4th March: Another Relaxing Weekend

On Thursday the weather wasn’t much better but we decided it was probably about time for us to man up and actually go out for a drink. The day was a standard Thursday; our linguistics lecturer turned up twenty minutes late; my translation lectures were as normal. So, the only remotely interesting event to tell of that day was a meet-up for a few drinks in Revolver with Ali, Alicia, Lina and Lina’s brother.

On Friday I had a replacement lecture for German, since it had been cancelled on Tuesday. In all honesty, it was a bit of a waste of time once again, as the lecturer hadn’t had time to prepare anything for us and the videos didn’t work properly. After the lecture, I headed straight over to Alicia’s, where we were meeting to book our hostels for our trip to Cordoba and Seville during Semana Santa (holy week).

Then I just had a couple of hours to go back to the flat, have some lunch and get some work done before my lecture at 4, which finished early since it was a theory class. I then had half-an-hour to wait before meeting my Methodology group at 6 to work on our version of the translation we would have to present during next week’s class. When they came and fetched me from the library entrance, it turned out they’d already done a fair bit of it whilst they thought I’d been in my lecture. We only had to work on it for another half-an-hour before we’d finished and I could go home.

That evening started out quite disastrously but we managed to salvage it. The reason for this unfortunate beginning was that Annalisa had suffered yet another stroke of bad luck and had had her phone stolen in the shopping centre that afternoon. She’s already had loads of problems with her Internet, lost her bank card and lost her voice, but losing her Blackberry was just the icing on the cake, the poor thing. Anyway, because of this, she and Alicia, who had been with her at the time, were running ridiculously late and didn’t make it to mine for pre-drinks until 10.30, when we’d planned to leave for Badulake at 11.

Lina and her brother arrived just afterwards and we decided to stay in for a bit longer, eventually leaving at just after 12, in time for the 50 cents shots. Luck was in our favour then, for once, as the barman decided to give us our first round for 25 cents anyway (the prices were meant to be 25 cents from 11-12, 50 cents from 12-1, etc. etc. I have no idea how this is legal).

So, we ended up having a good night after all, which only got better when we managed to make a very useful friend: the man who runs the snack stall outside the club. Not only did we get free pizzas and bocadillos (sandwich baguettes), but we ended up going behind the counter and serving customers, which we were disproportionately excited about. We probably ended up deterring more customers than we brought in, calling out “PIZZAS!! BOCADILLOS! COMPRA TUS BOCADILLOS AQUÍ!” at the top of our voices to any unsuspecting passer-by.

Nevertheless, we did bring in some customers, two of whom happened to be German and working for the illusionist we were going to see the next day. In retrospect, telling them that I speak “quite good German”, forgetting that I was quite tipsy and had spoken barely any German over the last few months, was probably not the best idea. Fortunately, they still seemed impressed and asked me if I’d lived in Germany. I was just about to try and secure us backstage passes for the illusionist show when I was dragged off to Boutique by my friends.

The next day was our usual lazy post-night-out day, so we decided to while away the hours browsing the Ikea showroom and choosing the decor for our future homes. After that we went to the shopping centre, Nueva Condomina, for our Smöoy fix, and to get some cosmetics and toiletries. Then we just had time to get back and grab some dinner before heading out to the illusionist show.

The show, which was on at the same theatre that we had been to the last time, was a variety show of different illusionists, musicians and a clown. It wasn’t something I’d usually have thought to go to, and for this reason it was a really interesting change. Some of the illusions were really impressive, and the cello duet playing popular tunes were particularly good too.

On Sunday, we decided to actually stay in and get some work done during the day, before meeting up for drinks in the evening. We ended up going to a tapas bar, followed by yet another Smöoy, and then another bar for sangria, before calling it a night.