New neighbourhood, la vida local, still struggling vid da lingo nothing changes, Girona the Venice of Northern Catalyuna and Salvador Dali’s house in Figures – okay but found it a bit surreal

 New neighbourhood, la vida local, still struggling vid la lingo and er errm not sure what else

In contrast to the hot summer, things have calmed down climatically right now which is great. Even though it’s mid-November you can still wear t-shirts when its sunny. In fact the other day I sat on the balcony in my boxers and did my Spanish homework.

My Spanish is coming on very slowly. They say that it’s after a year you only really start speaking properly moving on from the basics which is the world I still inhabit. My name is…last weekend I went to the cinema…what’s your favourite colour..? etc Fluency is ten years. Thinking and dreaming in Spanish is unquantifiable and probably involves a Spanish girlfriend and more than a few grey hairs. We’ll see how this pans out. Right now I’m studying two hours a day in the evenings at the University. I started off in summer doing four hours a day and its amazing how hard it is to concentrate, I guess I’m out of practice. After ten minutes my mind starts to wander ‘…I wonder what I’ll eat for dinner? What is my stance on the Middle East crisis? Why does the blonde Norwegian girl’s long eyelases flutter whenever I look at her?’ Not that I’m being a weirdo and really staring at her…but it is an interesting phenomena all the same.

Back to the Spanish. I was sitting in my living room the other day and, as you do, started to notice all of the objects around me. I started to break out into a cold sweat when I thought that to have a half decent level of proficiency, I had to know the word for every item in the living room. Sofa, rug, mug, screen, picture, ashtray. Then I thought that everything had a colour and texture. Green, rough, mottled, yellow, mouldy, orange. Then I thought that had everything had a unique molecular structure which also would have Spanish names.