Welcome to my new humble abode!

With year number two in Spain comes piso number two…and let’s hope it’s in better shape than the one from last year! As you’ll recall from what I’ve repeatedly been told was MY BEST BLOG ENTRY, my apartment last year was absolutely falling apart. By the end of my time there, something was breaking just about every week…and not just little things, but important ones. Needless to say, Endika and I will be living in a new piso this year with two other people who we have yet to find.

I moved into the new place a little over 5 weeks ago and have been here by myself getting set up, deep cleaning, and most of all trying to entertain myself without the internet haha (though I did recently discover a place nearby where I can steal it!). Endika arrived a week ago and now we're looking for roommates.

Here’s a virtual tour of the new place...

View from the entryway.
The kitchen is the first door on the right, the big bathroom,
the second door on the right, and my room, the first visible
door on the left. To the immediate left of where I was standing
to take the picture is the living room.

The living room

The other side of the living room.

Yes, someone actually let their child put these stickers

all over the wall and now I can't get them off.

The kitchen!

Nice and cleeeeean...for now while I have only one roommate

The other side of the kitchen

The laundry room

My room from the doorway

The wall of flags lives on!

More of my room

KT, your license plateee!

The other side of my room.

Gigantic desk that I'm obsessed with

 Main bathroom that's right across the hall from my room

There ya have it! From what I can tell so far, this year is shaping up to be quite different from last year. While I will still be working in the same school in Rioja with the same kids, I will not be going from house to house teaching afternoon classes like I did last year. Instead, I will be working in a language academy that is owned by the parents of my friend Manu. While I don't know details yet, as of now, I'll be teaching probably twice a week in helping students to prepare for the Cambridge English Certification exam...probably the most widely known and well-respected English certification there is.

In addition, this year I'll also be spending 3 days a week in a class at the university. I'm taking a class to prepare me for the equivalent of the Cambridge certification, but in Spanish. It's called the DELE, which stands for Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera. There are 6 levels of the exam: A1 being the most basic, A2, B1, B2, C1, and C2, the most advanced. I will be attempting the C2! AHHH! This exam "accredits an advanced knowledge of the language which allows communicaton in all situations requiring advanced use of the language and a knowledge of cultural background," (source: http://www.dele.org/?page=dele/superior-level) and basically certifies that your knowledge of Spanish is comparable to that of a native speaker. In other words, I'm gonna have to study my ass off this year. Passing this test would be probably the coolest thing I can think of accomplishing, as it has been a goal of mine ever since like middle school to be fluent in Spanish. I could be considered more-or-less fluent right now, but there would be nothing better to me than to fine-tune my Spanish and to have CERTIFIED fluency. My classes start on October 10th, so I'll update on how it goes as soon as we start!

By the way, I hope y'all like my blog's facelift. There are still some minor things about it that I need to fix, but overall, not bad! And yes, I know the email updates aren't currently working. I'm in the process of fixing that, so bear with me and hopefully you'll be receiving those shortly. But in the meantime, catch up on your reading cuz I've blogged a few times already. Since the new layout is really moreso for a photo blog, I'll probably be posting more often with single photos and shorter entries. Ideally, it'll turn into a photo of the day kinda thing :)