Missing Spain...

I spent last week in Barcelona on a business trip. It was a week full of meetings, school visits, seminars and work dinners. Interesting, inspirational but truly exhausting.

As it sometimes happens (but not always!), I felt instantly at home and enjoyed every minute of it even though I was working most of the time.

The food, the sun and the people made up for the early starts and the intensive meetings. And how can you not love a city with a bicing scheme (Bici is bike in Spanish)?

I'm now back in Oxford, trying to remember why I live here and plotting how to take the boy (and the job!) to Spain. This will pass... it always does and I'll be happy once again to live in this wonderful city.

It'll take me a little bit to catch up on your blogs, but I'll get there! And the lovely people who are still waiting for my thank you gift, bear with me. I'll send them soon! :)

Corner View: The beach, Oxford, UK

Time for another Corner View! The topic for this week is "The beach". Unfortunately, Oxford doesn't have one, but we do have lovely parks where people behave as if they were on a beach. Examples:

The first time I saw a scene like this, way back when I first moved here, I had a bit of a culture shock. I come from Spain, a country where summer is always sunny and hot (and that's how it should be!). We have more than three months of guaranteed good weather and so we tend to shy from it a little bit. In fact, unless you're actually on a beach or a swimming pool, you avoid the heat as much as you can, staying indoors until at least 8pm, when you can enjoy a nice temperature.
British summer, on the other hand is not to be taken for granted. It's never, ever guaranteed. It can be sunny today and rainy tomorrow. In fact, it can be sunny now, and rainy in an hour, so here, people make the most of it. At the first sign of sun, we take over gardens, parks, streets ... everywhere is a beach!

Don't get me wrong, I understand and in fact, now share this behaviour... I just wasn't brought up that way.

Corner View is hosted by Spain Daily, and you can visit more beaches at the these other corner views around the blogosphere:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie,esti, sophie, cele, modsquad,

caitlin, joyce, ani, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch,c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise,cabrizette, bohemia girl, dianna, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari,jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin,otli, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virgina,april, rebecca, b, sunnymama, kyndale, samantha, karen, kristina, angelina, dorit, goldensunfamily, sophie, janet, nicki, ruth, mcgillicutty, desiree, di, travelingmama, aimee

Corner view: Coffee, Oxford (UK) and Salento (Colombia)

Back to my favourite topic! This week's theme for corner view is coffee!

This is my favourite place to have coffee in Oxford. The Jericho Cafe has good coffees, great food (if a bit overpriced, but this is Oxford, after all!), and good wine. Their English breakfasts are amazing! I love those coffee shops in England where you can spend the whole day, if you want to. Sit down and have breakfast, mid morning coffee, lunch, tea, and dinner with a glass of wine, all the while reading your book or a magazine or working with your laptop.


This is what my coffee looked like today half drunk (I know, fascinating!) inside The Jericho Cafe. It's a latte, which is my favourite type of coffee. I think this is also the most popular coffee choice in England, although if they want to splash out, they'll have a cappuccino!! England is traditionally a country of tea lovers, but with the arrival of Starbucks and others, the coffee shop culture has really taken off, specially among students and young people. It's all about the experience... and the pleasure of coffee.


Now, I know that Colombia is not exactly my corner of the world, but I couldn't resist posting these photos from the coffee region of the country, which we visited last year while traveling in South America. We went to a small coffee farm where the owner, Don Elias, showed us around and explained to us the coffee making process. He still does everything by hand, from picking to drying to roasting the coffee. We also went to a bigger farm, where they use machines for everything, but that's a lot less interesting.






You can have coffee around the world in the other view corners:

jane, ladybug-zen, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad,
caitlin, joyce, ani, kim, a day that is dessert, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t.,jeannette, outi, schanett, ritva, dongdong, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemia girl, dianna, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, jenna, skymring, elizabeth, audrey, allison, lise, cate, mon, victoria, crescent moon, erin, otli, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, la lune dans le ciel, nicola, malo, vanessa, britta, virgina, april, rebecca, b, sunnymama, kyndale, samantha, karen, kristina, angelina, dorit, goldensunfamily, sophie, janet, nicki, ruth, mcgillicutty

From home to home, making things on the way

I’m back in Oxford from Spain and happy to be home. I’ve come to realize that this is home, after all, even if it may be a temporary one. But I've been thinking a lot of what my ideal home would be like, and will post a list soon! You know we love lists...
Spain was fun, but chaotic and more than a bit stressful, so I’m glad to be back and into a routine that doesn't involve meeting friends for dinner at midnight. I'm exhausted!
My routine will from now on include some dressmaking! My dressmaking course started today and I loved the first class! We are a small group of girls, most of us complete beginners and I think the class is going to be fun. Today, the tutor gave us lots of information on patterns and fabrics (we have to get some for our project for next week), all very, very confusing. We also learnt how to measure ourselves and we all chose what we wanted to make. I want to make something fairly straightforward for this class as I don’t want to get frustrated with it and give up the whole idea of dressmaking (yes, it has happened before). The tutor thought making a skirt would be a good idea, so I’m going to do a full length skirt that I can use for my belly dancing class; the rationale for this decision being that I may not end up with something that I can wear in the street but I hope I’d end up with something that I can show to those who have seen me struggle with my belly dancing moves. We’ll see.
Oh! And my rules for life are up in the Five rules for life blog! Yay!

Where is home?

I'm writing this from Spain, where we've come to spend a long weekend. I should be happy to spend some time with friends and family (and I am) but I'm seriously tired and, probably as a result of it, feeling a bit weird and lost. I thought I'd got to a place where I was at peace with being a Spanish in England. I like leaving in England (yes, despite the rain) for lots of reasons and I enjoy spending some of my holiday in Spain.
During the 8 years I've been living in England, I've gone trough different phases. At first, it was hard to live in another country, specially one where I didn't speak the language, and where I didn't understand many of the customs or personality traits. Then, I started to really like England, feeling at ease there, to the point where so many "Spanish things" started to seem strange or even wrong to me. Finally, I enjoyed having two so different homes so close to each other and the fact that I could easily switch from English to Spanish (most of the time).
Now, I'm starting to feel a bit lost in both countries, missing one when I'm in the other, and never completely happy where I am. Where is home? I keep asking myself. I've always thought that at some point in my life I'd go back to Spain and settle down, as my Mum puts it (I think I'm pretty settled in England but this obviously doesn't count for her, since it's in "another country" which means I'm "traveling"), now I'm not so sure. But I don't see myself staying in England either.
I read somewhere that "Home is where my books are", something I completely agree on (because you know that books are my friends). The problem is that at the moment, my books (and many other of my possessions) are in two different places.

She

Julie, from Moments of perfect clarity wrote a post on third person here, and invited us all to do the same. It's incredibly liberating! If you try it, leave a link so we can read it. Here is mine:

She likes pink, the sea and riding her bike. But sometimes, she prefers yellow, the city and going places on the train. She doesn't believe in horoscopes, but she is a real Gemini. More than two, she has multiple personalities.
She enjoys a good conversation (online or offline) with her friends, but sometimes, she'd rather be alone. Or with a book.
Books are her friends. "Books are not the answer to everything", a good friend told her once. But she convinced her that she was wrong. Of course books are the answer to everything.
She is starting to realize that good friends are difficult to find, but keeps on finding good friends in those that she has known for a long time.
She loves going to the cinema. The movie is not that important. The big screen, sharing the experience, leaving the cinema and talking about what you have just seen. Those things, she enjoys. She doesn't have a TV but she spends too long on her computer. She likes writing, but she can always find excuses not to do it.
Sometimes, she'd like to live in a small house in the middle of nowhere. Others, she dreams about living in New York, London or Tokyo, and never stop doing, learning, seeing.
Her home is in England, but her past, and possibly her future, are in Spain. She lives in two worlds, not the same, not too different. In Spain, people tell her she is very English. In England, everyone reminds her that she Spanish. She likes traveling but she is bored of flying. Right now, she'd like to be back in Buenos Aires, walking around Palermo.
Belly dancing makes her feel better. Coffee makes her feel better. Breakfast in bed, a nice surprise, the sun between the clouds, walking in the park. All those things make her feel better.
She is a hypochondriac, with herself and with those she loves. She worries, all the time, about everything. She doesn't know why she is like that, but she is trying to find out.
She'll be 30 soon. She doesn't feel old, but she's starting to realize that time passes too quickly. It's time to take decisions. Or let life take them for you.

British design

This new Royal Mail stamp collection, showing classic contributions of Great Britain to Design makes me feel proud of my adopted country. See the whole collection here.

Esta colección de sellos con imágenes de la contribución de Gran Bretaña al diseño me hace sentir orgullosa de mi pais adoptado. Podéis ver la colección completa aquí.