I'm having a particularly good day. Not that I generally have a bad day, but just occasionally one of those days comes along that genuinely makes you glad you're alive. This is one of those days.
Why?
The English lesson I gave this morning was good, productive and had the desired outcome for both parties! Even if it overran.
It's hovering around the 30 degree mark in the sun, which is where I've been for most of the day.
It's "Everything for 1 Euro" day at Cerveceria 100 Montaditos, which is where Julie and I had lunch. Even dropping one of my little sandwiches on the floor had a good outcome cos we gave it to a homeless guy!
I won the lottery. OK, I won £1 on an Instant Win game!
I went in the local greengrocers and still can't get over the fact that here, fresh veg actually smells of veg! The whole shop smells like, well, like it should! And you can only get what's in season - unlike the forced, imported, vacuum packed crap in Tesco!
I also went in the local version of Lidl and got: 6 bottles of San Miguel, a huge bar of chocolate, a large jar of lentils, 2 cans of Coke, a unsettlingly large bag of crisps, toothpaste, a tortilla espanola and a freshly baked ciabatta. For 7 Euros.
The hour I chose to sit in the park reading my book and getting a few more freckles also turned out to be........firemen exercise hour. Mmmmmmmmm.
And now? I'm in my sunny lovely flat, with Amy McDonald on, a lentil stew simmering on the hob, asparagus grilling happily, ciabatta waiting to be sliced and a very cold beer in my hand.
As I say, what's not to like?
Showing posts with label firemen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firemen. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Monday, 20 April 2009
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!
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!
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Batteries, beer, bare chests and breakfasts
OK, I admit, I may have been a little over-excited to finally get online on my laptop the other day. Not that I´ve managed to get a dongle or anything else but I did at least find a cafe within walking distance (10 blocks, but it´s exercise!) of the house, where I could use their free WiFi. Well, I say free - I spent over 5 Euros on breakfast in order to sit in there for an hour and a half. But it was good to be on my own computer at last, instead of the public ones I´ve been using. At least it meant I could email my CV (such as it is) to a few places.
I´m shocked at how short a time my laptop battery lasts though. I´ve played about with the power settings til I´m blue in the face and I´m pretty sure it understands that when it´s on battery power it´s meant to use the lowest amount of power possible. I don´t have any peripherals plugged in, I´m even trying to only have a couple of websites open at one time and yet, when I switch on it tells me I have something like 2hrs 45mins. Within 20 mins, it´s telling me I have an hour left, and then that hour runs out in about 40 minutes. It´s infuriating!
I realised last night, as I swigged my first beer of the day while I still had the hangover from the night before, that I haven´t actually had a day with no beer since I arrived! Oops. I´ve been pretty good food-wise - plenty of fresh veg in my fridge and I haven´t totally lived on patatas bravas and tortillas, but I have so got to stop drinking every single day. I sound like a complete alcy (is that actually a word?) now!! So for a couple of days those nice people at San Miguel / Cruzcampo / Mahou will have to live without my custom.
So yesterday I went to look at a room in a shared flat. A completely new experience as I´ve never shared before (well, yes, I shared with Sid but I already knew her!). I was a bit pessimistic as the only other place I´d looked at was dreadful - a poky little room with almost no light, in a dilapidated old building, no outside area and no internet access. This place was a revelation! A big, 3-bedroomed place, newly refurbished, beautifully decorated, comfortable room with loads of storage and huge windows, etc etc! At the moment there´s just one Irish girl living there, but there is also a double room still advertised to rent so it´s possible that at some point there may be 4 people living there. Still fine though the queue for the bathroom will be interesting! It also had a huge sunny balcony with a view of the mountains. But the piece de resistance was the fact that the fire brigade has a training school just round the corner and apparently, the firemen periodically run past the flat, bare-chested, on their way to the park for a training session. How could I possibly say no?! So I took it. I move there on April 14th for at least 2 months. If nothing else, the fact that I have rent and bills to pay should incite me to try harder for a job.
Last night, I went with Julie and Behram to a new bar in town which was meant to be having "international evening" and turned out to have a pair of hiphop freestyle guys testing out the PA in readiness for a gig next week. My idea of hell quite honestly, so after a couple of drinks we bailed and hit Cafe Madrid which has a huge intercambio every Wednesday evening. Really busy but good fun. Met some great people, chatted lots, got some good hints of places to go and convinced half the Spaniards that they´d missed a treat if they´d been to the UK and not gone to Brighton! I guess from my side of things it wasn´t exactly intercambio as I spoke almost only English all evening but I´m determined that once my 3 days of Spanish lessons are over next week, I´m going to start practicing. Having said that, I did spend 15 minutes speaking French!
Talking of practicing Spanish, this morning my 2 next door neighbours (2 very sweet guys) trapped me outside bringing my washing in and insisted on showing me round their respective houses. Not quite sure why though it was interesting to see just how small a space one person can live in. The house right next door to me is miniature! Like a little doll´s house! But then for the next 20 minutes they bombarded me with Spanish about anything and everything. House prices, South American Indian souvenirs hanging from the ceilings, the fact that I only need to knock if I need anything (would you believe, one of them actually said "...like a cup of sugar...." - I always thought that was a terribly English thing!) - for the most part I got the gist of what they were saying but not the nuances, and I pretty much said nothing back! Bless them, they tried to slow down but without the vocab, I didn´t really stand much hope. I think I´m wrong but at one point I´m sure one of them told me that the necklace he was wearing was not made from beads as it appeared, but from the dried dung of a very small South American animal that jumps really high! I smiled and nodded as much as possible but it must have been pretty clear I was lost!
So today is "doing stuff" day - nothing too exciting mind you. Recycling, clearing up (as my landlady is coming to stay at her own house tomorrow night!), writing out some ads to post for English teaching/conversation, and some relaxing in the sun which has thoughtfully come back.
AND NO BEER!
Hasta luego, everyone!
I´m shocked at how short a time my laptop battery lasts though. I´ve played about with the power settings til I´m blue in the face and I´m pretty sure it understands that when it´s on battery power it´s meant to use the lowest amount of power possible. I don´t have any peripherals plugged in, I´m even trying to only have a couple of websites open at one time and yet, when I switch on it tells me I have something like 2hrs 45mins. Within 20 mins, it´s telling me I have an hour left, and then that hour runs out in about 40 minutes. It´s infuriating!
I realised last night, as I swigged my first beer of the day while I still had the hangover from the night before, that I haven´t actually had a day with no beer since I arrived! Oops. I´ve been pretty good food-wise - plenty of fresh veg in my fridge and I haven´t totally lived on patatas bravas and tortillas, but I have so got to stop drinking every single day. I sound like a complete alcy (is that actually a word?) now!! So for a couple of days those nice people at San Miguel / Cruzcampo / Mahou will have to live without my custom.
So yesterday I went to look at a room in a shared flat. A completely new experience as I´ve never shared before (well, yes, I shared with Sid but I already knew her!). I was a bit pessimistic as the only other place I´d looked at was dreadful - a poky little room with almost no light, in a dilapidated old building, no outside area and no internet access. This place was a revelation! A big, 3-bedroomed place, newly refurbished, beautifully decorated, comfortable room with loads of storage and huge windows, etc etc! At the moment there´s just one Irish girl living there, but there is also a double room still advertised to rent so it´s possible that at some point there may be 4 people living there. Still fine though the queue for the bathroom will be interesting! It also had a huge sunny balcony with a view of the mountains. But the piece de resistance was the fact that the fire brigade has a training school just round the corner and apparently, the firemen periodically run past the flat, bare-chested, on their way to the park for a training session. How could I possibly say no?! So I took it. I move there on April 14th for at least 2 months. If nothing else, the fact that I have rent and bills to pay should incite me to try harder for a job.
Last night, I went with Julie and Behram to a new bar in town which was meant to be having "international evening" and turned out to have a pair of hiphop freestyle guys testing out the PA in readiness for a gig next week. My idea of hell quite honestly, so after a couple of drinks we bailed and hit Cafe Madrid which has a huge intercambio every Wednesday evening. Really busy but good fun. Met some great people, chatted lots, got some good hints of places to go and convinced half the Spaniards that they´d missed a treat if they´d been to the UK and not gone to Brighton! I guess from my side of things it wasn´t exactly intercambio as I spoke almost only English all evening but I´m determined that once my 3 days of Spanish lessons are over next week, I´m going to start practicing. Having said that, I did spend 15 minutes speaking French!
Talking of practicing Spanish, this morning my 2 next door neighbours (2 very sweet guys) trapped me outside bringing my washing in and insisted on showing me round their respective houses. Not quite sure why though it was interesting to see just how small a space one person can live in. The house right next door to me is miniature! Like a little doll´s house! But then for the next 20 minutes they bombarded me with Spanish about anything and everything. House prices, South American Indian souvenirs hanging from the ceilings, the fact that I only need to knock if I need anything (would you believe, one of them actually said "...like a cup of sugar...." - I always thought that was a terribly English thing!) - for the most part I got the gist of what they were saying but not the nuances, and I pretty much said nothing back! Bless them, they tried to slow down but without the vocab, I didn´t really stand much hope. I think I´m wrong but at one point I´m sure one of them told me that the necklace he was wearing was not made from beads as it appeared, but from the dried dung of a very small South American animal that jumps really high! I smiled and nodded as much as possible but it must have been pretty clear I was lost!
So today is "doing stuff" day - nothing too exciting mind you. Recycling, clearing up (as my landlady is coming to stay at her own house tomorrow night!), writing out some ads to post for English teaching/conversation, and some relaxing in the sun which has thoughtfully come back.
AND NO BEER!
Hasta luego, everyone!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)