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I love Athens but I must admit that it is very difficult to adapt to life here if you do not know the language. Even though many people speak English and even if they do not, they always try to help you. Actually it happens everywhere if you go out of your country. On the other hand, it is impossible to find wall sockets in the bathrooms, so you cannot use any electrical device there and that is very strange to me. But I do not think that here it is more difficult to get used to the habits than in other countries. In fact, here I have adapted better than in Milan for example. Greece is more familiar to us than northern Italy. I love it when you ask someone where a street is and sometimes they take you to that street. Therefore, I can say from my experiences that it is easy to get used to Athens. Besides, I think Greeks are like Spaniards and that is why they treat us so well.

You were the director of the Instituto Cervantes in Milan and Moscow. Could you compare your experience in these cities with that in Athens?

For me it is hard to say, you do not realize how much you love a city until you leave it. I keep the good moments I had in Moscow and Milan and I regret the things I could not do there. For example, I did not travel around Italy as much as I wanted, but I think it will be hard for me when I have to leave Athens because I really like it. The fact is that I feel really happy here and I do not know if I was that happy when I was in Milan or Moscow. The work we do at the Instituto Cervantes is very good and interesting everywhere you go, but sometimes the conditions of the city are not the best. Moscow is such a big and noisy city and Milan is very quiet, I think Athens is somewhere in the middle and I feel very well treated by the Greeks.

Do you think that teaching Spanish is becoming a way for the Spanish people to emigrate from Spain?

Yes, of course. And you will see that soon Brazil, because of its political decision of making Spanish an official language alongside Portuguese, will generate a demand for a large number of Spanish teachers. Now there a lot of employers require certificates to appoint someone as a teacher of Spanish whereas previously the mere fact of being Spanish and knowing Spanish was enough to teach. For example, a lot of people went to China for various reasons and they have established themselves there as Spanish teachers.