new beginnings

This weekend heralds something of a fresh start for Kate and I in Spain. After nearly two weeks of job-less, home-less limbo enjoy the wonderful hospitality of our friends Kirsty and Juanmi in Vaciamadrid, we are about to move into a new flat and start new jobs.

We exchanged contracts on a lovely 2 bedroom apartment in Cuidad Lineal earlier this morning. Our new landlord and landlady are an elderly couple who live on the floor below, the flat used to be their son´s and their duaghter lives directly below us. Very much a family affair! It´s got everything we need, is reasonably close to the Metro and the surrounding area seems to be quite quiet while still hosting several lively looking bars and lots of amenities. Ironically enough it´s very close to the academy I was teaching at last term though, while I was very happy there, I´m glad we´ve moved.

The advantages of switching academies were immediately apparent when we recieved our timetables. Knocking off at 9pm rather than 10pm makes a huge difference and the kids classes last 50 minutes instead of 1 hour 20, which is going to be a hell of a lots more bearable. As the students will be drawn from the poshest barrio in town (Salamanca) they should also, theoretically, be better behaved than the monsters I was marshalling last term. In addition much of the lesson planning is done for us in advance; we just have to fine tune the plans provided to suit our own styles. However, the biggest benefit of our new posts is the 3 day weekends we get every other, we share two staurday classes with another teacher and never work fridays. We´re already thinking about some weekends away in Delilah...