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.
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