Arrived for the start of guide training

Hey all!

As most of you probably know by now, I have decided that I'm going to take a couple of years to work as a tourist guide and travel around doing so.

Before I can head out traveling somewhere, there's a guide training program that I have to pass. It's a 5-week long stay in Spain, more precisely the city of Pineda de Mar, which is north of Barcelona in the Costa Brava area. During this period, myself and 172 other aspiring guides are going to receive instruction, and we will be tested on how well we are doing. After the 5-weeks, I was offered to spend another week in Pineda de Mar and Barcelona as a mini-vacation. I couldn't say no to that.

After a lot of months gone by with just waiting around, I have finally arrived in Spain. It's our first day here. Not much is going on, as people from Denmark (+ one Norwegian girl) have been arriving throughout the day. We are going to begin our classes tomorrow. I should be able to find some time in between all the work to update my blog, not only on how I'm progressing through training, but also on my experiences when I'll (hopefully) eventually be working as a guide.

Pineda de Mar is a nice vacation spot here in Catalonia that has a mix of locals and tourists everywhere.  We're staying at a 4-star hotel, and my room even has a view of the sea:

Needless to say, I think I'll like it here. And it can only go uphill, as I almost had a nightmarish start to my stay here. When the first group of us, around 50 or so, got to the hotel in our buses, we had to carry around our passports and some papers to use for the check-in. However, the staff that is teaching us here wanted to take pictures of us. I put my stuff down on a chair almost right next to me before getting my picture taken, and when I went back to grab my things, my passport was gone!! I had to quadruple-check the floor and everywhere around the chair before asking the receptionist to look over the surveillance camera tapes. We saw one of my classmates picking up his stuff almost right next to mine, and concluded that he might have grabbed my passport. Turns out that we were right, phew! Some students stay in two-person bedrooms here, and only one passport was required for a check-in, so he never had to show any passport. I asked him about it and he found my passport among his stuff, so it was returned.

Other than that, I'm doing well and looking forward to keeping you updated on my time down here.

Thomas.