A New Hope

So. The whole blogging-as-soon-as-I-got-to-Spain thing didn't really turned out as I hoped. I could blame this on the fact that I ended up being in Madrid, and not in Badajoz, and working full-time all summer long, but that doesn't really cut it, does it? So let's just agree that I became a little too Spanish, went a little too native, and temporarily abandoned my ambitions of recording my Spanish adventures for the rather more visceral pleasures of terrazas, the Reina Sofia, tinto de verano, and Madrid's best Chino Chino (calle Hermosilla 101, for anyone playing along at home). Oh Madrid, I miss you.

At any rate, after a trip home for my sister's wedding, Christmas, New Years, and the like, I'm back in Badajoz, working as a Conversation Assistant at a couple of the local high schools, a gig which turns out to be both challenging and reasonably stress-free, at least for the moment. More on that, perhaps, in a later post. There are a few glimpses of other professional opportunities, but in Spain it pays to be patient, so right now I'm just cruising into my English classes, enjoying my afternoons off, playing hooky from my español para inmigrantes classes, and generally learning to take it easy. When in Rome, after all.

This is the main lesson of life in Spain: it doesn't always need to be so tough; you are not always required to achieve, or even desire, more. If you have a job that keeps you afloat financially, and gets you out of the house occasionally, and it doesn't leave you lying awake at night worrying about ridiculous things, well, lucky you. There is no need to be a Nobel-winning author or CEO of Repsol or President of the European Central Bank. Why would you want that? People who end up in those positions clearly don't value their rest enough. Sometimes good enough is just that.

And with that cheery thought, I'm off to El Corte Ingles. Not to shop, but to admire things, run into people we know, have a coffee and do a spot of people-watching. Because it's Saturday morning, and on Saturday mornings, that's what you do.