I'm back in Madrid having had a nice 10-day break in the UK over Christmas and a break from writing anything here for a while. By the time I left just before Christmas, I was feeling pretty worn out. It felt the similar to how I remember feeling at the end of my first term at University - its been great but now its cold, dark, no one understands you and you want to go home! (Although now its a language barrier thing rather than late-teen angst with the understanding). Having to deal with the court situation and juggling debts didn't particularly help either and I also ended up staying and working for 3 days after all my friends had left which really made it drag.
Anyway, having had a break at home, I now feel quite refreshed and have a renewed optimistic outlook about living here. I remembered on the way back the excitement I felt when I was first moving here, only now I have a job, some friends, an apartment, speak a bit of the the language and so on.
The language is actually starting to click into place a little now. I'm using Rosetta Stone as well as getting some Spanish classes through a job (although I've only had one so far). I'd done a bit of Rosetta Stone at home but its much more effective if you're immersed in the language every day. So for example, as soon as I learnt the word for clean (lympia), I noticed a sign in a shop for 'productos lympieza' (cleaning products) which just makes it stick. Also, you can't help picking up words day to day - you're not going to forget the word for anchovies once you've accidentally bought a can of olives stuffed with them, trust me. In fact by now, I can understand most signs in shops and on the street and get the gist of most conversations. Speaking is more difficult, I have to put a sentence together in my head before I can say it but practice is the best thing, and practice is made easier once your a little drunk, I've found...
Looking back over my time here so far, that doesn't seem bad for two and a half months spent speaking English all day! It feels like I only need a little more and then I can start speaking to people more and it will snowball a bit from there. I didn't study any Spanish while I was back in England, but it feels like my brain has been digesting what I learnt over the last couple of months which feels more solid now.
Now that I've got a bit of money coming in (the back-dated pay checks are finally kicking in), my next objective is buying a bike and, eventually, moving apartments I think. Racing bikes (bicicletas carretera) seem to be a bit less common and more expensive here (cheapest I could find on eBay was €100) but I need to do some more research and check out the Rastro I suppose.
Oh yeah, I had an awful trip back actually though. Having not flown from England in about 3 years I'd forgotten some of the aspects of international travel there. WARNING: if you move to Spain, don't get too used to how things work. They may be very relaxed about timekeeping, service, aeroplane boarding times and things like that here, but that does not mean they will be in England when you get back! Lesson learned.
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