From Malaga to Heidelburg - How to make the most of your weekends as a Language Assistant.

Being a Language Assistant involves responsibility, dedication, reliability, and hard work just like any other job does. In fact, I can safely say that starting school at 8am came as a bit of a shock for me at first after always starting at 9am in England. However, these early mornings have made me feel like I have a good routine now and also give me many reasons to really get the best out of my weekends when they come round. And that is what I have written this post about. The ways in which I have been making the most of my weekends through travelling, speaking Spanish, spending time with friends, and enjoying the buzzing night life in Sevilla. After all, a three day weekend gives me plenty of time to really enjoy Sevilla, Spain, and all that they have to offer. I've definitely been going to quite a few parties lately :)

So I think it's probably best to start by telling you about my recent travels, as I feel like I've managed to see a lot of Spain since I began my work as a Language Assistant. First of all, I may have told you about this in a previous blog post, but back in October I was lucky enough to be invited to spend a day with some of my Spanish friends in a village called Cortelazor in the province of Huelva. I was very lucky to be able to go there as it was somewhere that could only really be reached by car. Whilst I was there, I enjoyed an amazing lunch of various Spanish dishes such as Tortilla de Patatas, Croquetas Caseras, and Carne. I then went for a walk in the hills with my two friends and we enjoyed the stunning scenery of the Huelva province. We even climbed down to a rocky ledge at the bottom of a waterfall which felt very adventurous. Two weeks after this trip, I also enjoyed visiting another small town called Utrera which is very close to Sevilla, and again is very beautiful and typical of Andalucia. 

In December, I decided to go travelling a bit further afield as a friend of mine from university is working as a Language Assistant in a secondary school in Germany. For this reason, I had the opportunity to go and visit her in Germany and see the region in which she is living whilst I was there. It was really lovely to see her after so long and also to enjoy travelling together whilst catching up. And I certainly did see a very good amount of the region of Rheinland-Pfalz whilst I was there! We managed to visit Ludwigshafen, Mannheim, Worms, Mainz, and Heidelburg in the three days that I was there which was absolutely incredible! We also enjoyed exploring the Christmas Markets in all of the towns as I went in December. We had a lovely time trying different types of Gluehwein, and tasting delicious german specialities such as Currywurst, Lebkuchen, Bradwurst, and Reibekuchen. We even treated ourselves to a delicious mug of Lindt Hot Chocolate at the Heidelburg christmas market so we really did eat well that weekend! In fact, by the time the weekend came to an end, I felt quite sad to leave because I really enjoyed seeing my friend Casey again and also exploring the amazing country that is Germany. 

But don't worry! It may have been sad to leave Germany but my weekend travels were certainly not over. Once I got back from my two week Christmas break in England, my travel bug really started to kick in as I realised that there were quite a few other places around Sevilla that I had not visited when I was here on my year abroad two years ago. I started off the new term with a visit to the city of Malaga on the Costa del Sol as this was somewhere that I had not previously visited. It was an absolutely beautiful city full of history and a great atmosphere! I visited loads of monuments including the Alcazaba, cathedral, and plaza de Toros and thoroughly enjoyed walking along the coast and absorbing some winter sunshine. It was a lovely trip! 


A couple of weekends later, I decided to venture up to the region of Extremadura which is just north of Andalucia. Whilst in Extremadura, I visited the cities of Merida and Caceres. These two cities were both stunning and incredibly interesting in terms of their history as they each display an array of incredible Roman architecture such as Ampitheatures, cathedrals, churches, cobbled streets, Aqueducts, and Roman Circus'. I loved the two cities but I would highly recommend visiting Merida especially if you are around the region of Extremadura as the architecture is really breathtaking. If you are in Caceres I would highly recommend visiting the old town because it felt like stepping back in time going from the modern downtown to the historical Roman streets. 
These trips were unforgettable and they have inspired me to do lots more travelling whilst I am working as a Language Assistant as it is a perfect opportunity to really explore Spain and Europe. I'm taking a break from travelling for a couple of weeks now as I have my cousin coming to visit me next week and then a couple of weeks later I will be going back to Wales to visit my university town which will be lovely. So there is lots to look forward to in the coming weeks! 

I'm going to round off this post here as I think I've told you about all of my most recent adventures. However, I will definitely be back in a couple of weeks time to tell you all about the exciting things that are coming up in February. 

Thank you for reading my post!

Hasta pronto!