Spanish Movie Marathon

In order to show people something more about Spain , we organized a Spanish Film Night for the volunteers around (ok we were only three but we did invite everyone!!) and I think we spend a great evening.

THE FILMS

We started the night with the first wonder in Spanish Cinema, the short surrealistic movie: Un Chien Andalou, by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí. As every good surrealistic artist they based this film in a dream they had. Buñuel´s dream was a full moon pierced by a thin cloud and (the most famous scene of the movie) a girl´s eye being cut by a knife.

Dali´s dream was a complicated metaphor about society, taboos, sexuality, etc starring Lorca ("le chien andalou") that later would die because of his homosexuality.

After the war, Buñuel had to exile in France and Mexico so did his cinema.




As long movies I selected two of what I believe are the best Spanish movies, from very different times and styles.

EL VERDUGO




The first one was from the 50s, El verdugo. And for me it´s the best movie in Spanish cinema, it´s about death penalty and it was done during Franco´s regimen so it was really difficult to speak about certain things, going through censure. Some of the things it criticized are still present in some aspect of the life not only in Spain and I think this makes it more valuable.


Even with this they are quite free to speak about some real stuff, and sometimes is quite evident. It´s a satire of the 50s society, the urbanism problem, the starting tourism, the decency limits, etc






TESIS


This film is the first by Alejandro Amenabar, nominated to the Oscars for Inside the Sea (Mar Adentro) and I think is still one of his best works (with Abre los Ojos, Open your Eyes) and whoever thinks Spanish Cinema is not enough good should have come to this film night because I think we probed it´s really good. This film is from the early 90s but still fresh.


Amenabar did a great work not only with the direction and script but also with the music.





FESSER

And so we finished with something more contemporary. A short movie by Fesser about the north-south difference where we can really learn about Happiness.

Constanz and Meersburg

This weekend we did a trip to Constanz and Meersburg with aha crew. We spent two great days just eating and walking around beautiful towns. We went there by car and across the lake wih the boat.

It´s being great holidays! We could visit new cites with a great weather, we even lied in the grass to rest so it´s being quite perfect. Well we tried to go dancing and when we could find the perfect place we had to go back to the hotel, but we spent 15 glorious minutes dancing like crazy! hehehehe.

So we just came back to Meersburg the next day with the boat so we could visit (it´s really a very nice town) and after lunch we went to see the castle which is amazing (specially for me, I´ve never being around real medieval stuff, medieval times in Granada were only arabic times, quite different)

To resume it´s being a great weekend!!!

On arrival Training Day 4:So long, farewell

The last day was just the farewell and we valorate how the training was (awesome!!)

We said everything we wanted to say, we wrote some lines about each other and spoke about creating a group in Facebook and maybe a forum and of course to join again and travel together so we´re not alone!!!







So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen , goodbye



http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgvbpBbp0Rg

On arrival Training Day 3: The show must go on

We continue explaining proyects, opportunities the EC offers, speaking about EVS, Europe and Austria.

It was a great day so we went out, to the sun!

We had a break to eat ( we ate soooo well!!! I think I ave 2 more kilos than when I left!!)




This night was movie night and we watched some of the short lenght movies joined by Lars von Trier abot Europe some of them were interesting but most weren´t very good. We also spoke a little bit about our own countries.

On arrival Training Day 2: Lost in the City

Day 2 was really funny.


We had to do some tasks in the city center and take photos.








So we split into 3 different groups with 3 people in each one. They gave us a map and we started the City Surf!!!








Then we had to go to a certain point and buy food to make lunch!!! We had typical austrian recipes and it was delicious!!! We had liptauerbrote, Käseknuffle mit steirischem, bauersalat and apfelstrudel. We made the main course: Käaseknuffle, typical from Vorarlberg.







I think it was a great job, we all had so much fun, we ate a lot and we learned about typical food in Austria, and typical ingredients!!!

The best apfel strudel I´ve ever tried!!! (it´s like the third one but still, amazing!!!)


A night in the opera

That evening we had some free time and I wanted to go to the opera.

I manage to capture the russian speaking comunity! ejejej (they were Inga, Katka and Vlad)






We were very lucky as we could see Le nozze di figaro from a perfect place (though we were standing, but 3,50 euros, what else can you ask for!!) We only waited for one hour to get the tickets. And the opera had even subtitles!!! (English and German)





We were standing there!

On arrival Training Day 1: Getting to know each other

Vorarlberg Volunteers

After a long long train night (10 hours) we finally arrived in Vienna and met Inga (who was on the same train but couldn´t find us earlier)


As we had still time (we arrived at 7,30 in the morning) we decided to have a walk through the town (the others hadn´t being there yet) so I was guide once more!






They can speak by themselves but I think we had a great time (at least I had) and we covered the main monuments in Vienna. Then we had a coffee break at Coffee Museum and we went to the meeting point in Europa Haus.





It´s quite far from the center but it´s an amazing place!!! We had our meetings in the schloß (castle) and when we came in it had all the original furnitures and even Sissi´s paintings! We owned the China Room for those days.




That afternoon we tried to know each other a little bit better, we were only ten volunteers so it wasn´t so difficult. We spoke about where we came from and about our proyects.