So I went to Spain

Sitting here after coming back from Iceland I felt weird being statically fixed to one place. Although I had applied to different places and wished that my adventures would roam on, I also felt quite nice waking up, making coffee, and having to rush nowhere and also knowing that my bank account could carry that kind of lifestyle for some months. Not knowing what to do with my life I applied for a mini-adventure in Spain. It was a cybersecurity course in Granada, Spain that was funded by a sugar daddy called Europe Union under the program of Erasmus+. I have traveled for free like this on most of my trips and I can’t complain. Enjoying Cyprus, living in England for three weeks, hiking in the Alps for a week, and so on + meeting a lot of fun people from other countries. As an extreme extrovert (I think I may have a disorder in that aspect), I am totally fine and enjoying myself.

So off to Spain I went. I met my travel companion in the airport who turned out to be a stereotypical millennial with all types of disorders, but like a superstar, she had a hang of it and functioned without major errors. I really enjoyed her company, because we didn’t have a lot of females in the group and it was nice to be in the same room with her and chit-chat about girly stuff. We arrived to Spain without major problems, except one time when we were stuck on a plane for a good 45 minutes because the stairs had somehow disappeared. But they reappeared and we made it out and into the next plane.

Arriving into + 17 C (63 F) is like a paradise when you previously made it to the airport through a snowstorm in -5 C (23 F), which adds another layer of difficulty to your travels. To wear a warm coat in Estonia and also drag it with you in Spain, or almost freeze to death during your trip from home to the airport and have less to carry with you on the other side? I ofc chose the second option, which worked out almost fine. We managed to get from Malaga to Granada and then we sat down in the first available cafe that offered churros next to the bus station, which lets say, was the main place of local gangs (and not in the American suburb-hearing-bangs-and-running-kind of way). It was just a lot of young and middle-aged Spanish guys yelling at each other and making a lot of hand-gestures (which for them is normal afternoon discussion about the world cup for example). We held our distance and tried to explain to the server that we want a sandwich, some churros and a coke, who after understanding our unofficial sign-language basically yelled our order across the street to the staff in the kitchen. I think I peed my pants a little and tried to imagine the same thing happening in Estonia, which would be impossible.

The view from our accomodation

Later, our project leader picked us up and we headed to our home for the week which was located in “the rich people” area and looked really nice. The house was luxurious with everything that is needed for the survival of 20 people + a big yard and a pool, where Estonias would have taken a dip, if it was possible, but unfortunately it was covered. We were the first ones and got very nice bedrooms. Soon the participants form Greece and Spain arrived and we chatted and headed out to play some football and table tennis.

This was our house...

As I said before, most of the participants were boys, which I didn’t mind but I can definitely say that the atmosphere created by almost 15 IT-professionals is a bit different than a group of people whose professions are more scattered between different fields. I'm not saying it was bad, it was just different. They are very precise and straight-forward compared to me who is all over the place :D

I definitely betrayed my overenergized personality quite quickly and this time it was worse than ever. I was impressed that I was able to maintain that energy level throughout the whole time, which of course annoyed some people for sure and made others fall in love with me obviously. About that later. But people in the project were from Greece, Spain, and Estonia. But unofficially in Estonian group we also had one guy from Sweden who has lived there for two years and is actually from India, and another guy who is from Estonia but has lived in Norway for 11 years, so it was complicated. There were three Greece girls also in the project but they kinda kept to their own. Greece guys were interesting because they were super smart and they knew it. So there was a light arrogance in the air. I can compare that maybe with the attitude that Canadians have toward Americans. It was fine, they didn’t intend to show it, but it was there. But they were cool guys anyway.

Spanish were chill, a bit all over the place, and always rather talking in Spanish than in English. It was also funny to witness Japan winning a football match against Spain and the guys going absolutely mad over it knowing what happened there. The Japanese hit the goal seconds after the ball had seemingly gone over the line. But the close-ups showed that the ball was in...by millimeters. Poor Spain.

Our activities consisted of different topics on cybersecurity and a fair amount of programming that I did not really expect and just had to endure. Luckily even the professionals struggled and most of the time I took the right to mind my own business, so I could feel somewhat useful.

During our spare time we played football, basketball and got introduced to spike-ball which to my surprise I did not have any idea what it was before, but totally enjoyed playing for a good day and a half. Why only for a day and a half you ask? On the second day we managed to throw all three small yellow balls across the fence to a neighbours yard that was on a considerably lower level and wasnt accessible and unfortunately they also were not at home. I was responsible for 1,5 balls that got lost. The three small balls were also followed by a football, so after that day there were only basketball and table tennis left. I can imagine the faces of our neighbours as they arrive home seeing their yard turning into a ball pool.

Ignore my heavy breathing...I just finished a match and I am out of shape.

We could visit Granada and roam around for almost a full day, so it was nice. The views were absolutely stunning and Spain has this kind of effortless vibe where you truly feel free to show who you are. I feel like people are not so afraid of other people’s judgments and because the temperament is different, everyone is more relaxed. For Estonians, of course too relaxed that we have to accustom ourselves to this vibe. Estonians always try to act in a way that no one could point a finger at them or get upset with them, which means that they leave a lot of sometimes stupid but also some awesome/necessary things undone in fear of others.

That was also something that I did when we had a movie night and one guy started to give me hints that he is interested in me. He was totally not my type. It was cool to talk to him, joke around and discuss different topics but that was it…for me…but not for him. And instead of just saying that..hey, let’s just not do this, you are a cool guy but I do not like you like that. What I did? After he tried to put his arm around me I escaped hoping that he would get the hint that I am not interested so that I would not have to create tension by turning him down. Did he get the hint? Nope. Some guys in that way are totally blind.

So the circus went on. He got super sad when I stopped giving him attention because I didn’t want to encourage him and when I restored my attention levels so that he would not act like a wounded pigeon, he started hitting on me AGAIN. Anyway, a Spanish girl would have probably slapped the guy, as an Estonian I tried to ignore and dodge the bullets until the end.

But people are people. Anyway, we went out to a bar one evening to play cards and have a few drinks. The level of English speaking people in Spain is quite low so even in bars and cafes where it would be logical to know some English, it was impossible to get something without mimicking your orders in some theatrical way. Luckily there were many guys from Spain surrounding me, so I also used them for translation. But there was this moment when I could not use anyone and the problem was that we had a secret friend game going on, which meant that throughout this week we had to secretly surprise a person who was assigned to us without them and anyone else knowing. So I figured out that it would be nice to order my secret friend a drink… My secret friend was a lovely girl called Maria from Greece. Soo knowing what was ahead of me I warmed up my greatest acting skills and went to the bartender saying in a very

expressive voice and also using my hands “UNO beer to Maria…. I (pointing at myself) PAY (trying to show my card)...YOU (pointing at him) bring beer TO MARIA…TO MARIA… NOT ME!!! BIG SECRET!!! I repeated everything again and he smiled and repeated like he understood. So all was good and it escalated with him bringing the beer to the table, saying TO MARIA but looking at me and giving me multiple and very obvious winks. Luckily nobody noticed and later I had a good laugh about it. He almost blew my cover the second time when we started to pay and he said out loud my order + A BEER FOR MARIA. Luckily Maria had already left and others were too busy thinking if they should do some extra vodka shots, so I was safe again. Oh, the Spanish..what can you do 😀

It was a superfun experience, we laughed our asses off multiple times and although I have never made long term strong friendships in any of these projects, I still find it cute that I have spent a week with these people and we have common memories. I also managed to make everyone a bit more Estonian, because Estonians very rarely say that they love each other and usually we feel weird when someone shows affection towards us, but when somebody says fuck you then for Estonians that is a compliment and a way to show affection in a hidden sarcastic way. So by the end of the week we sounded very mean to each other by telling to fuck off, but that meant the opposite. And our good-bye notes were full of mean wishes, which made my heart feel very warm. And that was my very short overview of the sweet mini adventure in Spain :D