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Welcome to the Travel Transformation Podcast, the podcast where we talk all things travel and all things transformation. I'm your host, Jessica Grace Coleman – or Jess – and today is going to be a solo episode, but it's not going to be a quick solo episode like some of the ones we've done recently. I have a fear it's going to go on a long time and I might even have to make this into a two-parter, but we'll see how it goes.

I'm still travelling. I'm still using my tiny little mic, so sorry if the sound quality isn't as good as it usually is. I'm in Switzerland. I got here yesterday after a long travel day. I flew from San Sebastian to Madrid, then had a six-hour layover, then flew from Madrid to Zurich, stayed over in Zurich for a night in the Easy Hotel and then got an Uber to a little… I don't know if it's a village, a hamlet… I think it's a hamlet called Fahrweid. People speak German here, so it might be Far-vide. I'm sorry if I'm completely butchering that pronunciation.

It's about 20 minutes’ ride from my hotel in Zurich, and I'm here to cat sit for a month. So I'm cat-sitting a lovely cat called Mr. B. He is sitting next to me as I record this, and yeah, it's a lovely apartment. It's a friend of a friend who I met last year in Spain, and I'm going to meet up with that friend Lydia this weekend, hopefully in Zurich. So that'll be nice.

So, yeah, that's where I am currently, and I thought I'd do a round-up episode of my time in the Basque Country. I was going to do one of my entire time in Spain, which is five weeks, but I think that would definitely go on to two, maybe three episodes. So I'm going to do a separate one for the week after the pop-up. This one is just going to be for the pop-up. 

And I just want to give you an idea of what it's like if you've never stayed in a coliving house for a month, if you've never worked remotely and travelled, if you want to be a digital nomad, or at least want to try the lifestyle and you don't know really what it entails or what it could entail, I thought this might be helpful.

Last year, I didn't really make any notes on what we were doing day to day, and I kind of regretted that for this very reason because I thought it would be quite helpful. So, this year, I wrote all the notes on Google Keep. So my phone, on my desktop… not my desktop, I don't have a desktop, my laptop, my MacBook… I made little notes for every day and I think they started out quite little and then they got more and more detailed as time went on. So I'm basically just going to read through those notes because I think it might help you, like I said – and hopefully it won't take forever, but if it does, I will split this episode in two, so we'll see how it goes.

Let me get my notes up. Okay, so it actually didn't fit into one whole note on Google Keep. I'm not sure what the limit is, but I had to do it in two notes; that's how much I wrote. So, yeah, hopefully you'll find this interesting and not boring… but let's start.

So, Thursday, 27th May, I flew from Manchester to Bilbao. I got in quite late, so I had already pre-booked a car through Booking.com and I went to the hotel, which is the one I went to last year, which is the Pension Ama Bilbao – I think I'm saying that right… pension… I don't know how you pronounce that, but that basically means guest house in Spain. And the next day I tried to have a lie-in because I'd had a very busy time leading up to this, trying to get all my work done – well, as much as I could do before coming – and all the packing and everything you inevitably have to do before you go travelling. So I was very tired, so I was like, I'm going to have a lie-in.

But, unfortunately, the cleaning lady was convinced that I was checking out that day and that I was late checking out, so she kept knocking on my door. She was really annoyed. I tried to explain that I wasn't checking out till tomorrow. She didn't believe me. She eventually sort of went ‘ugh’ and walked off, so I accidentally made a little bit of an enemy there. But I did double-check that I hadn't accidentally booked one night instead of two.

I did some work. I went for a walk around and had a look in some shops. I wanted to find the Erotic Waffle shop that was there last year, but sadly, it was gone. And, after some research, I found out that they – at least the chain, one of the stores – had done an Erotic Waffle Nativity display the Christmas before and it had not gone down well. Primarily Catholic country, I'm not surprised. So that wasn't there, sadly, but I got some food from the local supermarket and went back to the hotel. 

And then, at 9.30, I went and met Kiana – my first housemate that I met – at the Nueva Plaza, which I went to last year and would go again this year several times before my month was out for drinks and pintxos. It was nice to meet her. She is Iranian, but she lives in Manchester, and we had almost got the same flight out – but I decided to come a night early so I didn't have to get up super ridiculously early in the morning to get it. And I actually paid for another hotel room, another night at the hotel, just to avoid that. Then I went back to the hotel, very tired, and went to sleep. 

Friday 29th, I checked out of the hotel, left my case there, and went to the Guggenheim Museum with Kiana. I'd been there the year before, and it was great. The building is so interesting and wonderful, and they had some nice exhibitions. There was this room with mirrors and lights everywhere, which was really cool. We had lunch at the Guggenheim and then I left Kiana to look around some more. She was going to the house later and I got an Uber back to my hotel, met two more of my housemates – Kinga and Cecilia – and we got an Uber to the villa. It's an amazing, huge villa with a pool, big garden, beautiful surroundings.

It is on a main road, so that's the only issue, but I loved it last time and I knew I'd love it again this time.

We unpacked. I met Eva, who was a host last year; it was nice to see her again. Then I went and saw Colin, who was the donkey across the road, who I loved last year. And this year his fence had sort of fallen down a bit so we could actually get into his field, and he would often be out of his field on the little path. So we got to see him a lot. Gave him lots of carrots and some cuddles – well, a few carrots, lots of cuddles – and little did I know that this was the start of a whole thing with Colin, who I named last year, and it stuck. But that is in a separate episode. You can check out episode 53, The Ballad of Colin the Donkey, to get more info on that. 

Then I went back and met everyone. We had lots of pizza, lots of wine. Basil and Bjorn were two housemates that I knew from last year, and it was nice to see them again. I went to bed around two, but I probably got to sleep around three, and at half two, I could hear Colin the donkey, hee-hawing in the field. And it's kind of heartbreaking because it sounds like he's braying out for a donkey friend. But, yeah, that was the first day in the villa. 

My notes say Saturday 30th: hungover, but believe me, this was not the most hungover I would get in that house this year by far. We went to a local fair with the group and then we decided to hike to a viewpoint overlooking the Bay of Biscay. And it was really beautiful, the scenery, the view… amazing. But I didn't know we were going for a hike, so I wasn't exactly dressed for it. And I had very cheap Primark Converse on and it was very steep, lots of rocks, so that was interesting. It was a great view. 

We tried to go for lunch after that at this restaurant on the beach, but it was full and they were about to chuck people out for siesta. So that's another thing you have to take into account. A lot of places close at two, three, or four and don't open again until six, seven, or eight… you never know. This is Spanish time. People are very relaxed about opening times. So, yeah, have to take that into account. 

We went back to the hotel and then I took Kathy, who was a housemate from New York, to the local cheesecake place. We were obsessed with this place last time and it had an amazing Basque cheesecake there and it sadly wasn't quite the same this time. I think they got someone else making it, but it's still good. We walked back the long way via the boardwalk and then stopped off to see Colin. I didn't have any food for him, but he let me properly hug him. It was amazing, but it's really sad to see him as he watches you walk away, because he sort of follows you and he's on a tether and it's quite a short tether at times, and it's all just very heartbreaking.

We then had a family food meeting, which we do every week. We got put into groups for cooking and then we decided what we'd be cooking that week. There weren't many chefs in the group this time, so not many volunteers to be head chef. And two of the groups, including mine, decided on having a Mexican taco/tortilla night. We actually asked ChatGPT what we should cook. We said how many people there were in the house, dietary requirements, that we wanted it easy, quick, fun, and tasty, and it gave us this idea, so we did that. But yeah, another group were doing the same, so we branded ours as Swedish Night because Cecilia – who was on my team – is Swedish, and she said that they eat tacos a lot. So it's all about the branding, guys. We had some food. Everyone else was drinking, but I wasn't because I was hungover, and I went to bed a lot earlier than the day before.

Okay, I'm going to have to try and speed this up because I am on, like, day three, and I've still got so many notes. Okay, Monday the 1st, I got up, got ready, put some washing in – they have a washer and dryer there – and then settled in the main living area to get some work and life admin done at the dining table. They have a focus room upstairs, but they have a dining table, which a lot of people work at, too. You can work a lot around the house, in your room, wherever you want.

At three, I had a break to go to the cheesecake place again with Basil and Kiana via the boardwalk, and we stopped to see Colin again. We saw lots of dogs, chickens, goats… Colin ran over to me and so did a load of dogs that we passed. And Kiana said it was like going for a walk with a Disney princess, with me talking to all the wildlife. And lots of people called me the Animal Whisperer and the Donkey Whisperer while I was there, but I just love animals so much. 

Then we had cheesecake again, better this time, but still not the OG. And we had calimocho, which is half red wine, half Coke, and it is very tasty and very dangerous. Then we went back to the house and had a family meeting, which we were doing every two weeks, where we organised the social and professional events for the next fortnight.

I'm also on a main road, sorry if you can hear the cars. Then we went to Guernica for pintxos and drinks. Some of us walked in, which takes about an hour, though it's a nice walk along the boardwalk, along the river. On the way, we stopped to see Colin, and when we left, he started running around in circles and hee-hawing and it was just really, really sad. 

We went to one bar, then another. We had patatas bravas, burgers, hot dogs… it's hard to get veggie food over there, so I end up eating a lot of potatoes, honestly – a lot of tortilla, eggs, and potatoes, bread… Yeah. I drank more calimocho and we played Never Have I Ever. Honestly, being in a coliving is like being back at uni. You're working rather than studying, but everything else is the same. The drinking games, the social activities… only this time we have more professional events and it's a lot more focused on mindset and self-growth and personal development, which I didn't have at uni. Otherwise, it's totally like being back in uni, being in halls. So, very fun. 

We managed to get a taxi back with Kathy using Google Translate and texting our taxi guy on WhatsApp. One of our other housemates, Denis, who was home… he had to come and pick the other people up in his car. We had another drink at the house in one of the little sofa nooks in the main living area – it’s a very cute area – and then went to bed. I could hear Colin again in the field because it's right across the road. Very sad.

Tuesday, 2nd May. Tired and hungover. This seems to be a theme. I put ‘need to start going to bed earlier.’ This was the theme last year too. So I got up later than usual, and went to see Colin. They're doing some construction work and there's a big pile of rubble in his field and they're digging stuff up. And Colin, a lot of the time, was just sitting or lying down next to this giant heap of rubble. It was very sad.

I went to the ATM to get money out for the house. We were paying, I think, €150 every two weeks, which included all the booze – which was incredible because we drank a lot and we even got some money back at the end, a refund for like €15, I think. Then we went to the pharmacy. Well, I went to the pharmacy to get some stuff for me and Kiana. I saw Colin again on the way back. I had to walk past him again because of the roadworks; it took me off the main road and it took me forever to leave because he kept running after me – so sad. 

I went back to the house, I sorted out the food order when it came – so they deliver it and we go and sort it all out into our teams – and then I worked until half five when Isa, our housemate from Brazil, did her skillshare/workshop, which was Playfulness 101. It was really fun. Colin was mentioned a lot. We had Castle Colin and Colin's house when we had to make structures out of things in the room. And I drew a pic of someone with a #savecolin shirt on. So we had little prompts and little exercises, and I had a prompt to write a fortune cookie fortune – one that would become a universal truth. So no pressure. And I came up with: ‘The fortune cookie is not always right. Be your own fortune cookie. Snap when you want to.’ So profound.

I sorted out some photos and we then had dinner. Kiana’s team did an Iranian dish, which was very nice, and we played Rose and Thorn, which is something we played for the entire first two weeks, which was your highlight and lowlight of the day. We didn't eat until about 10:00 p.m. because cooking takes a long time in that house, especially if you have to wait until after professional events and stuff. And cooking for a large amount of people every night… it can get pretty late. But you know, that is Spanish eating time. Anyway, that's fine. After that, we played card games and I went to bed as it was getting quite late. 

Wednesday the 3rd – got up, went straight to see Colin. Someone had moved his tether so he was able to be in his little house – he’s got a little concrete house. I could see him from my window in my room and I looked out and I saw him, his little head poking out. It was very cute. He was following me around like a puppy dog, which is very cute and quite sad.

I came back, did some work in the focus room, and then at noon I went with Denis and Cecilia, my cooking team, to Lidl and Mercado in Guernica to get some last-minute ingredients for dinner, some stuff that didn't get delivered, and some toiletries and some food for Colin. I came back, did more work, met up to do some chopping and prep for dinner – because it was our dinner night – and then I went to Denis’ mastermind, which was all about how to trust the people you work with, how to scale a business, how to outsource. Basically, one person comes with an issue they want help solving or help coming up with ideas, and everyone gives their own opinion, tells about their experience, and all that kind of thing. 

Then it was time for our taco night, or our Swedish night. We ate outside as it was a really hot day and a nice evening, and we had some wine. Some people stayed outside and danced to music, but the Introvert Club – which is me, Basil and Bjorn, and Barbara, but Barbara, sadly, wasn't here this year – went inside to play tiny Jenga. Cecilia and Kathy joined us for a bit, then I went to bed.

Thursday the 4th. I got up early-ish and saw Colin out the window, but waited to go see him because there was meant to be an animal rescue guy coming to see him that day, which he didn't. I think he went the next day. But basically, this lady – Germaine from the Netherlands – had fallen in love with Colin and had set in motion… well, she'd gone to a local animal place, animal shelter, Basondo, which I'd been to the year before, and had asked if there was anything they could do to help Colin, as she was worried about him. So she asked this guy to come and check him out. Anyway, he didn't come that day; he did come the next day.

At lunchtime, we had a roundtable outside talking about ChatGPT and AI, which was really interesting. I did some work, I recorded some podcast episodes, and then I went with Basil and Bjorn – Introvert Club – to the bar to pick up some wine and have a glass of wine while we were there, of course, visiting Colin on the way. The first official meeting of Introvert Club: introverts unite… separately. We had a really good time, lots of laughing, always have a good time with those guys. 

Then I came back and did some more work. There was an improv workshop, which isn't really my thing, and I had to learn to say no to things because otherwise you just get way too overwhelmed, and I had lots of work to do, so I skipped that. We had dinner outside again, another Mexican night with a dessert of tequila shots that turned into party games, including limbo, the box game, and just general dancing to music while the Introvert Club played cards at the end of the table. 

And then I put in capital letters: DRAMA! The police came. The Introvert Club heard knocking on the fence from the road and then shouting: “Policia! Policia!” Yeah. One of our neighbours, the people across the road, had called the cops on us for being loud. But it was a Thursday night at about ten or eleven and everyone was being pretty loud… So we headed inside and tested out a decibel app as the police had told us not to be above a certain decibel, but the levels they told us were ridiculous – so we were all just whispering inside with the windows and doors closed, and I went to bed before midnight and slept pretty well. Maybe it was the tequila. 

Friday the 5th. I got up actually quite early for me, for the first time since getting to the house. I went to visit Colin, came back, had a cup of tea, and got to work downstairs in the main living room area. I figured out I get more done – when I'm editing a book or something – when I shut myself away in my room, but the cleaners come on Friday mornings to clean everywhere and change the bedding and the towels and everything, so I needed to vacate it and work downstairs until twelve. 

Then we had a mastermind for Fer in the garden. He was trying to figure out how to follow his passion and become financially independent and trying to figure out what to do next in terms of his job or work. And a lot of these masterminds are really good because it helps other people as well, because you hear perspectives and ideas from lots of people, and a lot of the time people are going through similar issues in life, so it doesn't just help the person doing the mastermind. 

Then the animal shelter guy, Pedro, came to see Colin, and Pedro was really nice and helpful. He loved Colin straight away. He did say the tether didn't look great. He was a bit worried about him, so he was going to find out if he could discover who the owner was. And he said they had their own donkey at the animal place and he was just really nice. Again, you can hear all about this in episode 53. 

So I went to the cheesecake place with Basil, again to have more cheesecake – too much cheesecake, really, but this time it was better than the other two, so that's good. We ate outside for dinner that night. Fer had helped, and he's a great chef; he has his own pop-up chef program thing he does every month. He makes a lot of vegan feasts. Amazing. So dinner was great. 

And then my housemate, Liz, had made this game to get to know each other during dinner and it actually went on for five or six hours. There were prompts and we had to ask people about ourselves or say something about ourselves, share things… there were three categories perception, connection, and reflection. And of course, the more wine we drank, the deeper things got. Some of my housemates said some quite nice things about me, that I have a big heart and the way I care for Colin is lovely, and that I should do some kind of volunteering with animals, which I agree with. I went to bed at about 12.30, but some people stayed up till three. 

Saturday the 6th. It was quite sad because I woke up to find that Basil had had to fly back to London and had already left the house. So he'd only stayed for a week out of the two weeks he was meant to stay, and everyone missed him a lot, so that was quite sad. 

Some people went to San Sebastian in the car. I stayed home; there were only five people who could fit in the car, and I was going to San Sebastian for five days afterwards. Anyway, I went to see Colin, of course, and then I think – well, at the time I thought I'd seen Colin's owner. I now know I did because I am reading this in the future! So Colin ran around and it was nice to see him be happy to see his owner.

I came back and got some work done. Then, after a message from my friend Vicki back home, I realised it was the coronation, so I watched a Sky News live stream on YouTube for a bit. I did fall asleep and had a nap during the coronation, but it was pretty long. Then I got up and ate a quick dinner outside on the deck, then I headed back to my room, watched Netflix… I didn't really feel great, honestly. I felt kind of run-down, like I was getting a cold –too many late nights, too much wine.

Sunday 7th, I felt very similar. Got up, had breakfast, took Colin his breakfast. He basically just eats grass all the time, he just likes little treats occasionally. Then I went to the Bird Centre with Kathy. Now I meant to go last year and I didn't, even though it was right next to the house. Basically, it's called the International Airport for Birds and they really run with the airport theme throughout. They have gates and stuff like that – airport gates, little mini ones, inside. It was a nice view – a really great view – from the lookout tower that we walked up to. And I saw a few coots, but nothing too exotic. Then we sat down, me and Kathy, and we had a chat for like an hour. Then we went back to the house. I really didn't do much. 

We had another weekly food meeting. This time I was in a group with Bjorn and Kiana. We decided to do an Iranian-inspired dish, and again, suggested by ChatGPT, some cute little chocolate mug cakes for dessert – and that ended up being a disaster, but I won't talk about that now. Kathy had made some veggie pasta, so I had that. Well, I kind of made it with her.

Then I sat outside with Kathy and Bjorn next to the pool, talking about movies and TV shows. But then I just went and watched Netflix and went to bed because, again, I wasn't feeling great and sometimes you just have to retreat and do your own thing. 

Monday the 8th, I got up, had breakfast, and cleared stuff away in the kitchen. So we had cleaners coming three times a week, but obviously there are like 12/13 people – it gets dirty quick. So just cleaning and putting stuff away, putting stuff in the dishwasher, washing up whenever you can, really helps.

Kathy was leaving the next day, so we went to Colin so she could say bye, then I saw Germaine, and we had a little mini meeting about Colin and the guy from the animal place. Then I recorded a podcast interview in the chapel room – which was like the Zoom room – with Clare from Manchester, which has been released. Then I did a solo episode on the Downsides of Coliving, and an update to The Ballad of Colin the Donkey podcast, because I was recording that as we were going along.

I’d got a recommendation for a mindset coach from one of the guys there, Denis – who's Canadian, he's a book promoter – and did some editing work for the podcast. And then I went to a skillshare by Cecilia, which was Building a Second Brain, which was really interesting. And she gave us lots of useful tools, like Evernote, but linking that with Readwise and loads of other apps that I didn't know you could link and automate… and really, really good. She also made a Notion page, which I'm going to go back and look at when I've got time, to sort out my second brain. 

Then it was cooking time. So me, Bjorn and Kiana made lentil potato soup, couscous salad, and mug cakes… which went so wrong. I did about half. Kiana did about half. Every single one was a different consistency, it looked different… it didn't help that the house, for some reason, it has a lot of kitchen stuff, but it doesn't have measuring cups, it doesn't have scales. So I was just using spoons that weren't really measuring cups and things instead of cups. And yeah, it went terribly wrong. Some of them were edible. The one I had was edible. I think one or two of the other ones were edible, but most of them were not. They just went very hard, very fast. Yeah, we're not sure what happened there. Thanks, ChatGPT – I'm blaming the AI here. We had wine, did some sketching with oil pastels, played with cards, and went to bed around 1.30.

And then I got up about seven the next day. Very hungover. This is why I get sick when I'm in coliving places like this, because it's very tempting to stay up late and talk when you're having fun, having wine, but then you have to get up the next day and get to work. So I was a bit better this year than I was last year, but I still have a lot of work to do on boundaries with myself and not saying yes to everything and drinking less. I did drink less the last two weeks, but yeah, this is still the first two weeks. 

So, I visited Colin, did some podcast promo, and then I went back to bed… I had a nap. I did work, then I went to Kiana's mastermind, which was how to prioritise everything and get all the stuff done in 24 hours, when 24 hours doesn't seem enough. But I felt awful. I had a cold, a headache, my throat was dead. I had to keep drinking water throughout the mastermind, coughing… yeah, not great. Then I went back to my room to continue work until dinner, which was pasta night. 

It was my team's turn to clean up – so we would have dinner Monday to Thursday, or at least four days a week, maybe with a break in between, to go out for dinner in Guernica or something. Each team would have one day, and then another cooking team would be on clean-up duty, because there's a lot to clean up after 12 or 13 people have eaten and after all the cooking. 

So, yeah, Wednesday the 10th, I got up, I did some work, and then we went to Guernica for lunch. So Fer drove me, Liz and Isa there, and then we met up with Bjorn later on and we met up with Didi, who was one of my housemates last year. He was there in the first two weeks, but he left before I got to the house, so it was nice to see him. We walked around for a bit, went for pintxos, and went to the supermarket on the way back.

Now, this place is in the middle of nowhere – the villa – and not many people had cars, so things like going to the supermarket becomes actually quite an exciting thing to do. It sounds sad, but it's true. But I really like the whole being in the middle of nowhere thing. You really bond with the other people because there's not much to do. So you all stay together, you all do work together, socialise together, stay up late together, and you don't get that when you're in a coliving that's in the middle of a town or a city, because everyone's always going out, doing their own thing, and you might not even see some of your housemates for days on end – or at all. So I prefer it this way. 

So, we went back to the house, I got some work done, Didi had hung around for a bit, and then we said bye. Oh – at this point we were playing Clue in the house, or Cluedo for British people. It's real-life Cluedo, basically. So, at the start of the week, Fer had written all our names down on paper. He'd written places in the house down and he'd written an object down, and we had to pick one of each. And you had to basically catch your person in the room or in the place with the object and that means you've killed them. 

I got killed immediately pretty much the day we did cooking, because I was distracted in the kitchen trying to cook and Kinga kept talking at me about this book she was holding in her hand and I was like, what is she doing? She can see I'm trying to cook! And I was really distracted and it was one of Denis’ books, so she was like, ‘Here, look, it's really cool,’ and handed it to me and I took it off her – stupidly – and then she went, you're dead. And I was like, Damn it. It was like an hour later!

So, yeah, that went on for like a week maybe, or less. That was really fun. I went to see Colin, then me, Stan, Liz, Isa, Kiana and Bjorn went to the two local bars – other than the cheesecake place – for some beers. We had hoped to get dinner but I warned them that they only had a few pintxos and they're usually gone, so we basically had beer. It was nice, but we were a bit cold – we were outside. Then we went back to the house and created our own tapas table, which we shared in the living room, and that was really nice. Then the games started, and some people went outside to smoke. I don't smoke. It was a bit cold so I went to bed; I was trying to get more sleep as I was still not feeling great in general. 

Thursday the 11th, I didn't put my alarm on and got up after nine. I'd woken up several times in the night, really not feeling well, and I was knackered, so I tidied the kitchen a bit, put some washing on, had some breakfast, and got some work done. I did it all in my room so I could snooze if I needed to. Then I went and had a one-on-one with Denis, who was the Canadian book promoter/marketer/coach, which was really interesting because we work on some of the same stuff and I got some good tips on tools to use, programs to use, coaches to use, that kind of stuff. 

Then I went upstairs, got some more work done, and then we had a mastermind in the chapel with Isa, which was a bit different. It's nice to be in there – the chapel is a really cool room – and it was all about fear of judgment and needing external validation from people. Relatable. So with this, we did it a little bit differently. We all went round in three rounds and we each asked a clarifying question of Isa to ask what she was having issues with. Then we talked about our own experiences with the subject and then we gave some words of appreciation to Isa. 

It was all very deep and emotional and profound. Everyone was hugging, there were some tears. And then, as soon as it was over, Isa handed something to Stan. I think it was a book, I can't remember. And then said, ‘Thanks, you're dead.’ She had killed him in the most harsh way possible. Just after a really profound – her own really profound – mastermind. That was really funny. 

I chilled out until dinner. Then we had poke bowls and Japanese matcha tea and dessert, which was very nice. We played some games at the table. Then I went to bed because I still wasn't feeling great. Lots of other people stayed up super late – and I knew this because I could hear them screeching downstairs even though I was on the top floor as they are sort of big holes in the floor, the top two floors. So you can hear quite a bit from the bottom floor, but it's fine. 

Okay, so, Friday 12th, woke up still not feeling good at all. Knackered, headache, cold, sore throat, bunged up nose again… this is just what happens when you try and do too much, which I know is a problem I have. So I went and got breakfast, I helped Cecilia do the dishes and tidy the kitchen, then I did some admin and had a meeting with Germaine about Colin.

And then we went to Basondo Animal Rescue Centre to have our meeting there. I won't go into it because you can hear all about it in episode 53. It was a really good meeting, really hopeful. And yeah, we came back, and then it was time for Germaine to leave. But before she did, we did a little photo shoot with us and Colin for business use for Colin and Co., which we thought was quite a good name for what we're doing, like Sun and Co.

Then I went inside and chilled in my room until dinner. Fer had spent six hours in the kitchen. So, Fer is Fernando, who was our host. Eva was there for the first two weeks and a little bit over that. Then she left and we had Fer for the last four weeks. I knew him last time from when I went to the main Sun and Co. house in Javea. He's Spanish and he's a great chef and he had spent six hours in the kitchen and had created an epic plant-based feast and dessert and it was just so amazing.

We had G&Ts and lemonade and Kiana and Stan had gone to the shop, I think with Denis in his car, to get the tonic for the gin. And they'd also bought some of those soft Cadbury egg spoon things. And Kiana, because she lives in Britain and she knows I do too, obviously, she came and told me that there's secret egg and spoon things for me and they gave me two and I was like, Yes! I hid them in my room and had them later on. 

So we had a break of about an hour after that – several people went to lie down after dinner as it was all too much – then we had our house jam, which Isa had organised. We’d all had to send her a song earlier that day and she had created an exercise for each one, and we had it in the chapel. So some of the things were… we had to take objects from around the house that we could create instruments from. So I took my metal drinks container – that's just my nail, but I used my ring to tap against it and that was my instrument. Yeah… it was something. So we were sort of jamming out there with our handmade instruments; lots of people had put stuff in jars to create shakers and that kind of stuff. Kiana had a bag and she was whacking it with a water bottle and then we all switched. Whacking the bag was actually quite therapeutic. 

Then we put blindfolds on, and we did some dancing in the dark. We did some contact dancing, where you always have to be in contact with your partner – or I was in a group of three – and then we did one with the whole group where you all had to be in contact with at least one body part and sort of see where the dance goes. Yeah, one guy left before that. Some people don't find this easy to do. It's quite uncomfortable, quite weird. I get it. I'm not really into this kind of thing, but I had told myself that I would stay through the whole hour and get it done, so I did – and it was actually really fun. 

After that we went downstairs to have chocolate banana cake that Fer had made for Liz's birthday. We had more gin, we played more games and we did more talking. It was really fun. We played Times Up, where you have to describe a word on a piece of paper that you pick out of a bowl – we had all written down four different ones – without saying the word. Then you had to describe it just using one word. But, by this point, the whole team has heard all the ones in the bowl, so you can have an idea of what they're talking about. Then you have to describe that word just with an action, and then just with a sound. The last round was really funny, and our team won!

I went to bed around 1.00 a.m., but before that, I said bye to Bjorn because he was leaving early the next morning. It was the end of our two weeks and the start of another two weeks when we all switched over. And yeah, it was really sad because Bjorn's awesome. I knew him from last year. He's part of Introvert Club. I've since created a WhatsApp group for Introvert Club with me, Bjorn, Basil, and Barbara from last year, and hopefully we're going to meet up at some point, maybe in Europe somewhere. Basil and I live in the UK, Barbara lives in the US, and Bjorn is from Denmark, but he travels a lot, so hopefully we'll get to meet up.

Then I went to bed… and that is the end of the first half of my notes! I think that would be a good place to stop this episode and continue in the next one, so I will do that. We'll do part two of my Pop-up Basque Country Round-up, and then I will do a separate episode for the pop-up spin-off we did that a lot of us went on, to Bilbao, and then a few of us went to San Sebastian as well. 

So hopefully this has given you some idea so far of what it's like to live in a coliving house, and I'll see you next time for the second lot of notes for my last two weeks in the coliving villa. So, thanks for listening, and until next time, I'll catch you on the flip side, bye! 

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