I waited a while, for it all to calm down really before I decided to sit down and write my feeling about the Brexit. Not only as a British person, but as a British person living abroad.
When I moved to Spain, a little under two years ago, I didn´t think that one day there would be any kind of worry, I mean i´m European, countries in the European Union have the right of free travel within the EU. I couldn´t imagine that the UK would leave.
Up until the moment when I woke up on Friday morning and saw the angry, sad, and extatically happy posts on my Facebook wall from my friends and family back in England and Scotland, I still didn´t believe it. The first words I said to my husband when he woke up was "They´ve left" Just that. Nothing more, nothing less.
That day, while everyone in England was dealing with high emotions whether they were happy or sad or angry, venting on social media, shouting ridiculous comments in the street at each other, or quietly sitting at home watching the news unfold, I went to work. Of course everyone wanted to know how I felt, what this would mean for me, for British people in general, and also a little bit of worry and fear at what this would mean for Spain (their elections happened yesterday) and for the rest of the EU.
I felt very supported here, my Spanish family are great and they all called or texted to see if this would affect me, and how I was feeling. I felt loved because at the time I felt sad, sad that this had happened, sad for the people who voted to leave with good intentions, only to feel regret the next day when the truth about the leave campaigns lies came out.
I felt, and still feel that David Cameron did the WRONG thing by resigning, that he talked in his speech that everyone has to pull together, and we have to make the country great blah blah blah, it turned into blah blah blah when he revealed that he wouldn´t lead the country through this. David Cameron is NOT a leader. A leader leads, and supports his or her people through good times and the bad. My personal thoughts are that he threw his toys out of the pram when he didn´t get his own way.
I am also left with a feeling of being disconnected from the UK, I hope it´s a temporary feeling but right now I don´t want to go back. I had felt for a while that maybe in the future we would go to live, at least for a year in England. Right now I don´t have that feeling. I have no urge to even visit the country where I was born while the people are turning against each other in the street for fear of what is going to happen to the country.
I hope that in a few months, this will blow over and everything will go back to being normal, that the people living in the UK will remember that very annoying and persistant parase "Keep Calm and Carry On" right now it has never been so relevant.
Monday 27 June 2016
Wednesday 15 June 2016
It´s Difficult.
Living in a different country to the one you were born and grew up in is difficult, you´re away from everyone you´ve ever known, your family, your friends (who you slowly lose touch with no matter how many promices to visit) and unless you choose an English speaking country, you also lose your language, your culture and a lot of the things that you identify with being you.
It´s difficult.
My life, although it has a LOT of wonderful things in it that I am eternally grateful for, my amazing husband, my job, a beautiful house, the fact that I now speak two languages (more or less) and lots more, it still doesn´t take away the fact that it´s difficult.
At work, I speak in English, but most of the time with three year olds, it´s a lot of: "sit down" "be quiet" "go to the bathroom" "stop hitting" and the old saying "Use it or lose it" is completely true, I´m forgetting English words, every so often a collegue will ask "How do you say..... in English" and I struggle to find the word although I know what it means, sometimes it comes back to me in a few minutes, sometimes in a few hours, sometimes in a few days, sometimes never... It´s difficult.
Outside of work I speak Spanish, for more than a year me and Mr. Millennial have been speaking exclusively in Spanish (although he speaks English) and with his family and friends too, I speak Spanish. When in Rome and all that. But it´s difficult.
I find myself frustrated, upset, angry, and more when i´m lost for words, when I can´t find the word in Spanish or a way to explain what I mean. Or when everyone is talking at once and i´m not quick enough to join in the conversation. I fear talking to strangers so much in case we don´t understand each other that I don´t even like shopping in case I have to speak to a shop assistant. I feel a tightness in my chest and have to repeat the phrase about 20 times in my head before I can aproach someone, and all the time hoping I understand the response.
Don´t get me wrong, I don´t regret for one second my decision to move to Spain, it was the best thing i´ve ever done in my life, I met my husband two weeks after moving here, as if the stars had aligned and my life made sense as cheesy as it sounds.
I also love that I can speak another language, little by little i´m getting there and I know than in another year or two I won´t have the language issues that I have now (or think I have) it´s a practice makes perfect thing. Speaking with my husband I´m the most confident Spanish speaker, I speak fast, using slang, talking in different tenses, the works, because I have no fear, if I say something wrong it doesn´t matter, he corrects me, I learn. Simple. I don´t have that confidence with groups of people or strangers. It takes all my courage to speak to the parents of my kids at the end of the day.
I don´t make new year resolutions, it´s too easy to break them, so i´m making a new life resolution, to solee my confidence issues, to speak to as many people in Spanish as I can, to panic, and sweat, and blush uncontrollably and not give a shit because the other option that I have is to stay at home for the rest of my life with only my husband to talk to, and as much as I love him, I think I need to make some other friends!
It´s difficult.
My life, although it has a LOT of wonderful things in it that I am eternally grateful for, my amazing husband, my job, a beautiful house, the fact that I now speak two languages (more or less) and lots more, it still doesn´t take away the fact that it´s difficult.
At work, I speak in English, but most of the time with three year olds, it´s a lot of: "sit down" "be quiet" "go to the bathroom" "stop hitting" and the old saying "Use it or lose it" is completely true, I´m forgetting English words, every so often a collegue will ask "How do you say..... in English" and I struggle to find the word although I know what it means, sometimes it comes back to me in a few minutes, sometimes in a few hours, sometimes in a few days, sometimes never... It´s difficult.
Outside of work I speak Spanish, for more than a year me and Mr. Millennial have been speaking exclusively in Spanish (although he speaks English) and with his family and friends too, I speak Spanish. When in Rome and all that. But it´s difficult.
I find myself frustrated, upset, angry, and more when i´m lost for words, when I can´t find the word in Spanish or a way to explain what I mean. Or when everyone is talking at once and i´m not quick enough to join in the conversation. I fear talking to strangers so much in case we don´t understand each other that I don´t even like shopping in case I have to speak to a shop assistant. I feel a tightness in my chest and have to repeat the phrase about 20 times in my head before I can aproach someone, and all the time hoping I understand the response.
Don´t get me wrong, I don´t regret for one second my decision to move to Spain, it was the best thing i´ve ever done in my life, I met my husband two weeks after moving here, as if the stars had aligned and my life made sense as cheesy as it sounds.
I also love that I can speak another language, little by little i´m getting there and I know than in another year or two I won´t have the language issues that I have now (or think I have) it´s a practice makes perfect thing. Speaking with my husband I´m the most confident Spanish speaker, I speak fast, using slang, talking in different tenses, the works, because I have no fear, if I say something wrong it doesn´t matter, he corrects me, I learn. Simple. I don´t have that confidence with groups of people or strangers. It takes all my courage to speak to the parents of my kids at the end of the day.
I don´t make new year resolutions, it´s too easy to break them, so i´m making a new life resolution, to solee my confidence issues, to speak to as many people in Spanish as I can, to panic, and sweat, and blush uncontrollably and not give a shit because the other option that I have is to stay at home for the rest of my life with only my husband to talk to, and as much as I love him, I think I need to make some other friends!
Tuesday 7 June 2016
Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot
Summer is officially coming! Or it´s here, I never know. But one thing I do know for sure is that Madrid just got about 10 degrees hotter almost overnight!
This isn´t like England hot either, nor is it like the heat you get on the beaches of Spain. This is dry, no wind, just hot air blowing in your face, middle of Spain HOT, that makes your knees sweat and you´re cursing your job for having a uniform!
And over the next two months, it´s only going to get worse!
When I first came to Madrid I didn´t understand when people told me that in August Madrileños leave. They get in their cars, or board aeroplanes and they get the hell out of here! Well now, entering my third summer here I get it. Madrid is Hell in August, especially when you have no air conditioning and you´re forced to resort to "tips" off the internet like placing a bowl full of ice infront of a fan, wearing a dama T-shirt and sleeping with the balcony door open, just so you can sleep at least half the night before waking up fearing you´ve peed yourself before you realise, nope, it´s just sweat!
We haven´t quite reached the sleeping downstairs surrounded by ice, and wearing wet clothes phase of summer just yet but it´s getting close! Really close!!
Time to book our hols to England I think!!
This isn´t like England hot either, nor is it like the heat you get on the beaches of Spain. This is dry, no wind, just hot air blowing in your face, middle of Spain HOT, that makes your knees sweat and you´re cursing your job for having a uniform!
And over the next two months, it´s only going to get worse!
When I first came to Madrid I didn´t understand when people told me that in August Madrileños leave. They get in their cars, or board aeroplanes and they get the hell out of here! Well now, entering my third summer here I get it. Madrid is Hell in August, especially when you have no air conditioning and you´re forced to resort to "tips" off the internet like placing a bowl full of ice infront of a fan, wearing a dama T-shirt and sleeping with the balcony door open, just so you can sleep at least half the night before waking up fearing you´ve peed yourself before you realise, nope, it´s just sweat!
We haven´t quite reached the sleeping downstairs surrounded by ice, and wearing wet clothes phase of summer just yet but it´s getting close! Really close!!
Time to book our hols to England I think!!
Thursday 2 June 2016
No Bun in this Oven
Right now, as I type this, one of my friends is in labour. It´s funny because until I met Mr. Millennial I never wanted the whole marriage and kids thing, I have 11 nieces and nephews, I work in a school and I never saw it as being part of my future, in fact I came to Spain as the first step on my journey alone around the world teaching English. I came here to do a six month TEFL course, met my husband two weeks later and never once thought again about travelling further. (without him anyway)
I don´t know exactly when I changed my mind on marriage and babies, but I know it was pretty soon after we met... I remember seeing him with our niece and thinking he´d be a great father.
And here we are, recently married, waiting to get the go ahead that we can go to the hospital to visit our friends and welcome the new baby to the world, and i´m trying to work out if it is an amazing thing to have kids, or if everyone tells you it´s great and rewarding and everything else but is it for everyone? Is it for us??
I´ve been asked probably a hundred times or more since the wedding (a mere TWO MONTHS ago!) when we´re going to have a baby, are we thinking about it? Do we want kids? when? my mother in law even thought I was pregnant when we suggested having a family lunch one Sunday! Also it doesn´t help that I work in a school and all the five year old girls think that getting married automatically means you become a mummy, I get asked almost every day if I have a baby yet and if not, do I have one in my tummy? and if not, when?! I hope i´ve explained that it doesn´t happen like that, and that first we have to decide if we want to have a baby, then when, and then it has to grow for a really long time. Five year old girls really aren´t all that patient!
The thing is, I went through about a year of really wanting to have a baby, I love my husband, I know he´ll be an amazing dad and I wanted us to grow our family, then we got engaged and I still wanted a baby, I probably mentioned it at least once a week! (God I must have been annoying, but he married me anyway!) Then we got married and... I calmed down a lot. (which Mr. Millennial is really happy about because he kept telling me to wait! Haha)
Also our sister in law is pregnant, his brothers girlfriend. It´s their second baby so the pressure is kind of off right now, and the kids in my class are REALLY annoying right now, there are three weeks left before they leave for summer and they´re tired, and we´re tired, so i´m re-thinking the whole let´s have a baby NOW thing. When you´re surrounded by three year olds all day, it´s kind of nice to be able to go home, put the telly on and not have to keep someone else safe and fed and clean... What am I saying, i´m married, I do have to do all of those things when I get home, but at least Mr. Millennial can wait five minutes or half an hour for dinner, whereas the kids in my class can´t even wait two seconds for me to give them a snack!
All I know right now is that we´re enjoying being married, and babies are on the back burner, at least another year free of nappies and vomit and screaming in the night, but it won´t stop me enjoying the cuddles later when our new nephew arrives!
I don´t know exactly when I changed my mind on marriage and babies, but I know it was pretty soon after we met... I remember seeing him with our niece and thinking he´d be a great father.
And here we are, recently married, waiting to get the go ahead that we can go to the hospital to visit our friends and welcome the new baby to the world, and i´m trying to work out if it is an amazing thing to have kids, or if everyone tells you it´s great and rewarding and everything else but is it for everyone? Is it for us??
I´ve been asked probably a hundred times or more since the wedding (a mere TWO MONTHS ago!) when we´re going to have a baby, are we thinking about it? Do we want kids? when? my mother in law even thought I was pregnant when we suggested having a family lunch one Sunday! Also it doesn´t help that I work in a school and all the five year old girls think that getting married automatically means you become a mummy, I get asked almost every day if I have a baby yet and if not, do I have one in my tummy? and if not, when?! I hope i´ve explained that it doesn´t happen like that, and that first we have to decide if we want to have a baby, then when, and then it has to grow for a really long time. Five year old girls really aren´t all that patient!
The thing is, I went through about a year of really wanting to have a baby, I love my husband, I know he´ll be an amazing dad and I wanted us to grow our family, then we got engaged and I still wanted a baby, I probably mentioned it at least once a week! (God I must have been annoying, but he married me anyway!) Then we got married and... I calmed down a lot. (which Mr. Millennial is really happy about because he kept telling me to wait! Haha)
Also our sister in law is pregnant, his brothers girlfriend. It´s their second baby so the pressure is kind of off right now, and the kids in my class are REALLY annoying right now, there are three weeks left before they leave for summer and they´re tired, and we´re tired, so i´m re-thinking the whole let´s have a baby NOW thing. When you´re surrounded by three year olds all day, it´s kind of nice to be able to go home, put the telly on and not have to keep someone else safe and fed and clean... What am I saying, i´m married, I do have to do all of those things when I get home, but at least Mr. Millennial can wait five minutes or half an hour for dinner, whereas the kids in my class can´t even wait two seconds for me to give them a snack!
All I know right now is that we´re enjoying being married, and babies are on the back burner, at least another year free of nappies and vomit and screaming in the night, but it won´t stop me enjoying the cuddles later when our new nephew arrives!
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