Arriba, Abajo. The trials of language learning, and the rain in Spain.

June 13–17 – Burgos and Santander

“De nuevo! Una vez mas!”

Practice makes perfect, it seems. And in this case perfection seems essential.

On the rather high bar counter sit five wine glasses. They were lined up into a row, and each was filled to a similar level. Similar – almost exact. But not perfect.

A timid, friendly Ecuadorian boy looked a little anxious as he took each glass and threw away the water inside. One more try. The grizzled bar owner strided behind the bar, looking over the boy's shoulder, and making jokes at his expense. “You can't teach them nowadays”, I think was the general thrust. The boy continued to pour into each glass, one slowly after another, as carefully as he could. But with the bottle almost at head height, it was difficult to control, and the owner moved the one from the end next to the one from the start. The levels were off. The boy took the glasses, and poured the water inside down the sink. And so it started all over again.

I left Madrid in bright sunshine. The city at its extremities, stretches from shuttered 4 story blocks of flats, all curvy ironwork and window boxes, through council estate style concrete piles, to, at this time of the year, rolling green fields, and tame mountains beyond. When I left at 11am it was all lit in a spongy orange light. All terracotta fields, seaweed green hedgerows, and dusty cows.

As is often the case, the journey north led from bright skies, to moody clouds. And from moody clouds, came rain. Lots of it.

And this soggy entrance was how started my trip to Burgos. And it was the first time I felt just a touch of loneliness.

I do not normally think of myself as a quejica, about the weather. But the rain in Burgos affected me. The first day I attempted to walk around in shorts and T shirt – like it was the Costa del Sol or something – showing my Englishness. The Spanish, meanwhile, huddled in thick coats.

So I had to change it up – jacket, scarf, jumper, trousers. With no umbrella, I ran from overhanging building, to parasol – venturing out in the few breaks in the rain to take some pictures.

Burgos is a beautiful city, there is no doubt. And the walk from the bridge, through the finely detailed medieval entrance arch, to the stunning cathedral – is definitely one of the must see sights of the region Castilla y Leon. But in the rain, it feels an incredibly small, local town.

And, for some reason, I found it hard to understand hardly anything.

It all started well. My host was a lovely girl of a similar age, and I stayed in her carefully furnished flat close to town, with her husband. Initial conversation I was almost fluent. But that was pretty much my last successful conversation in Burgos.

I'm going to blame the rain. It must have brought my Englishness out. And it left the others closed. Necks sunken into coats, like pigeons in the wind.

The first paragraph in another language, like writing an article, is the most difficult. You have to stumble up the hill – and it's only once you scramble to the top, can you see the landscape beyond.

Burgos seemed like a lot of stumbling, a few grazed knees, and not many deep breaths at the top.

And on the way down, the pendulum swings back to tension, awkwardness, and self doubt.

The unfortunate truth about learning a language is the shear scale. It can be like pulling a ballon through the eye of a needle. I need all of this now! I need to understand everything, and say it all!

Because, just knowing how to describe a fraction of a complex fluid ocean of meaning, means that the further out you get, you are still treading water.

And the worst thing is to compare. Which is what I did in Santander.

Santander, my next stop, is a glorious seaside town. The summer haunt of futbalistas from Real Madrid, kings and queens, and the rest. It is a class above the Costa del Southend-on-sea of the souths' resorts. In fact, it is today's example of those old halcyon days of the British Seaside – impressive 19^th Century hotels, endless boulevards, and postcard pantone yellow sand, stretching till clear lapping sea.

However, none of this was in evidence on my arrival to the city. The heavens had opened, and Santander was today's Bognor, Great Yarmouth et al, wet and blowy.

I met my wonderful friend Marisol under her umbrella, and we navigated undercover around Santander searching for the best tortilla available – a must in Spain. It has taken me a while to really understand why the Spanish are so obsessed with this simple comfort food, but I think I am slowly converting. But it has to be good. And, unlike any tortilla I have had in Britain, it has to be deliciously moist in the centre.

Marisol was having problems of the heart, having recently broken up with her boyfriend of five years. Despite never having never lived in the same country as her, I feel surprisingly close. Her heart is always on her sleeve, and mine could not avoid tightening just a little, as her eyes grew larger, her gestures more pronounced. She needed more time alone.

So I needed some other company for my time there, which fortunately, just turned up. Three students from the university in Madrid arrived in my accommodation, one Belgian, one Argentinian, and one Dutch guy. It has been a while, I admit, that I have been amongst 19 year olds. But we certainly seemed to be different people. And there was a strange sense of competition between them, the Belgian guy bullying the Dutch guy, and the Argentinian girl had some sense of fuck-you attitude. She was a closed book, perhaps insecure, perhaps just throwing in a whole host of bitchy resting face. She seemed either personally affronted or would laugh when I tried to speak Spanish to her, and would monosyllabicly palm off any attempts to find out more about her when we spoke english. It confuses me to find people like that. Pues, nada.

And with the other two, I found myself comparing my Spanish with theirs, their clunky northern european accents mirrored mine, but both having lived in Madrid for 10 months, were much more fluid. In actual fact, in a breakdown of 'hours spent' they were probably far, far in advance of my evenings and weekend work – but after my own 1 year and a half's work – it still annoyed me. They annoyed me. And I wanted to be better than them.

Of course, it is a meaningless competition, and the peaks and troughs you climb are always your own, although the area is the same. I am passing many pilgrims on my travels, who are heading further west on the Camino de Santiago. It makes me think. They are walking everyday almost, sore feet, reddish arms. But they keep going. It is like that with the language. It is not about looking at the distance. Not about feeling the heavy weight of the task ahead. That is where you fall, where your body gives up. It's putting one foot in front of the other, and just going.

In Burgos, the young bartender never managed to get the levels exactly right for the wine glasses. Some had a little less water, some a little more.

It can take a while to get the balance right. It's about the way the bottle feels: the weight, the touch, how it pours. And longer you do it, the more it feels like routine. Everyday things become a little more natural, until you are pouring wine in your dreams. Like you always have been pouring wine. Like you have never done anything else. Like it is in your blood.

“No te preocupes! Paso a paso”

The owner patted the young boy on the shoulder, after another failed attempt.

Don't worry, you'll get there, step by step, he said.

The boy sheepishly returned each glass to the shelf.

At that moment, getting to that level he needed to be felt a world away. He took his mind off the pouring, and the glasses, and cleaned the beer taps.

I left the bar as confused as the Ecuadorian boy. Just like him I wondering how on earth, I too, would achieve what I had set out to – learning to speak an entire language, like i always had.