Mixed emotions

It happened today. I moved out. Packed my solitary suitcase and a few other bags with meagrely accumulated odds and ends and moved out. It seemed to happen so quickly even though I didn’t actually leave until about 5 or 6 o’clock. It felt like I was saying goodbye at the airport, just about to board a plane that would take me more than day to reach my destination and not the 20 mins up the motorway by car.

With a little help from my “brother in-law” I packed up the car and set off. What happened next was something I have only ever experienced once before in my life. Whilst driving down the road I have come to know so well in the short month that I have been calling it home, I was overcome by emotion. Being a Brit abroad, I try to maintain the appearance of a stiff upper lip and in some way I suppose I did; driving alone in the car. I cried. I was quite cheerfully smiling and yet I actual tears were forming that I was unable to keep back. I knew it was not sadness even though I was sad to be leaving my adopted family nor was it joy, even though I was excited about the prospect of my own space. I think I cried out of sheer gratefulness : happy in the knowledge that someone had been so kind as to take me into their home and further sill that their family would accept me so readily as one of their own. Not meaning to take the sentiment away from the generosity of my new family but I was filled with a deep sense of pride that I must be the kind of person that someone is so willing to help too, not out of sympathy but of love.

My goodness gracious me! I have national stereotype to uphold. Enough sentimentality for now, I should be talking of more pressing matter like the weather. I seem to be the bearer of bad weather as there has been an unprecedented amount of rain recently which apparently as everyone tells me “Es culpa tuya”.

The flat is delightful; lots of space, modern and in a “Buena zona” according to the people I tell. Good for me and my snobbish ways! We moved in on Sunday and I have spent the last 5 days cleaning. Not that the flat was dirty but rather it was not as clean as I would have liked. I spent 3 hours sanitising the bathroom. I am now untraceable to the police as my fingerprints have been both scrubbed and bleached off and I have inhaled enough solvents and bleach fumes that could give even the most ardent glue sniffer a run for their money. Oh well, at least I can have a clean shower every morning.

After the bleach fest had finished and with it being Halloween, my new flatmates and some friends decided to go out to the cinema to watch a scary film (Los Ojos de Julia). I appeared to be wearing eau de toilette quite literally and had extremely white hands (If it were possible for them to get any paler). The film was supposed to be full of short sharp shocks and lingering suspense to build the tension but instead was rather dull and predictable. A shame for the director whose last film is one of my favourite Spanish films to date (El Orfanato).