Our first week living as an ex-pat in Spain

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So this is it. The start of our new life. I’m not sure if I’m meant to feel any different or not but I don’t really. Well, I do feel quite nervous and slightly weird about looking for work whilst staying in our flat in Spain which has up until now always been a holiday home.

As per usual whenever we arrive somewhere new, we head out to the supermarket to stock up on the essentials and food to live on for the week. It feels really good to be able to get back into cooking our own healthy stuff again (my waistline has suffered over Christmas and seems to have expanded slightly…) and it’s also a novelty having a car to carry everything in (walking for a mile there and back in the baking heat whilst carrying 2 heavy bags of shopping each was not much fun in China).

After that we unpack and Greg gets started on the dinner. I meanwhile relax with a bath and a drink. Well, the job hunting can wait until next week…. We’ve decided we’ll enjoy our weekend and then get straight into the business side of things come next week. I have contacted the lady I’ve been speaking with at the English school in Murcia to let her know we’ve arrived, and she emails straight back which is a positive sign. Hopefully we can meet up with her next week to discuss any work opportunities but even if nothing comes from it, then we’ll get ourselves out there to hand out CVs etc anyway. I must admit I’m pretty nervous about getting into the whole teaching thing again as after 6 months, all I can remember are the negatives about teaching rather than the positives. I keep thinking about all the times the children would just sit and stare at me, or when I would have to raise my voice to get them to behave, or when they got bored learning a new rule of grammar... I’m also not looking forward to that nervous and slightly cringeworthy first class where you don’t quite know their level yet, or how to base your teaching methods to suit them. BUT, once it’s out of the way I know we’ll take to it like a duck to water and will be laughing about how worried we were (whilst sitting have a moan about the kid in our class who just never shuts up, and the kid who is never EVER going to pick up English, bless). So hopefully by the next time I write, we’ll have jobs to talk about, and perhaps a new edition to the family? (a dog that is!!).

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