The Arrival

If you are reading this, you have probably been waiting in anticipation for my first post from Spain. Some of you may have expected me to post when I arrived nearly a week ago, but sketchy internet and a severe case of jet lag had me wait until now. Since you are anxious for some news, I will tell you what I have learned during my first week in the Basque Country.

Firstly, and probably most importantly, I have decided that I will never fly stand-by for a long-distance, international flight. The good part of this experience was that it was the reason behind many of the stories you are going to read, unfortunately, that is also the bad. I am going to start from where the story gets very interesting.

After sitting, and attempting to sleep, in several airports in several different countries, I was finally in Madrid. I was extremely exhausted, seeing as how I had been traveling and not sleeping for significantly more hours than I can count to in Basque, which added to the general stress of moving to a new country. Even considering my mental state at the time, I figured that I had been to Madrid enough times to get myself to the bus station and catch the bus to Bilbao so as to spend as little time there as possible. If you have ever heard me talk about my previous experiences in Madrid, you know that there is always some kind of fiasco and that I have a great dislike for the city. This visit was no exception. I decided to spend the money on a taxi to the bus station in order to avoid having to take the metro (subway) with all of my luggage by myself. Getting to the bus station was no problem. Unfortunately, it was the wrong bus station. Who would have thought that the buses to Bilbao didn't leave from the main station like the buses to many other major cities? The lady at the ticket counter told me to take the metro seven stops to one of the other bus stations in the city. After trying so hard to avoid the metro, I was not at all pleased, and I had only one hour to catch the bus. Being as tired as I was, it didn't even occur to me to take another taxi. I headed towards the metro, and ended up taking the wrong elevator so I still had to take an escalator down to the metro level. Normally this would be no problem, but I was carrying four suitcases which totaled approximately 130 pounds and wearing a sweater and nice pants, which leads me to another thing I learned. I will never travel wearing nice cloths again.

It terms of getting you places in a relatively timely fashion, the Madrid metro is an excellent mode of public transportation. Unfortunately, it is a rather old system with sporadic elevators and few escalators. It was about 75 degrees and very humid that day and I had to navigate these stations by myself with all 130 pounds of luggage. I caught the train, waited the seven stops, and managed to escape without losing anything. The only obstacle left between me and and the bus station was the escalator going up. Just as I arrived at the escalator another train let off the majority of its passengers who all needed to go up as well. I decided to wait for them to pass so that I wouldn't completely obscure the pathway. One woman noticed me standing there and stopped to ask if I needed help, and being so tired I could hardly put together a coherent sentence, I gladly took her up on her offer. She got me to the top of the escalator and I made it to the bus stop completely soaked with sweat.

I made it safely to Bilbao and was so tired that all I wanted to do was sleep, but I was so overly tired that I couldn't fall asleep and decided to start looking for apartments. I found one that seemed like a good fit in Durango, the city right across the river from where I will be teaching. I emailed them and they agreed to show me the apartment. I liked the apartment, and the people seemed nice, so I decided that it would be a good place to live. This was on Friday. Because I had paid the hostel until Monday, I decided to stay there and explore Bilbao a little. I didn't end up doing much exploring because I was still recovering from the trip. It poured both Thursday and Friday, which also didn't give me much incentive to wander around. Not wanting to face the local transportation system with all of my luggage at once, I made two trips from Bilbao to Durango, one on Saturday and the other on Sunday.

The third thing I learned was that I need to be more observant. I found out today that there is no oven in the apartment. To me, ovens and stoves generally go together, so I figured that when I saw the oven, there was a stove as well. It is fairly common here that apartments don't have ovens, but it is something I had taken for granted. Other than that, I am loving it here. The city is beautiful and full of things to do, if you know where to look

Explanations

Euskadi : The Basque word which signifies the Spanish autonomous community of the Basque Country.

I have been thinking about and attempting to plan my return to Spain since last December, and the time has finally arrived. In less than three weeks, I will be leaving to work as a language and culture assistant in a secondary school in Iurreta, a town of approximately 3,800 inhabitants in the Basque Country of Spain. Although I have never visited this part of the country, I have wanted to for a long time. This will be different from my previous experiences because I will no longer be a traditional student; I will instead be the teacher. Also unlike my previous experiences, where I was only navigating between two languages (Spanish and English) on a daily basis, I have the challenge of an additional language, the Basque language, Euskara. Seeing as how I only know about eight words of Euskara, life in the Basque country could prove slightly difficult at first.

If you have ever listened to me tell stories of my travels, you will know that I have a terrible sense of direction and spend a good amount of time getting myself lost. This blog will contain the stories of my undertaking of what might be the most difficult thing I have ever attempted, teaching English in a foreign country. I'm sure this experience will provide me with many opportunities to get lost, both physically and linguistically. I hope you enjoy the stories of my teaching and traveling adventures.