I just had the worst Christmas of my life. Worse than when my brother and sister both got new bikes and I got an Enya CD, worse than when I worked as a waitress on Christmas day until 3pm, worse than that because I expected great things.
I don´t know why I expected great things to be honest, we´re currently hauled up in my father in law´s house, feeling like teenagers, jumping up from the sofa everytime the front door opens, and not very much like an adult, married couple.
But anyway, i´d been looking forward to Christmas for a while, we´d have fun, spend time with the family, have a few drinks and just enjoy not having to work or think about the new house for a few days (two months down, two to go!)
Then I got sick. It´s not surprising really, working with kids, 1/3 of them having bronchitis, or laringitis or faringitis or something along those lines the past two weeks, my job has basically been ferrying kids back and forth checking temperatures.
So after a few days of feeling a bit crappy, Christmas day on Santa brought me a headache that lasted three days, swollen tonsils, aching joints and of course a temperature of 37 degrees.
While everyone was off enjoying their Christmas dinner with the family, I was alone in bed with a bowl of baked beans and Modern Family on Netflix.
On top of that, I was súper emotional, missing my family, the British Christmas, British TV, Christmas decorations! A plate full of prawns and some half hearted mistletoe does not a Christmas make...
Now it´s two days later, and i´m still not 100%, but trying to focus on better things, putting this Christmas behind me knowing that 2017 is a new year, with a new house and hopefully some other new beginnings for Mr and Mrs Millennial. More in the New Year.
Merry Christmas and Feliz Navidad
Showing posts with label spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spain. Show all posts
Tuesday, 27 December 2016
Monday, 21 November 2016
New Beginnings
We just signed the contract for our new house, we won´t actually be moving until after Christmas, probably in February but i´m already Pinterest crazy. I have so many ideas, i´m mentally ripping down walls, painting, choosing tiles and dreaming about filling up those temporarily spare bedrooms with beautiful Spanglish babies!
In the next few weeks and months i´ll be sharing my ideas with you all until we get the keys, and then the fun begins!!
In the next few weeks and months i´ll be sharing my ideas with you all until we get the keys, and then the fun begins!!
Sunday, 13 November 2016
A New Project
So i´ve been "off the radar" for a few weeks, that somehow turned into a few months while we VERY quickly sold our flat, moved into my father-in-laws and bought a new house.
We had the idea to sell our flat in August, it was a very trendy attic in the north of Madrid, I would describe it as bachelor pad with girlfriend accents, which is exactly what it was, and we were fine with that until we got married and started talking about having mini-me´s.
We estimated it would take around 10 months to one year to sell our flat, based on location, size, price etc. We uploaded photos to Idealista, and within 24 hours we had a buyer!
SHIT. We had a buyer, and no house to move into! Luckily my father-in-law has space in his house for us, and ever luckier for me it´s four minutes walking away from where I work! BONUS!
So we quickly packed up our things in boxes, rentes a van, said goodbye to the flat and moved the spare room at my father-in-laws, where we have time to relax, and save some money while we kept looking for somewhere to live.
Most Spanish people live in flats, we lived in a flat, almost everyone we know lives in a flat, but we´ve decided to buy an end of terrace three bedroom house which me, as a person so unused to living in a flat that I could easily have a panic attack every time a neighbour gets in the lift with me, am thrilled about!
I´m doing all the important work like making Pinterest boards and dreaming about colour schemes, woolen couch throws and laundry rooms while Mr. Millennial is doing all the boring work like talking to the bank and paperwork...
I´ll keep you updated on the move, which should happen at the latest by the middle of February and then let the decorating begin!!
We had the idea to sell our flat in August, it was a very trendy attic in the north of Madrid, I would describe it as bachelor pad with girlfriend accents, which is exactly what it was, and we were fine with that until we got married and started talking about having mini-me´s.
We estimated it would take around 10 months to one year to sell our flat, based on location, size, price etc. We uploaded photos to Idealista, and within 24 hours we had a buyer!
SHIT. We had a buyer, and no house to move into! Luckily my father-in-law has space in his house for us, and ever luckier for me it´s four minutes walking away from where I work! BONUS!
So we quickly packed up our things in boxes, rentes a van, said goodbye to the flat and moved the spare room at my father-in-laws, where we have time to relax, and save some money while we kept looking for somewhere to live.
Most Spanish people live in flats, we lived in a flat, almost everyone we know lives in a flat, but we´ve decided to buy an end of terrace three bedroom house which me, as a person so unused to living in a flat that I could easily have a panic attack every time a neighbour gets in the lift with me, am thrilled about!
I´m doing all the important work like making Pinterest boards and dreaming about colour schemes, woolen couch throws and laundry rooms while Mr. Millennial is doing all the boring work like talking to the bank and paperwork...
I´ll keep you updated on the move, which should happen at the latest by the middle of February and then let the decorating begin!!
Wednesday, 3 August 2016
Some Things That Make Spain TOTALLY Different From the UK
Two years ago exactly I arrived in Spain. In fact about this time (12pm) I had landed and was waiting for my suitcases to come out of the door on the conveyor belt of handsoffthatoneismine and sweatyhandsheartracing doom.
I came on a six month TEFL internship with two suitcases and around 800€ in cash that I was so terrified of losing or having it stolen that I kept checking every five minutes that it was there, which in hindsight probably make me either look like I has around 800€ in cash in my bag, or a terrorist with some kind of exploding purse.
As I landed on that hot day in August with my address written on a piece of paper to give to the taxi driver and enough Spanish to ask someone how they are but not enough to understand the reply, little did I know that all my dreams of travelling the world teaching English were about to come crashing down VERY rapidly, for less than three weeks after my first day arriving in one piece to the most disgusting flat i´ve ever seen I met the man that would change my whole outlook on life.
When I met my husband, I decided instantaneously that this was the guy for me, that all my dreams of country hopping, living out of a suitcase, never having to worry about anyone but myself popped, but in a good way. I lost the need to travel, I stopped in the first country I went to. I also used to be the girl who never wanted to get married and never wanted kids but I suppose my sister was right when she told me "wait until you meet the right man" because here we are almost two years after we met, married and I very much do want kids...
It hasn´t been all fairytales and looking at life through rose tinted glasees though, there are tonnes of diferences between the UK and Spain that i´ve had to get (I haven´t got) used to, here are just a few...
1: KISSING
In Spain it´s custom to give two kisses, one on each cheek. Men kiss only women but women have to miss everyone! I HATE IT Being a Brit, we are not used to kissing and when we go somewhere are there is a group of people, friends or family usually we say Hi and wave in general to everyone, maybe you kiss your parents, or give a hug to your best friend but we don´t kiss 20 people hello and then AGAIN to say goodbye!
2: LATENESS
I hate being late, I´d rather be an hour early than a minute late. This doesn´t seem to bother Spanish people though, we´re going to have lunch at 2pm, so the guests arrive at 2.30/3pm, we´ll start the meeting at 5.30pm so obviously i´m sitting alone until 5.45 when the other people start to arrive and we start the meeting somewhere between 5.45 and 6pm. Come on people I wanna go home!
3: PAPERWORK
No-one has told Spain that computers can hold a lot of information and that most of the annoying things that we had to make appointments for and wait in queue´s for in the past, well we can do those things now online. I´ve been here two years, it took me a year and a half to get around to registering that I live here, I had to go four times to get my national identity card because of all the paperwork I had to take, and trying to get a metro card was like trying to get a passport!!
4: FEVER
People are obsessed here with having a fever, if you sneeze someone will ask if you have a fever, if you have a headache someone will ask if you have a fever, if you cut your arm off, i´m pretty sure that someone will ask if you have a fever! And I work with children, I take at least one every day to see if they have a fever! And if they have a rever they go straight home, however, if they vomit, but don´t have a fever, well drink some water and back to class!
5: MEAL TIMES
In Spain we have lunch around 2-3pm (we have been known at home to have lunch at 5pm) and dinner is around 9-10pm. My family can´t believe this, being from the north of England they are strictly Tea at 5pm tupe of people. And I was too and although I spent my first few weeks here in a constant state of either starving or stuffed, you do get used to it.
I came on a six month TEFL internship with two suitcases and around 800€ in cash that I was so terrified of losing or having it stolen that I kept checking every five minutes that it was there, which in hindsight probably make me either look like I has around 800€ in cash in my bag, or a terrorist with some kind of exploding purse.
As I landed on that hot day in August with my address written on a piece of paper to give to the taxi driver and enough Spanish to ask someone how they are but not enough to understand the reply, little did I know that all my dreams of travelling the world teaching English were about to come crashing down VERY rapidly, for less than three weeks after my first day arriving in one piece to the most disgusting flat i´ve ever seen I met the man that would change my whole outlook on life.
When I met my husband, I decided instantaneously that this was the guy for me, that all my dreams of country hopping, living out of a suitcase, never having to worry about anyone but myself popped, but in a good way. I lost the need to travel, I stopped in the first country I went to. I also used to be the girl who never wanted to get married and never wanted kids but I suppose my sister was right when she told me "wait until you meet the right man" because here we are almost two years after we met, married and I very much do want kids...
It hasn´t been all fairytales and looking at life through rose tinted glasees though, there are tonnes of diferences between the UK and Spain that i´ve had to get (I haven´t got) used to, here are just a few...
1: KISSING
In Spain it´s custom to give two kisses, one on each cheek. Men kiss only women but women have to miss everyone! I HATE IT Being a Brit, we are not used to kissing and when we go somewhere are there is a group of people, friends or family usually we say Hi and wave in general to everyone, maybe you kiss your parents, or give a hug to your best friend but we don´t kiss 20 people hello and then AGAIN to say goodbye!
2: LATENESS
I hate being late, I´d rather be an hour early than a minute late. This doesn´t seem to bother Spanish people though, we´re going to have lunch at 2pm, so the guests arrive at 2.30/3pm, we´ll start the meeting at 5.30pm so obviously i´m sitting alone until 5.45 when the other people start to arrive and we start the meeting somewhere between 5.45 and 6pm. Come on people I wanna go home!
3: PAPERWORK
No-one has told Spain that computers can hold a lot of information and that most of the annoying things that we had to make appointments for and wait in queue´s for in the past, well we can do those things now online. I´ve been here two years, it took me a year and a half to get around to registering that I live here, I had to go four times to get my national identity card because of all the paperwork I had to take, and trying to get a metro card was like trying to get a passport!!
4: FEVER
People are obsessed here with having a fever, if you sneeze someone will ask if you have a fever, if you have a headache someone will ask if you have a fever, if you cut your arm off, i´m pretty sure that someone will ask if you have a fever! And I work with children, I take at least one every day to see if they have a fever! And if they have a rever they go straight home, however, if they vomit, but don´t have a fever, well drink some water and back to class!
5: MEAL TIMES
In Spain we have lunch around 2-3pm (we have been known at home to have lunch at 5pm) and dinner is around 9-10pm. My family can´t believe this, being from the north of England they are strictly Tea at 5pm tupe of people. And I was too and although I spent my first few weeks here in a constant state of either starving or stuffed, you do get used to it.
Sunday, 3 July 2016
Melting Pot
Madrid has turned into an inferno!
I´m sitting here writing this in my pants and a vest top, swigging back water like it´s going out of fashion, dreading the fact that tomorrow I have to go to work, wearing a uniform! Trousers and a polo shirt is hell in summer in Madrid!
Just two more weeks... Two more weeks of work then I have six weeks off. Which sounds amazing and to be honest in England it was but last year we spent one week in England, (Nice and cool) one week in Portugal (Nice and cool) and I spent four weeks dying and sweaty in a house which seems to be hotter than outside, and no air con, only a fan to blow the hot air around.
This week we´ll have to abandon the upstairs of our loft and decamp to the living room, sleeping (trying to sleep) on a blow up bed with the balcony door open and a bowl of ice placed infront of aforementioned fan to ty to cool the place to below 700degrees!
For all of you who are thinking of leaving the UK for somewhere with a bit of sun, THINK, and I mean seriously THINK about it before you take the plunge. We Brits are not cut out for two months of 40degree heat!
I´m sitting here writing this in my pants and a vest top, swigging back water like it´s going out of fashion, dreading the fact that tomorrow I have to go to work, wearing a uniform! Trousers and a polo shirt is hell in summer in Madrid!
Just two more weeks... Two more weeks of work then I have six weeks off. Which sounds amazing and to be honest in England it was but last year we spent one week in England, (Nice and cool) one week in Portugal (Nice and cool) and I spent four weeks dying and sweaty in a house which seems to be hotter than outside, and no air con, only a fan to blow the hot air around.
This week we´ll have to abandon the upstairs of our loft and decamp to the living room, sleeping (trying to sleep) on a blow up bed with the balcony door open and a bowl of ice placed infront of aforementioned fan to ty to cool the place to below 700degrees!
For all of you who are thinking of leaving the UK for somewhere with a bit of sun, THINK, and I mean seriously THINK about it before you take the plunge. We Brits are not cut out for two months of 40degree heat!
Monday, 27 June 2016
The Elephant in the Room
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.
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.
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!!
Sunday, 8 May 2016
A Weekend Away - Spanish Style
What better way to finish a particularly stressful week (one that ended quite dramatically with a horrific downpour that turned the street into white water rapids) than a weekend away! Long overdue and very much needed!
We packed a suitcase and picked up my husbands brother and his girlfriend and off we went to a little village about two and a half hours from Madrid called Trujillo.
It´s nice and all and I love being away from Madrid and from home for the weekend (still getting used to living in a loft rather than a house with proper walls and doors!) and Trujillo is beautiful, we stayed in a Parador which has no translation but it´s basically somewhere like a castle or a monistary that they have turned into a hotel so that they can pay for its upkeep... but it´s when we visit the villages of Spain that my English side comes out...
Well, maybe not my English side, maybe it´s just me but I don´t find visiting castles and churches all that fun... Sorry Spain!
It´s something the hubby is used to, he knows i´d rather be sitting in a cafe eating chocolate cake, or in a square drinking a beer but when we´re with other people I have to keep schtum and go along for the ride, I managed to get out of the guided tour, only because it was cold and about to rain and Mr Millennial was tired so we stayed in our room but when we were re-told the history of the village when the in-laws got back it got me thinking.
I know NOTHING about history!
I know this sounds like a trivial thing, and in the grand scheme of things it´s not really that important, but almost all Spanish people that I have met know a lot about the history of their country and of other countries, and Mr Millennial is a bit of a history buff, but I know nothing about Spain, or England or any other country. My knowledge of history begins and ends with the fact that Henry the eighth had six wives who were Divorced, Beheaded, Died, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived and sometimes I feel a little bit.. Well... Stupid.
So my mid-year resolution - i´m making that a thing - is to learn more about history, in particular Kings, Queens and at least a brief history of Spain and England so that I can join in on some of these conversations.
It can be frustrating at the best of times trying to explain something in another language, one that you don´t know all the words to express yourself. You don´t lose your intelligence but you lose the power to be able to show it at times. Luckily my Spanish family is very patient with me and the hubby more or less understands what i´m getting at!!
So while I go and attempt to memorise names and dates, here are some photos from the weekend, enjoy!
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