di After be back in Italy and spent the Christmas holiday with my family and friends I felt the necessity to leave, just for few weeks, in order to reflect about my future and organize my journey steps.
I would have preferred any country and any type of work, I only needed to get out. I was really happy to have met my family and friends after so much time, nearly six months, but I felt a foreigner in a place where everyone was doing something, studying of working, but I didn’t have nothing planned to do there. This, since I left Italy in july, has been one of my worry: “What I would have done after my South American journey?”.
I didn’t want to remain in Milan without doing nothing and losing the precious time I had conquered last year. So I decided to take the first opportunity and work experience available: working as a receptionist in an hostel in Cordoba, Spain.
For this little Spanish journey I didn’t set any goals: I just wanted to improve my Spanish and to organize my future journey steps.
The 6th of January really calmly I left for the Iberian peninsula. I was unexpectedly relaxed even if I didn’t know neither with whom I would have spent this month nor where I would have slept. Travelling I learnt to adapt myself to quite all the conditions and to be ready to change in any moment.
After the flight Milan-Malaga and three hours of bus to Cordoba, I arrived to Bed and Be hostel in the city center of the town.
As usually happened at the beginning of any volunteering experience, the first week was the most difficult because I had to get used to a new work rhythm and to adapt yourself to a new place. I got to know the volunteers and workers, more than fifteen people from all over Europe and South America, and to orientate myself in this big hostel with more than 40 beds and 4 floors.
After the first week of training I began to work alone. The volunteer’s work (25 hours per week divided into 5 shifts) was divided into three working shifts: the “night shift”, working in the reception from 8:30pm to 12pm; The “morning shift”, preparing the breakfast and assisting the guests from 7:15am to 12am; and last but not least the “morning support” from 10:30am to 3:30pm that consisted in preparing the beds after the check out and to clean the stairs.
The most interesting thing of this hostel, that was different from the one I worked in Argentina, was the relation with the guests: We spent so much time together from the breakfast to the free sangria party each day. In few days I knew people from all over the world with unbelievable stories: A Brazilian girl who was working as a freelance translating documents for companies, a Peruvian guy who was paying his stay in Spain by singing his flute in the streets and lots of people who were coming there in order to try to change their lives.
During my free days, two per week, I visited the most important cities in Andalucia (Sevilla, Malaga and Granada). It was an opportunity to visit this region and also to get out from the hostel that, even if it was a really motivating place, after two weeks has become quite oppressing because it was the same place for both work and life.
In each working experience the most interesting place is where volunteers stay. I shared my “room”, a big warehouse at the third floor, with two volunteers: Lucas (el boludo), an argentinian guy who left his country two years ago to work and live in Europe, and Colin, a Belgian guy who, I discovered after more than a week, is one of the most important rapper (SEYTE’) in his country. The characteristics of this bedroom in addition to have the windows that were like sheet of papers because We could hear everything was happened outside, were the coat rack that were used as divisor for the beds.
The best thing about the life in the hostel was sharing: for the lunch one of the volunteer, without being appointed by no one but just happy to cook for the others, cooked something sharing freely the food he/she bought.
For the first time since I have begun my journey I found myself in a really inspiring place full of travelers that were travelling around the world. The majority of them were freelancer that thank to their work they managed to travel.
Due to my work I got a shared bedroom, cold but confortable, the breakfast and the dinner. The last one was prepared each night by one of the volunteers for the guests who paid it three euros. All the profit was the volunteer who cooked through which managed to delete his/her expense and also to gain something. It was possible to gain between 20 and 50 euros each night.
I prepared for the guest Pizza that, even if it was not a five stars pizza, was appreciate by the guests.
After four weeks I prepared my backpack and I left, proud to have lived another beautiful experience that, even if was not such a difficult experience as the one I lived before, taught me a lot. It was really inspiring because it opened my mind and I saw that was possible to work travelling.
ITALIAN VOLUNTEER 