The prospect of living in a foreign country for a year is a daunting one, even more so knowing that you have to find a flat to live in as soon as you get there! Despite such an impending worry, there doesn’t seem to be a better way to spend the first night in Granada than at the local hot-springs sipping sangria.
However, when a bloke starts running frantically around because someone has ‘stolen all of the stuff from my car’, it seems like a good moment to take off (to avoid being robbed, not because I was the responsible party!). Still smelling distinctly of sulphur the next morning, I embark on the inevitable task of staring endlessly at phone boxes littered with adverts for rooms to rent. I scribble down the numbers of all those that sound nice/ aren’t too expensive/aren’t specifically for girls (the sexists).
After a day of searching, and a bidding war for the spare room with a dopey Spaniard, I’ve secured a flat and bought the cheapest blanket that money can buy (as I now no longer have rights to those in the hostel I’ve been staying at).
Setting off to your new home a few days before your job starts is definitely the best way to do things, it gives you enough time to sort out boring stuff, explore the city, and see a chav take part in a religious fiesta procession. Or perhaps you’d rather have a tubby kid on a trike eye up your Spanish omelette sandwich? All valuable experiences.
The opportunity to share a flat with people from different countries is great, and the nature of the various Erasmus programmes means that all students have lots of free time on their hands, so are really easy going, happy individuals. Generally people are sympathetic to the fact that you are still learning the language, and the abundance of students in the same position means that a lot can be learned from student-student conversations. For one it is a much more manageable spoken speed than that of native Spaniards.
In terms of working, I do 12 hours a week at a secondary school teaching English, which entails overseeing pronunciation, spelling, vocabulary (and long awkward silences where no-one has anything to say). The timetable leaves me with a comfortable, if a little undersized, 4 day weekend to play around with and see the rest of Spain. I hear October is a perfect time to hit the nearby beaches. Jealous? You should be!
So this is all very nice: heat, tapas, Arabic tea… surely there must be something bad? Well, yes. Head & shoulders and Lynx are easily double the price than they are in England, and I can’t find anything but UHT milk. So there you have your choice: you can either have quality dairy and sanitary products, or you can live in another country with great cuisine and culture, meet new people, and master another language. For me it’s a no-brainer; Spain is great, and the year abroad an amazing experience… but you just can’t beat a good glass of milk.
