12th March: Does Anyone Actually Do Any Work Around Here?

The next day I woke up refreshed after a good, long night’s sleep, ready for the student party at Espinado campus. Since it was a gorgeous day, Giorgos and I went out for coffee in Plaza San Domingo, and by the time I met my friends at the tram stop at 2pm, it was sweltering – far too hot for the jeans I was wearing.

After a hot and crowded tram journey and a painfully long uphill walk to the top of the campus, we finally found the party – and it was huge. It was meant to be an economics party but people had come from different faculties all over the city. To get in, we had to wait in an enormous crowd for what seemed like forever under the blazing sun. Finally, we escaped the throng and made it into the fenced-off area, which was lined with make-shift gazebos leading up to a risen stage, and heaving with yet more students.

I don’t know where the rest of the afternoon went; we drank, ate our huge plates of free paella, sat in the sun and danced in front of the stage. At one point we managed to be part of a massive Murcia Harlem Shake (hopefully we’ll be on the official video). When the beer ran out and the party stopped at 7, it felt like no time had passed at all, and none of us wanted to leave. It was lucky, then, that a few hours later we were meeting up again and going out.

We were flagging by the time we met up again at mine at 10.30, but we made it to the club despite it all, and ended up having a really good night, especially as there were a lot of us since Alicia’s friends were here. It was still warm when we left the club at 5.30, and it felt like the summer was finally on its way.

The next day, we all had a much-needed lie-in and a relaxed day. It was sunny again, so after going into town, I joined Giorgos and a couple of his Greek friends for drinks outside the university. In the evening, I met Ali, Annalisa, Lina and Alicia for drinks, but didn’t stay out late as we planned on getting the most out of our Sunday.

So, the following morning we all set out for Cartagena, a coastal town around forty minutes from Murcia. After seeing the Roman amphitheatre and most of the town, we settled down for an 11-Euro lunch comprising nuts, bread, sangria, three courses and coffee. It was good food, too, made all the better for the fact we were able to eat it outside on the sunny square overlooking the dock.

Then we just had a few hours to fill before our bus home, so decided to make the most of the weather and take the tourist boat out into the bay. An attempt had been made at making the tour educational with a bilingual voiceover explaining the history of the dock, but we were happy just to be sitting on a boat on a sunny day. The trip ended with a typical highlight: the discovery of a local Smöoy.

On Monday, I started the week with my routine run down the river, which was surprisingly hot considering it was only 10 in the morning. After that I had my linguistics class at 1, following which I popped into Mercadona with Ali (the theme tune was playing, much to our delight) and came back to the flat. I spent the afternoon chatting to Giorgos and getting some work done, before it was time to go to teaching at 4.45.

Teaching went well that day as all the boys had something prepared they wanted to go through, and even little Guillermo managed to keep up his concentration for most of his lesson. Yes, I do realise that saying ‘little Guillermo’ sounds a little odd... But who knows, maybe the Spanish think calling your child Thomas is strange?

That evening, none of my English friends were going to Tandem for various reasons, so it was just Giorgos and me. We met one of his Greek friends, Vicky, on the way, and at the bar, I was introduced to their Italian friends. They couldn’t wait to try out their English on me and seemed really friendly, but after a while I decided that it was probably about time I tried out some of my foreign languages. I actually ended up speaking to a lot of different people – including a very camp Filipino who had, for some unknown reason, put himself on the German table, despite the fact that he spoke no German whatsoever. He also insisted that I guess his country of origin, which put me in a pretty awkward position, considering the fact that I find it difficult to differentiate between most of the countries in Asia. Nonetheless, I managed to avoid creating any international incidents and left having tried out two of my three languages and met some lovely people.

Today, I had German Civilisation which, as usual, began half-an-hour late. This Spanish system is really ridiculous; my class next week, as well as my linguistics class, has been changed due to a bank holiday on both Monday and Tuesday next week. No wonder this place is in a recession!