Barcelona and Warsaw!

I decided the part-time teaching job was not enough to live comfortably and decided to try my luck in Barcelona. Barcelona is even more beautiful than Madrid. It's one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful, city I have seen. It is, in my opinion, the most beautiful combination of old and new. The old city center, with its hundreds and hundreds of old townhouses, is punctuated with modern buildings, also the Gaudi buildings, which are beautifuly blended into the old style. There's the incredible coast with beaches, promenades, cafes, marinas... There are so many casas the cultura: places where different courses on culture, arts, music, health, fitness, etc. are offered and are either free to the public or require a small fee. It is a city where one can develop or broaden interest in many areas and at the same time it has a quiet and relaxed feel of Madrid. There are more art studios and galleries there than in Madrid - the people who live in Barcelona, both Barcelonians and expatriates, are very creative and artistically inclined. I would prefer to live in Barcelona. I looked at a few offers of teaching jobs but, like in Madrid, they were substitution courses offered until the end of June. I decided that it would make more sense to go to Poland and relax there and return at the end of the summer and look for one school with so called block hours where I could work in the mornings or evenings and not run around the city to teach at different schools. So I boarded a bus and after 40 hours got to Warsaw. The bus route was beautiful: we went through France, Switzerland with a short stop at Geneve and Lousanne, and then through Austria, Czech Republic and south of Poland. Now I am staying with Dorotka, Marcin and Karmelek at their new apartment and soon I will head to Poznan to see my parents, my friends and doggies. It seems that I will meet with some other friends who are relocating to other places via Warsaw this summer. There's a great movement hanging in the air...

Nueva Vida

It´s already a week since I came to Madrid. I feel that I walked most of its streets and admired its parks, palaces, monuments, etc. Madrid is quite easy to navigate. The subway system works well if one needs to cover longer distances. I am still staying at the hostal Palacios. I found one room with a balcony (that´s important as summers are long and hot here so it´s nice to be able to sit outside) in an old building in the old city center and I found an entire three-bedroom apartment for a dirt cheap price of 750€ (the grandpa who works in Palacios wants to rent it out to "personas muy tranquilas" and I seem very peaceful to him...) but I don´t know anybody here so don´t have anybody to share the rent with... anybody wants to join me here? I have a week or so to decide what to do with this apartment situation. I found a part-time English teaching job and will do this for the time being. There are many English schools in Madrid but I got here in the middle of the term, or rather at the end of it, so I will probably have to do some summer courses and look for a permanent position in the next school year. But all that is fine. I found a school of Chinese Medicine which is part of Universidad Europea in Madrid. There is a branch in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia. The program lasts 4 years and one year costs 2000€. The school is also affiliated with the University in Beijing. The courses are in Spanish so if I want to attend I have to speak fluent Spanish. I´ll see how it all goes but there are some plans for the future and that is good, really good. I am immensely enjoying this city. It´s big so there are things to do but at the same time it is peaceful. The pace of life is slow in comparison to NY. In Places like NY, or even Warsaw, there´s a clear distinction between areas inhabited by wealthier people or those less fortunate. Here it seems everything is evened out. No glitter but no stink either. No brand names, no luxurious stores, no sophisticated restaurants. Most restaurants are of the bar or taberna type, the usual tapas bar, and prices are about the same everywhere. On the scale of sophistication I would say Madrid stands much lower than NY and Warsaw (and even Buenos Aires and Mexico City seem more "modern"). And that makes people so easygoing and content with whatever there is. It seems they are not very excited by the "new" - they like the old ways. There are Starbucks coffee places, for example, but they seem to be attracting only turists. Madrilenos like esspresso, capuccino or cafe con leche - the classic coffee, and hot. Anybody wanting any innovation such as syrups in their coffee, moccachinos, frappuccinos, grapuccinos, brampuccinos, dreduccinos, etc. will only find it in Starbucks.
More about Madrid soon.