My First Days in Catalonia

I’ve already been out here for nearly three weeks now (three weeks tomorrow, in fact), and I’ve done too much to fit into one post without it being incredibly long and very boring. But it’s probably worth describing my first few days here.

On my fist day (29th September) I arrived in Barcelona airport and was picked up by the wife and oldest son of the headmaster of the school where I am working, and whose house I am currently living in. The trip to Artés is only about an hour by car, although in public transport it takes over two hours. I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, but the family I am staying with are very welcoming so there was no trouble on that front. The only problem was that we didn’t eat dinner until 9pm (a lot of Spaniards eat even later than this), and since I had had an early lunch before leaving the UK I was extremely hungry by this point!

My second day was spent in Barcelona, attending an induction day organised by the Catalan Departament d’Educació. I had to get up at some silly hour in the morning to meet up with my tutor, Alba, in the city of Manresa and then get to Barcelona for a 9am start. All of this would have been bearable were it not for the fact that, apart from the presentation at the end of the day on administrative issues, the series of presentations that followed were on the whole tediously dull and did little more than repeat information that we have been given already.

The next day was the one that I was a bit nervous about – my first day of work at I.E.S. Castell del Quer. As the headmaster had to go in early, I was picked up by one of the other teachers in the morning. Upon arriving I was given a guided tour of the school and introduced to lots of people before doing my first two hours of lessons. It was immediately clear that schools here are quite different from those in the UK, but I’ll go into that another time.

My first week in the school was fairly easy, since all of my classes were done with another teacher and I was just doing a presentation before answering questions from students and getting them to talk about themselves. At lunch on the first day I went with a group of teachers to a restaurant called Restaurant Cal Quico, where I admit I was a little surprised by the teachers drinking wine before afternoon classes.

“We need wine to get through the afternoon!” one of the teachers said when I mentioned it. I’m not entirely sure he was joking. Either way, I decided that it was a great idea and helped myself to a glass.

So, the first few days in Catalonia were very enjoyable, and after them I have to say I felt a lot more positive about the forthcoming year. Things are still going well, and with any luck they will continue to do so!