Countdown to September 15th

You can get to the beach on the metro from Bilbao. (!)

As I piece together bits of information on where and how I will spend the next 9 months, certain things strike me and pique my curiosity. Bilbao's proximity to the ocean, mountains and the French border. Stories of the city's current renaissance as cultural capital of northern Spain. The fact that absolutely no one who I've talked to who has visited Spain has disliked it; On the contrary, most love it.

When I say I'm piecing together information, I'm not exaggerating. The Spanish government and now the Basque government aren't exactly, how can I put it, organized, swift or efficient when it comes to informing program participants about the details of the program or answering our questions. Thank god for the web; past and present participants have found each other on Facebook where we pool our information and collectively try to figure out what's going on.

If this were my first time abroad, I'd probably be more nervous. But it's not, so I'm not. I tell myself all the details will come together in due time. ( Though I would be a little more at ease if my visa would just show up already...!!!) It's pretty easy to distract yourself with the details of travel prep and endless Google searches, keyword: Bilbao.

¡Spain!

I've wanted to visit Spain for a while. It seemed like the perfect place to do a stint working and travelling, but after a little research I came to realize Spain's kind of a tough place for North American ESL teachers who prefer to work over the table when possible. The steady stream of Brits flowing into Spain with their EU work permits means no Spanish ESL school in going to go out of their way to arrange the papers for someone this side of the Atlantic. And working illegally can be tough, especially in the bigger cities where cost of living is high and it can be hard to make ends meet. Sigh.

But then I found out about the Auxiliares de Conversación program.

The Spanish government organizes for teachers from all over North America to work as native-English-speaking resources for Spanish ESL teachers in schools and language centres all over the country. Students get some exposure to a native speaker and learn about North American culture, and the North Americans get to know Spain from the inside out.

So I applied, and, well...I'm leaving September 15th! I'll be in Bilbao, in the Basque Country, until June 15th. I've been assigned to two secondary schools in the suburbs of Bilbao, where I'll be working for the 2008-2009 school year.