Beach, partying and some Xtreme heat!

Wow! It is 17th of May today and I just realized that it is only two weeks and I am leaving Sevilla! TWO WEEKS! Time has gone so fast...! Well... I guess everything has to end sometimes. This time it just happens to be so far the best time in my life that ends.. All this should make me sad, but then again, the next 3 or 4 weeks are going to be the best of the best time! Let me tell you more in a bit....

But first: This week has been the hottest I've ever experienced! Ok, we did have this really hot season few years back in Finland as well, but this is even worse since it is constantly hot - day AND night.  During the day the temperature has been something around +36 in the shadow and over +40 in the sun..! During the night time, like at 12 in the night, the temperature in my room (no hopes for air conditioning) is over +31 degrees! Really easy trying to get some sleep.. and it's only middle of May!

But there are some positive sides about the sun and heat as well... Like the beach! Couple of weeks ago we went to a beach between Cadiz and Tarifa and it was really nice. Since there's no beach in Sevilla, it was actually the first time I went to have a day at the beach... and I got burn - so typical for us Finns :D Nevertheless we enjoyed the beach :)

So what's so good about the next 3-4 weeks? Well... first of all, I'm going to IBIZA tomorrow!! It is my long time dream to go visit that legendary party island and now it's about to come true! Secondly, right after Ibiza my cousin is going to come visit me for a week and most possibly we are going to Granada with some friends AND my friend from Barcelona is probably also coming there..! Granada is the one place I still want to visit here in Andalucia.

And that's only two weeks... ;) Like I said, I'm leaving in two weeks and right before I leave, our company is going to arrange a huge pool party for our interns and other people here in Sevilla. Is that the coolest Goodbye-party ever or not?! Not to mention the fact that after leaving Sevilla, I will travel in Europe for a short while and visit Barcelona again, Amsterdam (another dream come true!) and Frankfurt to see a good  friend!!

So, the BEST of the best time EVER! - I think my choice for song this time is pretty obvious....

Don't you give me the stars,

Don't you give me your love,

Don't you give me your heart,

Just give me one night in Ibiza!!

Mike Candys & Evelyn feat. Patrick Miller - One Night In Ibiza

P.S. Besides all that, the national ice hockey team of Finland just got it's way through the quarter finals of World championship tournament today beating USA just 9 seconds before the end of 3rd period! I just hope this will happen again this year:

 

Feria de Abril, Sevilla

Feria was something that everyone who lives in Sevilla had been talking about since I got here. “During Feria this, in the Feria that..” Actually they started to build up the Feria area for over two months before the actual happening! So I figured it’s probably quite a big party! I still didn’t have any idea what was it about. But when you think of it, party that lasts for a week is probably pretty big!

Feria de Abril is a weeklong festival, always held in April as the name tells. It’s about eating and drinking good, wearing your best clothes: all the men wear suits and ties and all the chicas wear usually the flamenco dress.

You can’t compare it to the festivals back home where everybody who lives in the city runs away while people from elsewhere come around to party. In here, EVERYBODY in the city participates the festival! For instance, if you walk in the city, everyone is dressed up! It’s unbelievable!

We decided to go and participate the party the next day. Our company naturally didn’t have any days off during the week, but we still had shorter days so that we could participate in to the festival. Actually on Wednesday, we stopped working earlier, headed out to change nice clothes and went to have a late lunch in the Feria area. It was really interesting and nice to see all that. The place was full of people, horses and tents.

Yes, tents. People can rent a tent for themselves for the week. Only the cost is at least 2000 euros for one! Usually you can’t enter a tent, if you are not invited and that makes the tents really desirable for people to get. For those people, who don’t have access to any tent, there are public tents (where to buy food and drinks). Only the prize might get pretty high! Also, there are a LOT of horses around. All the people bring their own horses from the country side and ride them in the festival. You can even buy a horse ride for yourself – if you have the money, it only costs 200 euros for one hour!

In the night time, the Feria area is more about drinking than eating. My friend even said that the Feria is the only place where you can see even Spanish girls going as wasted as their sisters back in Finland! :D The area is lit by over 300,000 light bulbs during the night time and actually the whole Feria area consumes as much energy as a city of 50,000 people. In addition to the tent area, there is an amusement park in the area! All this combined, lasting for a week, now that is a BIG PARTY!?

Make me come alive
Come on turn me on
Touch me, save my life
Come on and turn me on
I'm too young to die
Come on and turn me on
 

Turn me on, Turn me on, Turn me on, Turn me on

David Guetta Ft.  Nicki Minaj -Turn Me On (Michael Calfan remix)

Escape to the sin city, part 2: Hello Barcelona!

Early on Thursday morning I headed out for the airport in Sevilla with a… let’s say a good friend ;) By the way we missed the airport bus, had to take a taxi instead and pay 25 euros instead of 2,30€… Nice start, aye? :D Anyway, by noon we were already walking in the streets of Barcelona, capital of Catalonia, Spain!

I chose to go to Barcelona as a friend of mine lives there and she promised to be a guide for us! However, on Thursday she was still on a 9 hour journey back from Madrid so the first day was very typical tourist day. We just wandered around the main street “La Rambla” and wondered all the crazy stuff going on in the “sin city” of Spain (nickname that I gave, not in general use).

In the evening, around 10 or 11 pm we agreed that we’d meet this friend of mine and go for “one” beer… Well you know what happens when you’re going for “one” with a friend you haven’t seen for a while :D So we crawled back to the hostel around 3 or 4 in the night after seeing half a dozen of the coolest bars in the Barcelona city center, some prostitutes in the notorious area of El Raval and some pickpocketers around La Rambla (which the city is infested with)!

Next day, Friday, we got up pretty late (I wonder why) and started to plan our next moves for the day. The plan was to meet up with my friend and go see some of the famous buildings designed by Antonio Gaudi, who had influenced to the architecture in Barcelona a lot. Also generally, Barcelona is very nice city to visit because of its modernism in the architecture!

After that, later in the evening it was time for an international dinner! We had appetizers from Colombia (some fried sliced banana with salt and cheese), main course from Finland (kesäkeitto = summer soup, milk based soup with a lot of vegetables ;) and the dessert from Holland (some sort of chocolate jelly)! Also the dinner party was very international as we had people from Finland, Holland, Austria, Lithuania and Mexico!

Later in the evening, we went shortly to meet my travel mate’s cousin and her friends. This time I was the only European as there were people from all over South-America: Mexico, Venezuela and so on! I have to say that South-Americans, they’re laid back people! :)

Even later from that, we headed out for some SERIOUS PARTYING at the biggest club in Barcelona: Razzmatazz! Well actually it’s around 6 or 7 clubs in 3 floors in the same club made out of old factory building… It was unbelievable! You could change from one “room” to another to listen some other kind of music style and choose whatever room you’d prefer… How cool is that!?

More about the escape to Barcelona on part 3!

Tell you like it is with a kiss,
Baby when it drips from your lips.
Tell you like it is it’s like this,
Don’t be such a slave to your brother.


Baby get shaky after school,
Oooh ooh ohhh ohhh there you ooh there you, baby go crazy break the rules,
Oooh ooh ohhh ohhhh there you ooh there you go go go go go go go go ohoh ohhh there you go go go go, ohhh ohhh there you go!

The Ian Carey Project – Get Shaky

Escape to the sin city, part 1: Semana Santa

Allrighty then, now I’m gonna tell you guys about my great escape from the Semana Santa in Sevilla. I started the planning when I got to know about the stuff going on here in Sevilla during the week. There was gonna be some interesting (crazy!) stuff going on and maybe a “few” people (tens of thousands!) hanging out on the streets in the centre (where I live!).

You see, Andalucía is entitled to be the most “Spanish” area in Spain. Also, it is the most religious area in Spain. And also, Easter a.k.a. Semana Santa is maybe the biggest religious festival. Of course there’s nothing wrong with being religious and stuff, but I still had to get out of the city and next I’m gonna explain why...
 

Festival of Semana Santa basically lasts for the whole week and obviously when the end of the week is coming closer, stuff gets more and more intensive. Every day there are thousands of people on the streets watching these never-ending parades going through the streets.

The parades consist of bands playing religious march music and of these HUGE structures of Santa Maria (St. Mary) carried on by dozens of men. The scariest part, however, are the brotherhoods that are also part of the parades. Basically there are hundreds of these dudes carrying candles and wearing robes. And guess what they look like when wearing those robes? The KKK my friend, it’s pretty scary!

So I was here in Sevilla until Thursday morning and actually it was interesting to see the parades go by my house. They started probably in the afternoon and kept going on until very late in the night. This thing is huge here! The guys who carry the St. Mary structures - they train for this week only for the whole f*cking year! I could see them training with these hugely heavy structures in the streets in February for example.

Anyway, all this stuff was very interesting as we don’t have anything like that in our culture.. BUT besides the fact that I’m not that religious myself and not THAT interested, I also wasn’t very keen to watch AND listen to the parades going below my balcony all day, EVERY day of the week....So I had to get away..! :D

When did punk rock become so safe?
When did the scene become a joke?
The kids who used to live for beer and speed
Now want their fries and coke
Cursing and flipping birds are not allowed,
In fact let's keep noise levels down

Must separate the church and skate!

NOFX – The Separation of Church and Skate 


PS. Would you like to know more? Here's another blogpost about the Semana Santa written by another amazed foreigner and actually I had to borrow the picture from there as well!

About business...

I have now been here at Sevilla for a little over a month and life has started to feel a little more normal. “Business as usual” as the saying goes. The first four weeks have kind of felt like I’m just on vacation! Not only because of all the crazy partying but also because I guess that’s how you first feel when you go to a different country and culture. But now, after being here for five weeks, I feel like I’m able to tell you guys a little more about what exactly I am doing here as an intern!

I am basically working every day except for the weekends. And actually, the things I have been working with at my work have been very interesting! In fact, I feel I have learned quite a lot of new and interesting things and that it’s been a real benefit to me! I mean, obviously I knew that this placement will benefit me somehow, but after one month I can say that I am positively surprised of how much I  I’ve learned!

My job assignment and tasks include both administrative tasks and marketing tasks in two totally different projects the company is working on. The marketing part divides further on into Online marketing tasks such as SEO (search engine optimization), Social Media marketing (such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and so on, you know ;) and then of course traditional marketing (creating databases of possible clients and collaborators and also contacting them).

           Parque Maria Luisa and Plaza España - pretty nice views to go jogging..!


The thing that I really like about my internship is that I really have various tasks which makes working a LOT more interesting! Another thing that I like that the organization is quite small so I get actually quite a lot of responsibility on many tasks and get to be iniative. It’s not so common for an intern to get so much responsibility so I welcome it with open handed! Overall, working here has been so far very, very taughtful and useful experience and I have learned things I could have never learned in my studies! I could say that in this case as well I recommend doing the practical training abroad!

Soundtrack: Tiësto ft. Kay - Work Hard, Play Hard
Time to loose my mind,
Cuz’ I work damn hard
so I’ll play damn hard
Lost in the night,
Cuz’ I work damn hard
so I’ll play damn hard