New country, new language and a lot of new experiences

Month has already went here in this small village in Northern Spain and  so many different feelings has fitted in to those 4 weeks.

On the first few days I noticed being really frustrated about the new language. Just settleing down to a new place is something that you need to get used to, but adding the new language as well did got me some grey hairs at first!
The owner speaks English so I don't really have anything to worry about, but the ambitious side of me made me hope I could just jump to the moment where I could speak Spanish already.

So I've needed to remind myself not to look to the finish line, but to enjoy learning and noticing how your always better on it than you were the day before. Like doing anything in life; you have a lot more motivation when you take one step on the time and enjoy all the small accomplishments rather then thinking how much work you still have ahead of you.

 These are all something that most of the people would know, but still we somehow forget it when we would needed the most.

But when you have some time to think about it, you realise that stressing about something like that wont actually get you anywhere!

So the frustration moments havn't lasted that long and I have definitely got to enjoy my time here a lot. Even though you shouldn't have too clear expectations, it is exactly as I secretly dreamed of; a small quiet village (which seems like a fairy tale village to me) next to the Pyrenees mountains, seeing happy people working at their gardens and the amazing scenery of course!

I also notice myself getting amazed again and again how many different ways there actually is to travel, work and learn from new cultures. Like this helpx what I'm doing right now; 2 months ago I had no idea this particular system existed and now I'm here taking the best out of it! So many times I think how 4 years ago I would have never thought of being here (here in this small village in Spain nor here in this state of life, where the whole world has open up to you). It's amazing how many incredible opportunity's there is when you just take some time and energy to see them. The biggest thing I've needed to do to see them is forget about what we're expected to do and just do what actually feels natural and good! Following my heart and my feelings hasn't let me down once, but it has got me to this state of mind where I am now. Even though I still sometimes need to remind myself to actually do it!

As always in a new place time has went really fast and for start I've wanted to seize all the opportunities to meet new people and get to know them. But now after pretty much hanging with new acquaintances for the whole month, I really noticed I need some alone time as well. I think I've needed it for a while now, but with all these new things around me I've post pone it for a bit too long (one of the things where I should have listened to my mind earlier, but better late than never) I 've noticed that my thoughts and my feelings are not same way present as they are when I've had some alone time to go through them!

So now to achieve some nice quiet place, I decided to clime here on the mountains (because they're just all around you here) and enjoy this place for awhile in peace and quiet!

Already walking to this place felt so good and specially after I got to this spot where I'm now. I sat on this big rock high on the mountains, listened song from yann tiersen and just stared this amazing scenery for awhile.

And I couldn't help but feeling that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be right now!
After a moment by myself and my thoughts I was ready to start writing as well!

So here's something I've done in these past 4 weeks;
I came here late in the evening and the owner picked me up from a close by town. I got a very delicious traditional potato omelette as a welcome dinner and had a nice talk with people in here. Restaurant got very busy after that so got to start working a bit right away. It was a nice first touch to this place.
At this point there was only me, one other helper from Italy, the owner, his wife and their dog. For the first week we were working a lot in the restaurant and helping to renovate this apartment ready for renting.

After one week the owners went for a holidays and we got to keep their hostel open for that time. I was happy to notice how all the guests were so comprehensive to my Spanish knowledge and we got to a great understanding with all of them. It's also so good for my Spanish learning, when I'm pushed to these kind of situations where I just have to speak Spanish.  I know I have to continue to push myself in these situations as well as there's no better way to learn than just to forget your fears and jump right in to it.

Of course many times on these past weeks when I've had some problems with all the new stuff around me, I've drift in to thinking, why do I always bring myself to these situations where I have to once again start from all over and feel from time to time that I'm more on the way than actually helping. But I know that the reason is that when I then finally get a hold of it, it ends up being so rewarding and worth of all those frustration moment.

After that Italian guy left we got two new helpers; a guy from Australia and a guy from France! It's definitely one of my favourite things about traveling to meet all these different people, hear how they've got here and see how they're living their lives. I think you can even learn so much about yourself just by meeting all kinds of different people.

Those two helpers stayed here only a bit over a week, but after them we got our more long term helpers who are going to stay here for the whole winter as well. So for few weeks now, I've been able to spent some time exploring this place with them.

So with an open mind and a bit of patience I continue my journey here in this little fairy tale village! :)