Roaming Rossi: This au pair lark ain't so bad...

Hola amigos!

Last time I blogged I was on my way to start my life as an au pair in Zaragoza...So now you can correctly assume that when I got off the bus I was met by an actual family, and not the local underworld boss ready to sell me into the sex trade (my dad thought this would happen). I'm going to keep this brief (as I will discuss in another post) but the family are lovely and so far I'm settling in well. I know I have a lot to catch you all up on but I'm going to skip the major places for now (soz) to talk about a place none of you will know about - Aldehuela de Liestos.

First glimpse of the village

Being photo-bombed by the family haha

This little village is the family village of my Spanish mum (from here on will be referred to as E) and I am so lucky to have the opportunity to go to these places! This town has a permanent residence of 12 people, TWELVE!! Of course it fluctuates throughout the year as families return to their home village, but only 12 people stay there for the whole year. It's amazing, they have a baker from another town who just pulls up in the square and toots the horn and they all come out and get the bread. Same with the groceries, there's a van that comes every so often to bring them food.

Now I'm so enamored with this place I've just gone ahead and rambled and not even explained it well! This little town with the impossible-to-say-quickly name is located high in the hills of Aragon (the region where Zaragoza is located). The landscape is all dry and red and there are fields of sunflowers everywhere. It's unlike anything I've ever seen and I think it's amazing. The village is nothing special but it's just the fact that it's so frozen in time that makes me love it. My Spanish dad (J) told me that in the village a man can stand in the middle of the road and yell "GO(?)" and it means, good morning, hello, how are you and what a beautiful morning it is today hahaha.

Ahhh I can't even write properly because I have too much to say!! Anyway, we visited the village to celebrate the eldest girls' birthday (L). So this celebration included the fam (E, J, L and I), three grandparents, two aunts, two uncles and four cousins - oh and me! As you can imagine this was quite intimidating for me, I had met the family a week before in Valencia (blog will come eventually haha) but a whole weekend of Spanish was pretty daunting. I am starting to understand a lot but still can't speak a great deal which makes things hard, however, the family are so welcoming and lovely that it is never too bad for me. If we can't speak in Spanish, we try English (and also French with one of the grandfathers, who speaks French with a Spanish accent haha) and then finally we resort to hand gestures. I use a lot of these in my life now haha. So the whole weekend was a celebration, I ate far too much, was taught card games by the family and just generally soaked up the vibes of the village.
On one of the mornings I took a walk while everyone was still waking up and it was like I was the only person in the world, it was incredible.

My favourite collapsed barn haha

Landscape

Just me, no-one else around!

The streets are small and plain but there are so many old abandoned houses that I would love to restore. It's sad that they end up like this but everyone moved to the cities so many of these family villages are full of abandoned houses. There is one church, one shop (I am the first kiwi ever to set foot in the shop of Aldehuela de Liestos - take that Edmund Hilary hahaha) and not much else! It was pretty mind blowing that in our technology mad generation, there are still places like this that are so untouched by it. The most high tech thing I saw was the speaker on top of the church. I only found this out because I was outside the house when all of a sudden "Diamonds Are a Girls Best Friend" started playing really loudly and I couldn't figure out where from. Then I looked up at the church and it was blasting out of the speaker on the roof. It was the most bizarre experience - a song from the 50's(?) in English, filling the streets of a tiny town in the mountains of Aragon. So weird but hilarious! I apologise for the shit quality of the video and also the dancing Spanish people but I was too excited to think about what I was filming haha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv_WI64_ioY

The village from the cemetery

Probs what you would consider one of the main roads haha

Padlocked doors guarding empty buildings are everywhere

One of the houses I want to restore

The well

Standard scene!

Colours

I love this house

The bar - only place I could get wifi

As well as my first experience in small town Spain, I had my first Catholic mass in a very very very long time. Now, the family know I'm not religious but everyone was going so they asked if I would mind going along/it was an opportunity for me to see inside the church (which was closed normally) so I said I would go. Oh my gosh, sorry Grandma and other religious friends, but it just confirmed my views. Even though I couldn't understand the majority I knew the priest was talking about the poor and the sick and the blah blah blah, then of course they ask for a collection. I had to wonder, how much of that collection actually goes to the poor and the sick etc. etc. That's what I can't stand. As well as that, the priest was praying to a cup of wine and a piece of water cracker. It's just ridiculous. Soz for the sudden serious tone/to the believers - I respect your views but sadly I cannot share them with you. Most of the time I was just fighting to stay awake but the worst part was that I was sat next the four year old cousin and she had a fan, and at one point she hit me in the head with it and it was so hard not to crack up! Then later she asked her aunt why I "didn't eat Jesus Christ" (the water cracker) hahahah. So cute.

Phew! Religion aside, I had an amazing time in the village. There are some amazing walks around the village and apparently the mountains are full of vultures which would be pretty incredible to see. I think I will be visiting again so maybe next time I can do that!

On the way home we stopped in a Medieval town called Daroca that used to have fortified walls and is surrounded huge mountains. It is such a beautiful place, even more so at sunset when the setting sun makes the surrounding rocks glow orange. Incredible, I am so lucky to see these places. So untouched by tourism, I love it!