Brain Ache

Today marks the end of my first week in Spain and what a week it has been. At 6 o'clock this morning after falling across the threshold of my new apartment I was able to reflect on my overwhelming experience thus far.

Lying on the cold, hard floor with a pounding headache I began to ponder one of the unavoidable trials of Erasmus life: brain ache. To any budding linguist this all too familiar condition is something akin to burnout after intensive exam preparation. This is to say after prolonged exposure to your target language your brain literally beings to hurt. Unable to process too much information at once it hits overload and shuts down. For the most part this has been a common occurrence of my human interactions this week. With French unable to take a back seat and not an English speaker in sight I was left to face the world with only my British charm to fall back on. And by British charm I mean responding to everything with an enthusiastic 'sí' and hoping it wasn't a question, all the while accompanying any conversation with the customary dramatic hand gesture. A move perhaps too radical for the common Spaniard as I became all too familiar with the response 'if you don't understand why do you nodding and saying yes?'

Alas as my forgotten Spanish has slowly started to resurface I've been lucky enough to regain the gift of logical thought. With the experiences racking up I'll be sure to come up with some posts of greater content in the coming days. The life of a Brit abroad.