Track 47

Track 47

Sample answers:

Candidate: I’d like to tell you about the time I went backpacking around Spain, I can’t quite believe it but it was over a decade ago now, Two friends and I got very good-value rail passes and travelled around Spain for three months. It was an unforgettable experience.

We started off in Madrid because that’s where we landed. We did some sightseeing -we especially loved the parks - and we ate and drank lots - our favourite thing was, of course, the delicious ham, We liked the nightlife in Madrid, too, not least eating out - it was a real experience. The locals don’t go out to dinner until really late, often as late as 11 pm (I suppose because it’s so hot)! So if you turn up at a restaurant at what would be a normal time where we come from, the place is either closed or completely empty.

We then journeyed on to Santiago de Compostela in the north-west, which was fabulous, and my friend is really into art so we had to visit the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao in the north. The weather was dreadful while we were there so we didn’t get the best impression, but even so, we enjoyed it. More people should visit that part of Spain.

Then we moved on to Barcelona, Madrid’s rival city. We fell in love with it. It’s so different to Madrid, more Bohemian in feel and more multi-cultural. The Gaud! architecture is so wonderfully whacky, looking half the time like it’s fallen off the page of a fairy tale. We were quite sorry to leave Barcelona.

After that, we saw Valencia, but not for long, unfortunately, and then we went on to Granada. What a beautiful, beautiful place. There is nothing quite like the Moorish palace, the Alhambra, lit up at night. The image has stayed with me.

We had wanted to visit Seville and the Extremadurareg ion of the country, but we’d run out of money by then so sadly we had to leave. It was a memorable holiday because I was with two good friends experiencing all these amazing cities. I don’t think I could do it now, because travelling so much in a relatively short time is tiring, but we were young and carefree and so took it in our stride. It was the holiday of a lifetime.

Examiner: Why did you choose to go to Spain?

Candidate: Well, one of my friends spoke Spanish really well so it seemed the obvious choice. I don’t like going to a country without speaking any of the language. And my friend taught us both Spanish as we travelled around the country so by the end we could order our food ourselves and talk to people, albeit not on any complex subjects.