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.
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