The return to Ronda

The return to beautiful Ronda this time was strictly business. More or less. Around February, my journalistic self got to searching for English-speaking newspapers here in southern Spain that might offer me an opportunity to do a little bit of writing abroad. I stumbled upon The Olive Press, a bi- weekly or "fortnightly" publication that is based out of Andalucia! Perfect, right? I got in touch with the editor, Jon, not completely expecting a reply, however received an enthusiastic invitation to come and do a month-long internship with the paper! Jon is a British ex-pat who runs the paper, which appeals to the large number of ex-pats in southern Spain as well as the entire population of Gibraltar, ha. Although I can't exactly take off a month from school here (or maybe I could, who knows with Spain) to go live in Ronda and write, I organized a mini-introduction to the paper this past Thursday and Friday, kind of a test run to see if I would like it. Although the two day stint was quite enjoyable, the days leading up to it were quite frustrating ( I swear, Spain is making me more impatient/schedule and detail-oriented (thanks Mom for the latter))...

Of course, like a lot of Spain life, my trip wasn't confirmed/slightly detailed until Wednesday afternoon, where I learned that the paper is actually in an even smaller town, Arriate, a few km outside of Ronda that I would have to take another bus to. So all I knew at this point was that I was going to Ronda on the 10 am bus, catching some bus to Arriate, trying to find a place to spend the night and finally ending up at the office of The Olive Press. Getting to Ronda and then Arriate as I found was pretty easy, and after arriving (and asking for directions/backtracking a little), I found the suggested pension where I could spend the night. Problem was, there was no vacancy. So now here I was in Arriate, with no where to stay, no clue where the paper office was and Jon wasn't answering his phone. Since I have a pay-as-you-go plan here, I hate calling more than I have to, because it can get pretty pricey, but I finally got in touch with him and he sent the reporter, Wendy to come pick me up! After I hopped in the car, we then proceed to drive 10 minutes out into the countryside of southern Spain, a little strange when I thought we were heading to a newspaper office. Turns out, it was exactly the right direction, as Wendy explained to me while we pulled up, that Jon runs the newspaper out of his house and the office is in fact a converted cow shed. HA. The entire time, I was imagining a fairly large staff and a nice, professional office--the small staff of 5 and the cow shed were quite the surprise.

Despite the small-scale initiative, Jon has built a paper that is one of the most successful English-speaking newspapers in Spain! Just by looking at the website, you can tell that he knows professionalism. After the few brief introductions, I was straight to work, something else I wasn't entirely expecting. Since I came towards the end of preparing for the next issue, everyone was busy busy and over the course of Thursday afternoon and Friday, I helped to write about 12-13 briefs--mostly skimming previous news articles and either translating or summarizing them into new briefs. It was interesting to do this way, as well as learn the slightly different format of journalism (considering the entire staff are a bunch of Brits)! And not to fear, I found somewhere to stay--Wendy has an extra cot in here piso in Ronda, so she graciously let me spend the night there. We went out for tapas and too many beers with the other reporter James Thursday night, and by the end of the night met up with Wendy's friends who were hilarious to say the least. I really enjoyed getting to talk to Wendy and James about a lot of things per usual, Spanish, American films/TV shows, NCAA basketball and journalism. On Friday, it was a bit of an early morning, but I spent the day writing just a few briefs and mostly catching up on my personal blog and surfing the web (oops). My bus left for Sevilla at 6 pm, so I clocked out right around 5 pm and had Wendy drive me back to Ronda. Quite the successful trip, I would say!

Having the opportunity to work with The Olive Press was all in all a great experience, and I have been talking to Jon about hopefully coming back in June to do a few more weeks of work. Not only is this internship a resume booster, but I've already managed to get some stuff published (fingers crossed) and I wasn't even there two full days! I was a little skeptical about it at first, but after my two-day excursion, I know that the internship possibility is definitely something I want to make happen. Besides, how could I turn down the opportunity to live in GORGEOUS Ronda? The answer is quite clear there I think.