A Geordie In Girona

Category: Travel and Culture

  • Travel Tales from a Backpack Diary – book update

    It was Benjamin Franklin who said: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” Well, 20 years or so ago, I did something worth writing – I travelled the world for a year – and, by jingo, now I had something worth reading to write about! As I travelled, I kept a diary,…

  • From innuendo to bad translation – strange and wonderful signs from around the world

    As someone who has travelled far and wide, I have seen more than my fair share of bizarre signs that have given me cause to raise an eyebrow or left me tittering and giggling like a daft schoolboy. It might be the name of a business or a product that is completely acceptable in the…

  • World Geordie Day – a pipedream or reality?

    For a number of years, I’ve had an idea in the back of my head that the good folk of Newcastle should have a day, or a weekend, of celebration in recognition of our beautiful city and what it means to be a Geordie. I’ve always imagined something like a festival that would take us…

  • Heartbreak and triumph – applying for Spanish residency post-Brexit

    I first attempted to move to Girona in Spain last August. The move had been in the pipeline since I first started going out with my girlfriend, Vanesa, a Spanish national originally from Argentina, back in 2015. We met on a site that helps people practice speaking foreign languages with natives through online conversation. After…

  • 25 cultural differences between Spain and the UK

    I had been visiting Girona in Spain several times a year since I started going out with my Argentine girlfriend back in 2015. However, it wasn’t until August last year that I eventually took the plunge and moved into the apartment she shares with Catalina, her daft yet adorable Yorkshire Terrier. With the beauty of…

  • New Beginnings in Catalonia

    It’s been just over a month since I moved to the Catalan city of Girona in Spain to begin a new life with my girlfriend. We first started going out in 2015 after meeting on Conversation Exchange, an online site where you practice speaking other languages. After a couple of months she came over to…