Saludos MadridMan!

I think the ESL would be an excellent option for you Madrid Man. Having lived in Spain from 1992-1998, and understanding how things work, I cringe when I hear people say "Just do it" or "Take the plunge"! It's not that simple.
I'm a Network Administrator (MCSE, CCNA) with more than 5 years experience, and I had trouble finding people who would even talk to me. The common response was "You probably want too much", or "Ok, we'll offer you a 3 month contract (175,000 pts) and see how it goes from there", which we all know means, "We'll pay you to work here for three months, train someone who'll work cheaper, then fire you". I'm actually getting out of the Navy in one month, and have a job in Seattle making decent money (decent considering we're in a recession), but once I'm settled, I'll be looking at getting qualified to teach english in Spain and hopefully, in say 3-4 years, move to there (Sevilla, Valladolid, or Cadiz).
Truthfully, I'd much rather do that than IT any day- irregardless of how much more money I'd make in IT. The one thing that scares me though is that whole contract thing. If you make it past 3 years, you're golden, but until then you're kinda walking on eggshells hoping you don't get let go. I know of two people who worked at the same place for just over 2 1/2 years and were let go just before the company would be forced to make them
"fijo", or a permanent employee.
Getting back to why I think the ESL thing would be a good option- schools and colleges would hire you (8 times out of 10) over a Spaniard who's studied English simply because you're native. Being native is the one thing that will give you the advantage. And unless you have some "hook-ups", that's your best card to play. I wish you the best of luck. Who know's? Mabye we'll teach at the same University some day!

Wow, so many ideas, suggestions, advice, concerns, etc...

I posted a few times on this thread earlier, had PC "problemas" and now I am back .

On the ESL/Trabslations topic. While there are many available positions here in Spain (especially Madrid) and certification is a big plus. Many teachers are often run ragged and "abused" by schools, the mentality seems to be, get out of them what you can while you can. Having lived here for almost 6 years now, I have seen many English teachers come and run screaming!!! Truth is, it has to be a job you like or you won't last. I always say to myself that if worse came to worse I would go back to teaching English here in Madrid just to make ends meet even though I hated it. I taught English here and did translations for over a year when I came here with my "Just Do It" attitude years back (best decision of my life! ) but since I was a Spanish teacher in NY, USA, English teaching was not for me. I used to go on interviews to teach Spanish here and always ended up being offered an English position due to my being from the U.S.A.

As for interpreting/translating, translations are hard to get and usually they ar eavailable through agencies that charge the client 10-16 pesetas/word and pay you 3-6 to do all the work. You really have to swallow your pride here but you can make good maoney if you give it the old proverbial "College Try". Just don't come over thinking you are going to be able to live off of translations, it is not usually steady work.

On the EU interpreter/translator topic (Antonio's post above a bit), Antonio, you are more than correct, the EU exam for this is nect to impossible and while it pays amazingly (350.000 - 500.000 ptas./month) to be an official EU translator/interpreter), you need to be fluent in your native tongu as well as at LEAST 2 other EU languages and they usually ask for 3 or 4.

Hi missmadrid98, I totally agree with you and all you have posted! I feel the exact same way here in Madrid with my majestic views of the Plaza Mayor. I never dreamed I would live in a beautiful Apt. overlooking the Plaza. I used to live in a basement apartment on Long Island before I made my jump over to Spain and I even paid more for that place than I do now in rent. So great to wake up to Madrid EVERY day! I could not be happier and I am not rich, like you said about L.A., if I wanted that lifestyle I would have stayed in NY with my $40.000/year teaching job. I have luxuries here in Madrid: car (old but good), all the amenities of a nice home and although I make good money, I would be just as happy earning half of what I do. I think your post above is an inspiration to all thinking about taking the plunge, KUDOS!

Bueno... MandridMan, I have made many education contacts over here since I set up www.oleidiomas.com so if you do go the ESL route, let me know so I can help you with the job-search .

As for honing your PC/design/programming skills. Good idea, I love your website but to make it here in Spain you really need to know LOASD in this field. When I got sick of teaching/translatiing years back, I started to teach myself graphic and web design in a cyber café (I did not even have a PC). I set up the aforementioned olé idiomas and a few other webs and then started looking for my own web clients. Now I have many clients and the hosting fees make me a decent yearly salary alone, not to mention the updates, changes, etc that I charge for as well as any new clients that may come along. It is ironic, I do not know enough about programming to work for a design company here in Madrid but I have my own thriving web business, weird !

When I began to teach myself graphic & web design, I tried to go on a few interviews in that field but was told that I did not know enough and I could not work fast enough for them. Thing is, I take my time when I design, like and artist. So, I can not just churn out site after site. I love what I do now and I always have at least 1 new web a month to do for a client which I take the whole month (or 6 weeks) to complete and charge between 200.000 and 300.000 ptas so it is a good salary since ialso have hosting and other businesses going on.

En fin... HONE YOUR SKILLS - The tech companies here are very demanding. If you browse through the job market at www.segundamano.es in these fields (Internet, programming, etc...) it may scare you to see how demanding they are. Keep the faith!

Saludos,
jer...

p.d. As for [your ladyfriend], one day she shall succumb to your MM powers and marry you. Ena (my Madrileña) and I look forward to painting the town "rojo" with you two here in Madrid !

[ 08-27-2001: Message edited by: MadridMan ]

MadridMan don't do it!!!!!
Spain is great as a vacation destination right now, but to live there is something completely different.

There are thousands of teachers, thousands of nurses, and thousands of other professionals that are coming to the US from Spain to find work. Madrid's crime rate is soring!(My aunt's first night there she was robbed gunpoint just above the Puerto del Sol last year) There are more violent crimes (with guns too)than in many cities in LA county. I know you love Spain, as I do. However, if you really want to live there in Madrid, make a lot of dollars here first and buy a flat in an upscale neighborhood.

Or at least wait a little. My sources in the Bush gov't.( I have a few inside sources in the Bush administration from college) tell me that Aznar is working Spain's way into NAFTA and out of the EU. After the EU goes east, Spain is going to jump onboard. At that time (about 2004), Spain will be directly involved in the expansion of NAFTA into the rest of Latin America. From this, there will be A LOT MORE collarboration between Spain and the US and a good paying job here and there will be had by all (especially from those who can speak spanish and english)

from one American to another,
patience is the best virtue for you now!

Ha, ha, ha, very funny

Ignacio, holding his belly with both hands. (We have to have more of this humour in the forum).

:p Jer sticking his tongue out and rolling his eyes at toddy for6t such a silly post

Also busting a gut along with Ignacio

Ok, I guess we are all entitled to our opinions but toddy... where on earth did that post on violent Madrid come from my friend? Sounds like an ex-pat scorned! Someone who maybe gave it a go but found it was not for him/her.

I live here and have for 6 years and this is the BEST place on earth! (another opinion I guess).

Saludos,
jer...

[ 09-01-2001: Message edited by: jer ]

Not scorned,
I just thing Madridman should be cautious and wait a little.
I don't think a soaring Madrid crime rate is something to laugh at. Quite the contrary; it is something to use as a con in deciding to move to Madrid. (unless of course you are going to live in a protected Madrid suberb)

Toddy is playing "Scrooge" to a decision that involves something more tangible than an alleged "soaring Madrid crime rate".

Does that mean that he should only live within the boundaries of a protected Madrid suburb? ...and never walk around "Puerta del Sol" because people can get mugged there?

I lived for five years in Madrid and have traveled there on numerous occasions and never been mugged. Granted I'm very familiar with times of the day, tricks of "would be robbers", how to make oneself less of a target, not to look lost (although I've never been lost in Madrid, or here in the US for that matter, I look forward to find my way along new routes and try my "situational awareness", something other people may think of as been "lost")etc. But then again, I'm also very familiar with the city I've lived in for eighteen years and felt very savvy and self-confident and still got mugged here across from the Miami International Airport at an ATM machine parking lot for the first time in my life three months ago. Two facial broken bones and a broken finger as a result. Does that mean I'm going to stop using ATM machines? Hardly! ...Or going to the airport? Not a chance! I'll definetely be more careful, choose more secure places, with lots of people, (something very hard to do at many places in the US at night, which by and large are mostly solitary)but such an unfortunate incident is not going to stop me from partaking in the real joy of living...something that Madrid offers like no other city in the world...ETA bombings notwithstanding!

Toddy:¡En-chúfate and have a refreshing summer horchata on me next time you are in Madrid!...And MM...if there's a face that makes you feel you could die of tenderness every time you look at it...go for it!

...Jer, nice rainbow!

[ 09-02-2001: Message edited by: Tramontana ]

Now THAT is a post Tramontana my man!

I am 150% in agreement with you. I have lived here for 5 years straight and prior to that as 1 year as a student here in a Spanish program through Middlebury College in Vermont, U.S.A. and not ONCE have I experienced a mugging nor even a pickpoketing. Well, actually once on a Metro car in Madrid with my huge travelling backpack and looking like a true tourist someone tried to fiddle his hand into the back of the pack behind me but I quickly smoooshed him into the wall and told him (in perfect Spanish) that if he wanted a guidebook to read I would lend him one

Also had a scare on new years day at 5:30am in the ever so dark Plaza de Colón where the bus leaves from the airport but I got on the bus before a few guys reachwed me. I think they were just talking shi... anyway, like "let's get that guy" but without any real "huevos" ("eggs" = "balls").

All in all, I do not see these two incidents in over 6 years as motivation for me to leave my apartment overlooking the Plaza Mayor for a fenced in neighborhood of "La Moralaja" with 3 doormen and 2 security guards nor such an "upscale neighborhood" where many people settle into a rut and never even make it to the actual city center to experience Madrid as it should be lived. I have fellow ex-pat buddies who live in thes ugly monolithic "bloques" ("block apartment buildings" in Alcobendas and such and never get to Sol or anywhere near it.

My feeling is that if you are going to live in Madrid (or any ohter historical city) you should, if not have an apt., in the historical part, than at least travel to it often.

I can not imagine living in the "protected suburbs" and also working out there, it would give me the sensation that I do not even live in Europe and if I wanted it that way I would have stayed in my basement apartment on Long Island N.Y. with views of my landlord's 3 kid's feet playing outside of my ground level windows and the amazing LILCO (Long Island Lighting Company) power lines in the background (icon inserted for lack of one depicting a vomiting graemlin!).

So, toddy, I think your posted opinions are a bit elitist but I will defend till my death your right to express them.

Go for it MadridMan!

Saludos,
jer...

p.d. The Rainbow was my pleasure

[ 09-02-2001: Message edited by: jer ]

Madridman, and everbody else, I didn't say not to go to Madrid, just wait and see. And if you do carefully plan to go, think about your future. I don't know if you are looking to a future family, but for me, I would NEVER want to push my child's stroller past the prostitutes and drug addicts and yes drunken filth. I think the life is great for the young at heart (I too enjoy dancing and drinking till dawn...cheaply) but how can you justify putting a child through those conditions?! The noise, broken glass, urine, and cig butts are not civilized necessities for raising a child.

And Never just think with your heart because ................
A love of a woman should never be equated with senseless regionalism!

toddy, thanks very much for your concern. But no, I/we have no intentions of starting a new family (I'm now 35 and she's 40), just enjoying the family my ladyfriend already has there in Madrid. So, we won't be too concerned about pushing the stroller past the prostitutes in Casa de Campo.

My first computer class starts this month (Multimedia) and I'm looking forward to it. One needs skills to survive in Spain and I'm on the road to getting them and improving my possibilities.