Journal Inexile2002's Journal: Suddenly quiting and moving to another country 2
This was originally a mass email for my friends back home in Canada. I decided to post it here too.
Hi all,
Sorry for the mass email, but I decided that I'd rather write one big one than a 100 little ones. Ok, first off. If you didn't know that I'd gone and quit my job and left the country - well - surprise! Because I did. I'm in Spain right now, Madrid staying with my parents for a little while and I don't really know where I'm going next. This all happened reasonably fast.
Figure I might as well send you all a hello and give those who are interested an update. First off, I am well and Spain is nice. So what's happened so far:
There was a loooooong flight to Spain, not so much because the flight took a long time, but because I have a 5 hour lay over in New York. Not quite enough time to get out of the airport and sightsee, but long enough to make the trip a real pain. But that, gratefully is the only bad thing that's happened so far.
So I arrived in Madrid, and to my surprise there was NO security, customs or anything at the airport. As a former security professional (so happy that that's "former") I was interested in seeing what kind of security I'd be going through, checking my passport, interrogations... something! A bored looking guy stamped my passport without so much as looking at me (and without asking me any questions at all) and I basically grabbed my bags and walked out of the airport.
I know it's strange to talk about airport security but this was just slightly more than two weeks after the train bombings... anyway. If you ever want to enter a country illegally, Spain is your bet.
So I arrived in Madrid and spent the first day relaxing and getting over jet lag. Not too bad really. My parent's place is nice and I'll probably be here for at least another couple of weeks.
The second day I was here my brother and I went to the national museum of anthropology. Great exhibits and my brother, being an Egyptian and Roman history buff, had a great time. Got a chance to see some of downtown Madrid and I was a little surprised. There are older buildings and there are rotundas instead of intersections, but really Madrid is a surprisingly modern city.
I haven't seen much of it and will probably soon see more, but it really didn't live up to those classical cliché expectations of a European city.
Peter, my little brother was on vacation last week for Holy Week so my dad took a couple of days off, and the family drove down to Merida. Merida is in the Extremadura region of Spain basically between Madrid and Portugal. They call it the frying pan of Spain because in the summer it regularly gets up to the mid to high 40's. Shudder. However, this is the spring and it was beautiful. Even nicer when we were in our hotel and saw the weather - it was raining everywhere else in Spain.
Merida is everything that Madrid isn't. The classic little European town with tiny winding streets and a huge public square that is the centre of the town's social life. We were there for Thursday, Friday and Saturday and got to see a bunch of the local's Easter traditions.
They had this huge Easter procession, which is sort of like a cross between a parade and church. The whole town was either in the thing or lined up on the side of the roads to see it. It was actually pretty cool although the rest of the family quickly got bored. (I guess all those years of Anthropology videos on cultural festivals gave me a resistance or something. Good to know the degree is good for something.)
Anyway, Merida had some cool historical stuff too. It was the Roman capitol of Spain and has a beautifully restored Amphitheatre and a partially restored Coliseum. They're still excavating and restoring the Coliseum but they light it up at night and allow tourists to go through certain parts. The old Roman walls are still intact and there's a Roman bridge spanning the local that's still in use. The town itself is dotted with old aqueducts, Visigoth ruins leftovers from the Moors and various medieval buildings.
Cooler still is the Amphitheatre which has been restored enough to be functional and was really quite breath taking. Those Romans really knew how to build a public theatre. We took a tonne of pictures but Michelle (did I mention that my sister was along for this trip) didn't load the film in the camera correctly and screwed up the whole roll.
From Merida we took a winding route went onto Lisbon, or rather Cascais, a small town right outside of Lisbon. Really nice, but a little ritzy. Somewhere you'd never go unless you were with your parents, sort of like a Whistler village on the Atlantic.
Anyway, we got to see lots of Spanish countryside, a good bit of Portugal including some Catholic sanctuary where some kids saw Mary or something. Got VERY lost getting out of Lisbon but got to drive around allot - it was all very pretty and I definitely enjoyed the trip. Oh, and the Spanish / Portuguese border was manned by an automated tollbooth. Really glad to see the Spanish aren't taking the paranoid road to counter-terrorism and posting machine gun armed military everywhere.
So. Now I'm back in Madrid and basically figuring out what to do next. I've actually got a couple of solid leads on teaching jobs - both by dumb luck, but I'm not sure if I want either. One is teaching English to grade 10 at a Catholic boy's school (my mom put a good word in with god and the Catholic mafia sprang into action) and the other is at the more typical English Language places.
Thing is... other than the free rent, I don't really want to stay in Madrid. My parents are great really, but living here I think would wear thin sooner rather than later.
So I'm going to see about these two jobs and maybe take one if it's offered (if the money is good) or head on to Barcelona. If I take the Catholic one, it would only be to the end of the school year, so around two months - basically I'd be helping kids with some major English exam that matters for University entrance. So that's tempting - get a little experience and then maybe move on.
With the other one... if they want me to sign a contract I think I'll pass. Staying in Madrid for a couple of months, even until the end of the summer would be ok... beyond that... we'll see. If they offer me a short term contract or just a position... maybe. It's more the type of teaching that I want to do, and again, a little experience before I try my luck in Barcelona or Prague might be useful.
Anyway, that's pretty much everything that's happened so far. I'm well, relaxed, happy and generally just enjoying life. Feel free to drop me the occasional email and if by some random chance you're going to end up on this continent, drop me a line and we'll meet up somewhere.
Hi all,
Sorry for the mass email, but I decided that I'd rather write one big one than a 100 little ones. Ok, first off. If you didn't know that I'd gone and quit my job and left the country - well - surprise! Because I did. I'm in Spain right now, Madrid staying with my parents for a little while and I don't really know where I'm going next. This all happened reasonably fast.
Figure I might as well send you all a hello and give those who are interested an update. First off, I am well and Spain is nice. So what's happened so far:
There was a loooooong flight to Spain, not so much because the flight took a long time, but because I have a 5 hour lay over in New York. Not quite enough time to get out of the airport and sightsee, but long enough to make the trip a real pain. But that, gratefully is the only bad thing that's happened so far.
So I arrived in Madrid, and to my surprise there was NO security, customs or anything at the airport. As a former security professional (so happy that that's "former") I was interested in seeing what kind of security I'd be going through, checking my passport, interrogations... something! A bored looking guy stamped my passport without so much as looking at me (and without asking me any questions at all) and I basically grabbed my bags and walked out of the airport.
I know it's strange to talk about airport security but this was just slightly more than two weeks after the train bombings... anyway. If you ever want to enter a country illegally, Spain is your bet.
So I arrived in Madrid and spent the first day relaxing and getting over jet lag. Not too bad really. My parent's place is nice and I'll probably be here for at least another couple of weeks.
The second day I was here my brother and I went to the national museum of anthropology. Great exhibits and my brother, being an Egyptian and Roman history buff, had a great time. Got a chance to see some of downtown Madrid and I was a little surprised. There are older buildings and there are rotundas instead of intersections, but really Madrid is a surprisingly modern city.
I haven't seen much of it and will probably soon see more, but it really didn't live up to those classical cliché expectations of a European city.
Peter, my little brother was on vacation last week for Holy Week so my dad took a couple of days off, and the family drove down to Merida. Merida is in the Extremadura region of Spain basically between Madrid and Portugal. They call it the frying pan of Spain because in the summer it regularly gets up to the mid to high 40's. Shudder. However, this is the spring and it was beautiful. Even nicer when we were in our hotel and saw the weather - it was raining everywhere else in Spain.
Merida is everything that Madrid isn't. The classic little European town with tiny winding streets and a huge public square that is the centre of the town's social life. We were there for Thursday, Friday and Saturday and got to see a bunch of the local's Easter traditions.
They had this huge Easter procession, which is sort of like a cross between a parade and church. The whole town was either in the thing or lined up on the side of the roads to see it. It was actually pretty cool although the rest of the family quickly got bored. (I guess all those years of Anthropology videos on cultural festivals gave me a resistance or something. Good to know the degree is good for something.)
Anyway, Merida had some cool historical stuff too. It was the Roman capitol of Spain and has a beautifully restored Amphitheatre and a partially restored Coliseum. They're still excavating and restoring the Coliseum but they light it up at night and allow tourists to go through certain parts. The old Roman walls are still intact and there's a Roman bridge spanning the local that's still in use. The town itself is dotted with old aqueducts, Visigoth ruins leftovers from the Moors and various medieval buildings.
Cooler still is the Amphitheatre which has been restored enough to be functional and was really quite breath taking. Those Romans really knew how to build a public theatre. We took a tonne of pictures but Michelle (did I mention that my sister was along for this trip) didn't load the film in the camera correctly and screwed up the whole roll.
From Merida we took a winding route went onto Lisbon, or rather Cascais, a small town right outside of Lisbon. Really nice, but a little ritzy. Somewhere you'd never go unless you were with your parents, sort of like a Whistler village on the Atlantic.
Anyway, we got to see lots of Spanish countryside, a good bit of Portugal including some Catholic sanctuary where some kids saw Mary or something. Got VERY lost getting out of Lisbon but got to drive around allot - it was all very pretty and I definitely enjoyed the trip. Oh, and the Spanish / Portuguese border was manned by an automated tollbooth. Really glad to see the Spanish aren't taking the paranoid road to counter-terrorism and posting machine gun armed military everywhere.
So. Now I'm back in Madrid and basically figuring out what to do next. I've actually got a couple of solid leads on teaching jobs - both by dumb luck, but I'm not sure if I want either. One is teaching English to grade 10 at a Catholic boy's school (my mom put a good word in with god and the Catholic mafia sprang into action) and the other is at the more typical English Language places.
Thing is... other than the free rent, I don't really want to stay in Madrid. My parents are great really, but living here I think would wear thin sooner rather than later.
So I'm going to see about these two jobs and maybe take one if it's offered (if the money is good) or head on to Barcelona. If I take the Catholic one, it would only be to the end of the school year, so around two months - basically I'd be helping kids with some major English exam that matters for University entrance. So that's tempting - get a little experience and then maybe move on.
With the other one... if they want me to sign a contract I think I'll pass. Staying in Madrid for a couple of months, even until the end of the summer would be ok... beyond that... we'll see. If they offer me a short term contract or just a position... maybe. It's more the type of teaching that I want to do, and again, a little experience before I try my luck in Barcelona or Prague might be useful.
Anyway, that's pretty much everything that's happened so far. I'm well, relaxed, happy and generally just enjoying life. Feel free to drop me the occasional email and if by some random chance you're going to end up on this continent, drop me a line and we'll meet up somewhere.
Suddenly moving ... (Score:2)
If this keeps up, in another 100 years or so I won't have any friends left :-)
Re:Suddenly moving ... (Score:2)
As for your eventual lack of friends because of the exodus from Canada... I assure you I'll be back. Which means that when the country empties out and it's just the two of us, we'll need to decide who gets to be Prime Minister and who get's to be King.
Shotgun King!