My Nomad Diary, Week 2: Who does this guy think he is?
Highlights from the week:
Eating the best burger in the world (literally)
Moving up a class in Spanish!
Sitting outside a local Spanish pub drinking beer and eating peanuts until 1am
What I’m reading this week:
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich – by Timothy Ferriss
Day one of my second week of Spanish class and I felt I wasn’t being challenged, so at the end of the day I asked if I could be moved up a class, just a notch, nothing too fancy.
Wow, what a dick I am, more on that in a moment.
So here we are on week 2 and I think to sum up how I’m feeling about this week… a friend messaged me asking if I had any funny stories so far (after all, I’m pretty sure I am Karl Pilkington reincarnated), but, I said, “Erm not really, I’m living quite a structured normal life, unfortunately 😂😂😂”
My trips are anything but relaxing, I have to be mentally stimulated 24/7, so to be able to say I haven’t really done anything intense for the last week (barring drunken karaoke on a Thursday with some local elderly gentlemen) is actually quite relieving, I’ve walked, I’ve cycled, I’ve gone to school, I’ve read books, I’ve sunbathed.
Is this what real holidays are like? Am I…. an… adult?
So, starting off my week with Monday, it’s back to school and a routine once more. We’ve gone up a level in class but I’m still not feeling challenged enough, so I’ve asked to go up to the next class to make the most of the little time I have left. Bit of a bummer to have to start making friends all over again, but I need to be challenged more. Let’s see if I eat my words tomorrow…
After school, I went for lunch at the home of the best burger in the world, and if you’re reading this, you know our James loves himself a burger. The restaurant was called HUNDRED, the interior of which is like a library fresh off the set of High School Musical, thankfully sans Zac Efron. The burgers are made with Galician blonde beef that is dry-aged for 60 days and their “Singular” burger was named the World’s Best Burger in 2024 and, oh yes my esteemed readers, it certainly lived up to the hype.
Anywho, I digress, I’m not running a burger blog (side note: dream job) and I’m making myself hungry again.
It’s Tuesday and I’m heading into my new class that are mid-level A2. Deep breath. As I walk into school each morning I’ve been using a podcast-cum-language learning app, called LanguageTransfer, if you’re learning Spanish this is AMAZING and free, just go and download it, you won’t regret it.
The subject on LanguageTransfer today was the Present Perfect tense and thank the Spanish language gods it was, because that was the subject of today’s new class and I would have had my pants pulled down.
I can see the admin team at my Spanish school now… “not so smart now are ya chico…”.
This class was supposed to be just a notch up from my previous class and I legitimately spent the first hour physically sweating at how unprepared I was for this class. It was erm… humbling… to go from near top of the class to the bottom of the class. I wanted nothing more than to slide out of the room and go back to my old class with my tail between my legs.
Thankfully, my ego kept my bum firm in that seat and I stuck it out.
After school, I swung by the nearest papeleria and bought myself some new pens and a fancy notepad, and then took myself home. Finishing up the day with a quick call with the guys at Genki to sort out my nomad insurance and that was me done.
And we’re back at humpday ready for another day of class, and on today’s menu? Indirect and direct object pronouns. Do I have any idea how to tell the difference between the two? Editor’s note: it’s been three days since I wrote this and the answer is still an affirming no.
After school I went for tapas with some classmates, a couple from the Netherlands called Robert and Christa, we sat in the Spanish sunshine for a while, ate some food, drank some beers and then I cycled home. A pretty uneventful day if I must say so myself, but a wholesome one nonetheless.
That was until I was sat at home and at about 8pm I receive a message from Robert asking if I wanted to pop out again. That drink I popped out for lasted for five hours. School will be a riot tomorrow…
And helloooo Thursday, it’s time for another day of trying to convince my teacher I belong in this class. I partner up with a classmate for an exercise, she’s a sports teacher from the Netherlands, relocating to Spain, I tell you this because I still haven’t asked her name after being sat next to her for three days, so she is “sports teacher”, for now.
The best thing about Sports Teacher? We both have the attention span of a gnat and for both partner exercises today, we spent half an hour doing the wrong ones, much to everybody’s amusement.
But… fast forward to the end of the school day and guess who just got their first client 💅 thank the lord because this paella is getting expensive.
It’s exactly what I was looking for as well, working for a startup, so I’m helping them build something from scratch putting all of the operational processes in place and then keep the back office ticking along whilst they focus on billable work. 👌
For the rest of the afternoon, I sat in my loft office, windows open, music mix on and I got busy designing a logo and setting up website and email hosting. One of the best afternoons I’ve had in a while.
Coming to the end of the “working” (school) week, it’s Friday and that’s two weeks down at Spanish school already… how has it only been two weeks!?
I noticed the cold for the first time today, I almost wore a jumper to school this morning… hard life.
Another normal day at school in the bank, although I notice I’m still struggling with correctly hearing Spanish, so I must work on that.
After school I had a farewell lunch with my Dutch friends Robert and Christa, they’re going back home a few hours’ drive away, just outside of Girona (ah, the life). I reflected a bit as we all sat eating lunch, six of us together, all of them Dutch and then me, the solo Brit. But all wildly varying ages, two were 17, two were in their 30s and one in her 60s, but we all got along like best friends and it was just a really nice moment.
Thankfully I’ve still got Sports Teacher as my only remaining chum at school, maybe I’ll get her name next week, stay tuned.
Fast forward to the weekend and I can rest. I’m honestly just as busy when I worked full-time in an office (just not miserable), so I’m just looking forward to doing nothing this weekend. I got up and hired a trusty Valenbisi and found a really nice café in Valencia’s old city (https://www.instagram.com/coffidelcarmen/), caught up with a book and drank some coffee, today I finally visited the coast to see the marina and cycled all the way through Turia Park (a 10km long park!) and back again. Finished the day with a private lesson with my teacher Yuri and also trialled an extra teacher online, called Sandra, for some conversation practice.
Admittedly, I don’t really rate the whole Spanish school experience, it’s nice from a social perspective and gives me some structure but at ~£50 for 3.5h of group lessons a day, it’s very expensive. For comparison, I study one-to-one online with Spanish teachers from LATAM for between £6 and £8 an hour, it’s a no-brainer.
Last but not least, Sunday. I headed back to, my now favourite, café Coffi del Carmen for French toast and coffee, wondered around the old city for a bit and witnessed “Balls al Carrer” which is Valencian for “dances in the street”. There were families all dressed up in traditional attire in one of the city’s main squares, taking photos for upcoming festivals and, as the name suggests, dancing in the street.
I wrapped up the day by cycling home through Turia Park once again, sunbathed on my terrace (for the first time!) and called it a day.
Roll on week three! 🥳
