Teach, Learn, Run

Ugh. I know. I’ve been gone. I could give a list of excuses and promise to not let it happen again, but I’m going to take Twenty-Something Travel’s advice and not talk (much) about blogging on my blog. The thing is I have a morning job. Then I have an evening job. Then I have a boyfriend I live with who between working and going to school is even busier than I am. So I’m going to live my life, and I’m going to write when I can.

2012. A big year for me. The year before was measured by stamps in my passport, but this year I would say could be measured by milestones (stepping-stones?) in my life, many of which have yet to appear on the blog.

• I spent all 12 months in Spain. I was with family in California to begin and end the year, but apart from that, and a Semana Santa trip to Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia, it was a very Spanish year.

Look! I made it out of Spain at least once. I went to Vienna!

• I somehow slipped through the cracks and got a third year as an auxiliar (my job as a language assistant), which means I have residency in Spain at least through May of this year. The program normally enforces a maximum of two years, but allows third years to apply, knowing they get last priority. I got incredibly lucky.
• A budding romance turned into something big. Twelve months ago there was this guy I was dating. I was pretty sure it was going somewhere, but we were letting it take its course. He lived an hour and a half away by car/bus. When I got assigned to Málaga again, we decided there was only one option: he was coming with me. His work contract finished in the summer, and instead of renewing it he came to look for work in Málaga. In a region with astounding unemployment, he beat the odds. Now we haven’t spent a night apart in over six months.
• That something big got a little bit official. I’ll write in detail about this soon, but let’s  just say Pepe and I have some important documents with both of our names on them, and (hopefully) no one will be kicking me out of Spain any time soon. Still a work in progress.
• We made our first home together. In September we moved into a cozy one bedroom apartment right in the center of Málaga. It’s turned out to be less than perfect and we’ll be house hunting again when the contract is up, but for the first time we got to do things like assign our socks to different drawers and take turns folding laundry.

Before we cluttered it with all our belongings.

• Our family grew by two. When two animal lovers finally have a house together, it’s only a matter of time before it gets invaded by furry creatures. These little boogers also deserve their own post a little later. We welcomed Picasso (the orange one) into our home in October and Dalí (the brown one) a month later. They’re both about six months old now.

I started 2012 with a boyfriend of a few months, uncertain about where I would end up, and now I have a family of four (yes, cats count as children). There are still plenty of questions to be answered, but for the foreseeable future, this is where I’ll be.