The last one...

I believe that all of you guys who read this blog deserve to have a closing entry.
The last time when I wrote here was 4 months ago, but this is a good sign for all of those who are interested in doing European Voluntary Service, because you can see that I was not bored for a second in these last weeks, I didn't even have time to write in my precious blog:)
During the last months in Tenerife so many wonderful magic happened which would have been really worth to mention here, but now it is too late... Instead of this I will give you the "Best of Tenerife" based on my experiences as a goodbye. Thank you for reading this! I hope I could encourage you to participate in EVS!

The best city (obviously:))

The best beach

The best team (ever!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nBFWzpWXuM

The best song

The best religious celebration

The best business

The best food

The best hiking

The best view

 The most interesting animal

The best party

The best cliff

The best year of my life...

Granada. The city of the wonderful Alhambra.

I was the lucky girl whose plain went back to Tenerife only 3 days after the evaluation training ended so I could stay a weekend in Granada. I stayed with a new friend's place, Eva, a wonderful Spanish girl who lives in Granada studying translation. I love to see new cities through the eyes of local people. Right on my arrival day she showed me the university and church area, we had a fantastic bio-organic lunch together and later I walked up to Alhambra. There are sometimes when people expect something huge and they have to be disappointed. Well, this can not happen with your expectations about Alhambra. It is exactly that magical as everybody says!

Upside down or not?

My favourite part is always the one with water...

I took at least a hundred pictures only of the windows here. It was such a beautiful view from everywhere and these Arabic architecture elements made me feel like in the tale, Arabian Nights.

This is the view from the Alhambra with the palm tree and the snowy mountains

And this is the view to the Alhambra from the opposite side, Mirador St. Nicolas

The next and final day of my trip was full of surprises and new really nice experiences. I spend the day more like a local than a tourist. I talked a lot with people on the streets, we went to different tapas bars and we were not rushing through the whole city, but enjoying it from moment to moment.

This was my favourite shopping place in Granada. They are selling different teas everywhere, but when I say different, imagine 30-40 different ones. I finally chose Pina Colada with real pineapple, coconut and other pieces of fruit in it. But there were another type too which should be prepared with milk instead of water. The owner of this place was also a super kind person who explained me the stories behind the different names of the teas and the interesting ways of preparation.

Andalusia is really famous from its tapas bars. Here if you order a drink, it could be a beer, a coke or in my case a pineapple juice, you can choose one tapas for free...or let's say included in the price:) 

All in all there is only one word to describe this weekend: Perfect!

Málaga. The mid-term evaluation!

Ladies and Gentlemen!

Believe it or not here we are, at the mid-term evaluation which supposes to be at the middle of our projects, but unfortunately in my case it is closer to the end now. Anyway, you have to know that in a long-term EVS project there are two trainings. The first one was in Candelaría, and if I would know how to do references in a blog I could refer to one of my previous entries, but without this knowledge I can only say that you could find a few entries under this one. The second one was last week in Málaga. Okay, to be precise, it was in a small town 65 km away from the city. But we could arrange our flight ticket one day before the training started so we could visit the city and make an EVS volunteers photo shooting:)

La Alcazaba of Málaga

After the one day holiday the serious work has started. We had a lot of lectures and presentations about how to be a better volunteer, how to improve our projects, how to handle conflicts and other quite useful and interesting topics. It was always more like a discussion than a presentation. The European volunteers from all over Spain have shared their experiences and opinions. I enjoyed it very much and I also felt the improvement on my Spanish knowledge as the whole seminar was held in Spanish.

One day we had a special trip to Antequera, where in different teams we participated in a discovery game. We got a map and had to follow a certain way to find things in the city and to fulfill different task such as promoting the Youth in Action Programme among local young people. Here you can see that our team was super effective and we convinced many of the to give it a try:)

Posturing with the leaflet of Youth in Action

After this wonderful 5 days, getting to know a lot of new people and enjoying every steps of our own evaluation we headed to Granada for the weekend, but that is the story of the next entry...

Those high high heels...

Here I am with the last and maybe the funniest night of the Carnival. This was the 14th race for men on high heels. The main point of this event is that men have to dress like women but in different funny and creative costumes as it is not only a running competition but the judges also award the best costumes. I don't remember when did I see as much creativity as I did this night. Let me illustrate it with some pictures. 

Don't forget to keep an eye on the shoes, the requirement was minimum 10 cm high heels! 

from current movie ideas...

through actual events (as it was one day after Valentine's Day)

until the rest of the Christmas decoration:)

 Of course there were also great fashion mistakes such as the sport socks...but come on! We can not expect men to pay attention to every single detail do we?!

Please if you can figure out what is this let me know. Put it was super cool how he/she carried that table with the chandelier all night:)

The evergreen superhero costume on a slightly different way

And one of my favourites...the fat geisha:)

After the procession of all of the competitors, the run has started which was probably the slowest running competition in the history:) Especially the part where they had to handle some obstacles:

Runaway Bride 2...Julia Roberts doesn't have a chance here:)!

Horizontal pole dancing 

Some of them solved the problem on a very original way, this mermaid (who is everything but little) simply rolled under the barrier.

And the winners of the "most drunk participants" prize

And I could also record the biggest fall of the evening for you...it must hurt like hell!

Any finally without any serious injuries the party could get started after a wonderful 2 hours with lots of laughing. 

Finally: THE carnival

As I couldn't participate on Saturday, on one of the biggest nights of the Carnival this was the only impression I got from the last night party:

Poor duck couldn't handle the Saturday night of the Carnival.

Anyway obviously there is also an option for those who prefer to dance in the sunshine and for families with small children. This is the Carnaval del Día. The are not too many differences, the music is the same loud, the people are super nice, friendly and smiling at everyone, everybody is dancing on all of the streets and squares and of course there are the amazing costumes! (Okay, maybe there are a little bit less drunk people, this is the most obvious difference). When I say amazing costumes I really mean it! If it is a pirate, it can not exist without the parrot, the eye patch, the hat with plumes and the sword. But this is only one example. They spend a lot of time and money on the best costumes and on the top of this, they always wear different ones on the different days of the carnival! 

The live music was provided by the local beer company: Dorada with the nice Teide logo.

They made a huge party, let the people play on their drums and creating different dancing games.

My favourite scene from this day when the small pirate, prisoner and indian are finding a treasure on the ground while the pirate, prisoner and indian parents are having a nice conversation with a drink (this second part is obviously not visible here:))

The inevitable part of the carnival is when men are dressed like women. This is the way how once a year they can show their feminine side. There are some who dress expressly vulgar but some of them put a really big effort to look beautiful. (Even though it didn't work:))

When the night started to come all of the small princess' returned home and gave the floor to the bigger ones for the night...

So to give you a quick look also from the night carnival I can share my Monday night experiences in a few words: Huge crowd, nice music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nBFWzpWXuM), creative costumes, a lot of peeing people on the streets (boys and girls equally), but still hilarious atmosphere.

And this is still not the end of the story...

Sad starter

The first night of the carnival was absolutely not that amazing as I expected. Not only because I was still totally sick but because the big opening ceremony which I was waiting for so badly was cancelled. I should have felt bad because I could not see this amazing event, but I couldn't think of myself when this terrible thing happened. The parade was cancelled because one day before, at the competition of the Queen of the Parade, a fire broke out and a beautiful competitor got burn very seriously. She has to stay in hospital for weeks and most likely she won't be able to participate ever again in a Beauty Queen competition. It made me really sad. How this can happen from one minute to the other? Your whole life can change terribly during one night. Because of one moment. It was so shocking for everyone that they decided not to celebrate the queen of the carnival without her. I consider this a very nice gesture. So I was also not in party mood after all of these, but at least we went out to look around and try out the costumes we were so excited about. 
Here you are:)

A happier entry about the carnival is coming soon...

The big preparation

I would like to apologize to those who have honored me with reading my blog about neglecting it in this last month. My visit in Hungary for Christmas had a big effect on me, but unfortunately not only on the positive way. Since I am back I am constantly sick, I have no idea why, I guess it is just a too big change for my organism. Anyway, this still didn't change but I don't use it anymore as an excuse and I am writing you from my bed with a little bit of fever. I also have a reason why it is not possible not to write now: Carnival.

This is the biggest event on Tenerife, the carnival in Santa Cruz is said to be the second biggest after the one in Rio. The Big Opening Ceremony is tomorrow at 8pm so for now everybody has to be ready with their costumes. There are stories going around among the "Laguneros" which was the most creative costume in the last years, my personal favourite is the "chewing gum under a chair". I can not wait to see this craziness:)
My costume is way more simple and less creative: to be old. This is what nobody wants so I thought I am going to look at the face of the white hair-wrinkles coupling. We will see how it will work out tomorrow.
The big hesitation is taking my camera or not...I think it is better not but somehow I will solve the problem to chronicle everything for you, I promise:)