7th May: SOS 4.8 Festival

Once again I’ve been so busy living my life I haven’t had time to write about it. With exams looming, combined with the pressure of only having seven more weeks to enjoy Spain, things have been pretty hectic.

Last Thursday, aside from being my mum’s fiftieth birthday, was an important day for me too - so much so that, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t fly back to England to celebrate with my family. Instead, I’d sent a card and Hunter wellies in the post (which, typically, didn’t arrive on time). In between classes I tried phoning my mum and even emailing my dad to get them on Skype, but nothing seemed to be going through. 

At 4pm I had to present my end-of-year group project for Methodology of Translation. We were presenting our analysis of the translation and dubbing we had done for a ten-minute extract of a BBC Food cookery programme (the one I transcribed a few weeks ago), explaining the difficulties we’d encountered and how we’d dealt with them. It all seemed to go really well; I was pleased with my Spanish and even managed to chip in a few times to answer questions from the lecturer. At the end of the presentation we showed the dubbed-over video we’d made, using the voices of two of the girls from my group. It went down a storm.

After the lecture I had teaching as usual, which was demanding that day as the two kids wanted to go in together - meaning coming up with twice the material to keep them interested, and finding things to suit both ages. Once back at the flat I tried ringing my mum again but since there was still no answer I decided to have my dinner before trying again. Just as I was finishing I had a text from my mum and one from my cousin. Taking this as a positive sign, I rang her straight away and, after one broken up call moved onto the balcony where we managed to have a proper conversation.

When she told me her card and present hadn’t come I felt awful; not only had I not been there, but she hadn’t had anything from me at all. I hated to think of her having to celebrate her fiftieth without either me or Mitch (who’s now working in Rhodes until November) and wished I could be there with her. I was glad to hear her still sounding so cheerful and to find out that my dad had pulled out all the stops to give her a wonderful day, finishing with a surprise trip to a beautiful restaurant with the rest of the family.

That evening, the girls and I met up at the cathedral to go together to the inauguration of SOS 4.8 Festival, which we’d had tickets for for months. Admittedly, it was quite cold to be standing around outside and we were all pretty exhausted from our busy weeks, but we stayed for a couple of bands before going our separate ways.

The next day I woke up early to go for a run and catch up on the week’s work. I’m glad I did because the day was getting hot even then. In the afternoon we met up to try and plan our summer trip around the north of Spain, by the end of which we had a rough outline but still didn’t have anything booked. It was all looking a lot more expensive and complicated than originally expected...

Our planning session was cut short by the fact I had a mock exam for General Translation at 4 o’clock. On the plus side, the exam didn’t last the full two hours so I was back at the flat by 5.30, giving me time for a to have quick power nap and some dinner and to get ready to go out.

I met the others at La Cuba, the paella restaurant by the Bull Ring, since we’d wanted to go together for ages and hadn’t been for a group meal out just the five of us for a while. By the time we’d finished it had gone 10, so we had a few drinks outside before heading to SOS. 

Poor Alicia, who had been feeling ill the day before so hadn’t come with us to the inauguration, where we’d got our wristbands, had to queue up separately to get hers. She was gone nearly an hour while we were watching The XX who, luckily, weren’t all that exciting anyway. After we were happily reunited we all made our way to the front in time for Bloc Party, that night’s headlining act.

I didn’t know what to expect of Bloc Party, who I’d never seen live before, but I was really impressed. Obviously I knew a lot of their songs but I hadn’t expected them to be so good live and to be so engaged with the crowd (despite the mispronunciation of ‘Murcia’ and the failed assumption that the Spanish would know what “Are you having a laugh?” means). Not only that, but Ali and I had somehow managed to get ourselves right to the front and had an amazing view. I even got given Bloc Party’s set list by one of the bouncers!

I’d never even heard of the next band, Crystal Fighters, but they were amazing.  The funny thing was that the photographer seemed to take a liking to Ali and me and kept taking our photo, despite us having no idea what we were going to see. At one point he asked, “Are you here to see Crystal Fighters?” to which I replied, “Yes, of course!” as though this were self-explanatory. Then he wanted us to shout “Crystal Fighters!” for the photo, which was particularly embarrassing since not only did we not know who on earth this band was, but it took us about three attempts to actually figure out that this is what he wanted. I felt like a bit of a fraud, as though actual fans should be having their photos taken instead of us posers.

Anyway, when the singer first came on stage with hair like Jesus, a bizarre black headscarf and looking like he’d raided his grandmother’s wardrobe in a black skirt and cream crochet top, I was skeptical to say the least. But as soon as they started to play, my skepticism disappeared; they were brilliant! We found ourselves singing along to all the songs though we’d never heard them before. By the time they’d finished their set it was about 4am so we decided we’d had enough for the night. We needed to get some sleep if we were going to do it all again the next day.

We spent Saturday lazing around in Plaza Santo Domingo, finally enjoying the return of the summer sunshine. Naturally this was also an excuse for another Smöoy.  When we’d finally managed to drag ourselves away from the sunny square, we went our separate ways to have dinner and get ready, before meeting again at Annalisa’s just after 7. Even at that time, the sun was still hot, and I was almost out of breath by the time I’d walked all the way to Annalisa’s in my black tights and leather jacket.

Sitting on Annalisa’s balcony listening to music, chatting and drinking sangría was the perfect way to spend the summer evening. At around 10 we made our way to the festival, which was already packed ready for the performances from M83 and Justice. On our way in we met a big group of Irish people, who had come especially for the festival (apparently it’s quite famous) and were really excited to find other English speakers; we ended up having a massive group photo.

Ali and I got straight to the front again and got all the benefits of the front row yet again - that is, free water bottles, getting photos taken, making front row friends. Everything seems more exciting at the front, even though the acts weren’t as good that night. There wasn’t really anything to watch on stage, as M83 use a lot of pre-programmed sounds and synthesizers and Justice are just a couple of DJs. They did play their hits though, which everyone went mental for, and there were some really good parts of both the sets (my favourite being, possibly, the random but brilliant remix of ‘Rasputin’ by Boney M. Since everyone here already thinks I’m Russian, I feel I might as well live up to the stereotype. I should mention that I got taken for a Russian twice again the other day - once by the Turk in Mariano Rojas and again walking to the cathedral the next day, by someone who actually came up to me and asked me, in Russian, if I spoke the language. This is getting really bizarre).

When Justice had finished, Annalisa decided to go back since she wasn’t feeling too good, but the rest of us stayed to check out some of the other stages. We found an amazing DJ who was playing such classics as ‘Internet Friends’ by Knife Party and ‘I think I like it’ by Fake Blood as well as all your usual electro/house stuff. I got ridiculously excited. At one point a trilby hat flew my way, seemingly straight from the sky, which I obviously then claimed as my own for the rest of the night. We finished off with an obligatory trip to the onsite vintage photo booth and went home at around 5.

As you might expect, half of Sunday was spent in bed, before I decided to get out and enjoy the sun in the early afternoon. It was scorching by this time, and I kept having to move between sun and shade. The others were ready to meet up by around 3, so we met in Smöoy square to tomar el sol for a while. After the most amazing mango frozen yoghurt/orange ice drink ever, we went over to the Red Bull Tour Bus, a massive blue double-decker bus with a stage on top, where SOS bands were performing in the square. 

At 5pm, reluctant as we were, Ali and I had to meet Valerie to do our linguistics work. We went straight to my flat and were working on it for two and a half hours solid, having to change practically the whole thing to make it work as a complete project as opposed to three parts randomly stuck together. By the end we still hadn’t finished and agreed to meet up again the following week to get it done.

After I’d made myself some dinner it was nearly time to go out again, as the girls and I were meeting at Ibaros at 9. As is usually the case after we’ve had a night out, we didn’t end up staying for long before admitting defeat and going home to bed. 

The next morning I made an early start and went for a run, but even at 10.30 the sun was already scorching. I spent the rest of the morning on work before leaving the flat at around 2pm to make the most of the afternoon sunshine, sitting in the park by El Corte Inglés, which is right next to where I teach. By this stage, the sun was so hot that, as much as I wanted to sit out in it, had to keep switching between sun and shade to avoid overheating.

Teaching went quite quickly that day as a lot of Roberto’s lesson was spent talking about cultural aspects specific to the UK, since he might be going to Ireland over the summer. He found some of our little habits hilarious - our tendency to stand in queues, our aversion to physical contact and aspects of etiquette such as not spitting in public (which I’d taken to be self-explanatory). Even Guille’s lesson seemed shorter that day as he had some school work to go over. Marliuz said he’s not doing as well as the other two, which I’m not at all surprised at, so I need to start making the classes more focussed.

On the way back from teaching I stopped off at Druni and Mercadona, so it was nearly 8.30 by the time I got back to my flat. My parents were already waiting for me on Skype so I multitasked by cooking and eating at the same time as talking to them. We hadn’t spoken for ages so we had plenty to catch up on, and it was nearly 10 when we eventually ended the call, as I had to talk to my General Translation group on Skype to do a Spanish to English translation. At close to midnight we’d finally put the finishing touches to the article and I could finally settle down to some Vampire Diaries.

Today was another early start as I had German at 9 - and this time the lecturer was even there on time. Isabel wasn’t, though, so it was still 9.45 before we got started - and even then, all we covered all lesson was an outline of the German political system, and the rest was spent chatting. We have to finish reading the few pages on the topic for next week, which will be our last lesson.

After German I sat in Plaza Santo Domingo for a while before the heat got too much and I had to admit defeat and go indoors. Stopping off at Mercadona on the way to get a few interesting ingredients for the week, I got back at around 12.30, giving me time to get a few things done before meeting Ali back in Santo Domingo at 3.

Nearly three hours later we’d got close to a final version of our linguistics project, which we now just need to fine-tune before converting it into a presentation (which hopefully won’t take nearly as long). Then I made my way to teaching, stopping off in Plaza Romeo to read for a minutes since I was a little early. I was engrossed in the morbidly fascinating misogynistic crap that is Cincuenta sombras de Grey when who should appear but my German lecturer, possibly one of the worst people who could catch you off-guard when you’re reading an X-rated novel as a form of Spanish practice. There was an awkward moment when we were unsure of the etiquette of the greeting - was it a kiss on both cheeks situation, or more of a smile and keep your distance one? I decided I’d rather be over-cautious than over-friendly, which could look a little weird. Luckily I managed to regain composure pretty quickly and we had quite a nice half-Spanish, half-German conversation. I hardly even noticed when we switched language halfway through...

Teaching was much better this week since I was teaching them individually and they both had homework to do. However, I have to say that Gregorio’s homework seems ridiculous as not only is the vocabulary irrelevant and far too difficult for a six-year-old, but it’s riddled with mistakes and ambiguities. No wonder people struggle with foreign languages here. The previous sheet had asked him to identify individual vs. collective transport (and claimed aeroplanes went in the ‘individual transport category), and this week’s wanted him to label forms of verbal and non verbal communication (with gap-fill sentences including ‘It is a oral communication’). I ended up staying an extra fifteen minutes just to finish the sheet with him, but I’m convinced he didn’t really have any idea what was going on. 

When I eventually got back from teaching, after bumping into Lina on the way, I cooked myself some dinner and was just getting ready to go out again when I heard the rattling of the front door latch being opened - Giorgos was back from Madrid and Paris! We had a lot to catch up on so I stayed chatting to him until it was time for me to go; my friends and I were meeting at a new gluten-free ice cream bar by the cathedral.

After trying out some caipirinha-flavoured ice creams dipped in white chocolate, we decided that the place was nice but not all that Ali had hyped it up to be (bless her, you can understand why, it being the first gluten-free ice cream place in Murcia), so we moved on to a bar. We only stayed for one drink but it was enough just to be outside in the warm summer’s air.