After a long and tiring day I had to walk home (very far) because my flatmate went to play football. I wasn't really in the mood and didn't even know how to get home so just headed for the beach and winged it from there. Unfortunately I had to walk through 'the prostitute zone' where all the gypsies and illegal immigrants live (if what I'm told is to be believed), it wasn't too bad really, nowhere near as bad as dodgy places in England.
Once I'd navigated through the derelict industrial areas and creepy, abandoned estates I found myself to the beach... which is like looking at God when you've been walking on rat urine for the last three miles. Had a fantastic walk along the promenade and empty beach on my way back with the sun setting over the mountains in the distant (photos at the bottom). Then back through the cathedral and my now traditional jaunt through the center.
It appears that I may have an apartment already. I might have mentioned already a flat that the composer knows that's going, it's in an area called Santa-Catalina, right in the city center in a really 'trendy' and cool part of town where all the action is. Everyone I've asked about it has said "oooh, that's a great area" and the rent is pretty good, plus it's 2 bedroom so room for my studio :) It also means I'll be able to cycle along the seafront and beach from the photos on my way to work every day... it really doesn't get much better than that.
So after another late night, I was totally shattered, came home and got a bit moody and depressed about everything. I miss my friends, family and girlfriend and was starting to find the whole experience mentally exhausting. I felt like people at work couldn't be bothered with me because I can't speak Spanish, it's difficult enough just to join established groups of friends but multiply that by ten when you can't understand each other. It's also slightly humiliating and frustrating to sit there smiling at everyone, just so everyone knows you're a nice guy, when all you can hear is "a-pth-lea-cry-thesl-achay-mekahandos-crandrea-bythendo". After smiling for about five minutes your face starts to hurt and you realise that you're really not enjoying feeling ignored and hearing incomprehensible noise come out of people's mouths while you smile like a monkey with a new banana. So you stop smiling and that's when the :( feelings kick in.
So that was bad.
But you have to understand that when I'm tired I basically am incapable of thinking properly and I look negatively on everything. Something my girlfriend can certainly testify to. Luckily I woke up today after a good nights sleep and had the best day so far. Got into work, got all my access sorted, I can now go to the toilet without having to bang on the door like a man-sized woodpecker for someone to open the door with an annoyed look on their face. It's all done with fingerprint scanners, very cool.
Went on (yet another) jaunt around town with the admin girl doing more official paperwork. Had a really nice time looking around the Old Town (we got lost, even though she's mallorcan), something I hadn't actually done. It's incredibly beautiful and understandably filled with tourists. Anyway, I've now got my official ID number and therefore are now a fully recognised citizen of Spain... or something like that. I'm not really sure how it works TBH. Luckily me an Angel get on really well so the whole thing was actually really enjoyable, I feel sorry for her having to deal with any really quiet people because there's a LOT of sitting around involved. As an example, we took a ticket for a queue, and in the time it took for our number to come up we went to the bank, visited a cathedral, looked around the square, had a coffee for half an hour in a outdoor cafe and sat around in the queue for 20 minutes moaning about fat people and immigration (a BIG deal to Mallorcans from what it seems... funny because I was applying for my citizenship at the time).
Anyway, we were super late back so went for lunch together and had octopus (pori pori I think it's called here) and fish with loads of bones in... which i was unaware of until I crammed it in my mouth and spent the next five minutes picking bones out of my mouth.
Thankfully, everyone here is INCREDIBLY helpful with helping me understand the language. I'm constantly asking how to say words and asking what things mean. But the great thing is that I really feel it's going in well now. IN FACT, I almost forgot about this, I got a phone call from my favourite estate agents (despite repeatedly telling them not to phone me, you know the story by now) and I kept speaking Spanish to them, how hilarious. I'm just in the mindset now and it comes out without thinking sometimes.
Also, I'd sent out an email to the whole company the night before saying hello and asking about social things, I thought it would be a good move. So I got back from lunch with lots of emails. I've been invited to beach volleyball (hell, I'll give it a try), some sort of concert, a beach party (YES!), asked to join a band and I was going to go out tonight to see some live music but it didn't start until 12am so I thought it would be a bad move cos I live about an hours walk away. None of that would be headline news normally except that I didn't actually KNOW these people, so it's a good sign for the future.
After all that, I was getting a lot of visits, actually tried to do some work but kept getting called off for other things, which is great. I feel really in demand at the moment so that's making me feel a little more part of the team, despite being tucked away in my own air tight studio at the arse end of the building. Sometimes working in audio makes you feel like you're contaminated with something and are having to be quarantined. Started work on a small movie too, hopefully it wont sound like shit when I'm done
Got a lift some of the way back and did my daily shopping. I love the fact that I can understand the incredibly fast talking shop assistants when they serve me as there's no number registers. It's half ten and yet again I haven't done any bloody Spanish learning... how irritating. I keep meaning on doing an hour a night but I never find the time :(
So as you can see, it's a mixed bag at the moment. I just don't know what each day is going to bring... which I guess is what I'm doing all this for. I can't ever moan about being bored, and there's moments of absolute happiness, loneliness, hilarity, depression, conentment, optimism and a strange acceptance and connection with the locals where I find myself shaking my head as I see yet another train full of tourists with camera's at the ready fly past me with their 'please rob me, I'm an idiot stamped' stamped on their heads in badly applied suntan cream.
R
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