Sick in Spain December 12, 2007
Posted by Luke in Madrid, Spain, Travel.4 comments
So I am officially sick – well, not officially. I haven’t been to a doctor or nuffink. Don’t believe in the cretins. But I have been to a chemist, or a farmacia, to be precise. I’m not enjoying it, and I’m still working. Still putting in the long, hard road, and quite frankly, still whinging as well. And why not? I’m sick. Someone give me sympathy!!
I’ve got some Christmas and New Years Plans now. I was going to head to Malaga for NY, and although still a possibility, I am now more likely to celebrate the coming of 2008 in Berlin. I’m not quite sure where that is but I think it’s a pretty big city somewhere in Europe. Maybe Switzerland (sarcasm, hey?). I’m meeting up with my mate, Jon, who teaches in Lithuania – Vilnius, to be precise – and hopefully roadtripping for a week or so. But who knows, these, like so many of my other plans, may fall to pieces. I should consider a contingency plan – perhaps Malaga. But I’m looking forward to it, especially to the prospect of 16 or 17 days off work!!!!!!
Also, any one have any advice on how to get past a stumbling block in Spanish? It’s not anything specific, moreso the entire language. Help! I feel like I’m going backwards in it.
Now to marking, and writing, tests!
Hasta luego!
erghh… wtf is the present perfect, past participle? October 11, 2007
Posted by Luke in Madrid.add a comment
So somehow right now, I’m stealing internet. I don’t know how but my computer is connected. I don’t think we have internet yet, but oh well.
Each day, I think I get a little better as a teacher… although I’m not entirely sure what my students are actually learning. Of course, some classes are much better than others. One of my students, a 50 odd year old Director, kept trying to tell me I was wrong because it’s not the same as the way it translates from Spanish. Business classes tend to tell you they don’t want grammar, then get it all wrong anyway, and kids classes, well, kids are kids. Scarily though, one kid knows more about simple tenses than I do – and I think he knows it.
Friday is a public holiday for the Virgen del Pilar. It’s also the day of a ‘fine’, military parade. I might just check it out because I ain’t never seen one of those before. Then, my mate Tom and I are heading up to Zaragoza for the festival of Virgen del Pilar (she’s the patron saint of the city). Hopefully, I’ll get to check out the Basilica del Pilar, which keeps three unexploded bombs that the Republic dropped on them during the Civil War.
Bit by bit, my Spanish is getting better. I still find it near impossible to understand, but I can communicate a bit better. Two hours a day plus teaching is taking its toll. The bags under my eyes are growing rapidly. My classes are getting better though. My last class tonight really seemed to enjoy themselves; they’re quite advanced though.
More later… once I’ve been to Zaragoza.
Last class for the week!! October 5, 2007
Posted by Luke in Madrid.1 comment so far
I have my last class for the week in a little over an hour. It´s been exhausting, and I haven´t prepared much for this lesson, but nor do I have any books for this class yet.. well, not a teacher´s copy anyway.
My hours have already been increased from 18 to 22. It is sooo easy to get work here. Even the illegals have too many hours that they’re declining offers left, right and centre. This week I didn’t have a full schedule but it´s already exhausting. I was up at 6.30 for my 8am class of bratty, 12 year olds. They knew I couldn´t speak much Spanish and utilised it continuously to their advantage. I´m sure I picked up a few swear words directed at me. Luckily, I was only taking that class for a week! I also have a class of 8-9 year olds, a proficiency class with 3 17 year old guys (who were kind enough to explain the virtues of Franco – they´re nice kids, but a little misguided. nb. the politics here are incredibly interesting. One guy I met even suggested that the prospect of civil war wasn´t that far off). My other classes are all adults.. I´ve only met a couple of them.
I´m settled into my place now and the internet should be connected shortly. Rocio and Santi are fantastic. They´ve tried to ensure that I feel as at home as possible, introducing me to their friends and explaining conversations I don´t understand. Santi and I were discussing España the other night, specifically about the dying siesta. His quote was pure gold ¨Ah, yes, that is very bad… but on the weekends, we make our revolution, FIESTA!” Spanish kids do tend to party hard, drinking botelos on the street until 9 or 10 in the morning. There’s no way I’m attempting to do that with the amount of hours I’m working.
The apartment is a good size, large by Spanish standards and with a street balcony. Whilst this means it´s noisier at night, it also beats the hell out of looking down at an interior courtyard, like my previous room did.
A fellow teacher of mine brought his car with him from England, and we may head to Toledo on the weekend. Next Friday is a holiday for the Festival of Virgen del Pilar. It´s apparently the patron saint of Zaragoza, so we may change our destination for there, but we’ll work it out. It will be nice to get out of Madrid for a while, if only a day or two.
I finally got my NIE today. So much for having an appointment. I still had to line up and wait and didn´t get in until 12.40 instead of 12pm. But now I am a resident of Spain for five years if I want. I can open a bank account and I can get Social Security. Now I just have to learn the language. I started my classes on Wednesday. So far, it´s mainly going over things I already knew- the basics ¨¿Como tú llamas? Me llamo Luke. etc etc. But I´ll get there.
I´d kill for a meat pie, and an iced coffee right now though!
The streets are filled at night and sober… September 23, 2007
Posted by Luke in Madrid, Spain, Travel, Uncategorized.3 comments
It´s been five days here now. I haven´t written enough mainly because it´s difficult to find the time.
Friday I went to get my NIE, the residency number for foreigners. I lined up for two hours with about 200 odd other people. At about 10.30 the guy at the door came down to the 100 or so people left and said something in Spanish, which caused mass furore. I looked at a Dutch girl I had been talking to and said ¨this can´t be good.¨ It wasn´t. It turns out they only let 60 people in a day. We weren´t in that 60. Só it´s back there again tomorrow morning – this time at 7 to try again. I could try and make an appointment but apparently they do not answer the phone particularly regularly. A French guy had been trying to call for three months and no answer.
I met a Swedish guy and a couple of Northern Irish guys later that day and headed down to watch Ireland play France in the World Cup. Now that´s an experience. The pub was packed full of French and Irish trying to outsing each other. France won, by the way. After I grabbed a quick dinner at 11pm (after the game), we headed out for some more drinks. We found a bar quickly (there´s at least two every metre). Ordering a doble, I received the biggest beer I´d ever seen. See normally a doble is drinkable – about the same size as an Adelaide pint. This doble was a litre and a half of beer. I could barely hold it. At 12€, it was surely the first and last time I would drink a beer that size.
We left there and were promptly dragged into another club – there are people employed to approach people and escort them to the club. It wasn´t a bad place, but it must be said that Spanish rock music is terrible!!
Yesterday, I started looking for a flat, which brought on my first bout of homesickness. It was quite depressing staring at the newspaper and internet not knowing what on earth it said. I decided to give up, crashed out for siesta and then got up and headed to this English speaking café and bookstore, J&J´s. It´s a great little place hosting intercambio nights as well as having an excellent range of books and teaching resources. I stayed there for a while and then met the Irish for dinner at 10.30.
We headed to this Mexican place on a Calle de la Quinones or thereabouts. It was full so we headed around the corner to some restaurant. Not knowing what we´d ordered, we received some of the worst food I have ever tasted. It was racionés, which is basically tapas, but one was capsicum and cod and the other, morcella (i think – it´s a kind of meat>) with what I think was ICECREAM!! No good. Don´t try it. Absolutely not. Anyway, we thought we were doing something wrong because the locals were laughing at us, we thought. But I checked with one of the guys at J´s and he said we were eating it right.
Last night was La Noche en Blanco, a huge all night long arts festival. The Irish and I met Eduardo and Nieves (a Spanish woman who wanted to practise her English with me). We met them at just after midnight in Plaza Descalzes, which is just near Puerta de la Sol, the central point of Madrid. Then we proceeded to walk around for the next 4 hours. This was all well and good because everything is still new, but I did learn a few things.
The main thing is that Spaniards do not know how to hurry. Nieves turned to us and said ¨we must hurry now as we have a long way to go and it stops at 3am.¨ It was 1am at this point in time. A very long way to go was about 20 mins walk, but an hour later we got there. Every ten minutes we´d stop to talk to someone or look at something, and we got to where we needed with plenty of time to spare. That´s one thing about Spain, they don´t like to rush.
Nor do they really drink alot. Sure, cerveza and vino are prolific but on a huge public occasion like la Noche en Blanco, you´d expect a fair display of public drinking. Nope! There was barely a drink to be seen. Well, the kids were but they always do, sitting on the steps drinking their bottelos.
I also saw my first protest and yes, it was anarquistas. I assume. They were protesting the rising prices of goods. It was peaceful, but it was also 2am.
Having had only a horrible dinner earlier, we decided to leave Nieves and Eduardo and headed to this cafe called ViPS. So at 4am we finally sat down to a dinner of hamburguesa – yep thats a burger, alright.
Still haven´t got around to loading pics off my camera yet. Will do soon.
