I haz a house! And other minor successes and failures
Well I am feeling moderately settled and no longer need to take decongestants and antihistamines. Hooray.
In the past five days I've done a bit more exploring, made another trip to Laviana and met my other teacher contact, met some other auxiliares, tried (and failed) to apply for my NIE, opened a bank account, and most importantly sorted out a house!
1. House
Here is the ad I responded to. Some pictures:
Loungeroom with lounges/tv and dining table, kitchen
My bedroom (it's on the first floor)
It's a 3BR place, I'm paying 200€/month (about AUD$300). One other bedroom has a ensuite bathroom, and the other has a balcony. It's right across the road (map) from the bus station which is super perfect. Oh and there's a storage room in the basement! So I could keep a bike there.
I think the building is about 10 years old. It's really spacious, for a Spanish flat, based on the searching I've done - there's also a quite big empty foyer area. The hot water works fab. MY ROOM IS SO QUIET AND DARK. Nearly all the flats I've seen in the whole city have these blinds, which are outside the window but have a control inside the room. And when down they seal the entire window. Seriously, I'm gonna be so spoiled when I get back to Australia. I'm actually going to stop putting them down all the way, because I find it disconcerting to wake up and have no idea what time it might be from the light! And the window is surely double glazed, it's so quiet. And hear basically nothing from neighbours. These Spaniards know how to live in close quarters.
Only slightly bad things: the hot plates are electric (OTOH, they are rad flat-top style - love this), and the shower is pretty small and quite awkward to kind of, bend your limbs in. Also there is no bathroom fan, I'm not sure how Spanish flats manage this (at least my airbnb host's place had a window to the outside). But eh. These are very minor.
My room was advertised by my landlord Maria, who was lovely and friendly. I think is quite common, and would explain why most of the ads I saw made no mention of the housemates. So when I first came and saw the room I only met her. She told me the two girls living there are in their mid 20s, both students, one studies in the morning and one in the afternoons. The day after I came back to meet one, Victoria, and pay the deposit and first month's rent/get keys. (Cristina goes back to her pueblo each weekend, and in fact I still haven't met her.) Victoria is from Extremadura and her accent is noticeably different to the Asturian one... yet more lispy and ends of words are quite clipped (eg 'luz' which means 'light' - there is only a hint of a consonant when she says it). Our first conversation was a bit of a disaster, like I did not understand a lot and thought it was not a good occasion for pretending to understand. (And unlike most conversations I've had so far, I guess, there was little I could guess about which way it would go.) I got the impression that was impatient/frustrated and I left and went to sit in a park for a bit and feel sorry for myself.
Anyway, subsequent interactions have been ok. And I reminded myself that she doesn't actually have to like me...she likes to keep things tidy and I can work with that. Once I am going to my schools and away for weekends and such we won't see all that much of each other.
2. Administrivia
Foreigners living in Spain need to apply for a foreigner ID number called NIE. I am not sure if I need to do this before the orientation on the 7th, but it takes 15 days so I may as well get a start on it. On Friday I went and found the immigration office, then started looking around for a printing place so I could print out the application form which was the last piece of documentation I needed. Well finding a place that I could print from the web took, hmm, 90-120 minutes.... man frustrating!! Printing places are not the kind of places that you can reliably look up on google, they are very transient. I finally found one, completed the form and photocopied it, walked back to the office with half an hour to spare. I went to apply, and the nice woman there told me that I need to apply for it at the police station and gave me a number to call and make an appointment. Then she tried to tell me something else... I have no idea what. And precisely because she was trying to kindly make sure I understood, my brain panicked and then froze, and I started crying. UGH TERRIBLE. SO UNHELPFUL BRAIN. And she was trying to be like "It's OK", and I was like "I know, it's fine" and then I just left because I can't really recover from that. And sat in the park and felt sorry for myself. Haha luckily Oviedo has so many parks!
I had better luck a couple of days earlier, applying for a bank account at BBVA. There I was also helped by a very nice woman who told me things I didn't understand, but I understood a greater portion of them, and also figured that it didn't really matter if I understood them. (If they charge me fees, so be the cost of my ignorance.) But I have to go back on Wednesday to pick up my card. I already have two codes for internet banking. The contract (!) that I signed seems to specify a rather large number of fees, for literally everything (eg making a transfer in internet banking!) but I think there are various "deals" etc that avoid a lot of them. Anyway...whatever. Doesn't really matter.
3. Meeting people
Last Wednesday I also made my second trip to Barredos, met Sonia in her school, along with plenty of the teachers and the other English teacher Bea. They were all really friendly. In Spain the years are called like this:
Year 7 - 1° ESO (primera de eso)
Year 8 - 2° ESO
Year 9 - 3° ESO
Year 10 - 4° ESO
Year 11 - 1° bachillerato
Year 12 - 2° bachillerato
I also went to Laviana and finally met Anabel, my contact teacher there. Actually first I spent half an hour in a year 7 class with another teacher, because Anabel was busy. Geez I kind of forgot how rowdy high schoolers are. :) The teacher tried to get them to ask me various things.
At 2.30 it was lunch time/end of the day for most kids, and Anabel, Sonia, Celia and I (and Sonia's daughter) went and had lunch at an 'Argentinean' pizza place. Anabel also seems cool. She told me that she used to be head of the English department at Laviana, and she set up the bilingual programme there, but now she holds neither of those positions because of internal politics. She described the principal as someone afraid of risk, afraid to change anything even to make improvements. (For example, in the bilingual program, in year 7 they study art and history, and in year 10 they do PE. Go figure.) She also set up the auxiliar program (ie applied for their school to be part of it). And I found out/realised than Sonia had experience with auxiliares when she worked in Gijon, so that is good. They described the teachers at Barredos as being much more of a team, with a better principal. In fact perhaps because of their innovating in offering vocational studies (students can learn car mechanics - there is a workshop with 6 or more cars in it), they attract "the worst" students. So, there are some interesting school dynamics.
One night we had a bit of an 'auxiliar meetup', about 8 or so people showed up, including a guy who had done the program previously, and a guy who is 'Erasmus' (exchange student, it's a particular system within Europe). So it was great to meet some folks in the same boat and hear about their experiences. Universally they agreed that being split across two schools sucks but eh, it is what it is.
4. Exploring Oviedo
I went to the pool! You can get a bus there, but the bus only runs every 30 minutes and the stop doesn't have an electronic display so you don't know how long you have to wait, which is some straight-up bullshit. So I kinda don't wanna go until I get a bike. Casual entry is 2,90€ (or 33,30€ for a 15 visit pass). They also have a large number of... squads? classes? The levels are: iniciacion, medio, perfeccionamiento, mantenimiento. M+W+F is 44,20€/month or Tu+Th 30,60€/month. Which could be good...to get in a routine and be motivated and stuff. I need to go ask about the levels I think, to see what would be appropriate. The pool is next to Parque de Oueste, but I didn't explore it because of the whole bus thing.
Campo de San Fransisco: this is a park with lots of paths in the centre of town. It also has a flying fox thingy, plenty of playgrounds and a small skate park.
(what unmangled plane trees can look like)
Amazing sight of a pigeon helping itself to a water bubbler:
Parque de Invierno:
I mean... damn. There's also a Palace for children (a commercial place, not part of the park). But the park itself has a playground, a small rock climbing tower, an extensive set of adult exercise equipment (one of my favourite park things). Not to mention a frisbee golf course. How come I've never seen that in AU? Pretty sure the only other place I've seen that is Canada. And there is going to be a cyclocross event in this park next weekend! Maybe I'll go check it out.
In general, Oviedo is exceptionally generous with its green spaces, children's playgrounds and park benches. There is probably one of each within 100m of any point within the central city!
Finally I was walking along a lovely plaza from the train station, when suddenly I saw these, part of what was the Los Pilares Aqueduct, constructed between 1570-1599. Oh, Europe!
In the past five days I've done a bit more exploring, made another trip to Laviana and met my other teacher contact, met some other auxiliares, tried (and failed) to apply for my NIE, opened a bank account, and most importantly sorted out a house!
1. House
Here is the ad I responded to. Some pictures:
Loungeroom with lounges/tv and dining table, kitchen
My bedroom (it's on the first floor)
It's a 3BR place, I'm paying 200€/month (about AUD$300). One other bedroom has a ensuite bathroom, and the other has a balcony. It's right across the road (map) from the bus station which is super perfect. Oh and there's a storage room in the basement! So I could keep a bike there.
I think the building is about 10 years old. It's really spacious, for a Spanish flat, based on the searching I've done - there's also a quite big empty foyer area. The hot water works fab. MY ROOM IS SO QUIET AND DARK. Nearly all the flats I've seen in the whole city have these blinds, which are outside the window but have a control inside the room. And when down they seal the entire window. Seriously, I'm gonna be so spoiled when I get back to Australia. I'm actually going to stop putting them down all the way, because I find it disconcerting to wake up and have no idea what time it might be from the light! And the window is surely double glazed, it's so quiet. And hear basically nothing from neighbours. These Spaniards know how to live in close quarters.
Only slightly bad things: the hot plates are electric (OTOH, they are rad flat-top style - love this), and the shower is pretty small and quite awkward to kind of, bend your limbs in. Also there is no bathroom fan, I'm not sure how Spanish flats manage this (at least my airbnb host's place had a window to the outside). But eh. These are very minor.
My room was advertised by my landlord Maria, who was lovely and friendly. I think is quite common, and would explain why most of the ads I saw made no mention of the housemates. So when I first came and saw the room I only met her. She told me the two girls living there are in their mid 20s, both students, one studies in the morning and one in the afternoons. The day after I came back to meet one, Victoria, and pay the deposit and first month's rent/get keys. (Cristina goes back to her pueblo each weekend, and in fact I still haven't met her.) Victoria is from Extremadura and her accent is noticeably different to the Asturian one... yet more lispy and ends of words are quite clipped (eg 'luz' which means 'light' - there is only a hint of a consonant when she says it). Our first conversation was a bit of a disaster, like I did not understand a lot and thought it was not a good occasion for pretending to understand. (And unlike most conversations I've had so far, I guess, there was little I could guess about which way it would go.) I got the impression that was impatient/frustrated and I left and went to sit in a park for a bit and feel sorry for myself.
Anyway, subsequent interactions have been ok. And I reminded myself that she doesn't actually have to like me...she likes to keep things tidy and I can work with that. Once I am going to my schools and away for weekends and such we won't see all that much of each other.
2. Administrivia
Foreigners living in Spain need to apply for a foreigner ID number called NIE. I am not sure if I need to do this before the orientation on the 7th, but it takes 15 days so I may as well get a start on it. On Friday I went and found the immigration office, then started looking around for a printing place so I could print out the application form which was the last piece of documentation I needed. Well finding a place that I could print from the web took, hmm, 90-120 minutes.... man frustrating!! Printing places are not the kind of places that you can reliably look up on google, they are very transient. I finally found one, completed the form and photocopied it, walked back to the office with half an hour to spare. I went to apply, and the nice woman there told me that I need to apply for it at the police station and gave me a number to call and make an appointment. Then she tried to tell me something else... I have no idea what. And precisely because she was trying to kindly make sure I understood, my brain panicked and then froze, and I started crying. UGH TERRIBLE. SO UNHELPFUL BRAIN. And she was trying to be like "It's OK", and I was like "I know, it's fine" and then I just left because I can't really recover from that. And sat in the park and felt sorry for myself. Haha luckily Oviedo has so many parks!
I had better luck a couple of days earlier, applying for a bank account at BBVA. There I was also helped by a very nice woman who told me things I didn't understand, but I understood a greater portion of them, and also figured that it didn't really matter if I understood them. (If they charge me fees, so be the cost of my ignorance.) But I have to go back on Wednesday to pick up my card. I already have two codes for internet banking. The contract (!) that I signed seems to specify a rather large number of fees, for literally everything (eg making a transfer in internet banking!) but I think there are various "deals" etc that avoid a lot of them. Anyway...whatever. Doesn't really matter.
3. Meeting people
Last Wednesday I also made my second trip to Barredos, met Sonia in her school, along with plenty of the teachers and the other English teacher Bea. They were all really friendly. In Spain the years are called like this:
Year 7 - 1° ESO (primera de eso)
Year 8 - 2° ESO
Year 9 - 3° ESO
Year 10 - 4° ESO
Year 11 - 1° bachillerato
Year 12 - 2° bachillerato
I also went to Laviana and finally met Anabel, my contact teacher there. Actually first I spent half an hour in a year 7 class with another teacher, because Anabel was busy. Geez I kind of forgot how rowdy high schoolers are. :) The teacher tried to get them to ask me various things.
At 2.30 it was lunch time/end of the day for most kids, and Anabel, Sonia, Celia and I (and Sonia's daughter) went and had lunch at an 'Argentinean' pizza place. Anabel also seems cool. She told me that she used to be head of the English department at Laviana, and she set up the bilingual programme there, but now she holds neither of those positions because of internal politics. She described the principal as someone afraid of risk, afraid to change anything even to make improvements. (For example, in the bilingual program, in year 7 they study art and history, and in year 10 they do PE. Go figure.) She also set up the auxiliar program (ie applied for their school to be part of it). And I found out/realised than Sonia had experience with auxiliares when she worked in Gijon, so that is good. They described the teachers at Barredos as being much more of a team, with a better principal. In fact perhaps because of their innovating in offering vocational studies (students can learn car mechanics - there is a workshop with 6 or more cars in it), they attract "the worst" students. So, there are some interesting school dynamics.
One night we had a bit of an 'auxiliar meetup', about 8 or so people showed up, including a guy who had done the program previously, and a guy who is 'Erasmus' (exchange student, it's a particular system within Europe). So it was great to meet some folks in the same boat and hear about their experiences. Universally they agreed that being split across two schools sucks but eh, it is what it is.
4. Exploring Oviedo
I went to the pool! You can get a bus there, but the bus only runs every 30 minutes and the stop doesn't have an electronic display so you don't know how long you have to wait, which is some straight-up bullshit. So I kinda don't wanna go until I get a bike. Casual entry is 2,90€ (or 33,30€ for a 15 visit pass). They also have a large number of... squads? classes? The levels are: iniciacion, medio, perfeccionamiento, mantenimiento. M+W+F is 44,20€/month or Tu+Th 30,60€/month. Which could be good...to get in a routine and be motivated and stuff. I need to go ask about the levels I think, to see what would be appropriate. The pool is next to Parque de Oueste, but I didn't explore it because of the whole bus thing.
Campo de San Fransisco: this is a park with lots of paths in the centre of town. It also has a flying fox thingy, plenty of playgrounds and a small skate park.
(what unmangled plane trees can look like)
Amazing sight of a pigeon helping itself to a water bubbler:
Parque de Invierno:
I mean... damn. There's also a Palace for children (a commercial place, not part of the park). But the park itself has a playground, a small rock climbing tower, an extensive set of adult exercise equipment (one of my favourite park things). Not to mention a frisbee golf course. How come I've never seen that in AU? Pretty sure the only other place I've seen that is Canada. And there is going to be a cyclocross event in this park next weekend! Maybe I'll go check it out.
In general, Oviedo is exceptionally generous with its green spaces, children's playgrounds and park benches. There is probably one of each within 100m of any point within the central city!
Finally I was walking along a lovely plaza from the train station, when suddenly I saw these, part of what was the Los Pilares Aqueduct, constructed between 1570-1599. Oh, Europe!