Well I made it successfully through the next leg of the journey.
After a but uneventful trip I made it from Edinburgh to San Martin to rejoin Linda and Pedro at the hostel. For any new readers I spent about a month here last summer working in the the garden and had such a great time that I promised to return as soon as I would. So here I am.
The flight from Edinburgh was pretty smooth and apart from two screeching kids sitting opposite me it was a decent flight. At least the grandmother apologised about the noise...once she realised I was actually British and could understand her...
I spent the night in the airport and after a kind cleaning lady pointed out where the divider-less seats were I actually got a couple of hours sleep.
First thing in the morning I gt a bus into the city and the the direction of another kind local I made it to the bus station with plenty of time to spare!
Two buses later and I was in Olite - the nearest town to San Martin for the bus where Linda met me to take me 'home'.
The rest of the day was spent quietly pottering about, catching up with everyone and getting to know Linda's latest helper - Mac.
Friday came and it was like I'd never left. I grabbed some breakfast before getting to work checking up on the donkey, surveying what to do in the garden and reorganising my bag after it'd exploded over the room.
We also spent some time cleaning up a couple of disused rooms in preparation for an English immersion course that'll be running here soon.
Linda ran Mac and I into Olite for a couple of hours as they're having their fiestas at the moment so we hung out and listened to the music for a bit before heading back for lunch - couscous with vegetables - yum.
The afternoon was pretty quiet with us mostly chilling out for the siesta time but in the evening we got changed into out fiesta clothes - the traditional red and white - and headed back to Olite. They had the young bullocks out in the street getting them excited for the bull run. It was a bit confusing to be honest since they would bring one animal out for 5 minutes to win it up then stick it back inside and get another one. After about an hour of this they finally got them all out to run through the street but it was quite a bit smaller then Tafalla. One the plus side - by not bringing them into the ring and taunting them hat way the animals did seem a bit calmer in general.
Next came the dancing. Everybody and by everybody I mean lots of the girls and the occasional boy plus a few older couples - gathered together under the pavilion to dance to some traditional music. From our spot on top of one of the bull-barriers it looked pretty impressive. The kids are obviously taught the dances at young age and everybody was keeping time and moving together - laughing and joking as they went.
By the time this had finished it was around 10p and the people were disappearing - obviously heading off to find food. We took that as our cue to leave and after a quick call to linda it was home to bed.
This morning has been a semi-productive one at least. I did some research into what plants to get for the garden again (since last years ones died) and I cleared the dead plants out of the pots so they'll be ready for the next attempt at growing in them...see how long they last this time!
Linda's grandson is staying at the moment which is nice since they don't get to see him often. He's about 2 now so it's kinda cool seeing him try to learn new words, though he did decide this morning that it would be fun to throw the calculator around outside - oops.
The photo is of me, Pedro, Linda and Rex just before I left last year
Well that's another post done. I'm off to grab a coffee then it's back to work in the garden!
Speak to you all again soon! :)
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