Back in the city

I said my goodbyes to Ed and Mum on Sunday and flew back to BA. It was hard saying goodbye to Ed after such a good time the last few weeks.

The first couple of nights in BA I stayed at a hostel in the city centre, but wasn't interested in swapping life stories, so I just used those 2 days to adjust to being on my own again and getting a feel for the city. Then I moved to a hostel in the Palermo neighbourhood, not too far from where we stayed last time. The hostel was fantastic. The other place in the city I found too big, but this one was perfect, a nice size with big balcony, barbies, good recommendations for nights out, really nice staff and other guests.

Today I went and looked at an apartment in the city centre sharing with some other people. Great room and the other people seem nice too. A German guy, a girl from Colombia and I think another kiwi guy is moving in too. So hopefully I can get a reasonable rent on that and move in.

I also enrolled at a language school yesterday, starting next week. I´m excited about learning some lingo. No doubt you can get more out of a place if you know the language, and if I go to other countries after this it'll be essential to be able to know more than how to count to ten, order a beer, and (for reasons known only to language teachers) observe that the cat is on the table.

Went to a couple of awesome places this week as well, on Wednesday we went to a tango music show, which was 4 guys sitting on chairs playing accordians, and behind them 4 guys playing violins, and others playing cello and double bass with bows, plus piano and occasional vocals. A very cool and unique show, as the place being packed out would suggest. Last night a bunch of us went to a good little club, which had dancers and drag queens knocking around, pretty funny. Good music too. We got back to the hostel when it was getting light and there were heaps of people still up or getting back, sitting on the balcony chatting.

Today I moved to another hostel closer to town, which I´d booked thinking of using it as a base to check out various neighbourhoods and find an apartment I like. But having found one already, I may as well have stayed in Palermo.