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.
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