Moving Day

We have a house! Friday morning Emily and I arrived in Jerez, went to a hostel and dropped off our bags, and then went out to find ourselves a place to call home. The first person that Emily convinced me to call was actually selling a whole apartment building, including 3 floors and an elevator…not exactly what we were looking for. At the tourist information office we asked where to look for apartments and they told us to buy the Cambalache, a newspaper that lists apartments that are for rent. After our siesta, we went right to work circling apartments and calling the places that looked promising. Of all the people we called and all the places that we would have liked to visit, we were only able to see one place.

Turns out we are now living here. We only had to stay one night at the hostel and moved in at 2:00pm to our wonderful new home that is actually a converted garden house/patio. It is a very cute, 3 bedroom apartment with a tiny kitchen and living room. It also has ‘interesting’ art from the baroque time period, including a huge painting of what appears to be Columbus’s ship sailing to America. We will be taking those down this week.

My bedroom, the first of the three, looks like it is for a little boy…the headboard, night table and desk chair are all painted bright green and blue. The curtains are of the same palate, as well as the bedspread, and I had a shelf that also matched, however I accidentally bumped it about an hour after we moved in and it shattered into a thousand pieces. The bathroom is very cute and quite large, yet it has no shelving or cabinet space. So, as all creative people would do, we had to place most of our shower and bath stuff in the bowl of the bidet. It looks fantastic.

The best part of our place is the patio, which our apartment surrounds in an L shape, that is covered with bright tiles and tons of plants. We are away from the street behind two other apartments on the first floor, so it is secluded from everyone and very quite. Today we moved the table from the extra bedroom to our patio and ate our lunch out there in the shade.

Originally we were looking to share an apartment with one or more Spaniards to force ourselves to speak in Spanish daily. We could not find even one shared apartment, so we opted instead for this one that is right downtown, the cheapest we saw, and what turned out to be pretty much our one, and only option. Today we have spoken only a handful of English words to one another and we are forcing ourselves to converse in Spanish, which is actually easier than I thought it would be.

Tomorrow both Emily and I start school. We have different placements, but they are only 2 or 3 blocks from one another so we will probably walk together in the morning. We will both be supervised by a bilingual coordinator, who we were told may or may not know we are coming, and expected to work 12 hours a week. This work may consist of teaching an English class, teaching subject classes in English, or taking our English department teachers out to coffee so that they may practice their conversation skills.

I cannot believe I have been in Spain only a week and a half, but I am super content here and ready to start a regular schedule. What I have seen from walking around these past two days in my new city is that I will grow to love it very quickly, it is incredibly beautiful, and the people here like to be outside and share good company. I think I will fit right in.

Here is my new address:
C/ Higueras 12, Bajo B
Jerez de la Frontera, 11403
Espana

Phone: 34-667-011-030