EVS in Santiago de Compostela

Last weekend, Alice, a volunteer we met at de Training and who works in a Coruña, came visit us in Santiago. In fact, she came to participate with a friend to a "Drawing-Marathon", and she invited me to join her. The marathon consisted of a group of 20 artists (painters, drawers, architects, photographers or just amateurs) meeting at the Mercado de Abastos to draw, paint or take photos. It was the first time I spend some time at the market, and I realized what an interesting atmosphere it has. It reminds me of the markets in the south of France: same noise, same people, similar products... the only thing that is really different is the rain (which made outside-drawing quite difficult for me)!   After this sketch-session, we went all together to the Bar Pampin near the Plaza de San Pedro to eat lunch, show each others work and exchange experiences. I spend a lot of time comparing the cultural politics of Belgium (where I studied) and Spain with a local architect. Unfo...

¡Holà! Since the beginning of September, the team has changed! There are now four new volunteers in Santiago: Tamara from Serbia, Daria from Russia and Anne and Toni from Luxembourg. Two of them are working in Os Tilos. The two others in de ETL Don Bosco, more precisely in the ludoteca (and a few hours in the office, working on this blog). Last week, we had our on-Arrival Training (Formacion a la llegada) with the other volunteers from the north of Spain. Great people, nice atmosphere, helpful informations: a good experience! And since the training was... in Santiago(!), it rained a lot... But not all the time! We could find some sunny moments to show our beatiful city to the other volunteers. And this is it for the moment! During the next few month, we will try to continue to share with you some aspects of our experience as volunteers here in Santiago de Compostela. We hope you'll enjoy it!

During the work in ludoteca I had an Idea to make a move about Don Bosco. The idea was to have volunteers and children act together in the movie. Since the people that work in Don Bosco are so great, they went along the idea, and this is what we made.

What is really great about the neighborhood that we live in is that they sometimes make parties. So a lot of people come, and it's a great atmosphere. Check out how it looks like to live here during this time:

One of the best thing in Spain is tapas. When you go to a bar and order a drink, in most of the bars you will get a portion of food, which is called Tapas. What you get depends on the owner of the bar. Here is a list of some of the bars in Santiago with a very good tapas.

Last week JB and me decided to do the Camino De Santiago. We had 4 days free in the holy week, so we wanted to use them to do this. We chose to go on the French way, and to start from Sarria on Thursday. To obtain the Compostela, you must walk at least 100km (also you can do it on a horse 100km, and with a bicycle 200km), and to do this on the French way, you must start in Sarria, which is 112km from the Cathedral in Santiago. So here is our story...