welcome to everyday life.

It‘s been a while. Because life has caught up! The summer schedule has ended and I am not spending much time at home. During the week I started a Gym in my neighborhood, because the one in Alicante was only for the summer. And it was too exhausting carrying all my stuff the whole day with me. So now I go to a Gym around the corner, that costs about the same but has no classes, just weights and a cardio area. The main focus is building some muscles on my arms and back, because I am still walking a lot outside. But cardio is also not one of my strengths. The Gym is for residents only which is why I only share it with four or five other people when I go there. Perfect training conditions.

Last week I also started a Spanish class. Finally, I must say. During the summer I looked at language schools, that were offering classes. Way too expensive and usually not easy for me to combine the schedule with my work. So I started looking into the Offical Language School in Benidorm. The application process is long and tiring, especially when you receive emails in Valenciano and the information in Spanish are missing. I am extremely proud I finally managed everything, passed an entrance exam, turned in all my papers (at the school, waiting in line for more than one hour… because, why not?). Turning in papers is still a miracle for me. I don‘t know why there would be a queue and why the school can’t see from their bank account, who has paid the fees. But the class is cheap, has high standards and it turned out that the only class offered in the afternoon is at my level. Everyone else studying Spanish must be unemployed or working as a freelancer. I don’t know. Anyways, the first two classes were great. We are only 7 students from all over Europe: Estonia, Russia, Sweden, France, England and Germany – and I am the only German! Surprisingly there are not many Germans in my area – more in Alicante and further South.

The class is twice a week for one year and I am going to learn a lot. We work on grammar, pronunciation, listening and reading and the teacher requests a high level. Most of my classmates have been living here for 2 or more years, studying Spanish. On the one hand I feel more integrated then them, because I have an office job, speak at least some Spanish every day at work, have “family” close. But on the other hand I am not good at grammar. I found confidence in speaking, the last months helped a lot. But my grammar has not improved a lot. So now is the perfect time to improve and remember all the grammar I should know already. English is just so much easier!

With Gym and Spanish my week is completely full, I leave the house in the dark and come home in the dark. 12 hours away is a normal day without anything. The Tram has been on strikes every now and then, which means I have to take another train to come home in the afternoon and spend more time in Alicante. For the last weeks, weekends have become more and more important to rest, get some sun and do chores. Welcome to the normal life!

The next project we are up to is finding a car for me. As my boyfriend is using “our” car every day I depend on him to pick me up or I keep walking. From the school it takes around 1,5 hours to go home (only 10 minutes by car) which is why I prefer to wait for him. But it would be much easier with my own car. Having spend most of my life in Hamburg I never needed a car and only had one once, that I didn’t choose on my own. Let’s see what we find!