I have never blogged before and am probably, in reality, rather too old to do it but I thought that I would start a blog because I have just moved to Madrid for the foreseeable future; maybe it will be a good thing to record how I find it all, as much for myself as for anyone else! I will try to blog about stuff that strikes me as different here, probably ranging from the massive to the seemingly unimportant, but it is often the smallest things that make the biggest difference.
I am no stranger to moving my life around or to travelling generally, although moving now I am older and have more to leave behind has been a surprisingly wrenching experience. It is when you move somewhere else in Europe that you realise how different the Brit really are from our European neighbours. I am sure this is a sweeping generalisation but, at the moment it seems to me that most Mediterranean Europeans could move from their country to another without experiencing too much of a culture-shock. The same could well be true of Northern Europeans I suppose although I have to admit, that is not somewhere I have really been. The Brits are just different. Having lived in SA I didn't feel the differences so acutely; I lived in an English speaking area and hung out with English (and Afrikaans) speaking friends and families. While they lived more outside and just had a fantastic life, their attitudes, the things they considered rude, their way of interacting and being was not, in many ways, staggeringly different from ours.
I have been discovering over the course of the last year or so that the Spanish, whilst obviously having pretty much the same core moral values and life outlook, are rather different from us. Having just moved here and the more permanent nature of the change has now started to sink in I am beginning to miss things from home (aside from friends and family of course!). These are the things I have noticed so far (although I am sure I will miss some from this list):
* Tea! Yes folks, it is no myth we Brits LOVE our tea. I have a good supply but miss it in restuarants and the like
* BBC - the BBC is definitely the best media provider in the world and I miss it; radio, tele, the lot.
* Decent sofas - the Spanish like their lazy-boys and they are the height of fashion here but I don't like them all, give me a good old fashioned English couch anytime.
* Light coloured wood. The wood of furniture here is really really dark
* Wimbledon - GUTTED to be missing this, I don't have Canal+ or BBC here so will miss the lot and it is my summer ritual
* Rugby - they just don't do it here
* Boots - I love that shop
There are however lots of advantages to being here as well, cheap clothes, fab climate, laid back people (mixed blessing sometimes though), being on the Metro at midnight without thinking you're going to die, nightlife (eating at 11 and partying til whenever and everything stays open), the friendliness of the people, long lunch breaks, drinking in the office bar (oh yes people, you read that one right), arriving at work at 9.30, the sound of Spanish, being with my fiancé and I am sure millions more.
Well, I have bored you all enough.
Til the next time...or ¡hasta la próxima!
WW
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