{"id":24967,"date":"2016-09-12T21:03:19","date_gmt":"2016-09-12T18:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/?p=24967"},"modified":"2016-09-12T21:03:19","modified_gmt":"2016-09-12T18:03:19","slug":"flexibility-and-a-shift-of-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/flexibility-and-a-shift-of-schedule\/","title":{"rendered":"Flexibility and a Shift of Schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a loose plan what what was going to come after Bulgaria<\/a>, staying in Eastern Europe until December and then going to Spain or Portugal. I kept an eye on housesits and when a nearly perfect one turned up, I pounced even if it would put me in Spain a full two months sooner than I had planned. Thanks to Croft<\/a> and another friend who acted as references, I got the job!<\/p>\n

So I am flying to Madrid from somewhere<\/em> on or about October 20th and then taking a bus to Almer\u00eda<\/a>, in the south of Spain. This is my dream Spanish\u00a0location — far enough south to have warm weather, but still off the tourist path in a very expat-centric part of the country. My Spanish skills contributed greatly to my getting an interview. I would be lying if I said I’m not tired of being somewhere I don’t speak the language and that it will be an immense relief to land somewhere that I do.<\/p>\n

I will be watching a house and a 12-year-old cat for seven weeks. That is the limit of what I can say in deference to my host’s privacy. I will not be sharing pictures of her cat or her home, but I am allowed to say where I am when I get there (I’ll actually be in a small town outside of Almer\u00eda). And that I am looking forward to having access to a proper desk and chair for working!<\/p>\n

I still have only an inkling of an idea of what I am doing between Bulgaria and Madrid, so please don’t ask me about that at this point. \ud83d\ude42 Belgrade for a month is still on the table, but I’m also investigating the possibility of an organised tour of some sort through the Balkans. I really would love to see Sarajevo, Kosovo, and the Adriatic coast. But at the same time, work is slow, not particularly lucrative, and I didn’t manage to add to my savings here so I have to be frugal what with having to pay for accommodation for the next four weeks. The cheapest option is definitely a monthly rental and that’s also the option most conducive to working.<\/p>\n

By far the cheapest option for getting to Almer\u00eda is to fly from a large city, like Belgrade or Athens, to Madrid and then taking a bus to Almer\u00eda. I toyed with the idea of a very long train ride through Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Italy, and France, but the cost was exorbitant. I’d rather fly to Madrid a few days early and play tourist.<\/p>\n

Now that I have a hard target, I suspect the next four weeks will come into focus. And so, the coddiwompling continues!<\/p>\n

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I had a loose plan what what was going to come after Bulgaria, staying in Eastern Europe until December and then going to Spain or Portugal. I kept an eye on housesits and when a nearly perfect one turned up, I pounced even if it would put me in Spain a full two months sooner […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1485,54,636,1484,3,56,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-almeria","category-bulgaria","category-europe","category-spain","category-travel","category-uk","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}