This week I popped over to Spain for the day – you know, as you do 😀

My host family and I left bright and early on Saturday morning to go to Spain for a shopping day. They said that things in Spain were only 1/4 of the price as you find them in France, so we decided to go and check out the new mall which had opened up right beside the border to France. The drive was a quick 2 hours. On the way we passed through the Bask Country, it was beautiful, the scenery was completely different- a mass of rolling green hills and flowers. Passing the boarder was awesome, just like when I was in Belgium, there wasn’t any security and the only sign that we’d changed countries was  a small road sign by a round about saying “Espagne” (Spain). Later that day we went back to the boarder and I jumped out of the car and kept hopping from one country to the next- even standing in 2 countries at the same time!

Spain wasn’t that different from France, being 5 minutes from the border most signs were still in french and basically everyone spoke french and/or Spanish. There were no obvious differences until we entered the Grocery store. Huge fry pans that measured my height hung on the walls (for making Paella). If I thought that the ‘charcuterie’ in France was impressive, Spain made it look cute – ham, bacon, salami and heaps more were stacked up everywhere and stank up the super market. 2 whole aisles were dedicated to every olive under the sun. My favourite part was the lolly aisle. All lollies were sold in bolk, bars of chocolate were only sold by the dozen or 3 times the size, and the packets were huge – I was in heaven! I held back the temptation though and didn’t get anything.

We didn’t do anything interesting in Spain, we just went shopping and I came away with the best winter coat ever (very British if I may say so). Meanwhile my host family went all out and basically bought the whole mall! They really like shopping.

The following weekend we went the the theme park ‘Walabe’ again to celebrate Halloween. It was my first Halloween. My family and I don’t celebrate it in NZ, instead we buckle down the hatches and pray that no child comes knocking 😉 The park was as great as last time, and I had a blast. Although I can’t say that Halloween is for me, what with all the freaky creatures lurking at the park and the haunted house (shudders) it was still a cool experience all the same.