9th June: Me ha dicho un pajarito

The weekend has come around again, not that it’s much different from the working week for me these days. Over the past week it’s really felt like the summer has begun; the weather’s been gorgeous and I’ve only had to worry about giving my English classes and working on my Year Abroad Project.

Admittedly, the Year Abroad Project is taking longer than anticipated. Just revising German grammar and supplying evidence for this part has taken hours - and I haven’t even gone through and corrected it yet. Another drain on my time is my relentless search for apartments in Madrid. Add to that the fact that I’ve had to scour the internet for accessible language games for my English students, and that’s pretty much where all my time has gone this week.

On Wednesday I had to go to teach Mariluz’s kids for the second time this week, since I’d so far only been able to make up an hour of the class I’d missed on Monday. It just so happened that this week, one of only two weeks I couldn’t make it on the Monday, she’d paid me in advance the week before as she’d had no change. So when I emailed and said I couldn’t make the class, I realised it would look like I’d just done a runner with the extra cash - and it was for this reason that I’d insisted on replacing the classes at whatever inconvenience to myself.

Anyway, I arrived at the class on Wednesday prepared with all my usual resources. Since I’m employed to give English lessons, you can imagine my surprise when Mariluz asked me to help Guille revise for his Spanish exam. I’m more than a little bemused as to why she thought the best person to help her child with Spanish would be an English person. Fortunately, all we had to do was learn some basic Spanish grammar rules, which I happen to know quite well.

Another challenge this week was on Thursday during my class with Gregorio and Carmen. For the most part, all my new games seemed to go down really well and they seemed to be getting really into it - the only problem was, they were getting a bit hyper at the same time. It was great to see them having some fun, but things did start getting out of hand when Gregorio whipped out a can of red hair dye spray (not the dreaded red hair again, God forbid) and started brandishing it around. Fortunately, I have at least one strong advantage over young children, and that is that I can put things in high places they can’t reach. What I couldn’t prevent was the inevitable accident when the two of them started running and jumping around; Gregorio got over-excited, Carmen got pushed, and it all ended in tears. Carmen Maria had to intervene, banning Gregorio from the game and sending him out the room. Carmen and I finished the game together quietly, but the whole thing turned out a lot more subdued than I’d originally intended.

As if I hadn’t been through enough trauma that afternoon, when I got back to the flat I had yet another encounter with the fat lady from upstairs. She actually didn’t have any bags for me to haul up the stairs for her, but what did await me was far more terrifying. I’m well aware by now that a kiss on both cheeks is the standard greeting here, so I assumed this would be the appropriate etiquette in this case. Little did I suspect that I would be completely enveloped by fat lady arms and my cheeks completely covered with wet kisses, amid declarations of “¡Guapa! ¡Guapa!” I don’t know what has happened but I think I preferred it when she was rude. 

That evening we decided to meet at 9 after I’d Skyped my friends from home, to have a go at the Ruta de tapas (Tapas Trail) that’s been set up around Murcia for this week only. Basically, participating bars offer their speciality tapa and a caña (bottle of beer) or equivalent for two euros and at the end, you have to vote for your favourite on a little slip and post it in one of the Ruta de tapas boxes in one of the bars. There are nearly fifty participating bars but I think we managed around ten of them (before ending up, embarrassingly, in Smöoy yet again). Then we ended up stopping out for more drinks because no one wanted to go back.

Friday was a bit of a wasted day to be honest, as I spent the morning running errands around town before going for a hair appointment at 12.30. I was ridiculously nervous about getting it coloured, dreading what it might end up like, and this wasn’t helped by the fact I was kept waiting for over half an hour before anyone could come and see me. Then, when it did come to my turn, the entire staff had to come and consult each other on what on earth to do with the chaotic mess of colours that I’ve created on my head.

When they started putting in blonde foils I nearly had a heart attack. I actually called one of them over to double check they were going to do something about my multicoloured roots. It turned out they were putting the highlights in first, then washing those out, then doing a full head of colour whilst my hair was still wet. By the time I’d had the two colours, an intense conditioning treatment and a cut and blow-dry, I’d been in there for three hours. It was worth every minute and every penny though; I’m thrilled with it.

After that I met Alicia, Ali and Ali’s friend Claire, who’d come to visit, in the park by El Corte Inglés. Alicia had brought some trashy magazines, and what better way to spend a sunny afternoon than eating ice cream and looking at pictures of 2013’s best celebrity bikini bodies awards? I needed a bit of easy reading anyway after the Chekhov I’d been reading in the original Russian whilst in the hair salon - an absolute chore.

That evening we met at my flat at 11 to go to a despedida (farewell party) with Giorgos and Vicky. Poor Ali had an exam this morning so couldn’t come out, so it was nice to have a few more people to go with. We met Amber, a girl from our Methodology class, on the way with her housemate, so we had a bit of a group going by the time we arrived.

We stayed at the party until around 2, when we made our way into town to go to another party - which we never actually made it to. We were nearly there when a party bus full of people turned up, including the Americans I know through my other translation class. Before we knew it, we were on our way to Teatre.

Alicia, who wasn’t feeling well, had already gone home by this stage, so it was now just Lina, Annalisa and me. When we got there, the first person we bumped into was Lambert, a French guy living in Murcia who we seem to see every single time we go out. And now I’ve even started repeatedly seeing him in the daytime - I’m talking three times just this week, and he doesn’t even go to university here, it’s bizarre. Anyway he introduced us to his French friends and we ended up staying with them for the rest of the night.

At around 5.30, when one of the French guys and I were walking back, I spotted a figure on the other side of the road. It took me a minute to focus my eyes but I managed to make out that it was some girl wandering dreamily along in the opposite direction like a lost puppy. It was at that moment that I realised. I’d know that slightly wistful, slightly abstracted walk anywhere; that was Lina.

When she’d said she’d get herself home safe, I hadn’t imagined finding her half an hour later, aimlessly meandering the streets of Murcia in the vague hope of eventually coming across her apartment. I shouted over to her and said we’d walk back together since, left to her own devices, she’d probably search all night and end up on a park bench somewhere (sense of direction is not one of her strong points). So, as Johan and I were escorting her home, she proceeded to fill every available moment with every possible trivial question imaginable. It went something like this:

“Georgie?”

(Sigh.) “Yes.”

“Why are men such bastards?”

Needless to say, I’m hoping Johan doesn’t understand English because the entire prolonged journey home was full of such gems insulting the entire male species. I’m assuming he didn’t understand, anyway, since he didn’t leave me to get abducted walking home on my own after we’d seen Lina to her flat.

On Sunday I had the luxury of sleeping off my hangover rather than getting up at the crack of dawn to go to the beach, and first left the house to meet Alicia, Lina and Annalisa at an ice cream cafe in town at around 2. Making the most of the Ruta de tapas before it ends on Sunday, we went for a tapa at one of the local bars. Lina went back after that, and the three of us were on our way to the park when we came across an injured bird on the side of the road. Naturally, our Britishness kicked in and we felt a burning need to rescue it, so Alicia ran to get a box and newspaper to shred up whilst Annalisa and I stayed with it. 

When Alicia came back, the bird had nestled itself under one of my legs. Several passers-by had asked what on earth we were doing, and now we were about to make ourselves look even weirder by trying to get the thing in the box. This did not go exactly to plan, and we ended up chasing the poor thing around the street before Annalisa and I somehow managed to herd it in. Now we had a bird in a box and absolutely no idea what to do with it. I was beginning to wonder whether we might be doing more harm than good; I’m surprised it didn’t go into cardiac arrest from the shock of it all to be honest.

We eventually decided to ask in the police station (which happened to be right on that very road) where the nearest veterinary clinic was. Whilst we were waiting for the policeman to return with some information, three guys walked past and wanted to know what was going on. They kept trying to touch our bird and we got very protective. They absolutely could not comprehend why we were doing what we were doing, and asked us to lunch instead. We said we had to stay and look after our bird, thank you very much.

The policeman then returned with a wry grin on his face and a phone number in his hand, and when we couldn’t get through, we decided to take the bird (who we named Freddie) to my flat. On the way it suddenly struck us that we had no idea how to care for a sick bird. We stopped off at a bar on my road to ask for some nuts, explaining that it was for our injured bird. The bar was open-fronted so all the customers were trying to peer in at little Freddie. They seemed to find the whole thing amusing but endearing - someone in the back even declared his love to us in pigeon English.

We’d hoped that Giorgos could use his doctor skills and fix our little birdie. No such luck. When we brought the box into the kitchen, Giorgos nearly went into cardiac arrest himself. In all fairness, I probably would have been quite shocked too if he’d turned up at our flat with a bird in a box. Anyway, he was quite negative and said it would probably die anyway, so we resorted to that ever-reliable source: the Internet. Half an hour later, we decided the only thing for it was to take Freddie to the nearest vet’s and hope they’d treat him.

Of course, it was siesta so nowhere was open. It was nearly 5 by this stage so we decided just to find the vet’s and wait. When we stopped to ask for directions and explained the situation to an elderly French man, he smiled and said, “Are you English?” We affirmed. “Now I understand,” he said. Charming.

When we eventually found the vet’s, it was closed, inevitably. We waited until just after 5 before giving up and taking Freddie back to my flat. I put him in his box on the balcony, and Giorgos and I checked on him every now and again whilst we were working. I hoped Freddie didn’t mind listening to the German rap we had on (I’m trying to bring Giorgos round to, if not a liking, then at least a degree of civil tolerance of the Germans). Anyway, Freddie seemed to be perking up a bit and when I went to check on him he was moving around, which I took as progress. I put a little bit more water in his bottle cap before going out and reminded myself to check on him when I returned.

That evening my friends and I met up for a chilled evening at a shisha bar. It turned out to be the perfect way to spend a lazy evening, and we ended up staying for hours. It’s a shame really that we’ve only just discovered the place because I think it could have been another one of our habitual meeting places.

When I got back to the flat in the early hours, Freddie was sleeping peacefully in a corner of the box. He stirred a little when I came out to check on him, so I just checked he had food and water before leaving him be and going to bed myself. This morning, when I went to see if he was any better, I found him completely still in his little nest. The little thing hadn’t made it through the night but at least he’d had a peaceful passage to birdie heaven.