Erasmus Pamplona
Curated by Davide Capozzi, class 1^E
1)The city of Pamplona
- Pamplona is the chief town of Navarre, in northern Spain, and it is mainly known for the “Encierro”, an event held in the city during the nine-day festival of Saint Firmin, patron of Pamplona, where people run in front of a group of bulls, and for being a stop in the Camino of Santiago, a pilgrimage still popular in modern times.
- Concerning its monuments, there are the splendid gothic cathedral of Pamplona, whose cloister and internal parts I visited, the neoclassical Palace of Navarra, headquarter of the government of Navarre, a 5-kilometer long defensive city wall, which I walked pleasanty several times, and a baroque city hall, where the Feast of Saint Fermin begins.
2.1) The school experience
- Regarding the school experience, I went to the I.E.S Padre Moret and I was warmly welcomed by both the teachers and the classmates, who made me feel at home. In this school the only different subject from mine was Technology, so, at first, this was the most difficult one for me to understand. Fortunately for me, History and Physical Education were in English, which helped me especially at the beginning.
- The most remarkable differences between this school and mine are the greater length of the break (30 minutes), the informality between students and teachers, who are called by their names, the fact that students usually move to other classes to do different lessons and the presence of some mandatory activities, called learning situations (situaciones de aprendizaje), to put in practice what learned in class; for instance, some of these activities I participated in and which I really appreciated were the writing of the front page of a journal on the assassination of the archduke Franz Ferdinand, casus belli of the First World War, and the drafting of a diary as a soldier in the trenches.
2.2) The school experience
- Gradually, thanks also to the help of my classmates, the lessons became more comprehensible and I was able to fit in more. Also, I always tried to do the exams like the rest of the class when the teachers proposed me to do so, to test myself with new challenges. Through this experience, I have enhanced my capacity of attention, my fluency in English, and, according to what my classmates told me, I have also developed a good initial level of Spanish.
3) The family experience
- Regarding the family experience, it was all perfect and I truly can’t find any flaws on this aspect. Besides Pablo, the Spanish guy who hosted me, his parents and his little brother, Alejo, I met all the other members of the family, who were kind, welcoming, warm, spontaneous and altruist, in family gatherings and I especially connected with the uncles, the grandmother and the great-aunt of Pablo, with whom I had lunch several times during my five weeks of permanence.
- I also tried to bring a bit of Italian cuisine in my house, cooking with the aid of Pablo pasta with tomato sauce, pasta carbonara and spaghetti omelette. In the same way, I got the opportunity to taste Spanish dishes, such as local peppers (pimientos), sausages (cistorras) and omelettes (tortillas).
- On weekends, I went to Estella, the hometown of Pablo’s father, to Leon, the hometown of Pablo’s mother, where I visited its magnificent cathedral, the national park Nacedero del Rio Urederra, with its turquoise water and beautiful landscapes, and to a local farm of Pablo’s father’s friends, when the other Italian guys and I, alongside our respective companions, helped to pick apples to make cider, an alcoholic beverage created from the fermentation of the apples.
- Furthermore, I was brought to the stadium twice to watch the matches of the city football team, the Osasuna, and I once saw a football match of Pablo’s little brother.
←Pablo and I at Victoria airport.
← Pablo and I at Pamplona stadium.
← Pablo and I in front of the church of
Saint Michael in Estella.
← Pablo, Nicola (an Italian classmate of mine),
Iker(the Spanish guy who hosted Nicola) and I
in front of Leon Cathedral.
← Pablo, Nicola, Iker, Pablo’s friends and I eating tapas (small Spanish dishes served with drinks) in Leon.
←Pablo and I preparing the
ingredients
for pasta carbonara.
←Me in front of a riverfall in the national
park Nacedero del Rio Urederra.
←Me picking apples to make cider.
←Nicola, Niccolò (another Italian guy in Erasmus) and I having lunch with
the other people who helped collecting apples for the cider.
“There is no joy in owning without sharing.”
Erasmus of Rotterdam