M**rda! I think I have never said it so many times in my life, because when you have to teach in front of 32 teenagers in a soaked jeans and with smudged mascara, this Spanish curse word might escape one's lips a time or two. Or twenty-two...
It's been quite some time since I posted something because of the simple reason that I haven't had much to say. Although the first weeks of my internship were very tense and somehow exciting, after some weeks, I finally found a routine of eat-sleep-teach-repeat and I thought that was not the most interesting thing to share.
I sincerely wish that I could delight you with exciting stories about trips in the region, or share sunny photos of visits to Madrid, Toledo or Salamanca. But except for tapas bars and hipster cafés, I haven't seen much of the Spanish cultural life because... Belgium happened.
Yes, I call it Belgium: the dreadful weather that has been torturing me for the past three months. Now, I am not paranoid, but I am not excluding conspiracy theories because - clearly - someone holds a grudge against me, having placed this raincloud right over the centre of the Spanish peninsula. Is it you, Frank?
Some weekends, I considered taking a train to one of the Costas, but the weather wasn't splendid either. So I stayed at home and tried to see the positive side of my situation: I would have plenty of time to prepare my lessons.
Unfortunatly, dark skies are not very motivating. So instead, I wrapped myself up in my cocoon, went into hibernation mode and waited for this inferno to pass. I felt much like Rapunzel, trapped in a 12m² "tower", overlooking the red, dry hills that little by little were turning green. But however beautiful they seemed, the pouring rain was my guard, preventing me from fleeing my tower and exploring this beautiful land.
But at some point I had to get out, because obviously I didn't live at my internship school. So every morning, I sipped at my coffee and looked at the palmtree catching wind. I cursed the land, the skies, everything, and after this desperate, poetic moment, I pulled myself together and dragged myself to school. Aye, dragged. Not because I hated the job, but because it implied risking my life on the dangerous, wet roads and arriving absolutely soaked at my internship school.
Even though my colleagues and friends kept telling me that "it was going to change" and that "I was going to beg for rain in a few weeks", I grew more depressed by the day, because nothing ever changed. And when even the Spanish people started worrying about some approaching apocalypse (because they had never had this kind of weather before), I decided that enough was enough. I had to get out of this bloody country.
In an impulsive moment, I booked a ticket to the sunniest place I could think of. I thought of my happy place, a place that had helped me once before. So I booked a plane and off I went. And even though, in hindsight, it was ridiculous, stupid, way overpriced and too far for the one-week holiday I was granted at my internship school, I don't regret my decision.
Pura Vida
Costa Rica, the reason I became the international geek I am today. Costa Rica infected me with the nastiest of travel bugs. This travel bug being the reason I left for Nice, the reason I wanted to leave for Australia (and somehow ended up in Spain) and the reason that I made the decision to move abroad for an indefinite period after I graduate in Belgium.
Costa Rica was my refuge when, many years ago, I had lost my way. And since I felt that I was losing it again, I was hoping that this one-week holiday might provide me with enough strength to survive the next episode of my personal bad-weather-inferno back in Spain.
So I soaked up every ray of sunshine, smelled every molecule of non-polluted air and felt every increasing degree of Celcius. I enjoyed every minute of this nostalgic rollercoaster. I met my long-distance friends again, had some Imperials with my host family and travelled the country on the tunes of U2.
I smiled all the time. I must have looked like a retarded idiot, being overamazed by the silliest things such as American trucks, public buses covered with a smiling Jesus-figure or the little fruit stands down the roads selling exotic fruit. I ran around like a headless chicken crying for coconut water and jumped over the thought of finally having some fresh guanabana again. Also, I may have overindulged in gallo pinto and frescas - again.
But all nice things must come to an end. I travelled back into the future and arrived in Spain, hoping that the Costa Rican weather would have somehow stuck to me. But I lost it somewhere over the Atlantic, shaken off by turbulence. Because when I arrived back in Madrid, the weather was exactly the same, not to say worse than before. I walked home from a 12-hour flight in the rain, wearing nothing but my sunny Costa Rican outfit. An instant reminder of the weeks to come...
Luckily, I have my Belgian friends reminding me what good weather feels like, as they are posting their sunny BBQ-pics in their bikinis while I am freezing in 7°C. And I wonder if this is all one big set-up, and if I was secretely transferred to the English Lake District by aliens while I was asleep, because, well, these streets start looking like lakes over here. But I guess I'm still in Spain, otherwise my pupils would have had a way better English accent...
But to end on a positive note, today my mentor said that they have a famous saying, stating that in Madrid, they have 8 months of winter, and 4 months of hell.
I realise that's not even a positive note. But anyway - let all hell break loose. I'm ready.
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| Ceci n'est pas un volcan |
