27th February: Nothing to Report

It’s getting to the stage where I’m having to remind myself I actually have a blog. I’ve settled into life here so easily that it would be easy to forget that I’m even on my year abroad. Of course, there are a lot of differences between the way I live now and the routine I have at home, but the changes are easy to become accustomed to here, and I find that the negative is more than balanced out by the positive. It also helps that here, unlike when I was in Russia, I have the independence of living in a student flat and only having a few lectures a week – such a relief after living with a tetchy old Russian lady and having lectures 9 till 1 every day. Not only that, but I’m not tediously counting down the days because every day is different here. And most of all, it’s not minus 26 degrees outside – which severely affects your motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

So, despite my illness at the weekend, which I recovered from after a restful twenty-four hours, I’m still in good spirits. On Sunday, I felt well enough to meet everyone at the markets by the river and have a wander around, and to participate fully in the huge feast we had in front of a Summer Heights High marathon. This was after I’d managed to drag a dazed Giorgos out of bed, since he’s a huge Summer Heights High fan and would never have forgiven us if we’d had the marathon without him. In the end we managed the whole series in an afternoon – as well as several baguettes and huge quantities of crisps, olives, lupin beans and sweets. A day well spent.

I started the week with my routine Monday morning jog, which was more of a challenge than usual since not only was I still feeling the effects of my illness, but the weather had taken a real downturn. By the afternoon, it was still chilly and was threatening rain – the absence of which we had been beginning to take for granted. Thankfully, my trip to campus for my Linguistics lecture was, for once, not wasted (although the professor did turn up twenty minutes late, naturally).

That evening, from 4.45 to 7.45, I was teaching Roberto, Sergio and Guillermo English again, and had prepared some resources for us to go through. These turned out to be really successful, especially with Guillermo, who spent the majority of the lesson in fits of laughter. He’s still struggling with the word ‘skipping’ and his favourite thing seems to be saying it over and over as fast as he can, as we’d done when I’d first taught it him. In fact, he seems to find it hilarious whenever we say anything fast – a tendency which, although slightly bizarre, is quite useful in a lot of situations.

After teaching, I headed back to the flat for some dinner before walking to Smöoy with Giorgos to meet Mira, who didn’t know how to get to Tandem. Due to an initial lack of actual Spanish people, Mira and I ended up spending most of the night talking Spanish just to each other, which was nice but a little odd, before she left and I got talking to some people from Murcia.

The next day, I turned up to my German lecture only to find that it wasn’t on again. It turned out my lecturer had the flu and hoped she’d be able to replace the lesson on Friday at 11. I can’t remember the last time we actually had a German lecture at the scheduled time. On the plus side, this gave me the whole day to get some work done before going out to my new teaching client at 5.30.

These next pupils are called Carmen Maria (like every other girl in Spain) and Gregorio, and are six and eight years old. For the first lesson, I kept them together so I could assess their levels of English and get to know them a bit better before splitting them up, when they would be more nervous. If I was tired before I started the lesson, I was exhausted by the time I came out. Because they’re so young, I had to work hard to keep their concentration and keep them interested for a whole hour, which involved thinking on my feet and coming up with all kinds of weird and wonderful games. At the end of the lesson, the mother, who is also called Carmen Maria, gave me some CDs they have to listen to from school so I could do some preparation. She seems really keen for them to gain a good knowledge of English so I’m going to have to make sure my lessons are focussed as well as fun.

After the lesson I had just under an hour to myself at the flat before going to meet my friends at the cathedral. Then we went back to fetch Giorgos and on to the Dominos Pizza at the end of the road for what was set to be a feast – a six Euros all-you-can-eat. Well, the maximum you can order is twelve pizzas, but I’m pretty sure it would take some kind of monster to eat that much. Between us we polished off five family-sized ones, after which we could barely move. It was a good night.

Today’s been another normal day; I started with a run (which was made unpleasant by the weather yet again), met my friends after lunch and had lectures 4 till 8. The only exciting thing that’s happened today is that we managed to get our bus tickets for Semana Santa, one of our weeks off. Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is a really important time here, Spain being a Catholic country, so we’ve decided to visit Cordoba and Seville to see the parades and celebrations.

Apart from that, it’s been a dull day, definitely not helped by the cold and the persistent showers, which are causing us a disproportionate amount of upset given the fact we’re from the UK. Giorgos has invited me to a party he’s going to, but I think I might just snuggle up in bed with a film. Wet and cold weather is just not something I am willing to deal with any more.

23rd February: An Unexpected Obstacle

On Thursday morning, my linguistics lecturer actually deigned to turn up (even if she was twenty minutes late) and I had a productive day. My translation lecture that day was really interesting again, and it’s getting more challenging every lesson; this time, we had to translate an extract from what I presumed was a novel, Ancestral Vices. Given the fact that it was old-fashioned and idiomatic language and that it was an extract taken completely out of context, this was really tricky. I spent the most part of the class trying to explain the passage and the various idioms to my group.

That evening, Giorgos and I had planned to meet my English friends and go over to Marie Ángelez’s flat for drinks before moving on to some clubs, but Alicia was on antibiotics, Ali sick from her newly-discovered celiac disease and Lina exhausted from her run of long days, so it was just Giorgos, Annalisa and me. We were the first ones to get to Marie’s but not long afterwards a few of her friends arrived and we had a few drinks together. By the time they were ready to leave at 2, Annalisa and I were exhausted too, so decided to call it a night so we could enjoy the next day and night.

The rest had definitely done me good, and when I woke up the next day I was feeling fresh and happy. The others were feeling better too, so we met at 2pm with the aim of ticking off an item on our newly-created Bucket List for Spain – getting piercings. Luckily, we’ve decided that not everyone has to do every item, so Ali and I were able to get out of this one. I’d considered getting my nose done, but judging by my nan’s reaction when I had my belly pierced, I thought better of it, fearing this might actually finish her off.

When we turned up at the first tattoo parlour it was closed for siesta, and after trying two more we had to accept that they were probably all going to be the same. So we changed our plans and decided to go for lunch and meet again after my lecture to get the piercings. For lunch, we tried out a little Mexican place we’d discovered on our exploration of the town the previous weekend. We were the only ones in there but it was nice to have the place to ourselves; we sat outside in the sun overlooking the pretty little square.

At 4 I had to drag myself to my translation lecture, which finished after an hour anyway. This week it was surprisingly easy, as all we had to do was a translation from Spanish to English, which the rest of the class had been set to assess their level of English. So, at 5 o’clock when we were let out, I set out with Mira (the Finnish girl in my class with a strange love of piercings) to Alicia and Lina’s place, from where we went straight to the tattoo parlour.

I have to say, when I saw the place from the inside I was glad I wasn’t getting anything done. All over the walls were photographs of grotesque tattoos, on the shelves were creepy ‘Living Dead Dolls’ in their original boxes and under the counter were the bars and rings for every kind of weird piercing  you could think of. In the back there was a man lying topless having a sleeve tattooed on his arm. I couldn’t look; even the noise was making me feel a bit sick.

Alicia went first, as she was just getting the top of her ear done and seemed relatively calm. Nevertheless, it was more than a little worrying when she didn’t reappear after what seemed like an age, and we heard a shrill little “ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!” emerging from the room she’d been taken to. She came out smiling though, and next it was Lina’s turn – this time, to have her belly button pierced. When Annalisa’s turn came up, she disappeared into the room from where Lina hadn’t yet returned, and the door was shut behind her – not a reassuring sign. Afterwards we found out that the guy doing the piercings had made an exception to the rules and let Lina stay with Annalisa, who’d been freaking out, for moral support. Both of them emerged smiling and with shiny new belly bars. We went for a drink to celebrate.

By the time we’d finished our drinks it was after 8 o’clock, leaving us little time to get ready and have dinner before meeting again for the evening. When I set out at 9.45, the heavens opened, and in walking to university to meet the others, my feet got absolutely drenched. This wasn’t a good start to the night and it didn’t get much better. We didn’t start drinking until around 11 by the time we’d stopped off at the shop, the others had cleaned their piercings, and Annalisa had finished getting ready. And after just a couple of drinks I knew there was something wrong; I didn’t feel right at all. Before I knew it, I was being sick, and I knew it couldn’t be the drink making me feel like this – I’d only had a couple of vodka and Cokes and I was barely tipsy. No, this was some kind of illness.

Alicia and Annalisa ordered a taxi and took me straight home, tucking me into bed and bringing me glasses and glasses of water to my bedside. They made sure I had everything I needed (sick bucket included) before they left, telling me to call if I needed anything. The next day I woke up at 11.30 feeling just as bad, managing only a bit of breakfast and to answer their concerned phone calls before going back to bed. I put my alarm on for 1.30 in the hope that, by then, I would have recovered enough to go with them to Lorca, a nearby village. But when I awoke, and even when I took a shower, I felt no better and had to admit defeat; I could barely stand up for more than a few seconds, let alone walk around a village all day. The best thing to do would be to sit this one out and try and make a quick recovery.

20th February: Progress

Considering I’ve barely had any lectures so far this week, it’s seemed incredibly busy. Right now I’ve managed to snatch half an hour to myself to update this blog before going out again.

Sunday was a great day. We took a spontaneous trip to Alicante with Alicia’s parents, and although the weather, typically, wasn’t as warm as it had been the rest of the week, it was heaven to get a bit of sun and smell the sea air. We took the 11am bus, arriving just after midday, which gave us five hours to explore before the bus home – the round trip costing only ten Euros each.

When we arrived, Alicia and Lina led the way to the castle, having been before. It’s easy to see why Alicante has a reputation for being a tourist city, as there are restaurants, bars and cafes all along the sea front tailored especially for this purpose. Coming in to the city on the bus, all we could see was row upon row of high-rise buildings. Nevertheless, the sea front and harbour are still beautifully kept, and it’s a lovely place to spend the day.

The entrance to the castle is via a long metal tunnel embedded into the hillside the castle dominates, and up a lift to the top. It’s not a particularly spectacular construction in itself, but it’s worth a visit for the impressive views across the city and over the brilliant azure sea expanding infinitely across the horizon. It was liberating to be in the open air looking out at such an endless expanse, soaking up the sunshine, and it suddenly struck me how lucky I was to be living my life like this.

We spent a long while at the castle taking in the views and the atmosphere, before finally succumbing to hunger and making our way back into town. There was no shortage of places to eat, but it was more difficult than you might think, our group consisting of one person who couldn’t eat gluten, one who didn’t eat meat, one who didn’t eat fish and another with a bizarre phobia of tomato ketchup. However, after wandering the central streets for half an hour we found a perfect little cafe with outdoor seating, charging ten Euros for bread and olives, a starter, main course, dessert and drink. Needless to say, we were there for most of the afternoon and could barely move by the end of it.

After we’d finally finished lunch it was nearly time to make our way back to the station, which we did by slowly meandering the sea front and browsing the market stalls selling jewellery and knickknacks. The bus brought us back to Murcia at just after 6, by which time we were all ready to go home and recuperate from the busy weekend.

On Monday morning I got up early to give me time to go for a run before Linguistics at 1pm. It was a miserable day – grey, cool and threatening a downpour. Nevertheless, I managed to make it home dry and just had time to wash my hair, get ready and grab a bite to eat before setting off for campus. Once again, Ali and I arrived to find only the Erasmus students standing outside the door; once again, the lesson had been cancelled without our knowledge. Since we were now in Week 4 and had only had two lessons, this was starting to get annoying.

In an effort to make use of my otherwise wasted trip to campus, I went to the print shop to get a copy of yet another Erasmus form I needed to send back home, which for some reason I hadn’t been given in the Erasmus pack from Exeter. Stopping off in town to buy the week’s essentials, I made my way back to the flat to get some work done before I had to leave for my first teaching job at 4.30.

Knowing my poor history with regards to directions, I left myself ample time to get there. In consequence, it wasn’t too much of a problem when I got to the right road and couldn’t work out how the building numbers worked. Eventually, I asked at a bar, where I was told that the ‘II’ that was written at the end of the road name didn’t actually refer to the house number, but to the fact it was the second part of the street.

Despite my confusion, I still managed to arrive ten minutes early. I gingerly rang the bell of what I hoped was the right flat, and announced myself to the woman who answered. I must have been in the right place because the door was buzzed open, so I took the lift up to the fourth floor and emerged onto the landing, where a friendly-looking middle-aged woman was waiting in the doorway to one of the flats.

She introduced herself as Mariluz, the lady I’d been in contact with via email up until then. She was warm and welcoming from the start, and we only had a short conversation before she was happy for me to start teaching her sons. When she asked me what I was going to charge I suddenly became nervous and realised that the twelve Euros an hour I was asking for (below the sixteen Euros recommended by the website) was quite a lot of money to ask for if I was going to be teaching there for three hours every week. Since I didn’t yet have any experience of paid teaching jobs, and since I felt it too much to ask of this nice lady struggling to look after three sons, I agreed to do the whole three hours for thirty Euros – a nice compromise, I think.

My first student was fourteen-year-old Roberto, who was just at that awkward stage of adolescence when it’s beginning to be seen as uncool to work hard in school. Nevertheless, despite his initial unwillingness to talk in full sentences, preferring to use short answers or revert to Spanish, I eventually got him talking, answering questions and doing grammar exercises. For next week, I need to think of some kind of interesting way I can possibly teach the tenses and the multiple meanings of ‘still’, ‘yet’ and ‘already’ to a fourteen-year-old boy.

Next up was the middle son, Sergio, who’s twelve years old. He seemed quieter and more focussed than his older brother, and had several books and sheets at hand for us to go through. The third son, Guillermo, who’s nine, still has the lively interest combined with cheeky distraction that comes with his age, and was a pleasure to teach. We spent the time going over hobbies (particularly the word ‘skipping’, which he had difficulties in pronouncing, so I turned it into a game of ‘who can say it the most times the fastest’ until he grasped it). Around halfway through the lesson I realised we’d been doing high-concentration tasks for long enough and decided to go through the colours with him using the colour-change felt tips I’d brought with me; this was a hit.

When it was approaching 7.45, Mariluz came in to have a chat before I finished. She’d only interrupted once the whole evening, to tell me when to do the first swap and to bring me a cup of café con leche, even asking me my preferences on semi-skimmed, skimmed and full-fat milk. She seemed delighted with how things had turned out and put my thirty Euros on the table, confirming that she’d love to have me back every week at the same time. We got into conversation about what I was doing in Spain, and it wasn’t long before I was showing off my party trick of switching into different languages, much to the amazement of Mariluz and Guillermo. Before I left, she told me again how thrilled she was with me, and even that she had really enjoyed my emails (which I thought had been pretty basic!) I seem to have been really lucky in finding such a lovely family on the first try.

When I got back to the flat, I cooked myself the remains of some pasta I had in the fridge before meeting my friends at Smöoy to go to Tandem. This week, we managed to get there early enough to get on the Spanish table, but there were so many people there that it was barely possible to hold a conversation with more than one person at a time. Nevertheless, I did manage to speak to several different people, some of them on Erasmus, some of them Spanish, and got a good amount of Spanish practice.

The next day, I arrived at my German Civilization lecture at 9am only to discover that this had been cancelled too – or rather, postponed to 9am the next day. So, not only had I got up early for no reason, but I would have to get up early again the next day too. To make matters worse, I’d been planning on staying for an hour after the class to get to my tutor’s office when he came in at 12, and now had three hours to wait. Luckily, I had some notes with me and decided to make the most of the time by sitting in the library.

When midday came I made my way over to Juan’s office and waited for over half an hour before realising that he probably wasn’t going to come. Polly, another girl from Exeter, then arrived and told me that the form I needed to get signed could actually be signed in the International Relations office, so I hadn’t needed to wait at all! Frustrated, I went across to the other building and waited in another queue before finally managing to get the form signed and stamped by a member of staff who was doubtful whether she was actually the right person for the job.  Resigned to the possibility that it might be wrong, I had the form scanned at the copy shop and decided to send it to Exeter to check.

I spent that afternoon tackling an impossible translation that had been set for my General Translation class – an extract from a novella to translate from Spanish to English. On the plus side, I also managed to fit in a Skype call with my parents and my best friend from home, who I hadn’t been able to speak to properly since arriving in Spain. My parents have already planned two trips over here – one at the beginning of March and one in the middle of April for my birthday, since I have no plans to come home before my course finishes in June. Their first visit, which my nan is coming on too, is only two weeks away and we’re all really excited. I just hope the weather’s good so they can get a nice sunny holiday out of it too.

That night, my friends and I decided to be brave and head to a Spanish comedy night, which turned out to be a stretch too far for our current level of Spanish. As soon as the comedians realised we were English we were picked on for the rest of the night, and we decided to make our getaway in the interval. Not only this, but drinks prices had gone up as soon as the performance began, making a Diet Coke cost a ridiculous three Euros. On the plus side, the bar provided free snacks, meaning we could gorge ourselves endlessly on nuts, fried sweet corn (an incredible Spanish creation, I have to say), marshmallows and sweets.

The next day, I clambered out of bed at half-past eight to get to my lecture at 9.15, knowing that there was no point in getting ready properly for the day since I was going for a run when I got back. Carole, the professor, and I, waited for the only other student, Isabel, to arrive, but when it got to 9.30 we decided that we would have to start. She never did turn up, which is particularly frustrating since the lesson had been postponed as she had missed the bus the previous day. Nevertheless, it meant that I could have a really productive private lesson, at the end of which we had a discussion about the poor level of language learning (particularly German) in Spain, and Carole told me I should take the Goethe Institute in May test to obtain an official C2 (the highest level). Considering I already have my C1, which I’m quite content with, and that the C2 is designed at native-speaker level, not to mention the fact that you have to pay for this exam, I’m not too keen. I think I’ll have enough exams to deal with, but we’ll see. She also told me about a week-long linguistics course in April that she’s keen for me to partake in, and having looked at the programme I think it could be really interesting.

After German I went straight home for a run. It was perfect weather for a jog – sunny with a bit of cloud, cool but no rain or wind. When I got back I just had time to have a shower and do a bit of cleaning before George returned with Marie Ángelez, who had come to make lunch with us. Between us, in our tiny kitchen, we managed to rustle up some fried pastries stuffed with tuna and tomato, and the possibly the largest amount of spaghetti I have ever seen.

My lectures that afternoon were both interesting; in one, we focussed on the difficulties of translating cultural elements; in the other, we went through the novella extract we’d tackled at home. It’s amazing how many cultural differences there are between Spain and England, considering how close they are to one another, and both considered more or less European. Just one example is the concept of a gravel drive, not to mention double glazing, French windows and even gardens. These create problems I hadn’t even really considered before in translating.

My second class finished slightly early but by the time I’d taken a detour to buy stamps, I was back at nearly normal time. That evening, we just met up for a few quiet drinks, as everyone had had a busy week so far and we wanted to enjoy the next couple of nights.

16th February: Another Crazy Week

It’s the end of another week and I can barely work out where the time’s gone. Sunday was spent reading and relaxing, before going over to Alicia and Lina’s in the evening to watch films, eat junk food and make bucket lists.

I made an early start on Monday with the intention of actually getting some work done, going out for a run at 10.30 to give me time to get to my lecture at 1. It turned out, the lecture was cancelled anyway, and only the Erasmus students had turned up because we were the only ones who didn’t have a Murcia email address to receive the news. Nevertheless, we made the best of it and formed our groups for the presentations we’d have to do to make up half of our grade.

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing odd jobs like finishing various applications and doing the translations due for that week. At 7pm I had a call from Carmen, my landlady’s niece, to say that an Erasmus student from Greece would be arriving at the flat within half an hour. And sure enough, at half-past-seven there was a ring on the buzzer and a slightly confused Greek standing outside the door.

His name is Giorgos and he’s a medical student here on Erasmus. His English is actually pretty amazing and he absolutely loves the English-speaking culture. His Spanish, on the other hand, is shaky at best, so I was forced to act as the go-between when Agustina, the landlady, arrived – with surprising success. After she left, Giorgos and I got chatting about British TV and music, and before I knew it two hours had gone by and it was time to leave for Tandem. I think we’re going to get on really well; we’re already bantering and have a running joke about the Germans (whom he hates).

That night was a brilliant one for me at Tandem. I got talking to a guy called Julian I’d met at Badulake in the first week, who’s from Murcia but speaks German too. We talked with Agatha (Alicia and Lina’s housemate from the Dominican Republic) for ages in Spanish, which was great practice but also a really interesting way to find out about the differences between Spanish and Latin American culture. We talked about the linguistic differences like the pronunciation of the letters ‘c’ and ‘z’ but also about the way of life, values and attitudes, which are apparently much more traditional in South America.

As soon as Julian and I realised we both spoke German, we switched to that for a bit of practice. Then, when it emerged that the friend he was with was from the Ukraine, I couldn’t resist trying out a bit of Russian with her. It was such a buzz to be able to practice all my languages, I didn’t want to leave.

On Tuesday morning I had to go into university to see my tutor and get all the relevant paperwork signed for enrolment and Erasmus. Since Giorgos (whose name is not pronounced at all like it’s spelt, incidentally) had to go into the accommodation office and international relations office, we walked in together so I could show him the way. Once I’d got him to the right building and made sure the staff could speak English with him, I left him to it and went to my own meeting. By the time I’d got everything sorted, he had long finished and was waiting outside.

That day was Shrove Tuesday (or Pancake Day, if we’re talking about its true meaning) so everyone came over to mine to celebrate it in style – pancakes made with gluten-free flour, the Ali way. I think it was all a bit of a shock for Giorgos, but he handled it well and seemed to get on really well with everyone. Our first batch of pancakes was a real success, but as soon as I mentioned our so-far perfect record, it all fell apart. It turned out we’d forgotten to add the margarine to the second batch (a key ingredient in the gluten-free recipe) and that was why we just couldn’t stop the pancakes from sticking to the pan. The pancakes we ended up with were edible but lacked that certain presentational touch, to say the least. Nevertheless, we’d had a good go and the sangria we’d bought more than made up for it.

Wednesday morning started with a slight ordeal when Giorgos accidentally locked me in my own flat. I’d planned to go running that morning and had got up early especially, but it wasn’t to be; he’d locked the door from the outside not realising there is no way of unlocking it from the other side. So, with the last few cents of credit on my Spanish phone, I sent a desperate message to Carmen, who, thankfully, picked it up straight away and sent Agustina over to help. It was nearly midday by the time she made it though, by which time I was worried I was going to miss my important meeting at 12.45. I have to say, Agustina was lovely about the whole thing and only seemed concerned that I was all right.

The very important meeting was with the secretarial office at the Facultad de Letras, since I needed to take my signed papers to them in order to enrol. I made it just in time, and after running over to photocopy my passport, which they’d failed to mention was necessary, I managed to get it all confirmed – only to find that I had to pay for the enrolment at Santander to make it official. Not only that, but the bank would only accept the payment between 9.30 and 11.30am, meaning I would have to come back yet again the next day. I can’t believe how complicated this system is, especially compared to the simple online method we have in the UK.

With the job half-done I headed back to the flat for a bite to eat, before making my way to the town hall square to soak up a bit of sun. It’s been really warm this week, with temperatures of around 23 degrees. I can’t stop thinking about how gorgeous it’s going to be here in the summer. Even now it’s such a luxury to be able to sit in the square in my shirt sleeves and feel a bit of warmth on my skin. The only downside is the occasional peddler and the odd admirer – and I mean odd in both senses of the word. One creepy old man came up to me and started asking me if I was trying to get a suntan and telling me how beautiful I was, introducing himself with a kiss on each cheek and asking me if I was in love. Needless to say, I kept my answers brief and my expression uninterested, inventing an English boyfriend (who has actually come in handy several times now). Barry (yes, a bizarre name for a Spaniard) seemed to get the hint anyway and left me alone.

At 4pm I had my Methodology of Translation class followed by General Translation. Ramón, a guy from Methodology of Translation who seems to find Annalisa and me quite fascinating, invited us to a house party the following day, at his friend’s house outside the centre which, from the pictures, looked really nice. We accepted and agreed to make arrangements via Whatsapp.

After my second class we all met for sushi, a new experience for me. I’d had it in Thailand when Emily’s parents had booked out an area at a posh bar for us, but I’d never actually been out for sushi as a meal. It was nice to hang out with my friends and speak some Spanish with Annalisa’s housemate, but I don’t think I’d do sushi again. It’s so expensive for what it is, since it doesn’t fill you up and doesn’t even taste very nice. I think I’ll stick to hot food and proper meals.

We had a nice evening nonetheless and ended up at Revolver with a huge bottle of a strange kind of wine-liqueur mix which I’ve never seen before. We actually bumped into Giorgos too, who’d got bored of being the house on his own and had braved the bars solo in an attempt to meet some more people. He wanted to me go to an Erasmus party with him, but since he didn’t actually know where it was, there wasn’t really anything I could do.

On Thursday I went into Santander and finally managed to complete my enrolment. I also stopped off at the copy shop to collect my copy of an entire textbook we needed for Methodology of Translation – a trick used by almost everyone in Spain, where copying textbooks seems to be the norm. You can understand why; Spain is in the middle of a crisis and this textbook, for example, would have cost 70 Euros to buy new, compared to the 14 I paid for the copy.

All I had the rest of the day was one two-hour Methodology class, after which I went home to cook dinner and get ready to go out. I’d got Giorgos to agree to come out with us despite the fact he was going to be the only guy, and we shared the rest of the sweet wine-liqueur before meeting the others on Plaza Santa Domingo at 11. We had a round at one of the cervecerías before moving on to another bar, followed by Badulake and Boutique. It was one of our quieter nights but this was probably for the best, since we had another big night planned for the next day and we didn’t want to scare Giorgos off either. So, at around 4 we went our separate ways – and I finally had a housemate to walk home with, which I’d been really missing. When we got back we shared some toast (after I’d shown him how to use the toaster, which is apparently different from the ones they have in Greece) and it felt really lovely to have some company for a change.

The next day was rough despite the fact we hadn’t had a crazy night. At midday we met in the square for a Smöoy before setting off on our own tourist trail – which turned out to be a bit of a failure due to the Tourist Information centre being closed for construction. However, it was another nice sunny day and it was relaxing just to walk along the river, stop for drinks and wander the little side streets finding pretty little squares with restaurants and bars we were itching to try. In that respect the day was a real success; we found a Mexican restaurant, loads of tapas bars, a beautiful square called Plaza de las Flores, a produce market and the remains of the ancient city walls.

At 4pm it was time for me to go to my translation class, as reluctant as I was to give up strolling in the sunshine for translating difficult texts in a dark classroom. That day we were translating an English children’s song into Spanish, preserving the rhyming pattern, which for a non-native speaker was nearly impossible. Not only that, but the university laptops that my Finnish partner and I had borrowed (a great system in theory) took almost twenty minutes to get onto the Internet properly, by which time we were well behind. By the time it came to read our versions aloud to the class, we were barely over halfway through and had to deal with the embarrassment of explaining that we weren’t ready.

After class, I just had time to cook some dinner, catch up on some emails and get ready before meeting Lina and Annalisa outside Mercadona (our much-loved local supermarket chain, which even has its own theme tune, played at intervals in store). Giorgos had made plans with someone on his course and Ali and Alicia were feeling worse for wear, leaving the three of us to take on the house party alone. We had no idea what to expect from a Spanish house party, especially since we didn’t know the host and only vaguely knew one of the guests.

Having been told that they would get some drink for us, we hadn’t needed to go to Mercadona after all, so hung around by the university until they arrived. Unfortunately, they hadn’t got the message about our reduced number so had brought two cars, which was a bit awkward. Ramón couldn’t understand why no one else had come and kept asking us to phone our ‘amigas’, by which we judged we were going to be the only girls – quite an alarming thought when we saw there were at least five Spanish guys in the two cars already.

From there it all got a bit bizarre, with some of the craziest driving I’ve ever known and a random decision to swap drivers because Ramón “didn’t know what he was doing”. Twenty minutes later we arrived at the house of Alejandro, in a pretty little street in the mountains. We spent the rest of the night chatting, playing Círculo de Muerte (Spanish Ring of Fire – not as good as ours) and listening to reggaeton, before heading back into town to some clubs. Annalisa and I ended up sleeping at Lina’s, where we stayed all the next day, chatting and snacking on the amazing altramuzes (lupin beans) we’ve recently discovered. At around 4 we met Ali in Plaza Santa Domingo for our Smöoy fix, before going to the town hall square to soak up some sun. Tonight I think it’s about time for me to relax and catch up on some much-needed sleep.

10th February: Carnival!

On Saturday, I just had time to get a few things done, go for a run and have a shower before making my way over to Lina and Alicia’s to get ready for the carnival. Everyone was hyped for the day ahead and two hours later we were walking down the Gran Vía (which literally translates as Big Road) on our way to the coach. I’ve had some funny looks due to fancy dress before, but that’s nothing compared to when you’re walking down the street dressed as cowgirls and Indians at 4 o’clock in the afternoon.

However, when we reached the coach it was clear that we’d have looked even more ridiculous at the carnival if we hadn’t dressed up; the street was full of other Erasmus students dressed as anything from Snow White to a marihuana plant. Everyone had had the same idea and had come laden with food and drinks for the twelve-hour party ahead of us.

By the time the ESN team had gone through their strange name-call system, which had separated my group into two coaches, it was 5 o’clock, an hour later than our intended departure time. No one seemed particularly concerned; it would have been more of a surprise if we’d have left on time. For the most part, the journey flew by, but by the time we’d been travelling for nearly an hour everyone was anxious to get there and join the carnival.

When we finally arrived at 6.15 Alicia and I found the others and we made a dash to find the nearest toilet, which turned out to be in an old local bar full of old men. We stopped for one drink before following the sounds of voices and music to the hub of the carnival, where there were a couple of fairground rides and food and drink stalls all along the street. The carnival hadn’t even started but the streets were alive with activity, filled with more people who had gone all out to find the perfect costume. There were Power Rangers, Mr Potato Heads, pirates and even an open-top minivan filled with guys dressed as Captain America, which had been completely painted with the Captain America symbol.

We went on one of the rides before making our way into the crowds to check out what was going on. On the way we made friends with a group dressed as prisoners, who refused to believe I wasn’t from Russia – apparently my accent and the way I looked gave it away... I don’t know how to feel about the fact that I sound Russian when I speak Spanish, but it can’t be a good thing...

It wasn’t long before we came across our favourite snack – Smoöy! After a quick frozen yoghurt stop (through which we obtained Valentine’s straws and five points each on our loyalty cards) and a photo behind the counter, we made our way back into the street, which by this time was alive with the carnival. We ate candyfloss and Spanish churros, and nuts and olives, and shared our drinks with each other into little plastic cups. We spent the rest of the night dancing on the street, dancing in bars and even dancing on moving floats. I was even convinced to go on the haunted house ride – an experience, I have to say, I have never had before and never wish to have again.

Anyway, apart from the slightly scarring experience of having an ‘escaped psychopath’ jump out and grab us from behind, we had an amazing time, and it was only the cold and tiredness that made us glad to get back to the coaches at 3.45. We fell asleep within minutes and it felt like no time had passed at all when the coach jolted to a halt at 5.30. The other coaches were far behind so Alicia, Olivier and I made our way back to their flat, where I grabbed my make-up bag and key before heading back to my flat to the comfort of my bed. It had been an incredible night.

7th February: University Life in Spain

With everyone suffering from the colds we’d come down with over the weekend, we decided to give the Erasmus social a miss on Monday. It was 8pm by the time I’d got back to the flat anyway, so there wasn’t much left of the evening by the time I’d cooked myself some dinner. Having discovered that one of the German Translation classes would clash with a lecture I’d already chosen, I’d decided to stay at Alicia and Lina’s and get all my Internet-related jobs done instead, which had ended up taking all afternoon.

The next day I was reminded what a horror it is to have to get up for a 9am lecture, as I was going to try out my first German Civilisation class. If this class was as poor as the language class, I didn’t know what I was going to do; I would probably have to completely give up on taking German this term. Fortunately, this class turned out to be much more interesting, as we’re going to be looking at German literature, politics and education rather than going over grammar I already know. We’re starting off with literature, so our first class was based around Erich Kästner and his novel Fabian: Die Geschichte eines Moralisten. Even better, since this class is also a fourth year module and there’s only one advanced German student in the university, there will still only be two of us in it, meaning that we effectively get private tuition, and in the relaxed atmosphere of the tutor’s office.

After my German lecture I made my way to a cafe in the Plazo San Domingo where I could use the Wi-Fi to send off a few urgent emails and Skype my parents. I couldn’t wait to speak to them, especially as I had some exciting news: I’d been accepted onto the Volunteach Peru programme, which I’d applied for just on the off-chance, never actually expecting to get anything from it. However, that meant we hadn’t really discussed the logistics of paying for it; although the programme itself is reasonably cheap since it includes food and lodging with a local family, the prices of the flights are astronomical. I was half-expecting them to be horrified, which would be fully reasonable given the circumstances, but they were thrilled that I’d got such an amazing opportunity and said I could use my Erasmus grant towards it. So now I just have to pay the registration fee with the company and book some flights – and I’m going to Peru!

I spent the rest of the afternoon doing the reading we’d been set for German and getting a few toiletry essentials from Druni. I have to say, the staff there were really nice; one lady spent about ten minutes trying to help me find the right hair mask, after I’d finally managed to explain accurately what I meant (which turns out just to be mascarilla in Spanish anyway). I may have seemed like the clueless English girl at that point, but I definitely had the upper hand when she tried to pronounce the brand Schwarzkopf.

That evening, the five of us met up for tapas at one of the local bars where, every Tuesday, every tapa costs one Euro. It’s a great little system; you go in, choose a table and order some drinks, then they give you a plate and you’re free to choose any tapas from the bar. All the tapas are on cocktail sticks, and when you leave you just have to give in your cocktail sticks and the bar staff will calculate what you owe. It’s all very relaxed – a very typically Spanish way of doing things.

Since we were still struggling with colds, we just went for ice cream and milkshakes before calling it a night. We were all up early the next day for one thing or another anyway. Three of us went to try and get our ESN (Erasmus Student Network) cards in time for the carnival that Saturday – but without success, since we hadn’t thought that we’d need our passports. Passports seem to be necessary everywhere here – even if you’re just buying a SIM card or wireless Internet. They often even ask for ID when you want to pay by card.

Anyway, that afternoon I had two translation lectures in a row, from 4 until 8 – something that’s going to take a while to get used to. By the time I came out of the second lecture I was exhausted and was not looking forward to the prospect of cooking dinner and going out again. Nevertheless, at 9.30 I met Ali and Annalisa outside the university as planned and went to a cheap and cheerful local bar for a few drinks. At 11 we had to leave to find Badulake club, who, after a few emails, had sent me a photograph confirming that they had found the cardigan I’d lost there the week before. When I got there, we were allowed straight in, and they had the cardigan ready and waiting. I have to say, I’m impressed at how helpful and friendly they’ve been throughout the whole thing.

On Thursday, Ali and I had our first proper linguistics lecture, and it was intense but interesting. As soon as the lecturer finally arrived (twenty minutes late, on typical Spanish time) we started taking notes from her aural explanation of the theories of information and communication, and barely stopped writing for the next hour and a half. It was good to have the challenge of not only listening and understanding, but learning new concepts in the process, and she confirmed at the end that we were both more than welcome to take the class.

After lunch, I went over to Alicia’s to use the Internet again until our Methodology of Translation lecture at 4. We’re working on a translation per lesson; we’re set an English text to translate into Spanish at home, and then we work through it in groups during class to come up with the best version, before assessing variations as a class as one of the groups presents their version on a Powerpoint. The people in my classes have been so welcoming, and not at all bothered by the fact that my level of Spanish must be far below their level of English. Everyone has been really friendly and helpful, and I’ve been surprised to discover how open they are to my suggestions, often asking me for my version of a translation.

Having gone back to Alicia’s to finish using the Internet (there were various things I needed to do for VolunTeach Peru), I didn’t get back until nearly 8 o’clock again, giving me just the right amount of time to cook myself some dinner and get ready before going to meet everyone outside Zara, our standard meeting place, at 11pm. This time we went to Alicia and Lina’s for drinks before going out to Boutique club at 1.30. We got back at around 6am, giving us time for a few hours’ sleep before meeting up to go shopping.

At 12.30 (an hour and a half later than originally planned) we met outside Zara and took the tram to the huge alimentación on the edge of town, where we were going to buy our costumes for the carnival the next day. Alimentaciónes, often called chinos because they’re usually owned by Chinese immigrants, are cheap corner shops which sell everything from booze and food to exercise books. This one was more like a Spanish version of Poundstretcher, only with aisles upon aisles of fancy dress. We came out with all the accessories we needed for our cowgirls and Indians costumes.

To get the checked shirts for the cowgirls, we had to head to the big shopping centre two stops further on, called Nueva Condomina, which has all the major chains as well as restaurants, independent shops and a cinema. After searching for an hour, we eventually found three checked shirts for five Euros each in the sale. Mission accomplished! Already feeling ready for bed, we took a tram back into town, and I just had time to pop back home and grab some food before my lecture – which it turned out, I hadn’t even needed to turn up to. I attempted to sit outside and do some revision, but even though the sun was still warm, the wind made it too cool and uncomfortable to sit outside. So, at 5pm, I made my way back to the flat to get some work done and recover in time for the carnival the next day.

4th February: An Interesting Weekend

When I turned up to at lecture on Friday, there was no sign of either a lecturer or a class so, after bumping into Ethan, an exchange student from America, I decided to try out the General Translation class which was due to start at the same time. This turned out to be a fortunate coincidence as it was one of the best classes I’d tried so far and I’m now seriously considering enrolling.

Since the Translation class finished early, I decided to go over to Carrefour one last time to make sure I had all the essentials and unusual items I might need over the next few weeks, so I could just top up on small bits at the local supermarket. On my way back I had a text from Ali inviting me to tapas at 7.20, giving me only forty-five minutes to get back, make some dinner, get ready and walk to meet them. I might have been absolutely fine had I not decided to test out a ‘short-cut’ which actually took me over fifteen minutes out of my way. I just had time to grab a snack and unpack my shopping before rushing out the door.

It turned out to be a good thing I only had time for a snack, as the amount of tapas we bought was a meal in itself. The place we went to has a brilliant system where each table writes down all the dishes they want on a piece of paper, which is separated into boxes indicating different kinds of food – such as meat, vegetables, fish and fried foods. The food itself tasted amazing, and it was all too easy to completely over-eat, helping ourselves to whatever was in front of us.

After tapas, it was time to meet the others and make our way to the theatre. The play turned out to be a completely surreal experience, as although we were all agreed that the language was easy to understand, not one of us had any idea of what was actually going on. Maybe next time we should go for something slightly less abstract.

It wasn’t even 11pm yet, so we decided to head over to Revolver for a few drinks to end the night. At just before one, we called it a night, since we had to get up relatively early the next day for our trip to the nearby town of Elche.

At 10am the next day, we met outside the department store El Corte Ingles and walked to the bus station, which is in the ‘dodgy end of town’. I remember being horrified when I first arrived in Murcia at what on earth I’d signed myself up to, as this part is full of run-down flats, graffiti and burly-looking foreign immigrants. However, we were safe in our group of six (one more than usual, since Ali had her friend Verity over for the weekend) and were soon on our way to Elche in a swanky new coach.

When we arrived in Elche forty-five minutes later, the first thing that struck us was how incredibly  windy it was. It having been over twenty degrees over the past few days in Murcia, none of us were dressed for this cold, gusty weather and we took the first opportunity to duck inside the nearest building, which happened to be an archaeological museum – not exactly the exciting time we’d had in mind. After a vague wander around the museum, we headed into the town centre and, after getting lost for quite a while, eventually found our bearings again and headed to the main square for lunch.

By this time we were reluctant to go back outside at all and were wondering what on earth to do with the rest of the day when we came across the answer to our problems: a tourist train. I’m not entirely sure it was worth the 3 Euro per person price, since we just ended up going around all the streets we’d got lost in earlier in the day, but we did get to see the much-revered palm tree grove, which is the town’s obsession. At any rate, we managed to have a good laugh wondering if we’d ever escape the rows upon rows of palm trees the little train was taking us through at three miles an hour.

After the thrilling train ride, we had a bit of time left before our return coach, so made it our mission to find an indoor ice-cream cafe – a mission which was easy to accomplish. At half-past five, we were on our way back to Murcia, where we walked to the centre together, stopping off for cocktail ingredients on the way. That evening, we were going to have our big night out, taking advantage of Annalisa’s empty flat for pre-drinks before heading to the clubs which were all in her end of town.

Our cocktails were an interesting mix of anything we fancied putting in for the perfect combination of sweet and alcoholic, and we were having such a good time chatting and playing drinking games that it was nearly 2am before we made it out to the clubs. After discovering the horrendous entry prices, we eventually chose a club charging five Euros for entry and a free drink. It was 6am before we made it home.

Sunday was pretty much a write-off, since I didn’t even wake up until 3 in the afternoon – possibly the latest I’ve ever slept. I’d just finished my breakfast and was still wandering around in my PJs when who should turn up but my landlady. This was not the impression I wanted to give off – especially as I’d been expecting her the day before and there was no longer any evidence of my pain-staking efforts of tidying the place up. Luckily, she seemed as cheerful as ever and only wanted to check the water meter and tell me that both my flatmate and my Internet were on their way.

It’s fair to say that I spent the rest of the day engrossed in Harry Potter, since I not only carried on reading my Spanish Goblet of Fire, but watched The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Order of the Phoenix in Spanish too, since this seemed to be the perfect combination of work and leisure in my present state. It’s a really good way to practice, since I already know the stories fairly well and it doesn’t make me lose the will to live like some of the programmes on Spanish MTV.

Today I woke up at the more reasonable hour of 10am with a slight cold but with a definite desire to have a more efficient day. I have a German Translation module to try out at 4pm and am planning on going over to Alicia’s again to use her Internet connection, but other than that I’m free to get a bit of work done. This evening should be another Erasmus social at the Fosters pub, and hopefully everyone should have recovered enough from Saturday to want to go along.

1st February: A Busy Week

It’s ironic really that as soon as things start getting interesting I stop having time to write about it. But since Monday I haven’t really had time to stop and write down everything that’s been going on, it’s been so non-stop.

The social on Monday was a casual get-together at a Fosters pub (where they didn’t even sell wine!) The long, wide tables made it quite difficult to hold a conversation with more than a few people at a time, but although I only got talking to a Spanish girl when things were beginning to wind down, it was a good opportunity to get to know Lina and Ali a bit better – and it was definitely a comfort to be making some British friends. Since most of us had early starts the next day, we left not long after twelve, agreeing to meet up again the next night.

On Tuesday morning, Ali, Annalisa and I met outside the university at 10am to try and organise our modules and timetables. After taking pains to work out the computerized appointment-booking system, we managed to get me an immediate appointment which, after all that effort, turned out to be irrelevant to what we wanted to achieve. Luckily, the guy we did want to see was in his office – although he only referred me to the online timetables which I still couldn’t access due to my lack of Internet. So, that afternoon we went over to Alicia’s and Lina’s to take advantage of their Internet connection to take a look at the timetables and choose some modules to try out. The system is a bit of a nightmare because you have to look at about a million different timetables for different departments, and if your modules clash, there’s nothing you can do about it. Nevertheless, we ended the afternoon with a rough idea of module choices, and the three of us set off to try out a tourism translation module which was set to start at 6.

It being only 4pm, we decided to take another stop-off at Smöoy, the frozen yoghurt place which we are probably single-handedly keeping in business. Then we set off to try a tourism translation module, which that day turned out to consist only of an introductory presentation and the organising of groups for the weekly projects. The module seemed manageable and would have fitted into my timetable as it stood, but it hadn’t particularly sparked my interest so I decided to wait until I’d tried some other modules before I enrolled.

Although the lesson finished early that day, it was scheduled on Mondays and Tuesdays until 8pm – which is a normal lecture time here. It’s going to take me a while to adjust to this bizarre Spanish timetable, which can start at 8am and not finish until 9pm, with a siesta break in the middle. I’m hoping that none of my classes will start that early or end that late, as I may die of exhaustion or hunger.

That evening, we met Alicia and Lina again at a cerveceria selling five bottles of beer for 3 Euros. It’s times like these when I really regret not being a beer-drinker – but then again, the wine was reasonably-priced too, at 3 Euros for a bottle containing two-and-a-half glasses worth. It was a nice place too, with the relaxed feel more of a cafe than a bar. Tapas were served all night and I could imagine it being a great local haunt on a summer’s evening.

On Wednesday I decided it was time I really needed to get stuck in to trying out some more classes. However, when I turned up at 4 to try out a class, it turned out I had misread the confusing timetables and there wasn’t actually a class I wanted to try until 6. Even this turned out to be a waste of time, since the lecturer was very clear in pointing out that she wasn’t keen to have Erasmus students in her class. Exhausted after what seemed like another wasted day, I got back to the flat, cooked myself some dinner and whiled away the hours watching some quality Spanish MTV. It turns out, not only do they have dubbed-over versions of our sub-standard reality TV shows like Jersey Shore and Geordie Shore, but they’ve even got their own version called, very imaginatively, Gandia Shore. They’re also soon to get their own version of The Inbetweeners, with the same plotlines but with Spanish actors and set in Spain. As an Inbetweeners fan, I can’t imagine a worse concept. Luckily I didn’t have to endure too much Date My Mom and More than Friends before it was time to meet the others outside Smoöy at 11pm (which, incidentally, is the normal time to go out here). I think I’m going to have to invest in some more coffee or several hundred bottles of Lukazade.

That night was our first proper night out in Murcia, and we were lucky that Alicia and Lina already knew all the best places to go, having been here last term. We ended up at an Erasmus bar called Badulake, which offered free entry, free beer, free sangria and 1 Euro shots to all Erasmus students before 1am. This was too good an opportunity to miss.

It was a small place but it had a good atmosphere and all the people seemed really nice. One guy even ran to grab us some napkins when he heard us moaning about the lack of loo roll in the toilets. We met quite a few people that night and at 3am gathered outside to decide what to do next. I ended up going to another bar with some Italians we’d met, and at around 5 one of them walked me home only to find that when I turned on the lights, all the electricity blew! Thankfully I’m pretty good at the whole fuse box thing and we managed to get everything back on pretty quickly – apart from the one in the living room, where the bulb had gone too.

The next day, when the living room lights still didn’t work after I’d replaced the bulbs, I realised there was another kind of problem with the lights other than the fuse or the bulb. I couldn’t put it off any longer and gave my landlady a call, who said someone would come and repair it on Saturday. She also answered my long list of questions about rubbish disposal, Internet, and my mysterious flatmates. She told me my flatmates would be arriving sometime next week, and Internet should be set up very soon; I was thrilled.

That day I tried out three more lectures; German 10, Perspectives on Spanish Linguistics and Methodology of Translation. German 10, which is a fourth-year module and represents the highest level of German at the university, seemed ridiculously easy. They were working off the European framework of language, which works on a system of A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, C1 and C2 – and they were currently covering a B2 textbook. Since I already have a C2 certificate, this seems a complete waste of time – and although it would be a nice way to gain some easy credits, I’d much rather have a challenge and do something interesting. I’m going to give German Culture and German Translation a try next week.

The linguistics module, on the other hand, seems really interesting and would definitely be the challenge I’m after, as both the workload and the content seem demanding. Having been told by the lecturers that I can take the class and that it won’t be too difficult for me, I’m going to try it out next week and make a decision.

Methodology of Translation was my favourite class of the day. It involves translating texts from English into Spanish and analysing the best translation techniques for different audiences and styles. The lecturer has told us we need to do one of the set translations and give it to her next week to check if our level of Spanish is high enough to take the class; of course it’ll be a challenge for us, as we’re competing against native speakers of Spanish, but it would be an amazing way to improve. The class itself was really interesting as the students were working through a translation they’d done for homework and coming up with a final version in groups. Afterwards the lecturer went through the text, assessing individuals’ suggestions and explaining why certain translations were more appropriate for the context. I felt like I’d learnt so much from that one class that if I were to enrol my Spanish would improve miraculously.

After the class I went back to Alicia’s to use the Internet, which by now I was in desperate need of. I had time to send out a few emails and do all my essential admin before heading back to the flat to make dinner. Since I’d run out of matches, I decided to buy a lighter, which presented a new challenge – since I have no experience of using lighters, let alone starting a stove with them. However, after the initial shock of getting my thumb in the flame (which actually didn’t cause me any damage), I managed to light it without any problem. After eating in the dark I decided that the best thing to do was snuggle up in bed with a few episodes of The Vampire Diaries (which seems to be my new Gilmore Girls) and get an early night, having got only three hours sleep the night before.

Today I leapt out of bed at 10am thinking there was someone at the door, but it turned out only to be the neighbours being noisy. I had a relaxed breakfast and read my Spanish Harry Potter for a while before getting ready, doing some cleaning and figuring out (with the help of some baffled passers-by) where to dispose of my rubbish. Then it was time to nip down to the local bakery and grab a baguette for lunch. This afternoon I’m trying a lecture of Translation for Technology and Business, just in case the ones I try next week don’t work out. Then this evening we’re off for a bit of culture, watching Le Petit Prince (Spanish version, I hope) at the local theatre.

28th January: Moving Forwards

Well, things are looking up. Since Saturday night I’ve met a lot of new people and barely spent any time in the flat. That night, Annalisa and I met up outside the university at 9pm and wandered around for a while before deciding on a bar down one of the side streets nearby, where a jug of sangria cost only four Euros. 

By the time we were nearing the end of our jug, the bar was packed and a group of three guys came and sat with us. We ended up buying another jug and staying out till 3.30 – so much for having a few quiet drinks! The guys, who were two brothers and a friend, were from Murcia and seemed to know the place well. They took our numbers and invited us to a party the next weekend, which could be great, but if we go we’ll have to find out their real names and stop calling them Ashton Kutcher, The Weird One and The Boring One. Despite these nicknames and Ashton Kutcher’s obsession with his ridiculously over-long fringe, they seemed pretty cool.

The next day was Sunday so almost all the shops were closed. Nevertheless, Annalisa, Ali and I spent the afternoon exploring the city, eating frozen yoghurt and drinking wine in the square. At 8 we met some friends of Ali’s who were also on their Year Abroad in Murcia, and went for dinner at an American diner. Afterwards we went for more frozen yoghurt (which seems to be a bit of an obsession around here) before parting ways and agreeing to meet up at the Erasmus social the next day.

Today I woke up even later – it was past midday before I managed to drag myself out of bed. I really don’t know what’s wrong with me; I just can’t stop sleeping! It was quarter to two before I managed to go out on the run I’d had planned for that morning, and the sun was high in the sky. It won’t be long before it gets too hot to go running in the day; it was already hard work and it’s only the end of January! Nonetheless, it was great to get moving after a week of doing nothing, and amazing to feel a bit of sun on my skin. The route I took along the river is the perfect spot for a run.

After getting myself ready and grabbing a bite to eat, I made my way over to Carrefour and Lidl to buy a few bits of food and toiletries. By the time I got back it was nearly 7 and time to cook myself some dinner before heading into town for the Erasmus social.

26th January: Hey There, Lonely Girl

It is now my third full day in Spain and I still have no Internet connection or any housemates to speak of. The closest I’ve got to a proper conversation today is the shouted Skype call I managed to have with my parents in the loudest Internet cafe known to man. On the plus side, the weather is already looking up, and I’m writing this whilst sat on the balcony of my flat, where it’s actually warmer than inside.

Yesterday went more or less as expected. I arrived at the induction a few minutes before it was due to start; the entrance was easy to spot, as it was surrounded by groups of people speaking foreign languages. I’ve said it before but I have never been so convinced that the worst kind of loneliness is the kind you feel when you’re surrounded by people. Glancing through the crowd, I seemed to be the only one who was utterly and completely alone.

When I finally heard some English coming from the little group in front of me, it felt like there might be some hope after all, and when we sat down in the auditorium it was a relief just to be able to chat to someone without having to rack my brains to find the right words. Afterwards, I bumped into two more English girls and we ended up going to lunch together.

That afternoon, I went with one of the girls, Annalisa, to look into getting a Spanish SIM card and sorting Annalisa out with some Internet. She showed me a big shopping centre at the other end of town, where there was also the huge French supermarket Carrefour and even a Lidl. It was after 6pm when we parted ways, agreeing to meet up that evening.

When I got back to the flat, I cooked myself a makeshift chilli without any meat, which actually turned out all right. By this time it was approaching 9pm and it wasn’t until 9.30 that I realised my new Spanish phone wasn’t sending any messages to English numbers. I’d already given up on the idea of going out by now and decided to leave it until the next day.

Today, I woke up after 11 once again, despite the fact that I’d gone to sleep before midnight the night before. I’ve never slept like this before; maybe my subconscious is aware that I no longer have a life and therefore no particular reason to get up in the morning? This morning I actually dreamt that my flatmates had arrived and that I woke up to a huge breakfast platter presented by our landlady for us; how disappointing it was to wake up to the reality.

Anyway, I took my time having some breakfast and getting ready, before doing a bit more reading and revision and having my lunch. (If things don’t start looking up soon I may have to give up writing this blog for lack of readership, since all my readers will have died of boredom.) Then I made an optimistic but vain attempt to get Internet access at the university, which was closed, before finally finding a cafe with Wifi but no plug sockets, and loud music which made a successful Skype call nigh-on impossible (although my parents nearly did that on their own, before I reminded them they might need to switch to the laptop with a webcam and microphone).

Now I’m sitting on my balcony with the tune to ‘Hey there, lonely girl’ in my head, wandering what to do next. It’s half-past-five so I think I’ll kill a couple more hours with some Spanish revision and text Annalisa to see if she’s free. If not, it’s another chilli for one and a Vampire Diaries marathon. 

24th January: Getting on with it

It was nearly 11 o’clock by the time I got up this morning, having woken up and fallen back into a doze several times. I’d heard voices and emerged from my room half expecting to find my new flatmate moving in – but it had been wishful thinking, and I was still alone.

Resigning myself to another lonely day, I put some water on the stove to warm up for a cup of coffee. I’m beginning to come to terms with the fire hazard I’m confronted with every time I want to turn on a hob (by turning on the gas and putting a lighted match to the ring). Considering I’ve never been altogether comfortable with using matches, I’m quite proud of myself. I have to say it presented itself as yet another obstacle when I came to cook last night, but there were only a few panicked failures before I managed it. First achievement of the trip, I’d say.

It was midday by the time I’d showered and got out the house. I decided to fetch myself a fresh baguette from the bakery down the road and blend in like a local (well, you can’t blame me for trying).  It was much warmer today, although the strong wind took it way below the 17 degrees claimed by the electric signs outside the pharmacies. After dropping my baguette at the flat, I followed my Google maps directions to the university – not getting lost even once! In fact, I got asked for directions yet again. This time, as luck would have it, he wanted to know the way to the river, the only place in town I could direct him to.

When I arrived, the impressive, beautiful building of the Facultad de Letras was unmistakable, but I decided to make absolutely certain I was in the right place and popped into the information office. It’s really frustrating to be starting again at that point of barely being able to express what I mean, let alone get a bit of my personality in there. Nonetheless, I made myself understood with a simple: “Hello. I’m a foreign student and I’ve got an orientation tomorrow. Do you know where it will be?” Not exactly Shakespeare but I found out what I needed to know.

On the way back I decided to pass Bershka and Zara (I admit it: I am a danger to both myself and those who supply my bank account) but thankfully managed to exercise self-restraint, reminding myself that it was a choice between pretty things and food: I chose survival. On my way back a short, warm shower erupted from a sky that, moments before, had been cloudless and vivid blue. If I don’t start remembering soon to take my sunglasses wherever I go, I’m going to get premature frown lines.

When I got back to the flat, I made myself some lunch before starting on some tasks that might make me seem slightly OCD: airing out the kitchen, washing the plates, cups and bowls, and sterilising all the cutlery with boiling water. In fairness, the kitchen did smell musty and yesterday I had found cobwebs in my rice after pouring it into one of the cups. Anyway, I felt better afterwards.

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and trying to revise some more vocabulary so I wouldn’t seem like the class idiot at the orientation the next day. About the only excitement I had all day was finding a potential cockroach in the bathroom (which was so small it was probably just a kind of beetle), which I, having heard about their egg-laying tricks, swept up and flushed down the loo. When dinner time came around I made another lonely dinner for one which I watched in front of a slightly bizarre film about a man in denial about his sexuality. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the Erasmus orientation tomorrow. Once I know my timetable I’ll have something to fill my time and get me out of the house, not to mention people to talk to before I start going mental from isolation.

23rd January: Arrival in Murcia

I don’t quite know how this has happened but I’m currently sitting in a cold, lonely living room of a three-room apartment in the middle of Murcia, Spain.

Actually, I know exactly how it happened – I had to live through the whole thing – but this whole situation seems somehow to have sprung up on me when I wasn’t paying attention. Despite the fact it was probably the longest Christmas break I’ve ever had, I feel like the time’s been swept up from under my feet and that it still just wasn’t quite enough. I’ve spent today as though watching myself through someone else’s eyes, slightly detached from the real world.

We woke up at 3am to the sight of snow swirling thick and fast to settle on the already-white road outside – our biggest dread, and completely unexpected since it had been completely clear when my parents had woken up an hour earlier to check. My dad is an expert at this sort of thing though and we arrived at East Midlands Airport ten minutes before we’d planned. The rest of the journey passed in the same way without a hitch; the plane was only delayed by fifteen minutes; the baggage came through almost immediately and the bus to Murcia arrived within ten minutes of me finding the bus stop. Then it was time for the part I was dreading the most – the part that was most likely to go wrong – meeting my new landlady at the other end. I had tried calling several numbers with various combinations of country code and was beginning to think over a Plan B when my phone rang; it was Carmen, the landlady’s niece, whom I’d been emailing over the past week to arrange everything.

Exhausted and extremely embarrassed to have the whole coach hearing my barely passable Spanish, I managed to stutter a few words and arranged to speak to Agustina, the aunt. And with one phone call everything was arranged; I was to meet her outside the house in twenty minutes. After finding the taxi rank on the far side of the bus station and negotiating a price with the driver, I found myself waiting, surrounded by luggage, on the pavement of a side-street with nothing to do but hope the landlady would actually come.

Ten minutes later, a small, elderly Spanish lady approached me with a smile and a look of recognition (she has never seen me before, but I’m pretty sure the lost tourist look and piles of baggage gave me away). When she initiated a kiss-on-both-cheeks greeting, which is obviously normal here, it took me by surprise but seemed quite a nice way of starting off on a nice friendly footing – although I can understand why most English people would consider it a bit of a weird affront to their personal space (and I have to admit that this is probably more our problem than theirs). It somehow made me feel uncomfortable yet more at ease at the same time.

Despite her age, Agustina insisted on carrying my smaller case up the two flights of stairs to the flat, swatting my hand away good-naturedly when I offered to help. Except for a moment of minor panic when I thought the flat didn’t continue around the corner and just consisted of one box room, a kitchen and a living room, my first impressions of the place were good and I could imagine how nice it would be to be living there as it got a bit warmer, especially with the little balcony off the living room. When she had shown me around and I’d paid what I owed, Agustina fetched the clean sheets and, bizarrely, we made up my bed together whilst attempting polite conversation without confusing one another (quite a challenge since I kept accidentally switching to Russian). Then, assuring me I could call any time I needed to, Agustina left me to my own devices for the rest of the afternoon.

I grabbed a quick lunch before unpacking my cases into the copious amount of wardrobes and cupboards in my new room. Then it was time to make a list and pop out for essentials – which was more difficult than it sounds. As always, I got distracted by the exciting new city and ended up wandering around to take it all in – not a sensible idea when you don’t have a map or any kind of natural sense of direction. Giving up on my pathetic attempt to make a circuit back to the river, which should be an obvious landmark, I finally admitted defeat and asked a passer-by, who probably thought I was a little odd since my clarification of ‘river’ was to say ‘water’ and wave my arms around in a vague flowing motion. Ironically, as I was on my way, someone asked me for directions; why do I only get asked for directions when I’m in a foreign country and have no idea where anything is?

Unfortunately, the guy who had directed me had failed to mention the potential hazards of this route – SHOPS! I managed to restrain myself, even past Bershka and Zara, but made an essential stop at Oysho to grab a woolly cardigan and some Snoopy slippers to keep me warm in my sad, cold little apartment.

It was now 4.30 and I was anxious to find my way back before it got dark, so asked the next passer-by where to find the nearest supermarket – only to find it was literally one hundred yards from my house. I spent an embarrassing amount of time browsing all the different products and getting excited by offers on old faves such as Special K, only to realise when I got back that I’d forgotten one of the most essential items: toilet roll. I was too conscious of my incompetence to go back to the same shop, and since I hadn’t managed to get everything on my first trip anyway, went to the slightly bigger place I’d seen a little further away. This time I was successful and emerged triumphant into the cool, windy street, which by this time was finally beginning to grow dark. There was still a hint of sunshine in the sky, permeated with hints of red, the promise of good things to come.