Bienvenido, Mr Brown

Spain, or España, as it is locally known. Note the complete disregard for details pertaining to France and Portugal...

So here it is, at last: the blog you've all been waiting oh-so-eagerly for....

To be honest, I've no idea how to write these things, and I'm not about to invest any more precious time by subjecting myself to the tutorial offered by the kindly staff of Blogspot. Needless to say, I'll just write and see where my musings take me, while occasionally littering my posts with factual tidbits relating to my Year Abroad, such as the following: -

1) I live in Madrid, Spain.

2) The local language is "Spanish", a romance language originating from Latin, as spoken by the ancient Roman civilization.

3) The average temperature of the city is between 25-45ºC in Summer, and 0-10ºC in Winter. Yes, it's even been known to snow, once every few centuries...

Et cetera, et ecetera.

Anyway, there isn't much to report apart from the fact that I've been here for nearly three weeks, now, and I'm still adjusting to my new life. I don't yet have a bank acount, nor have I registered as a resident of the city; but I have spent an obscene amount of money on such leisure activities as visits to the theatre and the cinema (Woody Allen is not what he used to be...), weekend excursions to Castillia y León and Zaragoza, and, of course, drinking until 8 o'clock in the morning, without any recollection of how I managed to get home safely, change into my pyjamas and sleep soundly.

Apparently, I'm also here to do something called "studying", in a place called a "university", but I won't bore you with the details of that minor footnote. Just be content with the information that every day I get on an unfeasibly clean, quick and stress-free underground metro train and spend the day shuffling between three buildings, sitting amongst 50-other "students", and listening to a "teacher" for an hour and a half at a time, while taking "notes", before returning home to "read" some "books".

As far as general life is concerned, there is barely anything to add, since I eat well, sleep well (when I do eventally sleep: between nocturnal antics and insomnia, I may well return to the UK a paranoid, maniacal wreck), and have met some nice people. Of the three weekends I've lived through, here in Spain, I have spent one in my new home city, and two away (a trend I don't intend to allow to continue); and when I'm not "studying", all I do is make arrangements for other extra-curricular acitivies (I'll leave it to your imagination to come up with possible scenarios, here).

That's all for now, folks. I'll keep you updated as and when.

Take care of yourselves, and don't do anything I wouldn't...