Hola a todos, I hope that everyone has had a wonderful summer holiday! As A-level language students, we are always told to immerse ourselves into the culture and language outside of our studies. Because of this, for the Spanish Corner’s first instalment of the school year, I would like to share with you some Spanish-related things which I have done during the Summer.
Despite not having gone to Spain or any Spanish-speaking countries this holiday, that didn’t stop me from seeing my Spanish friends. I had the opportunity to see a friend that Sophia and I made at the Company of Mary school in Granada from our residential trip earlier this year. It was wonderful to see her again, and it was also a great opportunity for me to practice my Spanish.
At the beginning of the Summer, I was lucky enough to attend a Camila Cabello concert, and it was absolutely amazing to watch a live performance of someone whom I’ve studied about in my A levels! There is a whole topic about the influence of idols on modern-day young people in the Spanish course, and I remember writing in a previous article for the Spanish Corner about my favourite songs from her. The show was absolutely fantastic. My current favourite song from her is “Hasta los dientes” — I was listening to this one throughout my holiday to Wuhan this year. The chorus is very catchy.
As always, I have been keeping in contact with my penpals from Buenos Aires (Argentina), San Fernando (Spain), and Granada. Fortunately, my penpal from San Fernando has moved to the UK for university this Summer, so hopefully we will finally be able to meet each other soon in real life. We’ve actually never met before, despite having talked to each other for the past two and a half years online (as well as by letter—thank you to one of my friends, and Mr Fernandez).
I was very intrigued by my Argentinian friend’s rioplatense accent, so I started listening to an Argentinian podcast named ‘Traé Alfajores’. I really enjoy it, as it touches on a lot of details of Argentinian culture. I would absolutely love to visit Argentina one day, so it is very useful and interesting to me. Interestingly enough, I actually tried some ‘Alfajores’ during my holiday to Barcelona earlier this year (they’re like little pastries), and I would highly recommend them.
I’ve always adored poetry, and this Summer I read a couple of pieces from Spanish-speaking poets. There is a contemporary poet named Celia Martinez whom I originally admired for her poems in English, but she recently started posting online some poems in Spanish too, and they are absolutely beautiful! I think she only has poetry books in English though, so hopefully she’ll write a Spanish one someday. I also read a few pieces from and watched an online lecture about Jorge Guillén, a poet who writes all about the celebration of life. I really liked his work, and I would love to dedicate a future instalment of the Spanish Corner about his poetry.
To finish off, I wanted to talk about a wonderful meal that I had at a Spanish restaurant named ‘Don Luis’ which is in Esher—the food there is absolutely wonderful! I’m pretty sure that I’ve written an article about this restaurant on the Spanish corner already, and with very good reason. This is definitely my favourite Spanish restaurant, and the atmosphere is just lovely. I ordered some padron peppers (pimientos de padrón), a Spanish omelette (tortilla española), as well as what the owner of the restaurant deemed “the best cheesecake in the UK”. (It was.)
Thank you for reading this article! I look forward to writing more this year about interesting topics in Spanish culture with the other A-level Spanish students. As always, if anyone would like to contribute an article about something which interests them about Spanish, please send an email to Mr Fernandez at aafernandez@notredame.co.uk.
Gracias por leer, y hasta luego!
