It’s Monday and the beginning of my last full week at university here in Spain. They don’t have study leave here, meaning we have classes right up until next Wednesday, the day before my first exam.
There isn’t much to tell about the rest of last week; with exams suddenly so close, we all spent most of our time working on end-of-term projects and revision notes. The only way I can describe Wednesday is as a series of awkward events. First, I had an uncomfortable supermarket encounter which started off by kissing on the wrong cheeks, and which we then couldn’t seem to finish. I’d finally escaped and was at the check-out when who should pop up behind me again? Good grief.
The second awkward event occurred when I went to the university copy shop to collect the class linguistic notes and scan the photo booth picture from SOS Festival. Not only did I hold up the entire queue (which, by the way, was really long) waiting for the guy to find some notes which turned out to be in the other copy shop, but he spent about five minutes scanning the embarrassing photo of my friends and me pulling ridiculous faces, which he then put on the screen in front of everyone for me to confirm it was the right thing. I was mortified.
We did at least have a nice evening, and we even tried out the cool terrace bar El Perro Azul, which is built like a garden terrace with sofas and fake grass. We met up with two English people who Alicia had met a few weeks before, Andy and Felicity. They’re out here teaching English on TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) contracts, so it was interesting to find out about their experiences. I’ve definitely been put off the idea of ever doing a TEFL course; they do get the freedom to live in a different place every year of their lives, but there’s no job stability and the pay is awful.
Anyway, the final embarrassing incident occurred that evening on the walk back with Andy, which I tried to keep from awkward silences but probably ended up making worse with some really bizarre comments, beginning with, “So... You’ve met the gang then.” I’ve never referred to my friends as ‘the gang’ in my life before, and I never intend to again. Once again we didn’t know how to end the conversation, leaving Andy in the middle of the road while we finished an inconsequential chat about running.
Thursday was, to my relief, a more normal day, with the only annoyance being my encounter with the fat lady from upstairs, who wanted me to bring her shopping up the four flights of stairs to her flat - something which is becoming an almost daily occurrence now. My friends say that maybe if she actually bothered to bring up her shopping herself, she wouldn’t be so fat. They have a point.
Teaching was good again that day as I’d prepared a decent amount of material and I taught both the kids separately. To help him with his communication vocabulary, I decided to play Pairs with Gregorio, which was an absolute hit. The stickers as a form of reward are also an absolutely amazing bribery tool.
On Friday nothing special was going on until the evening, when we met at Lina and Alicia’s flat for pre-drinks before Badulake, which was holding a 1 euro cocktail night. As usual, we got a bit carried away and didn’t end up leaving their flat until 12.45 (which is a bit of an issue when the offers always end at 1). We were so convinced we were going to miss out we actually ran the last stretch. And a note to the Spanish people who were shouting, “Go, Forest, go!”: I think you could do with watching that film again actually in English.
On Saturday we were up at the crack of 10 o’clock to get a bus to the beach at Los Alcazares. Typically, after all the perfect weather we’d had that week, it turned cool and cloudy all weekend. We did get a bit of sunshine that day but by the time it got to 5 o’clock it was well and truly grey and we were all ready to go back.
When we got back to Murcia at 7.30, we went our separate ways to have showers and get ready, then met up at 9 for tapas. For a change, we decided to try somewhere we hadn’t been and ended up at an interesting restaurant with menus from Spain, France and Morocco. After our meals we called it a night; it was going to be a long day of work the next day.
Sunday was dull, just as expected - and dull in all senses of the word, since the weather was pretty disappointing too. On the plus side, it was a good opportunity to get some work done and we didn’t stop until I went over to Lina and Alicia’s in the evening. It was a sort of enforced break really, since there was no sign of a replacement arriving for my broken oven and I needed to go round and cook. It was definitely nice to get a change of scene and to see the others after my boring day though.
Today I went for my usual run before my linguistics class, then met up with Ali and Valerie to do more work on our linguistics project - that is, put it into presentation form. It feels like we’re spending half our lives doing the thing and I can’t wait until it’s all over on Thursday, stressful though it’s going to be to get it done in time. I’m beginning to think that Valerie was a bit justified in getting so stressed about it and that maybe Ali and I shouldn’t have teased her so much with suggestions of presenting it in the form of interpretive dance or under the influence of alcohol. The other day, we were working in the morning and I said, as a joke, that I needed something stronger than a coffee. Valerie nearly fell off her chair in horror.
Anyway, we spent the afternoon doing our linguistics work yet again, a fact that was only partly improved by our choice of workspace, Smöoy; the flavour of the week is passionfruit. The new Smöoy man (not Pablo, the original and favourite of the Smöoy workers, to whom we have quite a strong attachment) has started to recognise us now too and was sharing our excitement at the number of points we have left to fill out on our loyalty cards before our next prize: half a litre of Smöoy with three pots of toppings. I do realise how sad this makes our lives appear.
After meeting Ali and Valerie (or Val, as I like to call her), I went to teach. I only had to teach the two boys that day since Sergio was at football, but both the classes went well. I’ve managed to develop a bit of banter with Roberto now and he wanted to show me videos of the new martial art he’s taken up. Not only that, but my new method with Guille - learning ten words as quickly as possible to earn a sticker - is working wonders; he’s like a different kid. At the end, the mother, Mariluz, told me Sergio got a 9.9 in his latest English exam; 10 is the best possible so she’s thrilled.
I got back to the flat to a huge list of replies to my intercambio advertisement I’d put on tusclasesparticulares.com to try and find a language exchange. I’d mainly wanted one for Russian but, naturally, I’d only had replies for Spanish. Some of the responses were more than a little creepy, two of which I’m going to have to share. The first one is as follows:
“Hola Georgie: Soy profesor de Primaria en un colegio de Granada y me planeo ir a San Pedro del Pinatar del 28 de mayo al 2 de junio. Si te animas a venir a la playa unos días conmigo para descansar y hacer intercambio, avísame. Y si conoces más "guiris" que quieran hacer turismo con alojamiento gratuito, también están invitados a mi apartamento en "Lo Pagan". Sé que suena "crazy" pero merece la pena. Chao”
This basically translates as:
“Hello Georgie: I’m a primary school teacher at a school in Granada and I’m planning to go to San Pedro del Pinatar from 28th May to 2nd June. If you’d like to come to the beach with me for a few days to relax and do an exchange, let me know. And if you know more “foreigners” who want to travel with free accommodation, they’re also invited to my apartment in “Lo Pagan”. I know it sounds “crazy” but it’s worth it. Ciao.”
Naturally I am taking him up on his offer, giving up on this university lark and becoming a professional escort.
The second bizarre reply, from a guy called Juan, was short but just as worrying:
“Estoy interesado/a... en este intercambio.” Since ‘o’ indicates a male speaker and ‘a’ a female one, I can only assume that this person is seriously confused and could possibly benefit from medical consultation.
Unfortunately these peculiar responses were the most exciting thing that happened to me all day, which ended with a sad little microwave meal (still no word from the landlady) and a few drinks in the bar on the corner. Let’s hope the week improves from here.
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