Paco´s Life: Madrid

Back online

How can you get back to a blog after 5 months and when so many things happened? I feel kinda lazy, I dont really know what I am going to do with this, it is quite likely that I stop the updates, basically cause I dont think my life will be interesting enough from now on. Anyway, let´s start from the beginning. What was I talking about the last time?? About trip plans wasnt it? Well, some of them worked out and happened to be amazing and some others could not be made. Remarkables were the parties at the Carnival in Dusseldorf and St Patriks Day in Dublin. More cultural trips were Krakow and Paris and the big plan for the Eastern, an egyptian tour which happened to be one of the most interesting trips I ever made. These are the main headlines and soon I hope to have pictures, unfortunately, I am too lazy for writing detailed posts about them after so much time.

So let´s go straight to the main new which I guess most of the people reading this know; I had enough of ICEX and its useless work and left Stockholm. I had been thinking about this for a long time but the decision suddently came in March, why? I am not even sure myself. Because at this point my social life in Stockholm was improving very much with the arrival of the new interns, finally I had a great night punisher to support me and plans were starting to appear more often. But I had already started to send CVs. Mainly for working in Eruope, at that point that idea of coming back to Spain wasnt still in my thoughts. There was some chances in Amsterdam and Copenhagen but they finally did not work out… and some day I got into infojobs and applied for a couple of interesting jobs in Madrid. The answer was inmediate and I decided I wouldnt loose anything having a look. So I flew to Madrid to do the interviews taking advantage of a medical problem that the useless health coverage provided by ICEX was not managing to solve in Sweden. I also used the trip to get some tickets for the Heroes del Silencio gig in Zaragoza:-) I did 3 interviews and got 2 job offers and… I picked the most interesting and financially attractive. Froom the 16th of April I am a Web Portals Analyst at the Universities Cooperation Office.

It wasnt hard to make my mind up and this definitely proves how unsatisfied I was feeling towards Sweden in general and the ICEX in particular. It is not that I felt they were not threating me well at the office, specially if you compare with what some other interns are suffering in other destinations. It was, in fact, a total dissapoint with my professional development there. Yes, I knew it was gonna be like that in advance but I guess I got to a point I had to say enough. I have spent the last three years doing nothing productive and so many rejections to my european applications made me think I should start learning something or nobody would hire me. More reasons: the lack of connection with my bosses at the office, again, is not that I was totally unhappy there but the fact is that I crashed with the strict hierarchy existing in this organization, where those who has the authority keep using it all the time, always making clear who is the “intern”. Having a so unmotivating job and also having to assume you are the lowest in the pyramid is not exactly nice. I guess in fact the problem was a) I am too old for been an intern b) I got used to work in other countries where professional relations are seen in a different way. So my leaving of Stockholm was not the best, something I regret since it is not nice to leave a job like that but the truth is that I was not happy with them and they were not happy with me.

All this would not have been so relevant if, as it happened with other people doing this internship, I would have loved to live in the country I was asigned to. But the fact is that I didnt. This is just a personal opinion, absolutely subjective but I dont think Stockholm is a nice city to live in. I guess I was very affected by the party issue, bouncers kicking you out of the bars with no reasons, constant queues and waiting lists… Partying is an important part of my life and I can tell you the swedish capital is the worst place for doing this that I ever was. Again, this my personal experience, maybe you go there and have a lot of fun. But I got tired of hearing sentences like “this is great in summer”, “the city changes, the sweds get a better character”. Dudes, summer last two months, you also have to live the rest of the year. So finally I wont enjoy that wonderful summer, maybe I should have waited till the end but I took that quick decision and time proved it to be the right one. Apart from some initial low moments I havent regreted at all. But I dont wanna be too negative, my leaving was not only a consequence neither of the job nor of Stockholm but of a combination of both. If any of them would have enterily satisfied me I would have stood the other.

So here I am, back in Madrid, doing an interesting job that pays well and dont demand me to work overtime. That is already enough, taking into account the situation in our lovely country. And the fact is that, even though I was kinda reluctant to it, been back here is happening to be great. Becase I am, lets say “rediscovering my country”. Enjoying nice and cheap food and drinks, sunny days, buying good rum anytime I want Just an important financial crisis, courthesy of my ICEX friends who made me return a lot of money has been limiting my activities a bit. But now I am not broke anymore and plans start to appear again. The main one is my new independence move, after a month and a half living with my parents (by the way it was not so hard as I expected) I am emancipated again. And this time I properly did it: a good friend of mine and I just got a huge flat at Orense Street, next to Nuevos Ministerios. That´s an area of Madrid, very well connected and full of leisure possibilities. These last weeks have been frenetic: we had to find flatmates, get furniture for the place… And the first issue is sorted out, to keep the international atmosphere we “hired” a danish guy and an indian-british girl to fill the two rooms we had available. First of June we start our sharing experience which looks very promising. Untill them, IKEA is our second home!

Finally, after a forced period of travel absence I am back to the air. National scapades such as “la Feria de Sevilla” or Albacete will give way in Junio to new ICEX meetings, the second weekend I will visit Athens and the third one a massive reunion in Treviso, home of the spagethi punisher. Coming soon is August when, if my budget allows it, an old dream will come true: the asian tour I was denied by the ICEX. The itinerary is still to be decided, Beijing, Saigon, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei are the candidate cities.

Conclussion, I stopped been an expatriate to be a common Spanish but… I am happy. Life can be wonderful…