Written by Nieves:
Logroño 31st of May, 11:00h am is the departure time for the delegation of Gantalcalá going to Birmingham in 2014. Route: Logroño (bus) – Bilbao; Bilbao (plane) – Birmingham.
The cloudy sky of La Rioja tells us goodbye and the rain comes with us till Bilbao. The sky shows it sadness because of the departure of these three Logroñeses to further lands. Fortunately, all the travel goes well without problems and/or delays.
At 6:50pm (British time) we land on the airport of Birmingham. Surprisingly it was very sunny and the temperature was nice (what we consider a happy welcome symbol after the sad weather that we have left in Spain).
After picking up our luggage, we went to the airport exit where we found a flag of La Rioja hold by four people: John, Donna, Ian and Wiebke… EXICITING!!
John welcomed Miguel and José Luis with a bottle of beer and one of cider for mi together with some sweets. We were introduced to Ian (the couple of Donna) and Wiebke, who payed us a great attention from very first minute.
Ian and Donna left us in our residence (The Fircroft College of Adult Education) where we are going to live during the next three weeks. We met James (the concierge), left our luggage and went to have and Indian dinner. For me it was something special as it was the first time that I ate Indian food. As my colleagues, I really liked it. After dinner we went back to our accommodation to have rest.
Birmingham, 1st of June 2014
The sun rises and the day is sunny and warm. We have breakfast at 8:30h with James de concierge at the residence (we have given him a bottle of Rioja wine as a present and a key ring of La Rioja; I think we have him in our pocket). After that, he showed us all the area and explained us the history of the residence, what it is currently, each zone, etc. we have walked through the garden and he gave us interesting details about the abundant plants existing there.
11:30h Ian and Donna pick us and we go to the city center of Birmingham where we meet Priti and Shirley to have again breakfast. We went to a wonderful restaurant where we had a nice breakfast but the best was seing Priti again and get to know Shirley.
Priti, very friendly, always speaks slowly to been understood and with a huge patience with me, what makes us laugh all the time. It was also a pleasure to be introduced to Shirley, she is very nice, pleasant and speaks Spanish very well.
After eating, we took a touristic bus to discover Birmingham till the stop of the Blakesley hall museum. There, Azam and Wiebke joined us. They have explained us the museum and guide us through it. From there, we came back to the city center of the city and we met Donna and Ian in an English restaurant for dinner.
This has been the itinerary of our first two days. The most important thing is that we are very good and my colleagues are very happy. They are very motivated to speak in English and satisfied as when they talk, the locals understand them and even me sometimes.
I feel very well and full of wishes to enjoy as much as possible this experience even if sometimes I cannot understand the language. I would like to share in a better way my experiences, ideas and know more things that I am sometimes not able to understand (If you have ever been in a country with a different language, you will understand me), but I am lucky of having Miguel and José Luis who help me as much as they can. Besides this, I can only say one or two things: THANKS GANTALCALÁ (David) AND BVSC (Donna) FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY!!!!