Now I’m back in Finland, and it’s good to be back..

..but I had a truly amazing year :´)

The beach..

My home











The culture

 The work

The milkshakes :D

  ..and of course, the PEOPLE  💕

 I'm so grateful ! 💜💜💜

Hogueras

The Spanish really know how to celebrate. I got to experience the ‘Hogueras’, the Alicante equivalent of the Las Fallas of Valencia. The main thing is that dozens of gigantic paper mache statues are built around Alicante, people get to admire them for a week and then on the Saturday of Hogueras they are all burned down. The entire week was full of festivities, music, eating on the streets and amazing fireworks. Also, for a month now, every now and then we have been ‘enjoying’ the ‘mascletas’, which is like fireworks but without the light and thus only the loud sounds of explosion. I’m not a big fan of those but it seems the locals really love them.

Further, there was recently the Spanish midsummer fest, San Juan. That meant everyone going to the beach to light bonfires. That was actually really beautiful and, albeit very distantly, reminded me of the Finnish midsummer.

My year here has reached the point that my fellow trainees are starting to leave Alicante one by one having found jobs all over Europe. Also, the trainees that have not yet left are constantly buzzing like bees because of everyone now applying for their next internships, jobs and research projects. Everyone seems a bit stressed out about the fact that we’ll have to come up with something new now and to find something to do for October. I try and not stress even though this state of mind is a bit contagious. Admittedly, even though I still have three and a half months to go here, having to say goodbye to the other trainees that are now leaving, tomorrow beginning my last Spanish course and having to start thinking about jobs, it is inevitable that I start slowly thinking about once having to leave Alicante.

Besos,
Noora