Its a minefield out there...

It didn´t take many weeks of unanswered applications and curt rejection letters last year before I decided to abandon any hopes of securing a career in London and leave the country: a logical solution when faced with the unappealing reality of unemployment in one of the world´s most expensive cities. However, on reflection, choosing Madrid as the destination seems anything but a logical choice: not only does it have one of the highest rates of unemployment in Europe, I hadn´t so much as glanced at anything Spanish since my last A level exam in 2006.

Even so, however irrational my decision at the time, I – touchwood – seem to have landed on my feet: job, flat, interesting people and lovely weather. Granted, dreams of becoming bilingual within three months were somewhat optimistic: I have been here for just over four months, and only have a basic level of fluency in Spanish - comprehension can still be hazardous and sentences are short, stacatto and restricted by a limited range of vocabulary. However, coping with a modest command of spanish has opened doors to an imaginative range of communication outside of speech: scribbling drawings on napkins, using random props from the street, facial expressions, extravagant gestures, over-the-top intonation... It seems that anyone willing and armed with a smile can converse, be it a dialogue of Italian and Spanish or double dutch and gobbledygook

Luckily, I am surrounded by patient spaniards keen to jot down phrases in my notebook, which is now full of spiky doodles and illustrative diagrams. I have realised that however long spent studying connectors, conditionals and the subjunctive in the classroom, easy fluency will only come after theatrical conversations and frequent misunderstandings, and will more than likely remain elusive until I have been living here for several years or more. Even then, I imagine that keeping track of the forever-changing multitude of expressions will be a challenge. Even as my confidence grows, using these native colloquialisms remains a potential minefield for any non-native speaker. There are phrases that become nonsensical if you miss out a seemingly inconsequential pronoun, words with opposite meanings in different contexts, a surplus of idioms - some vulgar, some cheesy, some snobbish, the confusion of double meanings. On top of that, there´s regional accents, local dialects, slang that means one thing in one city and something different somewhere else... I have visions of proudly delivering a recently-learnt phrase to my boss only to find out it´s actually the spanish equivalent of abusive cockney slang. You never can be too sure what your friends are teaching you after a few beers!

As much as I hate to refer to my A level English text Translations, the quote ´you can learn the language of the tribe, but the password will always allude you´ seems relevant, if a little dramatic: although shaking off clumsy literal translations from English to Spanish is simply a matter of time, learning the subtleties of the language is something else altogether.

Justifying keeping hours empty

As much as I am all for keeping my idle hours empty, I can´t help but feel twinges of guilt when I turn down the offer of a new class. When recently offered a one-hour-a-week conversation class with a beginner, situated only a short metro ride away from my flat, I spent a whole day agonising over whether I should accept it.

Though I may well regret my decision to turn it down when March arrives and I have to pay my rent, I can at least take comfort in the fact that I am making the most my spare hours. I recently stumbled across a spanish tour operator who lives next door, and being a resident tourist myself, have started writing articles for their blog: Best Spain Travel.

I have used my first article, The Timetable of the Madrileño, to rationalize why I rejected that conversation class. I suppose now to justify keeping my comfortable timetable of classes, I will just have to keep on writing...

Keeping idle hours empty

Its February. Everyone has weathered the post Christmas slump and survived the slog through the first month of the year. Society has relaxed back into monotonous routine and holidays are now either a distant memory or a vague future plan. Like everyone else suffering from January Blues, I was dreading the return to normality – groggy early starts, the squash of rush hour on public transport, lengthy to-do lists that eat into already restricted free time...

However, contrary to expectation, I have found myself welcoming the humdrum ryhthm of normality - regular company classes, teaching plans and spanish lessons. In fact, easing myself into the routine of work was suprisingly painless. On reflection, this may have something to do with the fact that I have carefully crafted a comfortable, well-spaced timetable: one that leaves plenty of time for reading, writing, people-watching and yoga. As a result, I am significantly more flexible and well-read that I was at the end of December.

Recently, I have been making the most of my empty hours to revisit my trip to Asia. When travelling, the continual change of situ left little time to digest the adventure, let alone organise it into coherent prose. Now, snuggled under blankets in my flat - teapot on-hand and laptop balanced precariously on my knee - I have time to relive the moments.

As such, although my timetable is somewhat lacking in classes, and I should invest energy in finding more work, I am finding it all to easy to justify keeping my “empty” hours empty. Thankfully, my efforts have not been entirely fruitless and I do have something to show for my idle hours: so far I have had one article published, “Bokor Hill Station, The Forgotten Cambodia” (p.42).

Fingers crossed its the first of many...

The peculiar resident of the plaza

My first trip to Madrid fell on a swelteringly hot weekend in mid-August and the capital, normally bustling with activity, had retreated into a lazy summer reverie. The labyrinth of narrow streets that spiral from the centre of the city was markedly quiet: metal gates guarded the darkened windows of shops shut-up for summer and the hours of siesta were eeked out to last until 6pm.

A stranger in the city, with little idea of its geography, I frequently found myself drawn to the Plaza Mayor over that first weekend. As the centrepiece of the capital, the expansive, pedestrianised square is a welcome breath of open-space. Neatly symmetrical, it is bordered by three grand buildings, each decorated by uniform rows of neat balconies with matching white shutters and lined by clusters of chairs and tables, carefully arranged by the overpriced cafés. A picture-perfect scene, the imposing central statue, that of a portly horse and a proud rider, is framed by two clocktowers standing tall either side of the main building, which is elaborately painted in yellows and golds. It is only on closer inspection do you notice that each clock keeps a different time, and that the subtle colours of the building´s artwork disguise curiously lurid paintings of naked women.

When I arrived back in August, and scalded my legs on the stone of what is now my customary bench, the unforgiving sun was thrust high in a fantastic blue sky and radiated wobbly heatwaves that blurred my vision. A far cry from the carnival of winter months, the plaza was sleepy and lethargic: the street artists had retreated to the shady pavements of the main roads, a handful of tourists sheltered under the broad, white parasols erected by cafés and gaggles of locals clustered around whichever bench offered an oasis of shade. Few braved the scorching heat of the direct sunshine... except for one: a curiously out-of-place, out-of-shape Spiderman.

Initially his distinctive outline seemed glaringly incongrous with the grandeur of the square. Now however, Spiderman has become something of a fitting peculiarity. Dressed from head to toe in a trademark red and blue suit, which has long since lost its elasticity, he strides confidently around the square, hands clasped loosely behind his back and belly thrust forward, pausing periodically in different locations to survey the scene. The faded tunic stretches easily over the large, rotund curve of his belly, the neckline pulled low to reveal a fleshy ring of skin between suit and mask and the slack fabric gathering loosely in folds under his distended belly. The trouser legs fall just short of his ankles grazing his calf, revealing long, well-worn trainers, a sun-bleached black and imprinted with the characteristic red web.

In quieter moments, he might pause from his duties and lean wearily against the clocktower, one leg resting on the pillar. With his mask folded up to nose level, his leathery skin creased under his nose in a slight snear, he puffs idly on a cigarette, occasionally raising a hand in a casual salute to other performers, or grunting a greeting to a nearby waitor. However, always on the pulse of the square, he is quick to jump back into action should he glimpse a prospective customer. Hastily stubbing out a cigarette, he unrolls his mask and slips easily into his rehearsed theatrics: affecting a booming voice he barks select words and pulls choice poses alongside tourists who shuffle awkwardly at his side, smiling sheepishly at the flashes and snaps of their camera amidst the bellows of “...and now scaaary...and “...seeexy...!”

I am now a regular visitor to the square, taking half an hour most days to sit on one of the circular stone benches that mark the four corners of the cobbled square and watch the world go by. As the incessant heat of summer has abated, the clear blue skies of August first becoming heavy with autumnal clouds and then sharp with the biting freshness of winter, the square has become a hive of activity. Now, a steady stream of people filter through the lofty arched entrances at each corner and a motley assortment of street performers mingle with the crowd to ply their trade.

Spiderman is no longer an out-of-place comical caricature, standing solitarily in the sun-bleached square, but is often accompanied by a sullen Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse duo, or surrounded by the melodious Ave Maria´s of saxophone players. Yet while other buskers come and go, Spiderman´s occupation the plaza never wavers. Day-in-day-out he is there: when the plaza is like a parched desert burning under the unforgiving sunshine; when heavy clouds are sitting oppressively on the rooftops; when the cobbles are slippery and wet and rain splashes into the small pools between them. Loyally present, come rain or shine, he is the ringmaster of the street circus, an idiosyncracy of the square, and as much a part of the furniture as the majestic central statue.

Only a beach will do...

I have just spent a cushty two weeks cocooned in the comfy bubble that is living back at home. Being welcomed into a clean and cosy house, full of family, with well-stocked cupboards and warm radiators is always a treat; even more so at Christmas when friends and family from the four corners return and the house oozes christmas cheer. After a few months of pushing my comfort zones in Madrid, relaxing into the easy fold of familiarity had never been so sweet.

The upshot of this of course, is that it amplified the annual bout of January Blues ten fold. In fact, it so magnified my reluctance to return to Madrid that I inadvertently found myself scanning recruitment websites for jobs in London. Far from bouncing back to Madrid refreshed and eager, it was a struggle to heave my weary self to the airport.

When I initially moved to Spain in September, the sky-high temperatures, bohemian lifestyle and buzz of arriving somewhere new made it difficult to miss the daily grind of a 9 to 5 in London. Now, when Madrid´s cloudy grey skies are identical to London´s, a forever-changing timetable and no set income is less appealing.

However, despite my grumbles, I am under no delusions that returning to a job in London would be any less unpleasant, and am well aware that January melancholy is a common affliction suffered by all. It seems that after two weeks of over-indulgence and excess, almost everyone is battling a stubborn hangover that has been lingering since New Year´s Day. Relatively speaking, returning to a part-time teaching post in a cultural capital is nothing to complain about. Even so, I am still dragging my feet...

I´ve come to the conclusion that the best solution is to don the backpack again and head off in search of a sandy shore for a few months. Not only a tried and tested remedy for solving back to work blues, it is also an effective, if drastic, way to comfortably push aside the reality of finding a career and making a living. What´s more, the constant barrage of new experiences when travelling waylays any longings for home. A win-win situation whichever way you look at it!

Christmas in Madrid

Its mid December and Christmas has finally settled in Madrid. The un-hurried, leisurely constuction of temporary markets and festive displays has been completed. Plazas are now congested with an unbelievable array of tatty christmas decorations and kitsch toys, and the christmas lights, flicked on unceremoniously last week, twinkle brightly for an energy-efficient, budget-friendly six hours every evening.

Despite the deceptively laid-back build-up, there is nothing quite like the crazy carnival that is Christmas in Madrid - albeit the city´s festivities are more fitting for Halloween or April Fools Day than for Father Christmas. Santa Claus hats have been replaced by ridiculous wigs more suitable for 60s rockers than St. Nick, mince pies have been swapped for blocks of turrón and steaming cups of mulled wine are nowhere to be seen. Similarly, the christmas jingles lovingly recycled annually on British radio, though often a trigger of weary grumbles about premature christmas cheer at home, are poignantly absent here. For me, the old adage ´There´s no place like home´ has never been truer.

However, strange as it is, the inevitable pangs of pre-Christmas homesickness have been accompanied by a new-found appreciation for the spanish perspective. For example, in sharp contrast to the furious Christmas marketing drive of shops in England, it is refreshing that in Spain, amidst the frenzied, pre-Christmas spending, not even the leading department stores, primely located in shopping hotspots, will consider opening their doors before 10am.

There is clearly reason behind the shops opening hours. Madrid stays up late and wakes up slowly. When you stroll through the centre at night, be it Sunday or Friday, 9pm or 5am, the city is always a hive of activity. In contrast, in the morning the centre is like a ghost town, sparsely scattered with a few newspaper vendors and jaded party-goers from the night before. In fact, when walking to work last Saturday morning, I was accosted by a persistent morrocan intent on selling me marijuana. He had clearly mistaken me for someone on their return from a night on the town rather than a professional on route to work (a sad testament to my appearance early in the morning).

By the afternoon the city has risen from slumber and the central plazas throng with crowds. Locals wait in a long, winding line to buy lottery tickets from kiosks, keen shoppers jostle through the streets laden with bags, and lengthy queues outside gather the main museums. Parque del Retiro, the city´s treasured green space, is also humming with activity by the afternoon. Market vendors, street performers and palm readers line the main promenade, roller-bladers and skaters make loops around the roundabouts, runners puff their way around the perimeter and police horses patrol the main monuments.

Blessed with weather where rain is an outside possibility and sunshine is expected, spaniards of all ages make the most of being outside, be it crisp and cold or warm and summery.This weekend, when running through the rustic reds and golds of Retiro beneath crisp blue skies, I passed an assembly of well-dressed pensioners playing bowls with a slab of slate and a crumpled can of Pepsi. Although unable to understand their gruff, incomprehensible spanish, I occasionally heard a trademark ´¡Ole!´ after a successful shot.

It is promising that, despite longing for christmas festivities with family and friends, mince pies and mulled wine, I am still being charmed by spanish foibles. One can´t help but raise a smile when, for the price of a lemonade, you are dished out a plate of tapas big enough to serve as dinner! Although weary now, I hope that, following two weeks of home comforts and long, easy chats with old friends, I will be fresh faced and enthusiastic when I return to Madrid in January.

CULTURE SHOCK

I am now into my third month here in Madrid.When I moved, I envisaged these first three months as something of a trial period, after which I could justifiably retreat back home if it had been a catastrophe. Happily, I have survived without any major disasters and as yet, have no intention of retreat.

However, although I still cock a smile at Spanish idiosyncracies and relish waking up to blue skies most mornings, I think it is fair to say the Honeymoon Period is over. It´s not that I am no longer captivated by the bubbly language, exuberant culture and unhurried etiquette, but rather my enchantment with Madrid has been slightly tarnished by occasional longings to go home.

When gloomily pining for London over a bowl of soup recently, a friend advised me to google ´culture shock´. According to Wikipedia, culture shock is something that most people experience when moving abroad: after the excitement of arriving in a new place subsides, anxiety and insecurity set in – with physical and emotional symptoms. Perhaps this is a bit dramatic to refer to relocations within Europe, but it does have some resonance for me.

My initial enthusiasm to meet charming, welcoming locals has unwittingly been replaced by a foot-dragging reluctanct to date supposedly charming, Latino strangers; the refreshingly laid-back, everything-in-your-own-time service has become infuriatingly inefficient; sipping a Fanta Limón while propped up against a bustling bar has lost its appeal and instead I´m craving a squashy chair and a pot of Earl Grey...

Whereas I previously enjoyed never quite understanding the day-to-day happenings (considering it as something of an opportunity to live in my own bubble), after a series of back-to-back confusions I am now weary of total incomprehension and fed up of never knowing what the hell is going on. The initial enthusiasm has subsided and left me feeling distinctly frayed around the edges: permanently chasing sleep and pining for a city where I can understand the barman and a friendly shoulder is never far away.

Last weekend I allowed myself a guilt-free break from all things Spanish, indulging my pangs of nostalgia in an Irish pub in the North of the city. I spent a happy afternoon drinking pints, watching rugby on a big screen and chatting to a Londoner who could have walked straight off the set of Only Fools and Horses. Two games and four pints later, I left feeling comforted and revived (probably the result of the Heineken more than anything).

By no means am I having second thoughts about moving to Madrid. On the contrary, I´m even more impatient to graduate from broken spanglish to fluent spanish: when communication isn´t such a fiasco I know I will feel more of a local and less of a tourist. As and when that happens, sporadic weekends of all-things-English and visits from friends will be sufficient to ease the waves of homesickness and to refocus my rose-tinted spectacles firmly on Madrid.

Being on the wrong side of the blackboard

Having spent an unsuccessful two months meticulously editing cover letters and labouring over lengthy job applications, when I arrived in Madrid in September and flip-flopped into a language school armed only with a crumpled CV, I didn´t hold out much hope of getting an interview. As such, I was gobsmacked when after a chaotic twenty minutes I left with a job. After talking to other teachers, I soon realised that their TEFL qualifications (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) are the result of a four week residential training camp. In comparison, my seventy hour online TEFL certificate seems flimsy to say the least. Indeed, when I started the course I never anticipated that I would actually end up teaching - part of me had hoped that my half-hearted efforts to secure a position in a language school would fall flat and I would be able to retreat to the familiarity of working in an Irish pub. Instead, I have had to confront the laughable reality that I am a teacher.

In addition to being hideously underqualified, I also feel ridiculously young to be a teacher, and I quote one of my students here: “You´re not actually a teacher are you?” To say I´m learning on the job seems to be something of an understatement. After four weeks I´m still far from comfortable with blackboard, chalk and a roomful of expectant faces. Although all of the classes are exclusively in English, I have found it hard to relax into the comfort of my mother tongue, and often find myself freestyling my way through confused explanations of English grammar. Despite studying English, when it comes to explaining the idiosyncracies and foibles of a language, my knowledge fails me. Phrasal verbs have become the bane of my life. Sometimes there just is no rhyme or reason as to why things are the way things are, yet when faced blank incomprehension, the explanation, “this is an exception to the rule”, isn´t quite substantial.

My three hours of classes with children are also something of a challenge. Although gaps in my knowledge of English are less apparent, being bubbly and enthusiastic about farmyard animals at 7pm is a difinitive struggle. After a painful few weeks inflicting worksheet upon worksheet upon reluctant ten-year-olds, I have resorted to non-stop games. I´ll take games and smiles over education and frowns any day!

Grammatical improvisation and children aside, its not all been bad. I have generally been blessed with lovely, understanding, encouraging students. One invited me to the dress rehearsal of the National Orchestra of Spain, where I spent a surreal Friday morning sitting amidst the orchestra as it played Mozart´s Requiem. Another, mortified to learn that I don´t eat jamón, whisked me off to a vegetarian restaurant for a two course lunch after class. My apprehension about intensive one-on-one private classes also proved to be misplaced. I have found myself having long chats in beautiful flats with incredibly interesting people, including most recently a journalist who travels the world producing documentaries.

I am slowly coming round to the idea that teaching could be a better option than pulling pints in an Irish pub. Despite the fact that by teaching English all day my level of Spanish is remaining stubbornly low, my standard of English is coming on in leaps and bounds, and I am slowly adjusting to being the one conducting the class. In fact, now that the tables have turned on me, I keep having nostalgic pangs for university. As an unsympathetic student I would frequently criticise stilted lesson plans or boring lecturers. Now, I know I would be much more forgiving!

Lost at sea

I have now been ´living la vida loca´here in Madrid for near on three weeks. As you would expect, it´s not been at all difficult to adjust to the long afternoons sipping sangria in a sun-soaked plaza. I´ve simply swapped the umbrella normally resident in my handbag for a pair of sunnies and bullied my bodyclock into increasingly late dinners. Now, I´m happily ordering tapas when English pubs are called last orders, can navigate the city without frequently consulting the map and have sussed out a local fruit and veg market.

However, it hasn´t been quite so easy to immerse myself into the rapid garble that is naturally spoken spanish, and more often than not, I am lost at sea amidst the surrounding Spanish chatter. It seems that briefly revising my A-level notes and watching Sex and the City dubbed into Spanish has left me ill-prepared for day-to-day conversation. My ability seems to vary hugely depending on time of day, amount of sleep and quantity of alcohol consumed. Whereas at times I´m confident with full sentences (albeit littered with incorrect conjugations) at others I find myself having to supplement my shamelessly stilted spanglish with extravagant gestures such that I may as well be playing charades.

Likewise, despite having Radio Nacional de Espana permanently buzzing in the background, my ears stubbornly refuse to digest spoken spanish. I´ve adjusted by trying to read body language - smiling in all the right places, laughing where appropriate and nodding throughout conversations. However, my already short attention span has been magnified by incomprehension and I often find myself pondering over a particular grammar construction or preparing my next sentence mid-conversation. This makes dialogue even more hazardous as it is nigh on impossible to pick up the thread of a story half way through. Only occasionally do I manage to hesitantly mumble a short sentence or question - on what I hope is a related subject.

However, although I seem to spend a lot of time in a British bubble, I´m hugely impatient to be able to seamlessly flick my brain into Spanish mode, and every successful conversation I have with a spaniard triggers a flush of pride and encouragement. I´ve recently started targeting a local café when I can attach a short conversation to every drink ordered. Obviously, success rate varies in almost direct proportion to the number of drinks consumed, but I´m slowly getting to know the spanish crowd there.

I´m going to give myself until Christmas...

Sunshine, tapas, beautiful plazas… and unnecessarily complex grammatical gobbledegook

I have recently returned from a long weekend in Madrid. In preparation for uprooting to the Spanish capital in September, I spent the few days I had there optimistically searching for flats and potential employers.

Although my search was fruitless, after flip-flopping my way through the various barrios in Madrid, map in one hand dictionary in the other, I do feel I got a basic hold on the geography of the city. Having walked in disorientated circles for the first few days, by the end of the trip I had discovered short routes to my favourite people-watching hot spots – the Plaza Mayor being the prime location.

The enormous square seems to have been purpose-built for watching the world meander past, and with buskers serenading tables at restaurants, artists showing exhibitions of their work and a curiously out-of-place, overweight Spiderman flogging photographs to Americans, there is no end of entertainment for interested onlookers. I also got a good feel for ‘la vida en españa’. I enjoyed lingering over ‘tortillas de patatas’ at lunchtime, soaking up the sunshine with a beer in the evening and dining out when English pubs would be calling last orders.

The language however was something else: my A level Spanglish was wholly inadequate. I was totally nonplussed when listening to the rapid garble that is naturally spoken Spanish and was completely incomprehensible to any native speaker, stuttering nonsensical sentences that were littered with incorrectly conjugated verbs and limited by a miserably small range of vocabulary.

As such, on returning last week I was compelled to delve into my old Spanish grammar notes with a certain urgency. The prospect of returning in September to a job hunt with only a stilted command of Spanish was a powerful incentive to go back to the books.

Sadly, my dip into Spanish grammar has revealed a general knowledge of grammar that is severely lacking. A complex jumble of possessive adjectives, prepositional pronouns and reflexive verbs, multiple past tenses, auxiliary verbs and subjunctive moods, I can barely understand it in English let alone Spanish. I can’t help but feel hopelessly out of my depth!

Not to be put off, I have decided to adopt a different style of self-teaching. Rather than bash my brain with over-complicated grammatical jargon, I have resorted to a less direct approach, relying on ‘learning by immersion in the language’. This tactic has enabled me to abandon the tortuous monotony of grammar drills in favour of watching episodes of ‘Sex and the City’ in Spanish, listening to Spanish radio and perusing Spanish magazines.

Watch this space…