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.
No comments:
Post a Comment