7th March: The Family Comes to Visit

Once again, I’ve neglected my blog this week, but this time I have a legitimate excuse. My parents and my nan arrived on Monday evening and I’ve been with them practically every second, so I’ve barely had access to my computer, let alone time to write my blog.

Not that I regret any second of it; we’ve had a really nice few days together. The problem is that the hotel they were staying at is actually quite far out of the town centre and miles away from where I live, so I’ve ended up essentially gate crashing their hotel and staying in my nan’s room. Not only that, but since they’ve come all this way to see me, I think it would be quite selfish of me to just leave them to their own devices, so I’ve spent all my free time with them.

So, on Monday evening, after teaching Mariluz’s three boys, I braved the rain and walked to their hotel to meet them – not having realised quite how far away it actually was. Of course, I’d printed off the directions from Google Maps in advance, but since there were only a few instructions, I had assumed that it was fairly nearby. I hadn’t imagined that it was on a dual carriageway out of town. Nevertheless, after using my failsafe method of asking for directions at every stage of the journey, I arrived there in one piece and even fairly dry, thanks to the umbrella Mariluz had given me. By this time, they were still only just getting onto the motorway, and it was forty minutes later before they finally arrived.

It was lovely to see them all again after what, I then realised, had been such a long time. It was somehow surreal to have them here; in this place that already felt quite familiar to me, but was so foreign to them, everything felt almost out of context. It’s difficult to explain, but at any rate, I was incredibly glad to see them. Everything had been moving so fast here that I hadn’t realised how much I’d been missing them.

Anyway, since they had had such a long day and it was now getting on for half-past-nine, we decided just to eat at the hotel that night and save the nice restaurants for the other days. We were all so pleased to see each other and had so much to catch up on that we stayed in the restaurant long after everyone else had drifted off, ordering coffees just for an excuse to sit there talking for longer. When it was finally time for me to go, my parents ordered me a taxi, which came almost instantly. Feeling content after a long but enjoyable day, I sparked up a conversation with the driver which continued until we got right to my door.

The next day was Tuesday so I had to be in at 9am. Typically, however, the German lecturer didn’t turn up until half-past, so I was glad I’d been a little late myself after putting the washing out. When the lesson finished at 11, I had a phone call from my mum to say they were at the Espinado campus – despite the fact that I’d warned them that this was at completely the other end from the campus I was at. Recognising that they would have little chance in finding La Merced on their own, I suggested meeting at the Corte Inglés on Gran Vía, the main road which is signposted everywhere. I waited there for a few minutes before realising they weren’t going to find that either, and rang again. I ended up walking to about five different locations before eventually giving up and telling them I was not going to move from the spot where I was, where they could pull in and pick me up, and we could be on our way. Five minutes later they appeared, all smiles and waves, and I jumped in the car. Who would have thought such a simple task could be so complicated? It turns out Murcia is not really the place for cars.

It was another grey day and we didn’t have any great ideas for places to visit, so decided to keep my nan happy by going to Nueva Condomina (which happened to keep me happy too, of course). So, my poor dad, after driving all around Murcia, including about seven times around the Plaza Circular roundabout, was now driving towards what, for him, must have been like driving into his impending doom: a huge shopping centre in the middle of nowhere, with no prospects of escape.

Having said that, he was incredibly patient and simply disappeared whilst my mum, my nan and I put our shopping expertise to the test. We clearly haven’t lost our touch; I came away with a T-shirt, two blouses, two pairs of jeans and the most gorgeous jacket, all for my birthday which is still six weeks away. Then we met up with my dad again and went for lunch at a Murcian restaurant, where my nan ended up with the most bizarre ‘ham toasty’ any of us had ever seen. To top it all off, for dessert we went to Smoöy.

By the time we came out of Nueva Condomina it was pouring with rain again, so we decided to treat my dad to a trip to the CD shop we’d seen on the way in – which turned out to have nothing he wanted anyway. After that we set about what should have been an easy little visit but turned out to be an epic mission: finding Carrefour Planet. Half-an-hour later, after getting lost and driving up and down the same route a brain-numbing amount of times, we eventually found it. The rain was torrential by now so on the plus side, it wasn’t like we were missing out on a nice day.

The Carrefour Planet shopping experience wasn’t what I’d hoped for. I’m one of those weird people who actually really quite enjoys supermarket shopping, so the prospect of trying out this enormous one had been genuinely quite exciting. I have to admit, though, that this place really was too big, and I just ended up overwhelmed, wandering the aisles listlessly and trying to make sense of then obscene amount of choice. We were also served by the slowest and moodiest checkout woman known to man, who, when I tried to exit through the wrong double barrier, insisted that I must not, leaving me stranded in some kind of supermarket isolation pen for naughty customers, unable to either leave the supermarket or to go back inside. Eventually I made a break for freedom whilst she wasn’t looking.

After I’d escaped the isolation pen and we’d stocked me up with as much food as I could possibly need for a long time, we tried to drop it off at my flat and stop for a cup of coffee. However, since there were no parking spaces to be found, we ended up dropping the shopping off, picking up my overnight stuff and running back down to the car before heading back to the hotel. There was just time to freshen up before going to a lovely Italian restaurant on Plaza Romea.

On Wednesday we woke up to glorious sunshine, so decided to go straight into Murcia town centre. This time, I knew a good place for us to park which was less than ten minutes’ walk from my flat. We were able to drop off the mini suitcase full of things that they’d brought for me from the UK and collect the few items I could do without that they could take back, before heading back towards the centre.

We stopped for a drink in the blissfully sunny square in front of the town hall, and then went on to the cathedral. After that, it was up to me to be the tour guide, so I took them around all the pretty little streets and squares I thought they might like. We ate lunch in the Plaza de las Flores, where my nan ended up with yet another meal with only a tenuous link to the name ‘ham toasty’. There was time to wander around a little more, go into some shops, and find a place for dinner that night before I had to go to my lecture at 4.

As soon as my second lecture finished at around 7.30, I set off to meet them at the restaurant we’d agreed on in Plaza San Juan. However, since I was a little early, I had time to meander there slowly and look for a new notebook in a couple of chinos on the way. When we met at 8, the restaurant we’d chosen still hadn’t opened, so we went to one across the square which seemed just as nice. We weren’t disappointed; we were presented with beautiful Murcian food, exactly what I’d wanted my family to experience.

We had wine with our meals again, after which we moved on to the nearby sidrería with the most peculiar cider-pouring method I’ve ever seen. My dad, who had expected a nice pint of cider, was presented with a tiny little glass he was expected to prop up in a little cradle underneath a cider tap. Needless to say, his bafflement was quite amusing, particularly since the waiter didn’t consider this method at all out of the ordinary. It’s funny having my dad here to point out all the bizarre habits the Spanish have, which I’ve begun to take as normal. The siesta thing really gets to him; as far as he’s concerned, the reason the Spanish are stuck in a recession is because they sleep for half the day.

Anyway, we ended up having a really fun night, which ended with me staying at their hotel again.   The next day I had to be at my lecture for 10 (although it turned out, the lecturer had messaged us the night before, changing it to 9 – classic Spain) so everyone got ready early to drop me in. After my lecture, which finished an hour earlier due to the last-minute timetable change, I talked to my presentation group and we started making preparations for the work we were going to have to present in around six weeks’ time. Then I had a few hours to get a bit of work done before my lecture at 4.

That day, as the day before, I had to give a group presentation – typical, on the one week that my family was here. However, it was good to get them over and done with in a way, and they went better than expected. After my lecture, I went to teach for an hour, before hurrying back to get ready for 8pm. Unfortunately, there had been a mix-up in communication and my family hadn’t realised when and where we were meant to be meeting – and not only this, but my phone was refusing to make or receive any calls, or send any texts. Eventually, I managed to get through, but by this time it was gone 8.30 – really late for my poor nan to eat.

Since everyone, particularly my nan, was tired and hungry, we didn’t search long for a restaurant and ended up at a little place on the cathedral square, which wasn’t the kind of place my nan is used to but served nice food. Afterwards, since we were reluctant to say goodbye, we moved on to a cafe on one of the side streets and had a round of drinks, before getting a taxi back to my place. Unfortunately, when I asked the taxi driver to wait, I forgot to mention that he needed to wait for my mum to come upstairs and come back down, and somehow my dad and nan didn’t realise what was going on until they were all the way back at their hotel. So, after already going through one emotional goodbye, my mum and I had to do it all over again when I walked her to the taxi rank.

After insisting I didn’t want any more taxi-related mishaps that evening, I walked back to my empty flat with a hollow feeling in my stomach and a lump in my throat. The idea of being alone that night was almost unbearable, but try as I might, my phone just wouldn’t let me get through to anyone. In the end, I snuggled up in bed and comforted myself by watching The Little Mermaid in Russian. I told myself the next five weeks would fly by and before I knew it they would be here again.