Merry Christmas! Mensaje navideño para 2022… y una gran noticia

¡Hola de nuevo!

Hoy un pequeño texto en inglés para celebrar la Navidad.

(Y una noticia importante al final…)

He grabado este texto también como podcast, así que lo puedes escuchar para practicar el listening, aquí mismo…

Si quieres más temas relacionados con la navidad, tengo unas conversaciones sobre la Navidad y el Año Nuevo y también (en la otra página) un poco de vocabulario navideño.

En fin… aquí el texto.

Merry Christmas and Happy 2023…

Hello again!

I hope you’re having a great Christmas season, wherever you are.

Today I’d like to do a bit of a review of the year 2022.

It’s actually been a very good year. At the beginning of the year I had to renew my Spanish residence permit, which is always a long process. But it all worked out, and finally, I’m a legal resident again. Even better news: I’ve been in Spain long enough that I can apply for nationality. (I’m talking to my lawyer about it… it’s a long process.) Anyway, I’m happy to have Spain as my adopted home country.

After that, I spent some of Holy Week in Santander with my girlfriend. I love Santander, and I’ve spent a lot of time there over the years. The food is good, and the green landscapes outside the city are beautiful. Also, you can take a boat across the bay to Somo and Pedreña, or a bus to Bilbao and other places in Basque Country. We had pintxos in Bilbao one day, which was great. I highly recommend the north of Spain for a visit – especially in the less rainy months.

In June, I went to the US for the first time in years. I saw my parents and some old friends. I visited several new cities: Philadelphia, Baltimore, Portland, Houston, Las Vegas. I ate a lot of burgers, sandwiches, pizza and tacos, and in the end only gained 1 kilo. I stayed in the US for over a month, which was expensive, but I won’t be doing it every year.

The US is a hug e country, of course, and I don’t spend much time there. But it’s nice to see what’s changed and what hasn’t. Despite what I’d heard on the news, it still seems like a very wealthy country full of diverse, optimistic people.

In case you haven’t been following me for long, I’m from the state of Arizona, specifically from Phoenix, a city in the middle of the desert. I hadn’t been there for years either, and going back just confirmed that it’s not a place I want to live. It’s very boring, and you have to drive everywhere. So I still prefer Madrid or Barcelona.

And I still managed to do some work…

Professionally, I did some things to improve the Aprende Más Inglés media empire. I made about 26 new videos for YouTube, and 50 episodes of the podcast – one for every Monday, all year long.

My most popular episode was number 198, about the irregular verbs buy, think, bring, catch, teach, etc…

I also wrote some new articles, both here and over on madridingles.net/blog and I did some writing for my personal blog, too. My favorite article over there is called Revisiting the Great Recession – it’s about our long economic crisis here in Spain.

Big news back here in Barcelona…

Back in Barcelona, I made a big decision: I’m getting married.

I asked my girlfriend, she said yes, and we’re doing it. Actually, by the time you read this article (or listen to the podcast) I might already be on the way to Trivandrum, India.

So here’s the thing: I don’t talk about my personal life on here much, but I’ve been in a relationship for a while. My girlfriend / fiancée / future wife is from India, and we met a few years ago in Madrid. Her name is Gopika.

Now we’re both in Barcelona, and we’ve decided to take the next step. I never actually thought I’d get married, but at my age, it’s started to seem like a good idea. So we’ll be having a Hindu wedding out in Trivandrum, her home town, in the Kerala region at the southern tip of India.

(I’m not officially Hindu, but I like some of the ideas of the Hindu religion, and I’m sure it’ll be an interesting experience either way.)

So if all goes well, we’ll be back in Barcelona in the New Year, ready to keep moving forward. It’s been more than 12 years since I started writing about English here online, but I’ve got plenty more to say.

Thanks for reading, and for listening.

Merry Christmas, and happy New Year.

Daniel.

P.D. Avísame qué quieres aprender en el 2023 aquí en los comentarios. ¡Estoy aquí para ayudarte! Y no te olvides de suscribir a mis lecciones por email.