Texto en inglés – Celebrando 12 años de vida en Madrid

Hoy celebro 12 años desde que llegué a Madrid. Y quería compartir este texto en inglés donde hablo de lo que ha pasado (y lo que he aprendido) desde entonces.

Es mi vida en mil palabras.

O por lo menos la parte interesante de mi vida… Lo que me pasó en Arizona no es otra historia que ya conté.

Hay muchos enlaces aquí a palabras y expresiones que he explicado en otros artículos, y otra información de interés. Espero que te gusta el texto en inglés… leer, como siempre, es buena forma de aprender vocabulario y gramática.

Tengo el texto en todos formatos hoy: video, listening, y también por escrito.

Video: celebrando mis 12 años en Madrid

Pincha para ver el video… Es parte de mi proyecto “un video al día” que estoy haciendo este mes de octubre.

Lo emocionante de hoy: han cortado el agua en mi edificio, así que me estoy hidratando a cerveza. Mahou 5 estrellas, ¡como buen madrileño!

Y también tienes el listening, si quieres leer y escuchar a la vez, o si no quieres verme la simpática cara en el video…

Y ahora, por fin, el texto en inglés… ¡12 años no son nada!

Disfruta… Y déjame tus comentarios abajo.

Texto en inglés – Mis 12 años de vida en Madrid

It’s been 12 years since I moved to Spain.

I first came on vacation with my dad, in August 2004. We were in France for a week, and Spain for a week.

At the end of August, we were in Granada, and I met a girl. She wasn’t Spanish, but she lived in Madrid.

She was an Erasmus student. And I was very young.

21 years old, actually.

I went back to Arizona, but suddenly my life wasn’t working out. Soon I found myself with no job, no house and no girlfriend…

And all I could think about was that girl back in Madrid.

So I called her. And offered to come and visit.

She said it sounded like a good idea, so I came.

I arrived on an overnight flight from Philadelphia, on October 21st, 2004, and called her from the airport.

She told me to meet her in a plaza in Alto de Extremadura (not the most exciting part of Madrid).

It was a cold and rainy morning in October, just like this one, when I got off the metro and started my new life. I sat in the plaza waiting, in the rain, with the distinct feeling I was making a huge mistake.

What happened after that?

Well, I found a room to rent in Lucero (near Alto de Extremadura, and even less glamorous).

I studied to be a teacher. I got a job. The girl went back to her country. I made some other friends.

And for some reason I stayed…

I got another girlfriend (actually a series of girlfriends) and had a series of teaching jobs, too. Some of them were bad, some of them were better. But I (almost) always enjoyed teaching.

And I had always liked writing. During my first year in Madrid, I wrote a novel.

It was never published.

Thank god.

I moved to a house in Embajadores. And then another house in Puente de Vallecas.

Around that time, I fell in love with a girl from the north of Spain, and she broke my heart. Then it was a girl from here in Madrid, who broke my heart again. I think there was a girl from Brazil in there as well. It’s a long story.

With my heart broken, I started writing even more to keep myself busy.

I also started boxing. If you think having your heart broken hurts, you should try being punched in the face. That hurts more.

Everything looked good, and except for the occasionally broken heart, I was happy with my life in Madrid.

It was sure more exciting than Arizona.

Life goes on…

Eventually, I got a new girlfriend, this time from Italy.

And then, a few years ago, my grandmother came to Spain. She loves to talk, and we talked about travelling. She’s travelled around the world several times. And I listened to her, and thought “I want to travel around the world too!”

I decided to start writing about English because I wanted to have the time to travel (and a bit more money too). And I had decided long ago that writing novels wasn’t a good life strategy.

So I started writing a blog about English. And getting followers. And writing books. And making videos.

Years went by. I struggled to make a little money as a writer, and as time went on, things got better.

About three years ago I moved to the north of Madrid, to the romántico barrio de Tetuán. I broke up with my Italian girlfriend. (This time it was actually my idea.)

And soon after that I decided to quit my job and be a writer and blogger full time. I was tired of getting up at 6 AM to go to my first class, and tired of getting home at 8 PM after my last class, after a long bus ride outside the city.

So I quit, and here we are.

Freedom!

Precious freedom…

I’ve learned a lot in these years.

But mostly, what I’ve learned is that your life is what you make of it. Everybody has difficult times. The economy collapses (like Spain’s did several years ago), or your girlfriend leaves you for someone else, or your landlord threatens to kick you out of the house.

The important thing is what you do next.

Do you complain? Or do you take action to make tomorrow even better?

This is kind of like learning a language. You can complain. You can say “This is hard!” and use that as an excuse to give up.

You can feel bad about where you are now, and focus on your obstacles.

Or you can dedicate some time every day to improving where you are now, and focus on overcoming your obstacles.

It’s a choice we all make. And we make it every day.

12 years of life in Spain

I’ve had some good times here in Spain, and I’ve finally had the opportunity to travel, too. I’ve been all over Europe, at least. And soon I hope to start travelling “around the world” in a serious way.

Recently, I’ve been to Portugal, Hungary, Croatia, The Netherlands, Ireland, the UK and more. I celebrated my 11th Spainiversary last year in Sevilla.

I wrote more books and made a lot more videos.

I never really expected to be in Spain so long. Actually, I had some strange idea that I was going to die young, so I didn’t really have any sort of plan for my life for a long time.

All those poets and rock stars died young, after all. And I couldn’t really imagine my life at age 27 or 30 or 35. So I just figured I wouldn’t live very long.

That’s another thing my grandmother (and grandfather) made me realize later. People in my family live a really long time. And whatever happens, life goes on.

Who knows what’s next? I should be able to continue writing about one thing or another for a few more decades. And travelling. When I was 21 and just arriving here in Madrid, that was all I really wanted to do. And now I’m doing it.

Life is good.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Daniel.

P.D. Spainiversary is what we guiris call our anniversary of living in Spain. We consider it to be a real word, just like selfie or LMFAO.

P.P.D. ¿Quieres otro texto en inglés? Tengo otro texto en inglés aquí en la nueva página de textos. Bueno, 3 textos, de momento. Y pronto más.