Last year in June I went again to Spain as an au-pair. It was just 3 weeks after I got back from Argentina and it was the best cure for post-journey depression. I came back to the same family that I had been to in 2014 (if you want to read more about that one, you can check my previous posts about it)
My stay was even more peaceful than at the 1st time. High temperatures during spanish summer didn’t let me to do too many things. To be honest, I think au-pair is one of few jobs in the world where you are paid for sunbathing and watching The Lion King with kids after siesta. However that obviously can get boring too, although I didn’t complain too much.
The first weeks passed surprisingly calmly, as Rosa, the 10 years old girl had kind of summer camp in Manresa, the city which is 40 km from Solsona (their hometown). She was staying at grandparents’ house for 2 weeks and had theatre classes all the days. And Meritxell, the 14 years old, wasn’t kid anymore – she was hanging out with her friends all the time, coming back home at 2 am. I felt quite unsociable that time comparing to her. So in fact, I just had to take care of Oriol – the 5,5 years old boy, which was the worst, because he was never willing to do anything apart from watching TV. It was easy to get him mad, which I hated, but somehow I convinced him to play outside at least an hour daily and also do another activities.
Peter Pan musical in Manresa (you can see Rosa sitting on the middle of the stage)
On 9th of July, Saturday, we went to Manresa to watch Rosa’s play. I was pretty surprised as it was in the real theatre, a really beautiful one, and it was even obligatory to buy tickets in advance. It was a Peter Pan musical – I actually liked it, some of those kids playing there were seriously highly talented. The spectacle was in catalan, but it wasn’t hard to understand (at least if you know the story of Peter Pan).
On the first weekend during my stay there I also went to Barcelona. Despite the fact that I know this city pretty well, I always love to come back there. There are always new places fo discover, I also love its vibes and the nightlife, which is much different than the one in Solsona (which basically doesn’t really exist).I found out that my friend from UK was there at the same time – we used to live in the same student hall in Leeds and we studied the same degree. We decided to hang out and join couchsurfing meeting, which took a place on the beach and was much more better than any meeting in pub or club! What could be possibly better than drinking cold beer/whatever else during the hot, summer night, under the sky full of stars, with people from all around the world?
The following day I was planning to spend a whole day on the beach, to work a bit on my tan haha, but when I woke up, it was so cloudy outside, that it didn’t make sense to go there anymore. The previous night I was told that on first Sunday of each month, all the museums in Barcelona are for free, so I decided to go to Picasso museum. The queue was long, but I didn’t have anything better to do. I met there really kind girl from Italy, who was staying in Barcelona for few months, as she was doing her internship there. Turned out that we spent a whole day together – we also went to another museum, had lunch together and she showed me some adorable coffee houses, that I had no idea about before. In the end of the day, we felt like we had known each other for at least few weeks – not just a couple of hours. It’s just proving that even when you go for a solo trip, you don’t have to be alone – there are always plenty of people around you that you can make new friends with!
Barcelona view