Rain warnings, a farm day and some bad luck

Hi everyone! Hola todos! I have now spent the last four weeks here in Benalmádena, Spain. It doesn’t feel like four weeks, more like a few days because time has gone by so fast but so much has happened. But let me start from the beginning.

When I flew to Spain, I had a few days to explore the city and enjoy the beautiful weather before my internship started. I went to Mijas, Malaga and the butterfly park in Benalmádena for example and they were all worth seeing. After those days, my internship finally started. All of the teachers and the students were incredibly nice and welcoming. And they took me into the school with open arms. I spent the first days getting to know my colleagues and the students of course. I got my own schedule, which showed me what classes I would be attending. All of the classes I am in are in English because the school is bilingual so the classes are either in Spanish or in English. Some of the students speak English super well because either one or both of their parents are native English speakers. But mostly the students are native Spanish speakers who also know a little bit of English. In the classes I’m helping the teacher by guiding and helping the students with their exercises and by correcting their answers. I will probably try and make a talk about Finland and our culture, music and show some pictures. Maybe I will even try to teach some Finnish to the students as well.

I only got to be at the school for a few days when we got a rain warning in our area. At first we thought that the warning wasn’t that big of a deal but the next day the authorities told us that the schools would be closed for at least one day and everybody should stay inside.  Everyone was a bit scared because there had been huge floods in Valencia just a few weeks ago. And I have to admit so was I. So then I spent the next two days alone inside my apartment and I didn’t go outside at all. Sometimes the rain was really hard in my area, but luckily it wasn’t that bad most of the time and everything went well.

The next Monday, after the rain, we got to return back to school. The first day we returned back my class had a farm day. We started the day at 9am and took a bus to the schools farm. At the farm there were some fun activities planned for the students. They for example, got to make cheese from scratch and then they got to plant some plants and do some chemical experiments. The students really enjoyed the day and so did I. The farm was super beautiful and it was such a warm, sunny day so it was absolutely perfect. At the farm there were two horses, a donkey and a big pig. There were also some orange and clementine trees growing at the farm so we got to pick some fruits for ourselves. After a few hours, we took the bus back to the school. 

Everything had went very well, but then on Wednesday I became sick. I had a very high fever for three days and then I decided to go to the hospital to get it checked out. I thought I only had a regular flu or an influenza but when the doctors did some examinations I was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to spend the night at the hospital. Of course my family in Finland was worried about me because I was in a hospital alone, in a different country thousands of kilometers away. In total, I ended up spending four nights at the hospital. Luckily the antibiotics started to work really fast and I was taken good care of. However, my mother ended up flying from Finland to Spain to support me. After I got out of the hospital, I still felt weak and very tired so I was glad that my mom was here and could help me while I was recovering. Even though this was a very strange and scary experience I still decided to continue the exchange. But now I’m okay and have been back at work for two days. I still have three weeks to go and even though I missed two weeks because of the illness, I’m glad that I decided to stay. 

Wow, this blog post is starting to get really long so I’ll try to wrap it up. As you can see a lot has happened in the past few weeks. This journey has so far has been very unforgettable and has already taught me a lot. I can’t wait to spend the next three weeks here and see what else happens and what more great experiences I will gather from this journey. See you later! Hasta luego, Adiós!