If you would like to be interviewed as a Surprising Expat, please write with a few details of what you do, to: Marion by clicking here.

The weekend of June 13^th-14^th will see twenty-three-year-old Juan Blasco run from Budapest to Esztergom using the route that follows the Danube – a distance of 80 kilometres.

Juan will be undertaking his double marathon to support the Heartfelt English charity whose volunteer English teachers offer lessons to children in care homes in order to provide them with greater opportunities in their lives.

This endeavour is very close to Juan’s heart. He realised as a teenager that a knowledge of English would enable him to travel and undertake work in foreign countries. “The thing is that in Spain language education is not very good. So, my English was horrible – my knowledge was very, very low. We have a very interesting history with English in Spain. During the dictatorship 50 or 60 years ago, the country was isolated from the rest of Europe, regional languages were suppressed, and foreign languages were not a priority either. As a result, there were not many highly qualified English teachers, and not many people are able to speak the language fluently.”

Even as a teenager growing up in Seville and across Spain, Juan knew he wanted to travel – not as a tourist, but to work in other countries, learn about new cultures and broaden his horizons, and he realised that a knowledge of English was key. It was this that prompted him to unhesitatingly volunteer to undertake the double marathon for Heartfelt English.

“I finished high school at seventeen, and then I moved to another city in Spain to study at the university of Zaragoza. I studied primary education with Special Needs, meanwhile I was trying to improve my English. So, then I got a summer job in Switzerland, working as a shepherd up in the Alps, in Lauterbrunnen, in a place called Müren.

“I worked in different national parks as a shepherd, taking care of sheep, goats and cows. In the summertime in the Alps it’s very tough. You have to prepare hay for the winter time. You have to cut the grass and put it in the sun, let it dry, turn it over and then gather it by hand. It’s not a job that locals are keen to do – I had pepper spray to protect the sheep and goats from wolves and bears!”

It was during these summers spent high in the Alps that Juan started to run. “When I was working in the mountains, it became a habit, you know, it was the only activity, the only leisure activity that I could do there. Hiking and running. The sheep could stay in the barn for a few hours so I could run on the mountains. And during the summer time there are tons of tourists. Australians, Americans, Europeans, and I could practise my English with them.”

With his university’s international contacts, Juan was able to spend a year in Bulgaria and the following one in Turkey where he also had an internship at a local bilingual primary school. “Then I wanted to go somewhere else, and I started to look for a job in Romania because I really like the Balkans. I have a lot of friends from Bulgaria, Albania and the inland part of Greece, you know. So, I was looking for something similar, and I sent my CV to a Romanian school. They didn't accept me – but they sent my CV to a contact of theirs in Budapest!

“The thing is, that the first time I came here to Budapest a few years ago, I didn't like it, I didn’t connect with the city. But I love to let life guide me, and I’d enjoyed my interview, so I thought, why not?”

Almost a year after arriving, Juan has no plans to leave. He has moved out of the city centre and to District XI whose market, more local atmosphere and proximity to the hills beyond, are far more appealing. “I do believe that it's very easy to live in an international bubble here in Budapest, right? It's a very beautiful city.  It’s made for tourists in a way. I was in the very city centre, you know, so it was very difficult to see out of the bubble and to get a taste of local reality.”

Although he is still in the early stages of learning Hungarian, he seeks to engage locals in conversation in English where he can. “I love to travel by train, and because of that you have to sit down next to someone and if the trip is long, there's always an opportunity to have a good conversation. Once I was calling my mother and someone heard me talking in Spanish and he approached me, you know, on the train. Yeah, on the train!”

Juan has a strict schedule for running, though his focus is not competitive. “I prefer to enjoy myself, not to try to reach a place and reduce my time for the number of kilometres. It's secondary. It's not my goal. Running has become a sort of trend among young people these days. I was in Spain and they're obsessed with publicising their times, the number of kilometres, how good they are, how strong they are, how much stamina they have. But running was never like that for me. To me it’s like some sort of meditation.”

Akin to Alan Sillitoe’s protagonist in the novel The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Juan runs to have the physical and mental space to think clearly. Running is his private freedom; the aloneness offers sanctuary.

“I like to run alone. What I like about long-distance running is that it's more mental than physical. You need to have a sharp mind because anyway, you’re always in pain. There’s going to be pain after 30 kilometres, you know. But you need to fight against yourself. What I enjoy about the long-distance sport is that battle. Running helps me to order my thoughts. During the week I have a very rigid plan, you know, like I run two or three days between Saturday and Friday, and I go always to the Normafa woods. I try to go somewhere different on Sundays – then I do 40km. Szentendre, Gödöllő….

“I use running in order to disconnect and to help myself. And that's how running is connected with Heartfelt. This run is giving me the opportunity to help students to improve their English, and their lives.

“I made my path by running, and now I’m using running to help them make theirs.”




If you would like to sponsor Juan on his run, you can do so here.

If you would like Juan to run for your charity, you can contact him here.

Links: Instagram / Tik Tok
 

Marion Merrick is author of Now You See It, Now You Don’t and House of Cards and the website Budapest Retro.

If you would like to be interviewed as a Surprising Expat, please write with a few details of what you do, to: Marion by clicking here.