Niamh Lynch has progressed into her second translation job and her own rented flat in Madrid. In my footsteps This week and the last have given me an interesting perspective on starting in a new country. Even though I will never feel Spanish (simply because I am way too fond of being Irish!), I feel entirely at home here, always comfortable and completely at ease. Last week, one of my best friends moved over to take my old job as an intern. She actually wants to be an interpreter, but hasn’t studied for it yet and, rightly so, assumed that any language experience she can get under her belt will help her in the future. Watching her look for a house, get lost on the metro and work herself into a panic about her new job made me think back to when I started, and reminded me of how long ago it all feels.
It’s interesting to see her opinion on things, especially as she has spent the last year in Paris. She thinks the metro is amazingly clean, but is having problems eating so late. That’s no big deal on a weekday, but at the weekend, she will find herself feeling awkward going out with Spanish people if she doesn’t toughen her stomach up - ‘out’ on a Saturday night always involves plenty of food! Anyway, it’s not eating ‘late’ if you’re only going to bed at 5am - it’s all about perspective! As a coeliac (hypersensitive to gluten), she is also impressed at the range of gluten-free products over here - she has even found not one, but two types of gluten-free beer in the supermarket, and has a good laugh over all the things that Spanish coeliacs obviously find essential, but that would never occur to an Irish one, like breakfast biscuits and little stumpy crackers called picos that are exclusively used for scooping up a creamy snack called ‘Russian salad’ (although I am quite sure a Russian would be very bemused by the dish!). You've got to have your priorities! Terminal boredomUnfortunately, although she has only spent the bare bones of a week in the job, it already seems that the lack of work that nearly bored me to death when I was working there towards the end is already a problem for her, and she has even been asking herself if she can stick it out for the three months she has signed up for, which is an awful pity because I know how bad real boredom can be. We met with some people the other night who seemed to have some experience of internships in Spain, and they told us that the government is probably paying the company a lot more than they are paying the interns, which helps you to understand why they would take on people that they have no work for. It’s an unfair strategy, because you could easily end up hating translation after three weeks of playing solitaire and sneakily reading a book, not to mention the fact that the interns (especially foreigners who can't live at home) are struggling by on the meagre salary wasting time they could be spending on something more profitable. To add insult to injury, the company has moved premises to a new, industrial area on the very limit of what you could call ‘Madrid Capital’. At least when I was working there it was near home, in a nice neighbourhood with plenty of shops and a good choice of restaurants, not to mention the real pleasure of having the Retiro park to stroll around on your lunch break not five minutes down the road. My unfortunate friend has to eat in a cafeteria and skip down the motorway for a breath of fresh air. Taxing regulationsLuckily, I am still in the centre of civilisation and able to eat wherever takes my fancy. I have, much to my disappointment, had to put up ads for giving English classes again. The freelance work is very slow, and the new rent is beginning to make a real dent in my income. The plan for a website and business cards never really materialised and although I want to get back on it, it all seems a bit academic when I am so unsure of my tax standing. I know I could get plenty of freelance work officially through an agency, but the self-employment regulations in Spain seem prohibitively strict and unless you are working freelance for eight hours a day, five days a week, its just isn’t worth your time. I have a feeling I might be able to work something whereby I pay tax in Ireland, but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere I can get information. I thought the government want me to pay tax – I’m trying, lads, but you're not making it easy for me! Until I can sort it out, it’s back to phrasal verbs and the difference between ‘beach’ and ‘bitch’. Oh, the joys! Read Niamh's previous blogs |
