Bienvenido a Asturias!

Right then, I'm in Asturias. I'm sat in my very own room in a beautiful house which is going to be home for the next eight months. Up until now, I've had this strange feeling that I'm going to get a call from Durham at any moment saying 'Psyche! You can come home now. As if you're going to have to live in another country for a whole year. Hahaha'. And then we'd have a jolly good laugh about it and I'd jump on a plane home and settle down with a plate of fish and chips and a pint of Thatchers cider and normal life would resume. But now that I've unpacked and my clothes are in a cupboard and my books are on a shelf and my suitcases are tucked away under my bed, it feels more likely that I'm actually here for the long haul. This is view from the back door... Not too shabby, eh?

I spent most of my last full day in Llançà decorating some shelving for the Love Cambodia shop, which has undergone quite the transformation since I arrived at the beginning of the month. It looks like a proper shop now and is all kitted out, ready to open for business so fingers crossed for Sheryl that it all goes well. The next morning I packed up my stuff (which involved standing with a hairdryer, drying each individual bit of clothing that I'd washed the day before but, thanks to the uncharacteristic lack of sun, hadn't dried in time to be packed. Typical) and got a lift to the station from Sheryl's friend Steve. The 3 hour-ish train journey went pretty quickly and I ended up chatting to a lady from Winchester, which is about half an hour from my house at home, and a Canadian man who lives half an hour away from Owensound, which is the town where a certain handsome young man happens to be living this year. It's a small world.

I arrived at the airport in one piece with a casual two hours to spare before my flight. I know, right? Me? Early?! There's a first time for everything. At the departures terminal, a very random man started telling me how he'd been robbed and asking whether I knew where he should go to buy a new ticket with no money. It was a bit like an A-level oral exam and I kept getting the feeling that an examiner was going to pop up at any moment and ask me to summarise what I'd just heard and answer a few comprehension questions. It was unnerving. I told him to go to security and off he ran. Boarding the plane, a group of men had been stopped because their hand luggage was too big. I had to sidle past with my best innocent face on, in the knowledge that I was dragging a perfectly regulation-proportioned but 5kg overweight suitcase behind me. I got away with it. The plane took off and I waved goodbye to Barcelona.

At Oviedo airport I was met by Nicholas - the Father of the family I'm staying with - and his son Alex. The family are English but they've lived out here for 14 years so they're all bilingual. When we got home (the house is incredible - they pretty much built it themselves. It could be on Grand Designs or something) I met Rebecca (the mum) and Mel and Isabel (the daughters). Isabel is who I arranged the homestay with so it was lovely to meet her in real life! They've said we can talk Spanish in the home as much as I want so my fears of not getting enough Spanish practice were quickly allayed. It's a pretty great arrangement and I'm very happy to be here indeed!

On Friday morning, Isabel took me to the police station to try to get my NIE (national identity number). I won't bore you with the details, but 5 hours later we still hadn't managed to conquer the Spanish bureaucracy. We went from the police station, to the social security office, to the bank, back to the police station, to the town hall, to another office, to another bank and back to the police station which, by this time, was closed. So I ended up with a national identity, but no card to prove it yet. It was so flippin' complicated and my head hurt from trying to keep up with all the Spanish - I would have died without Isabel there to translate. I did get a great walking tour of Gijón in the process of it all though, so that was a nice silver lining. We went out in the evening and met three other girls who are also working as language assistants here this year - one English, one French and one Scottish. It was an great taste of Gijón nightlife, involving many hours spent in a bar seemingly dedicated to drinking games, playing a ring-of-fire-esque game with a wine and coke mixture called calimocho.

Saturday night, we went out again to a massive chemistry faculty party in a nearby town. It was a top night, starting off at a botellón (a street party) and moving on to the club, which was huge. I spoke a LOT of Spanish including a prolonged conversation in which I tried to explain to a group of Spaniards just how rude it is to say the C-word in England (the Spanish equivalent gets thrown about so casually). I kept talking about Barcelona and La Festa Mercé and Catalonia and how amazing it all was but experienced for the first time, first-hand, just how disinterested the Northen Spanish are in Catalan traditions. It was strange. I felt offended somehow. We left the club at 7am and got a lift back to Gijón, where we went for a coffee. The people in the coffee shop had been to bed, had a full night's sleep and were up for breakfast. We were sat there in our clubbing gear from the previous night. It was surreal.

Tomorrow we've got a meeting in Oviedo as the official start of the assistantship so I'm going to see Alex, which is incredibly exciting.

It's been a great couple days. I've been VERY grateful for skype and for spotify (Mumford and Sons new album - wowie). I wish I'd brought less clothes and more home comforts, but I do have my dragon onesie. So that's good.

Until next time!

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