Badaunt set me a challenge. Well, in all honesty she asked me to answer some simple questions, and in my usual style I’ve drawn the whole thing out.Here goes...

1.    & nbsp; What were your first impressions of Spain?

This is a hard one to answer really because I’d been to Spain several times on holiday before I came here to live. If I can I’d like to change this to memorable moments in the early days.

We were collected from the airport by a representative from the car hire company, and we drove him back to the town we were going to live in. We arranged that he would come back the following day to sort out the paperwork, and the following morning we were woken up by heavy banging on the door. “Is my car” said Alejandro. We both looked at each other and slowly nodded. “What are you doing with my car last night” he asked, getting more animated. “Nothing, why?” we replied. “The man he come and take his wheels”. We all went outside to find the car exactly where we left it the night before, minus the wheels.

The school which had employed the other Andaloo sent us some contact phone numbers because we didn’t speak a word of Spanish. We thought it was a bit odd that all the names had numbers after them, mostly 2’s and 3’s, but with one 4. The name for help with accommodation was (insert first names) Barrbero Barrbero. I should point out here that Spanish people have two surnames, their mother’s followed by their father’s. This was a small town, so do the math. Anyway, we called the number and asked to speak to the person whose name we’d been given. After lots of shouting and pointless hand gestures a child was put on the phone. The contact names we’d been given were of children who attended the school, and the numbers corresponded to their year group! We weren’t quite that desperate to ask a three year old boy to find us somewhere to live.

We found a house to rent eventually, and had to go to the agent to pay the rent. I’d started Spanish lessons by this point, and was crap. My biggest hurdle at this time was a complete mental block between the words “name” (nombre), and “number” (numero). I went to the agent to pay the rent, and he asked me what my name was, but to my ears he asked me what my number was. The conversation went something like this;

Him: What is your name?

Me: (thinking) What does he mean, what is my number? Phone number, number of the house, foreigner’s identification number?

Him: Hello? Do you understand me?

Me: Yes. Which one do you want?

Him: How many do you have?

Me: (thinking) Oh shit, I’m getting out of my depth here.

Him: Just give me your real name please.

Me: I don’t have one. […]

Finally, another language cock-up. I’m not going to try to translate this because it would be too confusing, but anybody who has any Spanish will understand my ultimate mistake.

We had a gardener, a lovely man who was very patient with foreigners. I used to practice my Spanish on him. One day I went down to the garden for a chat;

Me: Hello, how was you?

Him: Fine thanks, and you?

Me: Equal thanks. You would have been doing a great job there in this garden, them look lovely!

Him: Thanks.

Me: Will you like a drink?

Him: Oh, yes please.

Me: I love you.

(I have to say that although he ran away he did come back, and years after we’re still friends and he still pulls my leg about that blunder.)