I've now been in Madrid nearly three weeks. In some ways it feels like a lifetime already, and in others I feel like I just got here, but that's life I guess! I've done two weeks at school, I'm enjoying it :) I've got 16 different classes with a few children in more than one but mostly different so it's quite hard to get to know names etc. So far I've just told them about myself and my life in England and they've asked me questions, done a presentation on the Royal family, quite jokes cos some of them couldn't understand that the Queen is actually called Elizabeth, not the Spanish translation Isabel, and William is not called Guillermo. I don't really know why the Spanish love translating names so much, but there you go.
Some things that I've noticed differences with are cool, like people are generally friendlier and say Hola at bus stops to strangers and have a chat with you in the fruit and veg shop and invite you to have a tour of their hometown. Some things are not so cool of course, but generally it's all good. I'm glad I brought my fairtrade tea bags with me, tea here is like grim lol. And I've ordered a kettle off amazon cos they just don't exist here! Another thing I've noticed is that everyone seems to have all the time in the world, even the telebancos (cash machines) take like 7 years to give you your money.
So moving on, after being sola in my apartment for a week my housemates moved in and I suddenly lived with two American girls. At first I was like ahh I'm never gona speak Spanish and at times I think my brain almost thinks I'm on my YA in the US and gets like super surprised when I suddenly hear someone speaking Spanish in the street and then I'm like oh yeah I'm in Spain, cool. But anyway, they're like so nice, I love living with them already. It's also quite nice to just be able to chill at home and speak English, even though they like laugh at everything I say!
Church is also pretty awesome. So I've like got involved in the Madrid Church Plant which is super cool, the team are awesome people, their faith is pretty inspiring just the way they've just taken their family and moved to Madrid and are now just living here meeting people and building church. I'm also going to Amistad Cristiana and it's just a great church, everyone's super friendly and the presence of God is so there in the meetings, and I was super pleased to actually understand the service since it's ofc all in Spanish. Also I went to the meeting for university age people on Tuesday and it was pretty epic.
I guess a lot more has occured, but I'll leave it there for now, with a few pictures :)
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| mi habitacion :) |
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| the park just down the road |
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| my roomies in sol ♥ |
