THE EXTRANJERA - ARRIVAL

THE EXTRANJERA - ARRIVAL

Mallorca,an island just off mainland Spain, that’s a good place to start. Start a new life that is! There’s plenty of sun, it’s hot, it's cheaper than London and there’s loads of Brits, so like being in good ole Blighty, but with much better weather.

Requirements, find somewhere to live. Learn Spanish. Get job. Find friend/s. Find great new way of life and maybe find a lovely man with a little yacht, or, failing that, a man with a full functioning liver and his own teeth.

First day of new life start Spanish school so bound to meet friends and therefore start ticking off requirements from my extensive list.
Germans 15: English 1. Spanish 4. Now, as much as I am embracing being European. I think enrolling into a "Germans wanting to learn Spanish" school was probably not my best move. My German is considerably worse than my Spanish, and that currently consists of only five words. All my fellow Germans scholars (for that is now what I am) are lovely, but I don’t understand an "eine kleine" word they are saying. Friend count after one week - 0.

On the job front I have enrolled with recruitment agencies. Correction, agent - as it appears there is only one on the Island where people like me can apply. Total number of jobs currently being offered - twenty two. Eight actually on Mallorca, the others in mainland Spain and France! Four of these eight jobs here, are for entertainers! These read as "mime artists", "good with children" "Lapdancer" and "Hostess" in a gentlemens club. Im not sure which one to apply for first! The final three career enhancing jobs require fluent Spanish. So job prospects looking as likely as friends. After two weeks friends 0, Job 0.

Week three of my new life I have been to three interviews, all completely awful, humiliating and pointless.

The first interview was for a company that do ‘executive holidays’. They supply chefs, nannies, hostess, someone to wipe the executive backside, that sort of thing.

I went for the position of villa host, in essence not a bad job, if your 20 and have had your entire frontal lobes removed. In other words, someone who happy to come running when someone clicks their well-manicured hands and tells you to move the sun as it's bothering them.

I was told that these clients expect everything "just so", and if a towel is not folded in the correct way, they will not be happy and "heads will undoubtedly roll". The thought of becoming stressed over the density, and correct folding of said towel was too much to take and I kindly declined this rewarding and fullfilling job.

Next interview - Airport hopper transfer. This gem of a job involved dealing with the great British package holidaymaker and trying to get them on buses from the airport to their salubrious hotels. These buses would head for some British only part of the Island where the Spanish had cleverly catered to their every need by providing, cheap beer, fish and chips, 24 hour kebab shops and back to back episodes of Eastenders on the beach.

I arrived at my interview depressed at the prospect and sunk into an even deeper hole when I saw a myriad of coloured football shirts, the static and heat forming from this mass of man-made fibres was visible in the air. A crowd had huddled over a desk giving some poor "Johnny foreigner" a hard time because the bus "Wererent ready to take them to Magaluff". I even heard a women say, "Eh sunshine, we had an hour and half delay and you expect me to wait another half an hour for bus, I’m exhausted" I did feal like interjecting and reminding her she had only travelled 2 1/2 hour on a plane from England, not come via Kazakhstan on a mule.

The job was kindly offered to me, but I declined due to the fear that I might have to put myself on suicide watch by the end of the first week.

Next interview was, I thought, for a management position in a smart restaurant. I arrive to join the queue of young ladies who all chewed gum loudly, talked even louder on their phones and looked like they were dressed to go clubbing, or hang around the docks in the early hours waiting to show someone a nice time.

I have to say I felt a little overdressed in my sensible black/grey M&S suit. When my name was called I assumed that I would be taken somewhere else ‘more management style’, but, oh no, I rejoined the throng of part-time club-goers/ladies of the night and was horrified to be rejected for the position of restaurant cleaner for my inadequate Spanish. The expression all M&S suit coat and no knickers came to mind.

My list for my new life, I note with increasing depression does not have bold and smug ticks next to any item. I therefore will try with increased vigour and enthusaism to find somewhere to live. I have to date been living in an hotel which is proving expensive and making me believe I am on an extended holiday. A holiday, where everyone I knew left and forget to put me on the plane back home. This makes me sad and I find myself propping up the bar again! Tomorrow, I vow to find somewhere to live. I just need to find my hotel room first....