Hey everybody! I have been living in Spain for three weeks already and I’ve decided that now is as good a time as any to start one of those blog things. I’m not much of a writer, so my apologies in advance if some entries are boring or if there are long gaps without an entry. This is basically a blog for two purposes: to help me remember my awesome year in Murcia and to keep family and friends updated.
Okay, now to quickly recap what I’ve done in the last two and a half weeks. First of all, getting to Murcia was a time-consuming and slightly stressful process. It was easy enough to get to Madrid, but finding the hidden little doorway to the train platform for Murcia was a major nuisance, especially when lugging around my giant suitcase and humungous-can’t-believe-I-got-away-with-it carry on. (I actually almost didn’t get away with it, because I sort of snuck past the person checking the carry-ons when I saw that mine was not gonna fit in the tiny little measuring thing). Anyhow, I made it onto the train for Murcia and then had to deal with finding a place to stash my luggage. This was no easy matter as the compartments meant for this purpose were completely full. However; the ticket checking dude took pity on me and let me leave my suitcase sort of in the aisle/exit so it was all good. At last I made it to Murcia and Alicia, a teacher at my assigned school, was there to greet me and take me to her home in Monteagudo which is right outside of Murcia. Needless to say, pretty much the first thing I did once I was shown to my temporary room was crash after the full day of traveling.
Shrine of the Virgin of Fuensanta
I stayed for a week with Alicia and her daughter Bea and their cute little dog Saya and was able to enjoy the awesome view from their place of the Christ placed on top of the hill the town surrounds. Alicia showed me some cool places in Murcia, like the Shrine to the Virgin of Fuensanta, and we went to a festival in Mula where we witnessed a procession and later enjoyed some Spanish dishes which included my personal favorite, tortilla de patatas. Thanks to Alicia’s help, I found an apartment in the city center fairly quickly and bid farewell to Monteagudo.
The Christ of Monteagudo
It took no time at all for me to move into my little room and promptly make a mess. I like to think of it as organized chaos. I spent the first week in my new home getting to know my three flatmates: Inés and Lisa from France and Cecilia from Minnesota. They are super nice and I think we will all get along splendidly. It’s been fun switching off with making food because I’ve already had a couple of legit French foods: ratatouille and crepes.
I also was pretty busy going to the Oficina de Extranjería (Foreigner’s Office) to get my TIE (foreigner card of residence) as well as getting a bank account set up. The Extranjería wasn’t too bad of an experience but it took most of a whole day because I had the wrong size photos and had to take a bus back to the city center, get my picture taken, then catch another bus back to the office. After getting my temporary TIE, the next thing on my agenda was to open a Spanish bank account. I had heard good things about EVO so I opened an account with them and so far I haven’t regretted it. There was a little bit of an upset with them putting in my email wrong and I had to go back and straighten it out, but now everything is good and I already received a debit and credit card and transferred some funds. I can take out money from any ATM in the world without fees so hip hip hooray!
This entry is becoming much longer than necessary so I will sum up anything else of importance in as short a manner as possible. I went to Mula (carpooled with some very nice teachers) only on Wednesday (Oct. 1st) and I just observed so it was exciting to meet the kids but not very eventful on my part. I sat down with the teachers I will be working with and we determined my schedule to be Tuesday through Thursday. Oh did I mention I turned 23? Yeah, that happened. I’m getting old, end of story. Anyway, I went to a long and boring orientation on Thursday so I didn’t go to school. Over my long weekend I did a number of things including an after midnight churros and chocolate run, a visit to Salzillo Museum in Murcia and a trip to Cartagena. Cartagena was really cool! I walked around a lot, and felt the effects the next day, but it was worth it. I saw a huge Navy Arsenal, visited a Mediterranean marina, saw hundreds of palm trees and snapped way more photos than necessary.
Cartagena Mediterranean Marina
That pretty much sums up the last three weeks. Oh yeah and I got another job. I will be participating in Nanny Speaking, which will involve me going to families’ homes and doing educational games and activities with the children to help them learn English in a natural way. So far I will be teaching two little girls on Tuesdays and Thursdays and three little boys on Mondays. Well I’m relieved to say I’ve finally come to the end of this entry. I promise the next one will be shorter! Hasta luego.
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