I came, I saw, I drooled.

This evening I discovered that my landlady wasn't fibbing about the firemen. After nearly a week here, I finally took a walk to the local park for an evening stroll in the sun. Halfway down the road from the flat, I was met with the sight of about 15 rather sweaty, very fit firemen jogging towards me. At least half of them had decided that clothing on their top half was simply unnecessary. What a shame!

I tried to look cool and unimpressed, I really did. But I'm almost certain I failed!

The park was lovely though - a combination of paths for walking, sports facilities (yes, more young Spanish men running around being athletic), benches, open spaces, shady glades and the obligatory million small dogs.

I'm promising myself an hour's walk every day there. That, combined with the damned stairs in this building, might just help me walk off the vast quantities of beer, bread, cheese and potatoes that seem to make up my staple diet.

I heard from Mirjana this afternoon, having completed her first morning of Vaughan teacher training. She sounded just a little stressed! There are only 3 trainees on this course so I'll be intrigued to see if the normal dropout/kicking-off rate of 50-75% holds true. I certainly wish her all the best with it.

As for me, I received an email from Dade (thank you ;-) ) this morning, with a contact in Madrid who is looking for one-to-one conversation teachers. Sounds ideal. I've emailed the woman in question and am keeping my fingers crossed on a response. I'm hoping Begona decides to go ahead with the classes she asked me about. As Eve said, maybe students will be like buses - I've waited for ages and hopefully now they'll all come at once!

Broccoli and beer are calling (well, OK, one of them is calling louder than the other!) so that'll do for today!

New home, old rain!

My lovely, new, sunny flat is not quite living up to its reputation! It's been raining pretty much ever since I arrived on Tuesday evening. Today it decided to dump a downpour on the washing that was valiantly trying to dry on the balcony.

Thanks to the lovely Nacho (Ignacio) and his Citroen C3, I didn't have to move house on the metro. That would have been interesting, with a huge suitcase, rucksack, laptop bag and 3 bags of food (and beer!) But not only did he help me move my stuff, he carried most of it up the 4 flights of stairs to the flat. Trust me to move to the 4th floor in a building with no lift. When I move out, I think I'll just throw everything off the balcony!

My new flatmate, at least for the next 6 weeks, is a lovely Dublin girl called Eve. She's a happy, bouncy, athletic thing who has a penchant for Spanish men!! ;-) I'll be disappointed when she moves out, her company has been a nice change from my little house on my own before. She's also letting me use her laptop while mine is being repaired/replaced - for this I will be eternally grateful!

Talking of the laptop, I deposited it at the Toshiba repair place near here on Thursday morning and IF I understood the lady correctly, they should call in 2 working days if it's repairable on-site, but if it has to go back to Toshiba then it'll be another 3-5 days on top of that. I'm not holding my breath but it still sounds theoretically quicker than the probably guaranteed minimum of 2-3 weeks it would have taken in the UK. Where I would also have had to post it, insure it etc etc instead of just dropping it off at an authorised repair centre.

The weather hasn't been conducive to doing much over the last couple of days so I've wandered around the new local area, stocked the fridge (though I appear to have run out of beer AGAIN!) and made inroads into getting some work. I emailed every Spaniard I ever met on a Vaughan Town to explain that I'm in Madrid and available to give English classes. Within 12 hours I had one definite request for lessons, plus a potential offer of teaching someone's 2 daughters (ages not yet known - could be interesting!) So things appear to be moving. My American, chirpy, eternally optimistic mate Julie also has a bit of a plan for when she returns in September which I'm hoping to be part of.

It's Friday so it's the English speaking meet-up at Brasserie Locandita tonight, after which I've been invited to a party. Hopefully I won't be paying the price tomorrow! ;-)