This is Julian's blog, featuring news about Tecnologias en Desarrollo, South America and quite possibly the odd mention of Arsenal FC...

Monday, July 25, 2005

Enjoying Spain - Disfrutame en España


A big thank you to Juanan, Elna, Manolo, John, Leo, Carlos, Pieded and Javi who have kindly put up with me for nearly five weeks in Spain. On the other hand, it is their fault that my Spanish is not yet fluent as they were constantly distracting me from studying.

Since arriving in Spain, I have officially spent a week as an astrophysics researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics in Tenerife - it´s where John, the professor who helped develop the biogas technology, works - and he had to tell them that to get me a pass as well as my own office. I also got a private tour of the yet unopened film studios in Alicante thanks to a contact of Juanan´s, continued the film theme by sitting next to Spain´s most famous film director Pedro Almodovar in a bar, partied for three days during the Hogueras in Alicante and went to a Catholic mass in Manolo's village where he is 'presidente' (there are only about 15 inhabitants).

It´s not all been easy though, four hours of Spanish school a day was tough. The more I learn, the more errors I seem to make, and I keep getting into trouble for not doing my homework.