An up and down week

An up and down week

Arriving into Lisbon I was verging on kissing the pavement, that glad to leave the freezing UK behind my sorry self.. The 20 euro, four times the average price ripoff taxi ride took me back down to earth. Tho, I was back 'home' and could now cook, have nice showers and sleep in a big bed. And, to be fair to the satisfactory nature of my bedroom, break (in my room).

I was still having a good time on Monday, managing to get myself on a Portuguese course with my company, aka the Firm. Nice perk, that said it had been offered way back in September and has only materialised now.

I have been pushed up a class, thankfully skipping the absolute beginners and been put in the second class. My sole classmate is middle aged, from Belgium and struggles greatly with the accent and the ability to speak any of the language without diluting it with her native French, or indeed snippets of Spanish and even English. She is trying, though it can be a little painful being in a class with her. She is also not the sharpish nail in the box, finding it difficult to grasp basic gramamr points (most of which are exactly the same as French, as the teacher points out in her own language teacher outbursts- lets face it, it happens to us all....)

I was quite surprised when I found out that it was only the two of us, and happy about it. It allows extraordinary student speaking time and attention. Free lessons. Lot of attention and help. Any drawbacks? Yes, the time of the classes. 9 till 11. Not a problem if you are a merry kind of chap living on the Great British Isles. Here it means arriving home between 10 and midnight( as English teachers work in the afternoons and evenings), eating and chilling, going to sleep no earlier than 1am and getting up, ideally, around 7.30am the next morning. I am no mathematician but that is not sustainable. I have started going to bed earlier but it aint easy. Classes are great though.