Torrevieja

Hola!
I am writing this on my laptop in my new apartment, in my new city – Torrevieja, but as there is no internet in the apartment to either steal or pay for I will be blogging it from an internet café most definitely.

These last few days have been an emotional roller coaster, going from leaving Valladolid and saying goodbye to the last few people, to going to somewhere we don’t know (we didn’t even know where to stay, but that worked out just fine). At this moment things are on the right track. We got to stay in my relatives’ flat, but first in Vaida’s new home village – Daya – where we arrived on Thursday evening.

But first thing is first. Wednesday. The day was spent packing, cleaning and talking to one of my last remaining friends there, Gabo. And of course finished with a last (?) visit to the bar of mine and Jolita’s choice; the Dublin Bay. That was where most of the things started and that is where we ended.

Then came Thursday and the time to leave. We brought ourselves and our in total 8 bags to the bus station and off we were. We arrived in Alicante 20.30-ish and were picked up by Vaida, her boyfriend Angel and a friend of his, and off we were (once again) to a small pueblo (village) called Daya (where there are only three streets) where we had a place to stay at for the weekend before going to Torrevieja, where we are to live and find a job (hopefully). The funniest thing was when Angel just picked up the 3 heavy bags and carried them as though they weighed nothing…

As we arrived in Daya it was time for dinner (cenar) and so the grill was out on the street and Vaida says to Angel “on the street, no?”, “claro”. It turned out that “on the street” truly means on the street. We set up a table and there we were drinking beer and eating grilled “ratas con un poquito cucarachas” right then and there on the street. Friends of Angel and Vaida came and went, some brought beer others just drank some. We stumbled into bed around 1 totally exhausted from the travel, emotions and heat (it was still very warm in the evening).

Vaida said it is only Spanish from no on, I said of course. I really need to get into my Spanish. I do know quite a bit, understand rather well and the speaking is becoming better as well. That is why blogging in English may be more difficult, but challenges are what keeps us going, right?

They speak a completely different Spanish here, well, maybe not completely different, but a rather different accent. It’s kind of like Aino’s “baby-Spanish”. They say ‘maomeno’ instead of masomenos, ‘do’ instead of dos, ‘tre’ instead of tres, ‘etoy’ instead of estoy, ‘epañia’ instead of españia and so on. We’re happy we were in Valladolid in the beginning to learn the ‘proper’ Spanish, but will probably be influenced by the people here after we have gotten used to it.

On the Friday we went to the one bar in Daya with internet access. We actually went there twice as we needed to check about the apartment in Torrevieja. We really felt how we were ‘extranjeros’ (foreigners) as we were more interested in the internet than in drinking beer and talking to people… We also went to the ‘piscina’ (swimming pool) of Daya – so nice! In the evening we had dinner in Vaida’s bar with some of Angel’s friends. It was cool, but my head got so tired towards the end as I was speaking and listening to only Spanish. After dinner I spoke to Valladolid and it turns out it has been raining since we left – Valladolid is crying because we left! ;-)

Saturday was a crazy day. It started 10.15 with Vaida coming into our room and saying that we will leave for Torrevieja in 45 minutes. It was just to wake up, pack and get ready and then after some additional waiting time we left for the agency in Torrevieja where we were to get keys to the apartment. The only problem was that there wasn’t anybody in the office. I called the number I had and got a hold of a guy who worked there – Swedish one – and after some time he came and after some additional time I had the keys in my possession.

As we had no idea really where the apartment was except for the address we took a taxi and suddenly stood in front of a 12 floor apartment building with a pool, gates and balconies. We took the lift up with our 8 bags and found our way to a 2 bedroom apartment definitely up to Swedish standard. We went to the Hiper Todo Todo around the corner to buy some basic food and imagine my surprise and delight when I found loads of Swedish food in there! We’re talking Swedish brands and Swedish lingonsylt (lingonberry jam), even Swedish Bob saft! I think I will like it here I said to Jolita as she ran around the shop in search of anything Lithuanian (she didn’t find anything).

After unpacking and relaxing on our balcony we had dinner and then eventually went for a walk to the beach (which is about 10 minutes walk away…). Found several Irish bars, restaurants with menus in Swedish and eventually a small shop with Russian food. This place is hilarious! Oh yeah, I almost got a job before I even had a chance to look for it… But am not sure how it will work out…

Yesterday I met I think 3 different Swedish families just in this house. The whole “I am here so I can learn and speak better Spanish” – idea is being questioned already. Oh well.

Apart from that we found the beach and laid down for a bit with the result that the two of us are red now in several places on our bodies… Shit happens. And fucking hell Real Madrid scored the goal in the league – what a shit! But vale, next year for Barca and this year for MFF...

As we don’t have internet in our new apartment, don’t expect quick answers. I will do my best to find a nearby internet café but am not sure how lucky I will be on that front as there are mainly apartment buildings and villas around here…
Hasta luego!
/k