Hockey.

Hello again!
So this post is a little different as it is not about moving or any trips I have been on, but about one of my biggest passions: Hockey.
I learned how to play hockey when I was 9, but I didn't start training untill I was 13. Ever since my first day I have loved it and stopping never crossed my  mind not even when I got hurt. (Which happened a lot...)
I started playing at C.D. Málaga 91 and would also compete with them. But this year I am competing with another club called Isla de Leon, a 3 hour drive from where I live. All this because my club,being very small, doesn't have a team competing in my age category and I can honestly not live without competing.

 Ever since I started we would compete both at indoor and field hockey.
The first big competition I went to where the 2011 u14 andalucian indoor championships. We had to place first to go trough to nationals, which we did after a very hard final. I won't go into detail because you probably won't like it. Normally after the "state" championships you have qualification rounds from which only 2 or 3 teams of each round qualify for nationals. But this year the first team in the andalucian region went straight to nationals. Us in this case. We travelled to Valencia with the only hopes of not becoming last at nationals. We won our fist match, and our second, and our tird. tied our last two mathes and before we knew it we where in the top 4 and playing the semi-finals. We where on cloud nine, thinking we where unbeatable but got knocked down when we lost the semi finals against Club de Campo (Madrid) 4-2. We where all very upset but determined to win third place. And not just because our coach had promised we could cut of his ponytail if we won a medal (Altough it did play a big part haha.) We had to play against atletic tarrasa a club near Barcelona, who had won nationals the year before. We played before the final which was Club de Campo against Valdeluz, both from Madrid. Most people came to watch our match as they believed it to be more spectacular then the other one. We didn't know it at the time but a team from Andalucia had never before ended that high. We played a good match and ended up winning 1-0. To say we where happy was an undertstatement. We jumped,dances,cried and celebrated. When it was time to collect our trophy and medals we acted very professional and relaxed (NOT). We took tons of pictures before getting in to our van and embarcing on the 7 hour journey back home. But not before cutting of our coached hair and storing it in our cup oh and taking lots of photos!

After that competition we where one of the countries "star" teams we had a few news paper articles dedicated to us trough which we found out we actaully wrote history, being the fisrt under 14 team from andalucia to win a medal at a national championship.

After this year, I got a bad knee injury and spent 8 months without training. I tried everything I could to get back as soon as possible and I managed to get back in shape just in time for the u14 field hockey qualification rounds for nationals, which we unfortunately lost, not qualifing. Since then we have won Andalucian indoor chamionships 5 years in a row in 3 different categories ( u14,u16 and u18) went to several national chamionships both indoor and field and even had the honour of playing against the english U21 selection team (a HUGE honour!)

I still play hockey but now play in the senior division or over 18, which this year is with another team. I love my teammates and they have become like a family to me. They are some of my best friends, and with some of them I share classes such as my best friend sandra (pictured below). I literally see Sandra (almost) everyday. We do nearly everything together. We have even ended up in hospital together with the same injury (Best friend goals anyone?)

So yeah that's about it on hockey, I mean I could ramble on and on, but that would just bore you all... If you play or played hockey let me know! or if there is any other sport you love just as much as I love Hockey and need someone to talk to I am here as I understand you completly! Now I will leave you with another couple Hockey photos.

Bye!
                                                                       Simonexx

Padua, Venice & Milan

And I'm back!
This is the last part of my Italian trip.
First up is Padua or Padova.
We only spend half a day there as we where travelling through to get to Venice.
Padua was very cold but very beautiful. In some ways it looked a bit like venice with some canals running through the city. We didn't see much as we where only there a short time. We visited the church, the town square and the university. After visiting the church which had a lovely patio, my friends and I had a little photo session. After that we got back on the bus and continued our trip to Venice.

  

Venice:

When we got to our hotel it was dark,raining and freezing. So we quickly got inside and went to dinner, which for once was not terrible as it had a salad bar. After that I went to bed early aa my throat was on fire. So hoping I would get better I went to bed early. The next morning I still felt bad, but not wanting to miss Venice I went along anyway not knowing it was going to rain all day and I would be walking around with a fever.Venice, even tough it was raining and cold, was beautiful! I had seen a lot of pictures as anybody would but to just be there was unbelievable. It is truly a beautiful city. We had to be carefull as the city was flooding because of all the rain. I took quite a few pictures but not as many as I would like. I didn't take my camera with me as it was raining and honestly I felt very bad. We also had the bad luck that the most famous bridge was being renovated. I had more bad luck as we happened to have the best lunch of the entire holiday that day, just the day I could barely swallow a thing. But oh well, there are worst things in the world.

After lunch we walked around Venice some more visiting a classical music exhibition. In the evening we took a boat back to our hotel, where we had dinner and quickly shoved all my things in my suitcase as the next day we would be leaving for Milan from where we were going to fly back home.

Milan:

Now this is going to be short as I only went to the cathedral and the famous gallery before going to lunch and leaving for the airport. It was once again raining, like what is up with this country and rain? why does it have to rain the week we are there like seriously? So i took some pictures and sought shelter from the rain inside the gallery with some friends where we waited for the teachers to take us to the restaurant and then we went of to the airport, where we checked in and waited, and waited, and waited. (our flight got delayed.) When we got to Madrid we had to run and catch our next flight to Malaga which luckily hadn't left yet.

We got back home late at night and as I was still ill I went straight to bed.

Sorry for the picture overload.

So that's it for now. Hope you have an amazing day/ night!

Simonexx

Sienna, Pisa & Florence

Hello everybody,
As I stated in my previous post, I'm going to continue talking about my trip to Italy.

After 3 days in Rome we left on a long and boring bus trip to Florence with two stops, one in Sienna and the other in the worl famous Pisa.
I thought the journey was going to be extremely boring and long but it was surprisngly short. And the suroundingd where beautiful.

There not much I can say about Sienna as we only stopped there for 2 hours. But, as many other Italian cities it has an amazing cathedral build in a similar style as the one in Florence.

After a quick stop in Sienna which included a big slice of pizza and a forest fruit sorbet ice cream, it was time to grt back on the bus and continue our route to Pisa. Once we arrived there we had lunch next to the famous tower. As we went with a big group we where nearly always forced to stay together but after lunch we were told we had a couple off hours of free time untill our bus left to Florence. Obviously I decided to take a lot of pictures but I also used this time to buy souvenirs for my family and friends as there where many stalls with cheap and good souvenirs (Think magnets and keychains for 1€.) I personally found it hillarious to see all those people trying to take a good shot of them holding up the tower and failing miserably. I didn't take any pictures like that but I made a lot for friends.

You are able to climb the tower but it is quite expensive (18€), we did however visit the cathedral (shown above) which was generally the same as all the others but beautifull in it's own way.

After a long and tiring afternoon in Pisa it was time to get back on our bus and continue our journey to Florence. We got to the hotel at around 8 pm and went to our rooms to freshen up, after having dinner, ( that hadn't improved much from Rome) I went to bed early as I was tired from the long day and  had a headache (Cursing my body a lot for that). And besides we had a long day in Florence awaiting us. We only had one day there and there is a lot to see trust me.

Florence.

We started the day with breakfast(about the only actaul nice meal we got). To then leave towards the Florence city centre. Now I am a big fan of anything history related, so was naturally very excited about Florence, one of the righest european family (The Medici's) had lived there for centuries and there presence was still very visible. First we got a guided tour through the city, not my favourite thing as all was very rushed, but still nice. After lunch we visited the two mayor museums: the gallery of fine arts and the uffici( the Medici's old offices turned art museum.) which held some of the most famous work such as David by Michelangelo or the birth of Venus by Boticelli and some early works from Leonardo Da Vinci. Not only was the art beautiful, the building was a monument of it's own. As some of my friends study history of art, they could tell me all of the interesting and most characteristic things about everything we saw, and with that I mean everything! It was very interesting and entertaining.

                                               David just before defeating Goliath the giant.

                                                        The birth of Venus

The only bad luck we had was the weather, it was cold and it rained all day. But that didn't stop us. after visiting the museum we visted the last bridge from the middle ages still in tact as the germans had destroyed all the other ones in WWII. We also walked along the bridge that only has jewelry shops and saw the old secret passage ways the Medici's used. I'm going to stop talking about Florence now as I could probably fill 4 post with all the interesting facts.

You can't really apreciate Florence's real beauty as it was a forcast and grey day but still.

I will upload the last 3 cities I visited soon, though it might take a while as I severely bruised my hand playing hockey (just my luck) and now have only one hand to type which makes the entire process very slow and tiring. So please bare with me untill my hand is cured.

 Have an amazing day wherever you are!

xxSimonexx

All roads lead to Rome.

Well hello there,
It's been a while since I've written anything on this blog. The main reason is because I've been ill and had a lot on my mind, especially school related. This is my final year of an equivelent of A levels in England and I have alot of studying and projects to do that take a lot of time. But enough about my boring life, this blog is about the three days I recently spent in Rome. I went with school on a trip through the north of Italy. I went to Rome, Sienna, Pisa, Florence, Padua, Venice and Milan. Today I'm only going to talk about Rome in this blog post as there is a lot to see and tell about it. We spent three days there and walked so much I thought my feet where going to fall off.

Our flight left at 6:40 am from Malaga. we where flying to Madrid and from there on to Rome. Which meant I had to be at the airport at 4:40 am. which was way to early for my liking as in the summer when I work I finish around that hour. As I went with my school we were a large group of 47 students and 4 teachers, so there were many people staring at us all the time. The flight to Madrid was short but annoying as I was sat at the end of the plane right next to the engine which made a lot of noise. The only good thing was the beautiful sunrise we were able to see from the plane windows. This is not the best picture but I was on the other side of the plane. When we landed in Madrid we had to take a TRAIN to get to the other gate, because the airport is so big. I couldn't believe it at first as I had never been to such a big airport. The second plane we took from Madrid to Rome was a lot bigger and more comfortable, we had a tv each with a great variety of films. I watched the last harry potter movie,obviously, haha. As soon as we got to the airport and collected our bags we got on a bus and got a tour of Rome seeing all the major sights we would be visiting later on. After walking and driving around for hours we had dinner in a small restaurant. Too small for such a large group, we were very thight together and it was very hot. The food wasn't all that good either so not a great end to an amazing day. The hotel on the other hand was great. We had big bedrooms which I shared with 2 other girls from my class.

 The view from  Saint Angelo's castle.

 The view of the Colliseum and the Circo Maximo.







Day 2:
The second day we had a nice breakfast at the hotel before heading into Rome to walk around again and seeing many more things. The plan at first was to go visit the Vatican but that had to be posponed due to a sacred mass of the pope occuring that afternoon, meaning all museum are closed and there are a lot of people. One of the places we visited was the fontana di trevi, which is one of Europe's most famous fountains. The tradition is to trow a coin that has been gifted to you by someon over your left shoulder with your right hand. One coin to return to Rome, 2 coins to get married and 3 coins to get divorced. It is truly a beautiful fountain especially at night.

We also visited the teatro de Marcello and the mouth of the truth, which is a statue of a demon with its mouth open in which criminals were forced to put there hand when acused of a crime, a superior force would judge him and if guilty cut of his hand. If innocent nothing would happen.

Day 3:
On the last day of our stay in Rome we visited the Vatican and the Colliseum, Phanteon and the romand forum. It was a lot in one day and I ended up exhausted. I have never walked as much in my life and was glad to spent the next day in a bus travelling through Italy. The Vatican was very impresive and very beautiful. There were a lot of people so we didn't get to fully enjoy all of it but still I really enjoyed it. After lunch  we went to the old Roman part of Rome which holds the Colliseum, the old forum and the arc of constantine. We visited and climed the colliseum and then walked around the city untill dinner, buying some souvenirs or in my case Pizza al taglio, which i an awesome Italian invention. You buy a piece of pizza and pay for its weight not an established price. And we got some Italian Gelato cause you can't leave whitout eating some obviously.

The only thing that majorly dissapointed me about the trip was the food we got. We were all hoping for nice freshly made pasta and other italian things, but all we got was maccaroni with tomato sauce as a starter and a strange kind of meat with chips (fries, in america). Most times the maccaroni wasn't even cooked properly.
On the last night I had to rapidly had to shove all my stuff in my suitcase as we were leaving the hotel in Rome to go to Sienna, Pisa and stop at a hotel near Florence.
But I will write about those three places in another blog post as this one is getting rather long.

Hope you liked it and enjoy the rest of your day/night where ever you are

xxSimone

Tarifa.

Hi guys!

Here I am again, today I'm going to talk about my trip to Tarifa, in the south of spain.
I went to Tarifa, Cadiz at the end of august this year, after my trip to london was cancelled. I went there together with my parents and my sister. Eventough we only went for 4 days I had a lot of fun. Tarifa is a typicall surfers town. The atmosphere is amazing! It's so relaxed and laid-back, surfboards everywhere and guys with dreadlocks and "Hippie vans". One of the things that caught my eyes the most was the fact that in nearly all restaurants and bars dog where welcome. Now we didn't bring our dog but she would have loved it! The apartment we where staying at was really basic but perfect because it was literally 200m from the beach. I love going to the beach so I spend most of my time there. Apart from the beaches and surfing, Tarifa also offers some big landmarks of the spanish history. It's also an amazing place to go out at night. The main road offers a big variety of restaurants. We found a really good italian restaurant by coincidence. It was in one of the small side streets near the main square, It's very small but really homie and tumblr if you know what I mean. the tables and chairs where made out of wood and there was an old surfdocumentary on a tv in one of the corners. They had hung mason jars of different sizes with spices from the sealing which looked magical. maybe you don't like these kind of things, but I am a sucker for cute, romantic and family owned restaurants and bars. And most times the food is better then in a fancy restaurant. I had a salmon and rucula pizza that tasted amazing! I wasn't sure about my choice at first but it turned out to be a very good choice! The restaurant is called Ninén and you should defenitely check it out if you ever go to tarifa. Another restaurant I liked was once again italian (Yes I like Italian food, get over it!) we went there on our first night and I had Gnocci with tomato sauce, mozarrella, parmesan cheese and basil. And the first night it was amazing but when we went back a few nights later and I decided to get the same thing, there was barely any tomato sauce and way to much parmesan cheese. I don't really like parmesan cheese but this was even to much for my sister, who ADORES all types of cheese. What bothered me the most was when I told the waitress kindly at the end of the night, she just brushed me of and looked at me with a dirty look. I normally don't like talking badly about things but I tought I should share this just incase you go there. All the other dishes my parents and sister had where very good, so I would recommend going there just don't eat the gnocci with tomato sauce and cheese, unless you love mountains of cheese then go ahaid :)

One of the things I did and was most looking forward to was going surfing. I've always wanted to go surfing but never had the change, untill now. The first day I went together with my dad and I spend more time in the water then actually on the surfboard. But I still really liked so I went again, this time alone. My dad took pictures and I look like a right pro (NOT)

The thing that shocked me the most at first, was how cold the water was, eventough it was the middle of the summer. One of the things Tarifa is also known for is that at a certain point the mediterranean sea and the atlantic ocean touch. So on one side of this island you have the mediterranean sea and on the other side you have the atlantic ocean. Now the atlantic ocean is very cold but the mediterranean isn't, So the change is quite strange.

But there are many more activities apart from surfing, going to the beach and visiting sites. For example you can take day trips to marroco, you go on a ferry, see some famous things ride a camel etc. Another thing I really like is the fact you can go on a boat trip to spot dolphins and wales. Now lots of people think this is animal abuse but it's the opposite. The companies that do these kind of excursion are mostly organisations about sea animal wellfare. They show people the dangers of the ferries and explain all the hard facts. I love animals especially dolphins, so this was one thing I enjoyed very much. The people where very friendly and they loved there job. I bought a pair of very cute dolphin earrings, half the money went to charity so it was a double good cause (New jewelry and helping a charity.) We didn't see any dolphins unfortunately but we saw a lot of pilot whales and other sea animals.

To conclude this blog, I would really recomend going if you like relaxed seaside towns. It has been infuenced slightly by tourist and all the attention but it's still very nice and typicall spanish.

Sorry if this was not my best post I'm quite busy at the moment as I am in my last year of a equivalent of A levels in England and it's very stressfull. I also want to apologise again for any spelling mistakes I make as I'm not english.

Hope you enjoyed my story about Tarifa and it was helpfull if you ever go.
See you soon and have a nice day/night wherever you are.

xxSimone23

How to deal with moving!

Hello people!

It's my 7 year anniversary of living in Spain!! Well actually it was 2 days ago but I forgot to post it so I'm posting it today, hope you enjoy!!

So as a continuation of my previous post I tought I'd give some tips and tricks that worked for me when I got the news I was moving to Spain.

1. Talk about it with someone. Even if it is just to have a shoulder to cry on. You will feel a lot better if you have someone to talk about and who can maybe help you. Don't have anyone? You can always talk to me!

2. Make a list with advantages and disadvantages. Even if you have way more disadvantages. This gives you a clear view of all the thing that are going to change and you can focus on just the good stuff, trust me it works. Altough we shouldn't just forget about the bad things, because you'd be lying to yourself.

3. Keep a journal or diary during the moving process. Or longer if you allready have one. This way you can rage about all the hings you feel and think without hurting anyone around you. Especially your parents.

4. Do the things you wanted to do and won't be able to do anymore when you leave. Like go to your favourite restaurant, to the beach, take a walk trough a forest, you name it. Just go all out because you deserve it.

5. Trow a goodbye party for yourself, or if you have an awesome friend who loves organizing things let him/her do it. Don't do it for the fact your leaving, use it as an excuse to have one more epic party with all your closest friends and family. I had a sleepover with my closest friends, we covered the floor of our (empty) living room with matresses and just talked, danced and laughed all day. If you are older (remember I was 11 when I moved) you can go to a club and just go crazy. Do what you want, it's your party.

6. Look up information about the city/country/town your moving to. Interesting history, things to do etc. You can also look for things in close proximity, like this you have things to look forward to. It makes it less boring when you don't know anyone or anything. This can also be a good thing to make friends.

7. Now this one depends on if your moving to a different country or not. If you aren't then try and find a sport or club that interests you, this is one of the easiest and most entertaining ways to make friends, because you allready have one thing in common. If you do move to a different country, thsi is a little difficult as most times you won't now the language yet. But as I have learned trough experience, the fastest way of learning a new language is simply talking to people. Because if they only speak their mother tongue, which they most times do, you'll have no other choice then to speak their language.

8.And most importantly, even if you may not be moving by choice and your parents or family are forcing you to go. Don't get mad at them, even if you want to, vent about it in your diary or on a blog, but keep your family close because you will soon realise that as soon as you've moved, they are the only people you will now and you need them to help you trough the hard moments. Because even though you might think it's not all that bad, or I make it out to be, it can be very hard at times. I'm not going to sugar coat anything. Sometimes moving away can feel amazing and sometimes it sucks, and when it sucks it sucks big time and you feel very sad or angry. It's in these moments that you will need your family, because they are going trough the same thing as you.

I know this was shorter then usual but I just wanted to give you guys some tips that helped me. If any of you that read my blog ever need someone to talk to, don't hesitate to send me a message or leave a comment and I will do everything I can to try and help you!

Have an amazing Night/ Day wherever you are and I will write soon!

xxSimone

The perks of moving.

Hello again!

So one of the main reasons of me writing and creating this blog was wanting to help people with a maybe difficult situation such as moving to a different country or just a different town. I've always liked writing and have been quite good at expressing myself trough stories and things I made up. But now instead of making up a story I'm going to talk about what happened and how I felt when my parents told me the news that turned my life upside down.

I was 11 years old and my family and I had gone on a trip to Spain, at first I tought it was just a holiday but it turned out to be so much more. My parents had been thinking about leaving our live in The netherlands behind and changing it for something else a different place. After much debating they decided on Malaga, Andalucia in the south of Spain. When they told my sister and I, I didn't want to believe it, why would I want to leave everything I knew behind to start over? I had all my life figured out, or at least thats what I thought of course nobody knows what your future is going to be like at 11 years old. My sister took the news even worse then me, she cried for ages and refused pint blank to go. She obviously didn't have a choise as she was only 8 years old.

The entire process of moving was very blurry, busy and confusing. My parents sold our old house in September, they had allready bought a house in Spain, in the middle of nowhere. I said goodbye to al my daily things, friends and family, they where all very suportive but that didn't make it easier for me. On November the 16th my mom, my sister, my dog and I got on a plane and left The Netherlands behind. It was only a 3 hour flight to Spain but at that time it felt like an eternity, maybe because I didn't want to get there or maybe just because I hate flying.
The house my parents had bought was a very old farm that had been abandoned for over 3 years. We had nothing only a few beds and the essentials. The garden and orchard where overrun with herbs, and the house was old and dusty. My parents and grandparents spent months cleaning and fixing everything. Only to find out in the first winter that the entire roof was broken and it was leaking everywhere. That obviously was the winter with the most rain recorded in the last 25 years. Just our luck.

After about a few weeks in Spain my parents enrolled us in a local spanish school. It was very strange and very scary, I didn't understand anyone and they didn't understand me. But I learned things fast and I made a few good friends. But still I missed my old life and kind of wanted to go back. But after accepting that was not going to happen I accepted the fact I would stay here for a long time. I started seeing the good things of moving, I had a change to start over.

I obviously have many more stories and tips but I will tell you about those in another post. Also sorry if I have any spelling mistakes, English is, as you probably guessed, not my mother tongue. If you do happen to find any mistakes feel free to tell me, I'm always open for constructive criticism.

Have a great night/day wherever you are and I will speak to you soon!

xxSimone