The real food entry

After 3 weeks in Tenerife, finally I tried the really typical food of the island. One of my best friends decided that she would not read my blog if I am posting about different dishes because it makes her hungry all the time, so I'm sorry darling, don’t read it from this point:)

I start from the very beginning. So far I didn’t mention our super cool team which consists the volunteers of two organizations: AURI (where I work) and IslaCreactiva which is our coordinator organization. The most important people here who are making our life so easy with their support, enthusiasm and kindness are Santa, David and Jony. They are officially our mentors but in fact they are our big siblings who are solving all of our problems:)

So the whole food experience started at David’s place with a very special occasion. In Hungary we have the biggest firework of the year on 20th August, but here it is during the Fiestas del Santísimo Cristo. 

So David invited us to watch the firework from the roof of his brand new apartment and he prepared this very nice welcome table for us:

This was my first encounter with mojo verde y mojo rojo (I vote for the red one:)) which are typical sauces made of different herbs, garlic, olive oil and other secret ingredients. You can eat it with French fries, cheese, or simply with bread.

It was also the first time (but definitely not the last time) when I ate small sandwiches with dates on the top. Very nice job David, you are a great host!

After the firework the night ended with an amazing fiesta and lots of dancing.

The first warm dish experience has happened two days ago, when the whole group went to a local restaurant with nicely painted extremely white walls and very hard benches to sit on. These all belonged to the atmosphere, but obviously the unforgettable part was the food. We tried 6 different dishes, but I would like to mention my two favourites: queso (goat cheese) con mojo rojo y verde (you already know these, right?) and this special salad with a (for me) brand new fruit called membrio. I could eat these until the end of my life…

                                                

The team:)

What is a real adventure?

I guess everybody would give different answers to this question. My version is exactly the thing that I have done today. One of the most important people in my life gave me the inspiration to go to the central bus station and take the first bus which leaves. So I took the idea this morning and I ended up in Candelaria. This small city is a famous pilgrimage destination, so I found a nice cathedral some religious legends and a lot of sunbathing crabs.

My favourite part was the Plaza de la Patrona de Canarias with the statues of nine guanches who were the aboriginal kings of Tenerife (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanches). The view was fascinating: the ocean with the strong and powerful statues.

After being a typical tourist I decided to turn into a local girl so I followed some old Canarian men to their favourite Churrería on the beach. The churros is a traditional Spanish food (even if they are selling some good ones in the Middle-East too). You can choose from different sauces such as vanilla, but I decided to take it with hot chocolate. After my little break, I visited some fantastic beaches and walked until I reached the end of the city. At that point I took the bus back home, and now I am sitting on the same couch again wondering if this magical adventure was real or not…. 

Fiestas

Yesterday morning I thought that my new entry would be about the new fruit I tried (fig), but it turned out that it is going to be about Los Turrones Artesanos. 

Yes, let me explain this!

It deserves at least a photo

Nevertheless the fig was extremely delicious, there is something much more special going on in La Laguna right now. The whole town is excited about the Fiestas de Santisimo Cristo, which means that the main streets and squares are full of traditional programs for two weeks.

So far I only participated in two events, the first one called Caballitos de fuego (Horses of fire). Actually this was the coolest traditional program I’ve ever seen. I let the pictures talk instead of me, but I have to tell you that as a girl from a capital city I can appreciate these kinds of events very much. That feeling when you see that the whole town comes together to celebrate, to enjoy the colorful papers and the laugh of the kids is unforgettable.

Of course there are things which are the same everywhere when it is a public celebration, such as the balloon, traditional food and Chinese toys venders who appear immediately and the party can start with a pink cotton candy or in our case with an even more sweet thing called turron.

With my lovely Marie and our turron:)

Besides now I can experience the „little place atmosphere” which means that I usually meet at least two or three people who I know….after two weeks.

I fell in love with this small city, with its colorful traditions and extremely kind people who are always smiling back and say “Hola” even if they don’t know me:)

Piece of feelings

Yesterday I arrived home from work and I realized that I felt that I’ve arrived HOME. It was such a nice feeling. You know when you can smell the dinner already from the corridor of the house, you enter the flat, put down your extremely heavy bag and you feel that everything is going to be okay. It added even more of a "home feeling” that we finally washed out our first laundry with some complications though (remember everybody, it is also possible that you don’t have to press the start button, but pull it!!).

I would have never thought that it is such a nice feeling to keep house by yourselves. Of course it is also exhausting when you arrive home and you realize that you left some plates in the sink from breakfast, and you forgot to hang out the half of the wet clothes from the washing machine. But you know what? It is still worth it, because the feeling when you sit on your comfortable couch with a nice jasmine green tea and your Spanish language book, staring out of the window to the sunset and planning how to decorate the living room is a much stronger and better feeling. So put on some cool music, make fun of the housework and don’t forget to enjoy your own territory. :)

Our white house

The first one...

Dear Reader!

(Is it the right way to start a blog? I have no idea… I am really not a blog-writer type, it’s important to know as the first info:)

If you found this blog that could mean two things, you are interested in the European Voluntary Service (EVS) and in the experiences of a Hungarian girl about it. Or you found it accidently which means that you spend way too much time in front of your computer, so in this case switch it off right now and go to have some fun in the nature!

So the following blog entries will let you know more about my adventures, during my EVS in Tenerife, San Cristóbal de La Laguna.

Few details about my past as a starter: I was studying international relations in Budapest. I just finished my bachelor degree, so I decided to skip a year before I start the master program and try myself in a new challenge. One of my friends told me about this program organized by the European Commission, so I thought I take a look at it. (It was quite easy to get all of the information about this program from their website. That’s why I will not explain the procedure here, but instead I start immediately with the arrival part.)

Last Monday my airplane landed in this Paradise called Tenerife. This magical place, where you can collect the fruit of the cactus from the street (with some injuries in my case), where you can find beaches with black sand, where the people are extremely nice and helpful, and where you can get the most delicious mango juice on Earth! Those are all the things I have already tried and loved, and I am planning to share these kinds of experiences with you in detail in the following 9 months.

Santa Cruz - an afternoon trip

                                                    The atmosphere in La Laguna

I have to mention how lucky I am with my voluntary job. I work for AURI, which is a non profit organization with lots of enthusiastic volunteers who are organizing different colorful programs for the exchange students in La Laguna. First of all I can work in a very dynamic team with some super kind people. Second of all I can experience the “Erasmus atmosphere” again which I have missed a lot. It means that we are not only organizing the programs but we also participate in them, so we can become an “almost full member” of the group.

Our office also functions as an info point, so it also belongs to my task to help the students with anything they need. We’ve already read and worked a lot to collect all of the necessary information for the new students of the university.

There is one more important thing. During my EVS I have to work on one project by myself, so I need to figure out something which could be mentioned as my own project in the organization. I have some ideas, but I let you know about these later.

To be very exact, we have already two programs with the exchange students (excluded the welcome day). One of them was the guided tour in La Laguna, and the other one was a nice day on the beach Las Teresitas. Especially on the first program we had a very nice team, we started to get to know each other and I met some very nice and interesting people. Such a great start! We tried café barraquito which is a traditional type of coffee here with a drop of orange liqueur and it tastes really good! Okay, this info doesn’t belong to this part of my post but I have to mention the amazingly good zumo (fresh fruit juice) we had a few days ago in a real Zumería. At the same place we also tried an original South-American fast food called la arepa and I loved it very much. It is baked in oil, I could resemble it to a hamburger, but the “burger” part is made of corn flour. You can choose from several type, I wanted to try the one with beef, cheese and avocado, but this is not the season of avocado, so they didn’t have it. Still it was really nice, and I especially liked the sauce. I wouldn’t say I was full after this meal, but with the juice it was good for a light lunch. Actually I just realized that I would love to write a gastro blog, I had this feeling since Julie & Julia, so if my posts are becoming boring I just switch a little bit and start to do some food trips around the islands:) 

Finally it will turn out that actually I am enjoying writing this?!

The "light" lunch

                                                            Café barraquito