Gijón, Madrid, Gijón

Now back in Madrid after a trip to Asturias with my parents, it was time for us to move into our new office at Erretres. This we realised in a hitch, moving all of our stuff over in record time and settling in right away. This was just like the first change in office I ever experienced whilst I was an intern there all those years ago!

On a more personal level, I set about some lifestyle changes now that my trips to Japan and Asturias were over. This meant joining the gym, restarting swimming, and doing my best to eat healthier. I’m still doing my best to do these three things as I write this blog post a couple of months later, so let’s see how this goes!

As the title of the blog post indicates, though, I wasn’t ready to sit still in Madrid for too long. For some context, I’ve been in the process of trying to get my British driving license exchanged for a Spanish one, but (and as is often the case with all bureaucracy here) I was struggling to get an appointment.

Looking around, I saw that the DGT (the Spanish equivalent of the DLVA or the DMV) had some appointments going in their Gijón office. With the city being my second home at this point (or is that third?), I grabbed a car share and headed up to visit Cami for a couple of days.

This odd tunnel was to be found at a rest stop along the way.

Once in Gijón, Cami and I spent a couple of very short days having lots of fun. In between the obligatory remote work, we managed to fit in a gym session, a movie night, some shopping, my visit to the DGT, and even a delicious homemade dinner made by Cami. It was a lovely, albeit way too short, trip!

Now back in Madrid, I’d another week at work before I was off on yet another little adventure – but more on that in my next blog post. Before I jetted off elsewhere, I wanted to make the most of the early autumnal weather here in the capital. That meant an afternoon with Sara wandering around Retiro, Madrid’s big central park.

This afternoon stroll in the warm light was followed by a cup of herbal tea sat on a terrace near the park’s lake. It was the perfect way to catch up and say goodbye before I headed off for two weeks of holiday elsewhere.

The next couple of days were then taken up with packing and sweating over the fact that I’d left said packing to the very last minute. I guess some things never change! More on all that very soon, though…