Hello World!!!

Well hello there. I am still alive!!! And so far everything is going well here in sunny Spain. I have so much to say and it would actually take far too long to say it, so I´ll just try to keep to the bare minimum. Anything beyond that would probably bore the socks offf you anyways!

So. Here I am. I have an address, a bank account and this week I´m going to make the difficult and dangerour trek to the nearest city to get my official national insurance number so I can be paid. I can´t believe that it´s all unfolding before my eyes. This whole "year abroad" lark has been talked about for literally years and now it´s actually happening. And has actually happened. It´s crazy.

But everything is good. I spent my first day at the school today. The teachers are lovely and friendly and welcoming and they invite me to have coffee with them at break time and one of them offered to take me to the ski slopes sometime (yay!!) I feel almost at home already. The students are great too. I´m helping with years 7,8 and 9 and their level of English is fantastic. I have to say it, but way better than our equivalent in England. Shameful on us, but good for me because it´s more interesting! They were asking me questions today and I got all kinds of random ones. It´s actually quite hard to think on the spot of who I would like to be for a day, or who I think is the most beautiful person in the world, or what I would change about myself if I could change anything... I know, they got quite personl!!!

I´m sharing a flat with the French assistant from the school and she´s really lovely too. Easy going and quite amiable, I think we´ll get on well, I am glad to have company but to also be able to speak Spanish all the time. Our little flat is lovely, it´s all new and pretty and I am loving doing my own shopping and cooking my own food and being all independant!

Reinosa itself is a nice little place. I think that the centre is a little smaller than the centre of Durham but it´s abit more spaced out in terms of the shops etc so it feels smaller. It´s a friendly place though and last weekend they had a big fiesta so we got to see all the traditional costumes, the parade with bulls, donkeys, bagpipes (!) singing, dancing, huge dogs pulling little carts... etc. And on Sunday evening they had a huge stage with an awesome band in the main square. The first piece was a slow jazz thing with an amazing trumpet and trombone duo going on.

I am drinking lots of ´cafe con leche´ as they do here, and it´s only 60p! It´s great, I feel all "continental". I buy bread on the way home from school in the mornings, I drink their amazing hot chocolate - Cola Cao, I eat tea really late, and I´m watching the OC every day at 7pm. I really think that this is going to be a good year. I am so relieved because as most people know I so did not want to come. I hated the training in Madrid, and didn´t want to be here, and was scared about how it would all turn out. I turned up here in Reinosa without even a hotel and here is how everything has worked out. The God I believe in is truely looking after me, I cannot deny that. I would not be this happy and calm otherwise I know that for sure. He is an amazing God and I love him!

I´m going to go now this is too long! Sorry! I will send out my address and mobile number in email form... not a good idea to post it on the internet! lol. I hope everyone is well and it´d be great to hear from you even if I can´t get round to replying personally to everyone. Lots of love and besos.
xxx