Candeleda

Another fabulous week at Pueblo ingles, many more amazing new friends and a lot of laughs. This time the venue was at Candeleda, a little closer to Madrid but still very isolated and in a beautiful hotel with mountain views that seemed to have been painted onto the horizon. Was lucky enough to be sharing a room with the amazing Giselle for the week, even if we almost never had the energy to communicate while we were in there :P

Spent the days walking, talking, eating, laughing, talking some more, swimming, napping, more talking and eating and then more laughing. Too much delicious food as always and it was a joy watching everyone, Spaniard and Anglo grow through the week.

The day after the party night we took our excursion to Candeleda and the Bee Museum. Now I, like many of you I’m sure, had doubts about a museum dedicated to bees being as interesting as the MC claimed but it was genuinely fascinating edge of your seat stuff. The curator spoke no English but even being translated by a few of the students he was a wonderful presenter (if mildly crazy. I for one would not let a bee sting me and then film the stinger as the venom went into his hand for 10 minutes for example) and it was really, really interesting to learn about their societies (girls are in charge, so nyah). Plus there was a gift shop, and I do love a gift shop :P. After that we had some time in the village which was mostly spent taking photos of the goat statue and retiring to the nearest pub for beer and tapas but it seems like a lovely little area…an did I mention the beautiful, beautiful mountains.

Somewhere during the party on the last night (or number 2 party if you will, where a few of us Anglos gave a demonstration moshpit and I got whip lash from headbanging without limbering up) I found myself reshuffling train and hostel bookings for the following few days. I was supposed to have a night and a day in Madrid, overnight train to Barcelona, day in Barcelona, overnight train to Paris…and then I heard about the Fiera (town party) in Linares where several of our Spaniards were from and, well it didn’t take much to twist my arm to tag along :P

Before that however were the emotional goodbyes, the fun bus ride back to Madrid and many more goodbyes on the sidewalk as I once again found myself wondering how I could become so close to so many diverse people in the space of one week, and how on earth I would survive the next few days without being brought free food and wine by handsome Spanish men J