread. I feel like I’m going to be in for such a shock when I get back to the U.K and have to pay £7 for a churro at Glastonbury. Plus as a general rule here, the grimier the place looks, the more incredible the food is – a rule that typically cannot be applied to places in the U.K.

A few weekends ago I went hiking with some friends along a trail called ‘Ruta de las Xanas’ (Xanas being the merpeople that supposedly live in the lakes in Asturias).

But at the end of the trail was an incredible view and a run-down restaurant where a little grandma asked us what we wanted to eat from the daily menu options, shuffled away and came back bearing giant cauldrons of food that was the best I’ve tasted. My friend’s Spanish boyfriend validated this by saying if the waitress is an old grandma, the food will be incredible. Evidently he wasn’t wrong.

In addition to the hiking I’ve had a pretty activity packed couple of months. I’ve been paddle boarding in the Pico de Europas (a mountain range) and kayaking and cycling in the most gorgeous scenery. I didn’t fall in once paddle boarding but did fall off my bike in spectacular fashion – classic me.

Plus my parents finally came for a visit last week and we spent every minute that they were here visiting the parts of this beautiful region that I’ve not been able to easily without a car.

The weekend before the last, we went to Bilbao and San Sebastian, stopping in little villages on the way and the way back, all along the Northern Spanish coast.
 It was beautiful.

Turns out, after having to persuade my Mum that we should stop in Bilbao before San Sebastian, that it was actually the preferred city of us both. The Guggenheim, ‘pastel de arroz’, the old buildings and the general feeling of life you get from a city, were all well worth the trip.

San Sebastian was a tourist haven, and this fact let it down for me. It’s saving graces were the beach, the view from the mountains that bookend the city and the incredible and imaginative ‘pinchos’ it boasts. Thank goodness I was with my parents because the ‘take your plate and help yourself’ attitude that most of the pincho bars have is dangerous for my waistline and my wallet.

Pincho highlights including croquetas and a chorizo cupcake 🙂

Now I’m down to my final 10 days here I can say that my bucket list of things to do is shrinking and my collection of unforgettable experiences mounting, with every one my spectrum of feelings about leaving point moving closer towards gutted.

Stay tuned for appearances of the written yet never seen blogs and most likely an emotional ‘Don’t make me leave Spain’ one too.

Lots of love as always, and can’t wait to hear about all your news too 🙂

T xxx

An Italian adventure and some big lemons

Dear T

Your Easter break sounded so fun – I hope you’ve had time to recover. We’ve both been lucky enough to enjoy a nice European holiday this Easter. I spent ten days in Italy, somewhere I’ve always wanted to go but never had the opportunity. Until now.

Where better to start the Italian tour than Rome. It felt to me like a city of a different era. In a good way. What I mean is that it didn’t particularly have the same modern, major, industrial city feels like say London or New York. I can’t recall a single time in those four days where a piece of Roman ruin or ancient architecture wasn’t rearing its old head just meters away from me. SO much to see so little time. We got as much in as physically possible without staying up all night. I’m talking the Colosseum, Forum, Jewish Ghetto, Vatican City, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s, Santa Priscilla catacombs, Villa d’Este, Hadrian’s villa, and what felt like 20,000 churches. And of course, I ate as much as I could stomach without exploding (when in Rome).

Here’s a nice photo montage so you get the idea.

GELATO

Vatican City

Forum

Colosseum

Hadrian’s Villa

Villa d’Este

From Rome we drove through Naples and onto the winding mountain roads of the Amalfi Coast. Our first stop was Positano where we stayed in the most magical surreal amazing dreamy place in the entire universe. Villa Treville, all I have done since the plane landed is dream about you. My life will never be the same again.

Villa Treville is made up of a number of little villas, all with stunning views of stunning things. You told someone what you wanted to eat and they made it for you. One of the showers was literally a huge room with water pouring from the ceiling. There were tunnels to the lobby that made me feel like I was in a James Bond movie. The sea changed colour every time you looked at it. There were chickens. I’m weeping a bit because I think maybe that this was the peak of my life.

Anyway, enough gushing about long lost loves hotels and back to the whirlwind tour. We spent a day exploring the buried city of Pompeii, as well as Herculaneum and Oplontis. I still cannot understand how well these remains have been preserved seeing as they were buried by Vesuvius in 79AD… The world really blows my mind sometimes.

Herculaneum

Pompeii

Pompeii

I also spent two days lying on a yacht. I know. It. was. the best. I sang the Lonely Island all day long. We explored little caves and nooks and docked at Amalfi for some pizza and gelato on our first day, and sailed off to Capri on our second. A highlight was definitely the blue grotto. The entrance is so tiny you have to go in via a little rowing boat and lie down. I was terrified but once inside… there are no words. It’s totally worth cramming yourself in/giving oneself a mild heart attack. Google it!

me on a boat

Blue Grotto

I spent the last two nights in Ravello which is further up the mountain than Positano with, as you’d imagine, rather impressive views. There was an infinity pool at the hotel. Enough said really.

So that’s it! I’m exhausted after writing that. And craving carbonara.

So after we’ve spent the last two blog posts exploring the world I’m a little reluctant to see what our next letters have to offer. Hopefully they won’t be too anticlimactic now reality has ensued with an almighty, harsh bang.

Here’s a picture of some big Italian lemons to kickstart us back into normality.

Love from Alex xoxo

Wherever I lay my hat that’s my home

Dear Alex,

All it seems I do is apologise for the delay of my blogs. At first my delay was because I had very little to write about apart from my burning desire for it to hurry up and be the Easter holidays. Then just before said Easter holidays I found myself with a million blog ideas and no time at all. What with frantically trying to finish all my work and achieve everything I wanted before the holidays.

Which to be honest was a bit of a shame because I have re-found my love of TED talks and one of my blogs was about this. I downloaded lots for the many long journeys I took over Easter and loved every one of them. I feel instantly more knowledgeable, intelligent and reinvigorated with how fascinating the world is. TED satisfies my innate curiosity that sometimes lays slightly neglected and dormant when life gets rushed. The good news is that this curiosity is being placated far more recently thanks to the TED app – on the go genius at my fingertips.

This is just as well because I have been very ‘on the go’ lately. A jam-packed holiday seemed exciting when I was last minute planning it before the break. A little bit less so now that I am back at work feeling pretty exhausted. Although I do have some fantastic memories and for that reason I wouldn’t change it.

So it all began with a fleeting visit back to the U.K. Just enough time for eat all of my favourite foods and spend time with one of my favourite people (shout out to my Mum there). Then it was back on plane to Spain, this time joined by Helen – think you’ve met her before, she is at Cardiff, one of my ‘rowing friends’ as I remember you and Meg always called them :).

We started in Valencia where one of the first things we did was go on a walking tour around the city. I love walking tours – the guide could be telling you pretty inaccurate information but I like to believe the majority is the truth and they are always good showmen, so if nothing else it is always an entertaining experience.

We also went to the beach for a couple of hours every day. There is almost nothing better than staring out to sea, I kind of wish I lived a bit closer to a beach, they make me really happy. We also got bikes and cycled along once of Valencia’s main features – there used to be river, now dried up and an amazing park, ate paella and ‘fartons’ and drank ‘Horchata’ and ‘Agua de Valencia’.

Then onto Madrid, which is almost colossal status. According to my good friend Google it in fact has a smaller population density than London, but it doesn’t feel like it. Cue three days of the coolest hostel I’ve ever stayed in (loads of cool messages on the walls) museums, churros and tapas eating, a lot of walking on another highly entertaining walking tour, a couple of sunsets, more churros, a picnic in the park and a general good time in what according to our hostel is the sunniest capital in Europe.

Then all that was left yesterday was to part with one of my besties and get on over a 5-hour bus back to Asturias in preparation for work today feeling like I’ve doubled my body weight in amazing Spanish food, and a bit dejected to go back to reality after a pretty great Easter holidays. But then the old woman next to me insisted on sharing her sandwich with me as if she knew that all I needed was some Jamón Ibérico and I would feel better. To tell the truth, she wasn’t wrong.

Can’t wait to hear about your Easter in Italy.

Love T xxx

When two become one

Dear Alex,

I will forgive your blogging absence if not only because those photos are stunning and I’m proud of you for facing your fears 😉

In your absence I actually wrote 3 blogs! Of course I posted zero of them and I thought it would be a bit too much to post all three so I have combined two out of the three into one. That is why it is a bit lengthy this week and explains my blog title – borrowed from the title of the song by the oh so talented Spice Girls.

What have I been up to? Well, I have spent the last few weekends experiencing more of Spain. Two weeks ago I went quad biking with some of the teachers here. The views were amazing and I LOVED riding a quad bike. I’m really getting a taste of Asturias too as we had traditional Asturian food for lunch in front of this Roman bridge and glorious sunny weather. I had Fabada (like a bean stew) and ‘Escallopines con Cabrales’ which is meat with an Asturian cheese sauce – it’s lush.

  
Plus, this weekend I learned how to make ‘Churros’ which made the fat kid inside me jump for joy. I will have to make them for you when I return.

  
In other news, being the massive movie buff I am, have been avidly following the recent film awards including of course, most recently, the Oscars. I look forward to this time every year. I have always believed films trigger a particularly cathartic response, transport you to another place, visually astound you and have the power to make you think about larger issues. For these reasons, I love movies and of course why not celebrate it? Biggest news of the Oscars is of course Leo – after waiting almost the length we have been on this planet, he won the most coveted award among actors. Being a huge fan of Leo, this made me very happy and I also fully enjoyed the amount of Memes that littered the Internet following his win. I also loved that Brie Larson won, I have not seen her performance in ‘Room’ but I love that an independent film can trigger an Academy Award win. I’m also pleased for Alicia Vikander, who I just think is an amazing actress.

However, the extravagance of the Oscars and Leo’s, slightly short sighted, although carefully worded, speech made me pause for thought. As much as I love film, and Leo, I wonder if he considered the amount of energy it takes to make a movie when planning to address climate change in his speech. That in order to find snow for his latest film, they had to fly to Argentina, moving the whole production there, or that they had to drive 5 hours each day to location. That the Oscars as a production, including all the after parties use a huge amount of energy in lighting, sound, and electricity. That he flies on private planes and charters luxury yachts and I would bet good money he didn’t car share to the Oscars. He is right in that it is of course prudent that we listen to leaders who support humanity, but I couldn’t help feeling the innuendo of his speech was ‘Don’t do as I do, but do as I say’.

Although, I perhaps considered his speech more because I have been thinking a lot recently about the environment, my time in Fiji and natural disasters after the devastation of Cyclone Winston. A company very close to my heart, Think Pacific, have been raising money and delivering aid to all the islands they have a connection with and helping them deal with the aftermath. I learnt that only four houses stand in their entirety in Daku, the village where I lived, and the kindergarten we built is completely destroyed.
 I feel so sorry for the Fijian people who are so lovely and generous and have to deal with the destruction. Although I am wholly glad that bighearted companies like ‘Think Pacific’ exist to help in tough times. It is their kind of charity that makes me consider whether we are praising actors too much and the people that really deserve it too little.

Love T xx

(I have attached the link to this blog post in the hope that you or some of our readers may be interested in finding out more about the aid they are trying to provide and may want to help)

http://fijicyclone.thinkpacific.com

 

Facing fears

Dear T

Many apologies for my blogging absence over the past week or so. I’ve been rather busy.

I landed back in Heathrow last night after a week of skiing in Switzerland. You’ve probably spat tea all over your laptop in shock and surprise but it’s true that I, Alex Edden, went skiing in the Swiss Alps. Me, the girl that skived PE at school and can’t walk up a flight of stairs without needing a lie down. The person you’d least want on your sports team, the person who is scared of almost everything. And I didn’t hate it! In the end…

When we landed in Geneva I was already scared stupid about the skiing. It’s all I could think about. As you know, I am never one to take any form of physical risk. I like sitting down and reading with a warm drink. I’ve never skied before and I never thought I ever would. Ever! What I will say though, is that any nerves and panic I felt were considerably diluted by the views. 

This is the Matterhorn. You might recognise it from Toblerone wrappers. It is glorious. Seeing this everyday made the horrors of skiing almost bearable.

We stayed in a little town called Zermatt. Everywhere you looked there were the most unbelievable views. And picturesque is the way it is hoped to stay; vehicles are prohibited in Zermatt. The only forms of transport are horses or these little electric cars. The rest of the world could probably learn a thing or two from Zermatt.

Now, obviously as everyone probably suspected, I was not a natural born skier. The first time I clicked my boots into the skis I felt like crying. But as they say, practice makes perfect. Although in my case I would say practice makes worse-than-average-but-certainly-less-scared. I had a few lessons and started to get the hang of it. By my third day I was able to go down a blue run by myself without feeling like I wanted to burst into tears. In fact, I actually felt enjoyment. I have my instructor to thank for that. I also have my instructor to thank for catching me numerous times as I flew chaotically down the mountain, and for reattaching my ski to my boot half way down quite a steep slope as I slipped and flailed and generally overreacted to just about everything.

I loved having my ski lesson and afterwards grabbing a hot chocolate and chilling (literally) in the sun, thanking all the gods for letting me survive another day on the mountain. I am actually astounded that I didn’t seriously injure myself.

A typical post-ski view

And of course, if life ever got too difficult up in the Alps, there was alway a way of getting back down…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BCOPwYxHQnJ/

 

So, there you have it. I managed to ski down a real life mountain (and slide down on my bum a few times) and realise that actually, new experiences can really be worth the sweating and the broken muscles and the sheer dread. Because now I can’t wait to give it another go!

What have you been up to?

Alex xoxo

Word Vomit

Dear Alex,

I realise as I write this that our last communication was ten days ago. However, I have reconciled with my infrequent blog posts by romanticising it. It is far more comparable to how letter writing used to be – as if you have to wait for my update to come through the post box rather than being instantly readable on our blog.

This time I fully intended to write my post just a couple of days after yours, but as always life gets in the way. I’m glad you are enjoying your new life in London (I love your room by the way), you realise just how huge it is when we were in fact in the same city and its vastness stopped us from seeing each other. For as you know, I was back in the U.K for an agonisingly short amount of time; just enough to get my Pancake Day fix (they were great) and use every traditional mode of transport apart from a bike.  

 I crammed so much into such a short amount of time that I am still recovering from the exhaustion.

So the main reason for my return was for a topic that is incredibly relevant to one of the reasons we started this blog in the first place: the tales of our lives as graduates. For the reason for my trip back to the U.K was for a job interview that was like none other I have attended. I knew the second I left the building that I hadn’t progressed to the next round, I hoped I was wrong, but I had a sinking feeling I wasn’t.

Firstly, I let my nerves get the best of me, which is perhaps the number one rule of what not to do when being interviewed, yet I doubt I am the only person to have experienced this. I suddenly had word vomit and just talked at people. 

  
I told anyone who would listen how nervous I was and how everyone around me was so amazing and I didn’t belong. Well done T, draw attention to the fact that you feel like everyone in the room is better than you. In my bid to seem open, I was definitely too honest about everything. It was like I was having an outer body experience. As if I was looking in on this person trying to be me but not succeeding and coming up with a weird mix of someone I couldn’t relate to. Which is in fact very unlike me, I normally would excel meeting new people and god knows I had enough employability seminars to know how to act in an interview. All in all I’m not too sure what happened.

So even though I was expecting it, not going through to the next stage of the interview was disappointing. I genuinely felt for the first time that I was right for the job and would excel at it. It’s unique and filled with variation and I could vividly picture myself doing it. So why couldn’t I show them? But oh well, I know I am not the first one to experience this kind of disappointment, nor the last: life as a graduate.

I am now back in Spain, feeling slightly deflated but pleased to be back. I have already been here 6 weeks – how did that happen?

Hit me back with more London experiences and news. Seen any more celebs recently?

Lots of love as always,

T xxx

‘A Penis please – Oh no sorry, I mean snack’

  
Dear Alex,

I loved your last blog post and the very poetic way you used changes as a mirror of your life. I have listened to endless Bowie since his death; I had almost forgotten how great his music was. My favourite is ‘Heroes’, I always thought it was a wonderful message that anyone can be a hero if not ‘just for one day’.

I am far from heroic. However, being the only young English native teacher at school I have somehow adopted a kind of hero status for the younger pupils, mostly girls I must admit. They shout my name in the corridors and hug me whenever they see me. A teacher told me her class of four year olds asked where I was one lesson and one girl said ‘Oh no she won’t be here yet because she flies to school’. So apparently I have super powers too.

One super power I do not possess is the ability to speak in a different language. It’s not a classic super power like invisibility or super sonic hearing. However, my daily struggle of communicating in a different language leads me to believe people who speak more than one, especially if that one is English which I now realise is grammatically impossible, are super. Hence the title of my post, which is an exhibit of my daily struggle. Here the word for a snack and penis are strikingly similar sounding to me as a foreigner, however, needless to say I will not be making that mistake again.

In my defence I was exhausted. Which is my current state. I am exhausted when I wake up, exhausted at school and exhausted consistently. I have learnt my apparently pea-sized brain struggles to translate if I am tired. Plus, I know from our days working at a children’s camp, that the feeling of tiredness you get from working in a normal job is nothing compared to what you feel when working with kids. Today the struggle was real. TGIF.

I’m trying to try something different every week – last week it was wine tasting. I had a great time but to be honest I could not decipher which was meant to be ‘fruity’ or ‘full-bodied’ – all I knew was if I liked it or not. The Tapas that go with it were excellent – you would have appreciated it, a lot of cheese and Chorizo.

  
Tomorrow it’s another cultural adventure. Football is a major deal here and I’m going to a match tomorrow – I know very few rules, don’t know the team and don’t know the language. Despite these struggles and feeling pretty steadily out of my depth, life is definitely exciting here.

I hope the next chapter for you is just as exciting 🙂

Lots of love,

T xxxx

Changes

Dear T

Wowow your photos of Spain look quite magical – keep them coming! The teaching will get easier too although it probably doesn’t seem that way. In my experiences children tend to respond well to music so maybe try singing to them. But not naughty Rihanna songs like I accidentally taught fifty five year old Kenyan children…

The title of this blog is quite fitting at this time for three reasons:

1. You have moved to Spain 

As you know you have moved to Spain. You are no longer struggling to get a bitterly cold front door key into an equally icy lock using fingers that are so numb they might as well be frozen oven chips. In other words England is -4c today and I’m wearing my thermal vest.

Slight change of subject here but what do you get in terms of cinema in Spain? I watched The Revenant last night and aside from it making me extremely close to actually being sick into my hands it was rather outstanding. I think Leo will get his Oscar this year. Also on my watch list is Room which I’ve heard nothing but praise for. I’m curious and I shall not be stopped.

2. I am moving to London

That’s right. Change is just around the corner for me also as in just over a week I move to the big smoke. I will be starting a new job, living with new people, and embarking on a completely NEW lifestyle. I actually went to London the other week with my mum and sister for the latter rat’s birthday. Here’s mum and me enjoying ourselves in the capital with a giant foetus…

I’m full of regret re: this photo

Anyway, wish me luck!

3. David Bowie

If you hadn’t made the connection, Changes is also a totally brilliant song by the late Mr Bowie who the world sadly lost just over a week ago. Over in the Cheltenham Waterstones staffroom you will find a whiteboard filled up with Bowie songs. Each member of staff (myself included) was allowed one song choice to write on the board. This setlist, which is made up of both absolute classics and lesser known delights, will be burned onto CDs, artwork will be arted, and employees will duly receive a Bowie memoriam megamix ft. Waterstones staff. I think the idea is an inspired way of celebrating the life of a legend and getting people, be they Bowie’s biggest fan or someone who is barely familiar with Ziggy Stardust, to listen to something really special. It would be so wonderful if all staff rooms around the world had similar lists written on their whiteboards in order to pay tribute to heroes of past, present, and future.

This was my choice; it’s funny – since I wrote the word on the board my life has been all change.

I hope Spain is everything you wanted it to be.

Alex xoxo

My Spanglish adventure

Dear Alex, 
I am aware that it has been precisely 17 days since my last post – somewhat inexcusable I know! However, the only thing I will offer in my defense is that my life has changed quite a bit since I last posted!  

  
The main thing is I have moved! I am now fully(ish) integrated into my new life in Spain and within a couple of hours of landing here I was already eating churros so I knew that I was going to like it here! Speaking of food, I have eaten like a queen so far, the food is amazing. My host family Dad is an amazing cook, he is one of those people that makes you feel lazy just being around him. He runs marathons, paints incredible paintings, plays the guitar and produces some of the best food I have ever eaten. Yesterday, we went to his sister’s house and he had made a giant chorizo and ham empanada that was incredible. 

  
The whole family are lovely, they sit and listen to me read in Spanish – which is shocking – just so that they can help me improve. Also yesterday, they took me on a tour of Llanes, a beautiful seaside village –

  

  
and on my last week they spent most of their weekend showing me around the city and where they live. Plus I have already been on at least four lengthy runs, I have a feeling I am being trained up for a marathon in the mountains they keep mentioning in March…

I am very very tired though – thinking and speaking Spanglish the entire time is thoroughly exhausting. Plus teaching is a lot harder than I thought! On Friday I had a group of 20 Spanish three year olds who had a very short attention span and spoke no English, as well as a teacher who also spoke no English. By the end of the hour I was sweating and red and panicky – I’m slightly dreading next Friday already! Apart from that though it has all been ok. I am looked at frequently as if I am an alien who has arrived from another planet – which culturally and linguistically speaking I kind of am an alien, but hopefully the novelty will wear off soon! 
Tune in next time for more of my Spanglish adventures! 
Miss you, 

Love T xx

  

It’s 2016!

Happy new year T!!

Hope you had a great New Year’s Eve. I’m currently nursing a bit of a headache, watching Friends and drinking tea. Almost like being back at uni!

I also loved that John Lewis gave their employees Boxing Day off. I cannot understand one ounce why anyone would need to shop on Boxing Day. I actually heard that some shops were putting sales up on their websites on Christmas Day! And people were actually online shopping. Bizarre. I did work this Boxing Day and I noted that a large percentage of customers were retuning items they’d received for Christmas. Apparently waiting one more day to take back unwanted gifts isn’t an option for some. But as a nation I don’t think we’re famed for our patience. Each to their own.

After spending nearly every day of December working it was really nice (and needed) to go away for a few days with my family to end the year. We spent most of the time eating, reading, and going for long walks along the Cornish coast. The dream.

Tom and Poppy playing on Crackington Haven beach

These dogs love a holiday!

 

Tintagel

 

More Tintagel

 

My mum and dad love their walks

I’ll always love holidaying in Cornwall. Even when it’s tipping down with rain and I can’t feel my toes. It’s all part of the fun. Though certainly a contrast to where you’re jetting off to this year!

Have you made any new year resolutions? I want to be able to touch my toes (without bending my knees). But that was my resolution last year and I am no closer to those toes. If anything I’m actually further away…

Hope 2016 is your best year yet

Alex xoxo