Well, after a less than auspicious start to the journey to Santander (sick as a dog the night before and queasy as hell at 07:00 in the morning before my flight).....I was met by Estela, my sister's friend, at the airport. If I had any qualms about 'having' to make conversation and to be 'nice' to people when I felt like shit, then they quickly vanished. Estela and husband Jacobo were the ultimate hosts. I stayed at their gorgeous house in Meruelo - about 30 minutes east of Santander.
They were fantastic to me and their grown kids came and went with ease....lots of lovely walks on beaches and great swims in the MUCH calmer seas than experienced last year in Espinho. The water was pleasantly warm and luckily Estela is an avid swimmer as well. I also received as introduction to typical Spanish family life and was utterly spoiled, with great food being served up three times a day. I could get used to that!
Note #1 re Spanish food: they use a hell of a lot of olive oil here in their cooking - Estela kept telling me that it was 'good' oil, etc., but I'm not convinced that Irish constitutions process it in the same way - the jury is out on that one.
Some photos from a beautiful walk on Noja beach which has a very odd 'moonlike' landscape when the tide goes out.
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Apartment hunting
So, first thing on the agenda was to try to get an apartment and it proved to be an interesting experience. The criteria were slightly different than those if I were to be staying long-term in Spain and between the jigs and the reels, it took 4 days of traipsing around with an injured leg (painful shin splints), becoming more depressed as I moved from one unsuitable flat to another....but we managed it in the end. It's not perfect - but then nothing is.
The outside of the building is your bog standard street scene but the location is great for my purposes - right in the centre of Santander, and 5 minutes from the train and bus station, which is brilliant for all types of travel. All in all, a stellar job on Estela's part and I definitely wouldn't have found this one without her. It has been completely re-done (all IKEA) and I am the first person to rent it since then. Brand new bed, etc. It's lovely - small and basically an 'all-in-one' studio type setup but very cleverly done. So although I've no outside space, I'm close to the water and all the other advantages make up for any shortcomings - or so I thought.
BUT...........and isn't there always a but...
3 days after moving in....DISASTER STUCK....it turns out there is a café/bar DIRECTLY beneath the apartment that I hadn't reckoned with.
that's bad enough - but then the clunk, clink, bash, wallop of the cleaning process goes on until about 12:30.....and if THAT's not bad enough, it starts again at 07:00 in the bloody morning. I couldn't believe it....
I did think about moving out but for the moment I'm staying put. Because I will be leaving at the end of June, it would be difficult to secure another apartment for such a short timeframe (I was lucky with this one on that front) and most of the other ones I had looked at were crap anyway. So, Maugie, if you are reading this, I am trying to practise your 'block out the noise' meditation mantra (it's kind of working with the help of ear plugs, playing music, etc) - we'll see! Sometimes it helps to visualise the two guys cleaning after closing and imagining stabbing them with something sharp or gluing their lips together with super glue...ahhh, the imagination.
Santander
It's hard not to compare everything with my experiences in Portugal, especially when the two time lines are so close together and the cultures are not a million miles apart. On the whole, Santander as a location is going to suit me much better than Espinho - much more 'life' around the place, close to a swimming beach (about 2kms) and relatively close to the mountains with many more opportunities to hike. But my initial impressions of Porto were much more 'wow' and 'this place is cool and funky'. Santander is a very nice city but with less charm than Porto. As I said, the other attractions are more important to me and it's early days yet. I like what I see so far and there's lots more exploring to do.
Quick trip back to Ireland - end of September
(Photos courtesy of Fio - my camera was broken)I went back to Ireland after 10 days for a 'hockey girls' reunion weekend (although we are all more 'auld wans' than girls at this point).
As the saying goes...'old friends are best' and it is true that they accept you for all your faults and are way more tolerant, sharing the same history, etc.
Teaching....or trying to
The school is about 10 minutes away on the train in a small town called Santa Cruz de Bezana slightly west of Santander. It is quite a small school, which an English friend of Estela's started two years ago and is slowly growing. Liz is the director and couldn't be nicer. She is extremely organised and the school is very well run - quite a contrast to the school in Espinho. Plus the teachers actually get paid on time (late salary payments seems to be a feature of more than a few language schools). A fellow Dubliner, Paul, is also a teacher there. He married one of the many Spanish students who came to Ireland for a summer English course many years ago.
I've been working now for just over a month and it's going well. Much less stressed than this time last year. I have a mixture of class ages and as mentioned before, I know which age group is my favourite - anything over 20! I have three kids' classes twice a week and one of them in particular is doing my head in....I am not equipped to deal with eight 7-8 yr olds....OMG...they require so much energy and patience. These photos are from a Halloween party we held recently - beats giving classes. I know they look cute.....but looks can be deceiving.
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| One of my teenage classes - a nice one! Note it's the girls who dressed up for the occasion |
I've been hiking most Sundays, which is great. The Cantabrian Mountains are quite close - about an hour's drive and I've been on 'strolls' with the official school of languages in Santander - lots of Spanish people learning German/French/English/Italian...etc.
More of a social outing in a beautiful place with lonnnnnnnnnnng lunch breaks and lots of chat, but I've also been on a couple of more challenging hikes with other people. There seems to be lots of hiking groups here and I'm slowly making contacts.
Swimming
I found a 50 metre pool.....yoohoo! I've never swum in one before and I LUVVVVVE it. More continuity when lap swimming and it's easier to overtake/be overtaken if there are more than a few people in the same lane. It's also sanitised with Ozone, rather than chlorine, which is great as it doesn't have that horrible swimming pool smell (probably just as damaging to you and the environment though)
Hables español?
I'm trying to learn Spanish, which is much, much, much, much, (get the picture) easier than Portuguese (for me anyway). I'm doing an audiotape by Paul Noble (thanks to Marguerite for the tip - I think he is very good) and trying to put it into practise when I'm out and about but I'm still at the stage where I can understand a reasonable amount but cannot put a proper sentence together (there's only so much call for 'I would like to make a reservation for a double room with a bath for two people for two nights' if you catch my drift). But I am determined to get to some level of proficiency during my stay. Not so easy when you're speaking English every day for work and trying to figure out bloody English grammar to present to classes......a Gerund anyone....maybe a Second Conditional or how about a Reflexive Pronoun??
Ok, that's it for now. Weather has been fantastic - in the low to mid-twenties until the very end of October. It has definitely changed now and it feels more like autumn but still relatively balmy so I'll take it.
Lots more exploring to do and observations to make and the next blog will have plenty of those....I have a lot spare time in the mornings and spend time observing all kinds of behaviour, etc......wait for it! Some photos of Santander to finish...
¡Hasta luego!
xoxo....Hel
