Saturday, 16 July 2011

Egg soap and inappropriate napping: my visit to Córdoba and Granada

    Bad start
     I had to meet my mum at Madrid airport at midnight. From there we had to travel to the bus station, catch a coach at 1.30am to Granada and stop off for two hours in Granada bus station – where I made the rather unfortunate purchase of an empanada (a baked stuffed pastry) for breakfast, naively under the ruse that it would be filled with chocolate. In fact, to my disgust, I realised it was crammed full of tuna. I dislike tuna in any normal situation, but even more so at eight o'clock in the morning when it is plaguing my nostrils with its fishy repulsiveness. We then had to get another coach to Córdoba, where we FINALLY arrived, a little worse for wear and extremely tired, at 11am. All in all, not a brilliant start... However, our exploration of such a vibrant, colourful city cheered us up in no time:





The unfortunate side effects of being very, very tired

We discovered a statue of a man that looked like he had been attacked by a particularly hungry caterpillar. While other tourists chose to quietly admire this piece of artwork, my mum and I found it more entertaining to poke our fingers in places where they probably shouldn’t have been:


I have been known to wake up at midday and then go back to bed at four. Therefore, wandering around the cobbled streets under the boiling hot sun not having slept in 28 hours led to an inevitable nap. Although my love of sleep resulted in me being allocated the sloth in the ‘which animal would you be’ game we resorted to on a particularly long bus journey, this time I had a genuine reason for some well-deserved shut-eye. What I didn’t count on, however, was falling asleep on a bench on the side of a street. 

When I woke up an hour later, my mother was nowhere to be seen. Fair play – I would also consider disowning my daughter if she adopted the habits of a hobo. As it turned out, she was just across the way taking a photo for a couple on another bench – sitting upright on it with eyes open, not sprawled all over it with their mouths hanging half open. Despite the initial sense of shame, I did feel slightly better. Still not fully awake, I managed to stand up and began to drag my feet along the cobbled streets (not a genius thing to do when there are gaps in-between each stone – I tripped over a lot) until we arrived at the Mezquita-Catedral, or the Cathedral-Mosque. It is easy to see why it is a World Heritage Site – the giant arches with their distinctive alternating red and white voussoirs and the 850+ columns made from onyx, marble and granite are hugely impressive on their own, not to mention the famous mihrab, carved ceiling and the beautifully embellished prayer niches.



Granada (which means ‘pomegranate’ in Spanish) was a huge success, although we spent a lot more time:
·        
        -playing with the camera; 



        -laughing at humorous signs adorning the walls of the site of a recent protest;

"Main message in black: Animals are not resources. Response in red: They're food! Nom nom"

·      -and eating – although we got a bit worried when we read the menu and saw it was offering us egg soap –



than actually absorbing the culture of a city we were only going to be in for three days. Even the stunning decor of the churches couldn’t hold our attention for very long and we ended up taking ‘Myspace’ photos of ourselves in the mirrors, grossing out over the arm bones in a glass case and taking photos of the ‘No photos’ sign.



Culture and nice views etc. 

We did, however, manage to squeeze a trip to the Alhambra into our busy schedule. We first caught a glimpse of this stunning piece of architecture from the San Nicolas viewpoint. Enveloped in lush green woodland and with the Sierra Nevada as the backdrop, the view was absolutely breathtaking.

Visiting the Alhambra itself proved a really lovely day out. Although most of the viewpoints and stop-off points were fairly similar in nature (there were fountains in some places, exotic flowers or large pools in others, large pools with fountains, exotic flowers blooming around large pools...), we still couldn’t get enough of it. My personal favourite were the gardens (the Generalife) which boasted an impressive array of beautifully arranged trees and flowers, and the fact that many of the pools had been built in front of the buildings, producing a watery reflection underneath the original. 




As well as the San Nicolas mirador, we also climbed to the top of a hill in order to get a decent look at Granada’s old town. The mass of bright white houses bathed in sunlight combined with the dark green trees dotted in-between and the rolling hills in the background left me unable to direct my eyes elsewhere for quite some time. 



The other memorable viewpoint was that from the terrace of a hotel close to the Alhambra. It boasts a magnificent view across the entire city, and is in fact famous for it (according to our guidebook). However, having been up since six o’clock that morning, I was thoroughly frazzled, so much so that I was only able to appreciate it for about five minutes, before my head drooped, I face planted the table and fell soundly asleep. I woke up about 45 minutes later with an arm that was both numb and considerably damp. Granada – where I gave up the opportunity to survey acclaimed viewpoints and the chance to broaden my cultural knowledge for an exceptional amount of dribble and amusingly ironic, yet ultimately, utterly pointless photographs.

Sunday, 10 July 2011

Istanbul: mosques, Hitler-cats and where Cadbury went wrong

Atmospheric, magical, fascinating. One of the few transcontinental cities on the planet. Just two and a half weeks after I left Spain for good, I jetted off somewhat impulsively (as in I booked the flight four days in advance) to Istanbul, to visit a certain special someone for 12 days. All I can say is, thank goodness for last-minute decisions: it really was the trip of a lifetime. Everything was perfect: the company, the sweeping sea views, everything we saw, everywhere we went, the people, the food... I have no choice but to start with the food. Having had a rather nasty bout of travellers' sickness in Egypt last June after eating something dodgy, I did wonder whether my stomach would be able to handle whatever Turkey had in store for it. However, to my surprise, I tried and enjoyed almost everything that was offered to me (with the exception of pickle juice, which tasted like bile), and my digestive system didn’t complain once. Coming from a girl who used to kick up a fuss if dinner was anything other than chicken nuggets and chips and who relied on Burger King and Croque Monsieur, the glorified ham and cheese toastie, whilst on my year abroad in Spain, this may seem rather a shocking revelation. The food in Turkey was rich, full of flavour and very moreish, which served to plunge my post-Erasmus diet into oblivion, especially as my personal favourite delicacy was patatesli börek, which, as I couldn’t quite get my tongue around the Turkish, became lovingly known as ‘potato thing’. I also sampled and enjoyed dolma (rice-stuffed leaves), Turkish kebabs and one of the national sweets, baklava, a rich, sweet pastry filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup. I liked the baklava so much that I brought a box of it back for my family to try, along with çay (Turkish tea) and, to my own surprise, a box of Turkish delight. I’d sworn off the things after trying one of the jelly-filled horrors masquerading as the famous sweet courtesy of Cadbury, but in fact, despite the fact that in Britain it is always the last chocolate left in the selection box, original Turkish delight is actually quite delicious. As we strolled through the Mısır Çarşısı (the Spice Bazaar), we were able to try many varieties of the sweet – and smell all the different flavours of tea, such as orange, apple, rose, love (?) which was such a treat. For a country so rich is history and culture, I feel Cadbury is guilty of severely underrating it due to its fraudulent and frightful jelly chocolate disguised under the pseudonym of the genuine Turkish delight. 


A cultural clash of East and West; ancient and modern, Istanbul truly is one of the most spellbinding cities in Europe. As the call to prayer sounds out from an ancient mosque in Ortaköy, the more contemporary Bosphorus Bridge fills the backdrop, accompanied by the distant drone of the constant traffic. Many of the mosques stand surrounded by huge skyscrapers. Civilians and tourists clothed in burkas mingle with those in jeans and t-shirts and no-one bats an eyelid. Although, note to self: wearing shorts in the old town of Sultanahmet amid a burka-clad majority = bad idea. Wearing particularly short shorts that ride persistently up to the top of your thigh = even worse idea. Despite the weird looks I received in abundance, the old town is beautiful with its parks and fountains providing a perfect foreground for the impressive Blue Mosque and its six minarets, almost always set against a cloudless blue sky in the summer. This stunning piece of architecture is an absolute must-see, especially as the entrance is completely free. Plus, if you are not clad in suitable mosque attire, the attendants dress you up so that you look strikingly similar to the Virgin Mary, which is good entertainment in itself. The old town also boasts the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sophia), now a museum although it has been both a mosque and a church in the past. It doesn’t look like much from the outside – in fact, the building looks very weathered – but the inside couldn’t be more different. The vast and beautifully decorated ceilings, the walls adorned with religious imagery, the low lighting provided by the chandeliers – all of it combines to create an astounding atmosphere. Topkapı Palace is another popular tourist attraction close by, of which the main must-see is a gigantic 86-carat diamond set in silver and surrounded by 49 smaller diamonds, originally found by a fisherman walking along the shore. Not realising its value at the time, and motivated by the belief that it was a particularly shiny piece of glass, he traded it to the first jeweller he encountered for three spoons (hence why the jewel is now known as the Spoonmaker’s Diamond). Only once it was cleaned and bought by a vizier on behalf of the Sultan at the time did its true worth become apparent.

Ortaköy Mosque


The Blue Mosque

Aya Sofya

Mosque attire

The only bad thing about Old Istanbul is the public transport – the metro buses and the trams are always packed full of people. Even though at some stops, the same metro bus arrives every one minute, your chances of managing to squeeze onto one are still fairly slim, especially if you don’t position yourself carefully. If the bus stops and the doors open directly in front of you, you’re in with a fighting chance. If not, better luck next time and try to avoid being trampled into the platform during the rush. On the other hand, is being squashed against a mass of sweaty bodies in 30°C heat worth it? For the equivalent of about 10 pence per tram ride, perhaps. What a bargain! 


Thinking about it, when I say there is only one bad thing about the old town, I actually mean one of two – unless peeing into a hole in the ground instead of an actual toilet is considered normal. While much of Istanbul has latched onto hi-tech devices (in some of the shopping centres, the toilets left me completely baffled – something about levers and plastic toilet seat covers), the mosques - where plastic covers and automatic flushes are replaced by sink-like contraptions with a hole and a jug of water - are being somewhat left behind in this respect. Despite being a bit of a culture shock at first, I discovered a questionable form of entertainment with these holes in the ground. Ladies: it’s called the aiming game and it’s about the most fun you’ll have with them. Otherwise, it’s all about leg ache from squatting, filthy floors and people washing their feet in the sinks. Beaut. 


Added to the tour of the old town, I was also treated to a ferry ride up the Bosphorus, dinner on the Golden Horn, traditional Turkish breakfast at the foot of a castle, a bottle of wine by candlelight on a rooftop terrace offering a stunning view of the city by night, a trip to one of the Prince’s Islands which we explored by bike (and where we almost got run down with alarming frequency by horse and carts) and a sea view every day, be it the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, the Bosphorus or the Golden Horn. The seaside town of Yeşilköy was my favourite – sitting on the rocks tracing the fossils of sea creatures from millions of years ago surrounded by a vast expanse of shimmering water and the rosy hue of the setting sun...there are no words. All in all, it was a magical experience which didn’t even feel real sometimes. Looking out to the glistening Sea of Marmara at a viewpoint in Topkapı Palace and then turning your head 180° to the left to find the Bosphorus stretch was quite surreal, as was being effectively in both Europe and Asia at the same time during the ferry trip. 

Rumelihisarı (Rumelian Castle)

Yeşilköy
We also went to the cinema one evening (to see the Hangover 2) where two things caught me by surprise, firstly that all films in Turkey are screened in the original language and secondly that viewers are given a ten-minute break halfway through the movie, which I think is genius! Especially if you’ve guzzled your Diet Coke or Slush Puppy within the first 15 minutes. Going back briefly to the language aspect, it isn’t just the cinema that places English higher on the priority list than the country’s own language. In the Aya Sofya, one of the information boards regarding a particular monument was just in English – Turkish didn’t even feature, not even underneath the English. And in Turkey, as in Spain, to be successful you have to master the English language. We really do take for granted how lucky we are in this country – we have it so easy and we almost expect people to be able to communicate with us in our own language. Eager not to fall into this category of people, I went about learning some Turkish as soon as I landed. Here is a comprehensive list of what I learnt:


Merhaba – hello
Lütfen – please
Teşekkürler – thank you
Bay – man
Bayan – woman
Baba – dad
Anne – mum
Evet – yes
Hayır – no
Çikiş – exit
Çok – very / too much
Ya siz? – And you?
Ağır – heavy
Iyiyim – I’m fine
Top – beach ball
Tramvay – tramway
Taşak – balls 


Apart from the usual ‘Hello, how are you’ dialogue, all I can really get out of that is “very heavy balls”, which I’m not entirely sure is a useful thing to know in a partially Muslim country. In the airport, my boyfriend and I were holding hands and I was leaning my head on his shoulder. Just as we both leant in to kiss, a Turkish guy about our age, no older than 25, started to kick up a fuss, saying that we couldn’t do that here. He seemed genuinely angry, which kind of shocked me as we hadn’t had any trouble since my arrival other than the odd person staring, and only in the last 15 minutes of the trip did anyone kick off. So anyway, the point is, I don’t think that going around starting conversations about testicles, heavy or not, would be a brilliant idea in a country that can’t cope with a couple sharing a quick kiss! The only other incident regarding a particular person that I found slightly disconcerting was when we had to go and collect a medical document. The receptionist read out the names of the people in the ‘queue’ i.e. a mass of people swarming around the desk, and handed out their reports accordingly. She then said “And these are the people who have a medical problem and need to make an appointment with the doctor” and proceeded to read out a list of names! And I thought the concept of privacy was lacking in Spain when the teachers put the exam results on a board in the corridor... I suppose in a city with a population of 10.4 million it is unlikely you will bump into anyone you know, but still. Potentially very awkward times. However, in general, the people of Istanbul were quite simply lovely. I was really touched by the kindness and hospitality of not only my boyfriend’s family (who went out of their way to make me feel at home, cooked for me and showered me with compliments) but anyone we encountered just out and about. They are always willing to help, whether it’s giving directions or helping others to park their cars in a tight spot by letting them know how much space they have between their car and the next. 


If you were to add the number of cats into the population of Istanbul, it would probably rise to about 10.4 billion. They are absolutely everywhere, and range from new-born kittens to fully grown cats. They are very tame and love getting attention – as soon as you start stroking one, within minutes you are surrounded and in danger of unintentionally establishing your own cattery. We did feel sorry for one particular cat though, whose fur was decorated with an unfortunately-placed black spot under its nose, making it look as though Adolf Hitler had been reincarnated. 




So now, having spent the year in Spain within which I travelled to Granada, Marrakech, Cordoba, Ibiza, Toledo and Istanbul, and having just flown back to England over snow-capped mountains and tropical islands framed by crystal clear waters, I realise: I’ve got the travel bug. Look out world...

Friday, 20 May 2011

Ibiza 2011: the best possible end to an incredible year

Five days after returning from the white isle and I feel like I’ve only just recovered. Four days and five nights of absolute locura, we spent it all either drunk or hungover. With two fiestas often being squeezed into one day and our only respite being sought on the white sandy beaches or the sun beds by the pool for a couple of hours each day, it really was manic. Non-stop fun in the sun with a group of close friends – what else do you need? Even though the whole trip was immense, I’ve compiled a list of some of the memories that most stand out for me.

-The bus chants, one being ‘Alcalá, Alcalá, somos de Erasmus, estamos borrachos, el resultado nos da igual’ or for any monolingual readers: ‘Alcalá, Alcalá, we are Erasmus, and we are wasted, we don’t care how it ends up’. This, along with two other chants boasting equally intellectual and thought-provoking lyrics, was sung throughout the entire 20-minute bus journeys from the hotel to the big clubs in San Antonio every night. While fun and quite a good laugh to sing along to the first couple of times, it did start to get a little bit repetitive, plus the accompanying percussion – drumming on the windows and roof of the bus – left a lot to be desired. (Despite this, I still think it would have fared better in Eurovision than Jedward’s rather abhorrent entry.) On the second night, the chanting was taken too far when someone staggered onto the 6am bus back to the hotel slurring it at the top of his lungs. With the majority of us slumped in our seats resembling a scene out of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ this was not the most appropriate time to recommence the singing and the banging. Luckily, just as he was starting the second round, a voice from the back of the bus bellowed out “Nobody likes you!” after which the chanting rapidly ceased. Quote of the trip? I think so. 

-The boat party. In an ideal world, this should have been my sober night, as I have a tendency towards sea-sickness – therefore a five hour voyage across the Mediterranean Sea combined with alcohol would have (or so I thought ) resulted in disaster. The reality? I was drunk before we’d even left the port. In my defence, the ferry didn’t set sail for the island until an hour and a half after we’d boarded. Still, I feel that this was quite an achievement, and despite the biting wind, the fact that the floor had turned into a swimming pool and walking from A to B in a drunken state being made even more difficult than usual due to the rocky sea, it was my favourite night of the holiday. Before leaving for Ibiza, when we read that the ferry was a ‘party boat’, we were sceptical that we’d want to drink after having been sat on a coach for six hours or before the real partying commenced once we'd arrived at the island. How wrong we were. With 2,500 Erasmus students all in one place, it wouldn’t have made sense to not have a party. My memory of the night is kind of hazy, but I remember managing to sneak a giant bottle of Malibu from my suitcase up onto the deck, finishing the giant bottle of Malibu, accidentally stepping into the poolside shower whilst trying to get a better view of the swimming pool on deck and consequntly being irritated that my right foot got a bit wet, and then several minutes later getting absolutely destroyed by a Super Soaker, which helped to put things a little more in perspective. Dripping wet and chilled to the bone due to the wind, I then decided it would be a great idea to order three cups of tea from the bar (with each order asking where the spoon was even though the frustrated bartender had explained to me the first time round that the spoon was attached to the packet of sugar I received with each cup). Having warmed up a little bit, I then began to feel drowsy and so decided to have a quick kip on the wooden floor (all of the seats were taken) which turned out to be not such a good idea after all. Other than that, I remember little else of the events of that evening!  

-The hotel swimming pool. With the amount of time we spent in or around the pool sunbathing, sleeping off hangovers, floating around on lilos etc, anyone would have thought we’d been living in the desert for the past nine months. Coming from Alcalá, where (being central) there is no sea, we really did treat it like an oasis. All of our complaining back in Alcalá about the lack of sea/swimming pool (there is one next to the local park but we’ve been advised against going there as it is apparently fraught with gypsies) paid off, as we enjoyed a water overload in Ibiza – the pool and the sea just a five-minute walk away, a foam party (although by the time we’d made it into the complex and queued for the cloakroom, the foam had been and gone) and a truly amazing water party in Es Paradís, where, to the audio cue ‘I’m singing in the rain’, a huge fountain with a geyser in the centre let loose 80,000 litres of water, flooding the dance floor and turning it into a gigantic pool where the water reaches up to chest-height. It truly was an experience like no other, and one I shall not be forgetting in a hurry!

-The beaches. Although the vast quantity of naked old people was rather disconcerting (when one bent over to straighten out their towel, the nausea from my hangover earlier in the day almost returned in full force), having a beach just five minutes away from the hotel was heavenly. On the third day, we went to a beach party at Bora Bora, which required more sneaking of Malibu, but in a much sneakier fashion than on the ferry (the fine for participating in a botellon on the island is extortionate). However, the best beach that we visited was one on the island of Formentera, a short boat trip away from Ibiza. Despite travelling on a choppy sea mid-hangover (we’d had to get up at 10am in order to make the trip) being absolutely ghastly, we realised very quickly after arriving that our suffering had not been in vain. The white sand and the five different shades of blue visible in the sea; the yachts floating serenely on the rippling, crystal clear water and the brilliant sun – it all added up to paradise. The water was so clear that we could see schools of fish swimming close to the shore. It was like living in a travel brochure for a day – the only thing that ruined it slightly is that I fell asleep on my side in the 35°C sun for an hour, which resulted in the two halves of my body resembling the colour scheme of a ‘Where’s Wally’ T-shirt. 

-The world-famous clubs. Despite the first night out turning into a bit of a disaster – we spent an entire hour in the queue getting crushed by the crowd, we didn’t manage to get a drink even though we waited for 40 minutes at the bar and even our hunt for drunk food was a bit of a fail, as the burger bar next door had run out of burgers – the rest were incredible and 100% up to Ibiza standard. Eden, Privilege, Es Paradís, Bora Bora and Space: swimming pools surrounding the DJ booth, trees, fountains, sand and sea. CanCan and Fruity will never be the same again. 

-The bird and the lizard. Not an adaptation of Aesop’s beloved fable but a gruesome reality on our balcony. A sweet little bird brought us the monstrous gift of a dead lizard, which was left upside-down on our terrace with its intestines spilling out every which way. I shall no longer be complaining of our lack of balcony in Alcalá.

So, despite the burger bar with no burgers and the foam party with no foam, nothing else was missing from the trip – sun, sea, sand, a bunch of great, fun-loving people and enough alcohol to make even Amy Winehouse’s liver hurt – I really couldn’t have asked for more. Ibiza 2011: the holiday of a lifetime!


Monday, 2 May 2011

The countdown begins: six weeks to go

With only six more weeks left of my year abroad and this being my 20th blog, I thought I’d comprise a list of 20 things I will and won’t miss about living in Spain:

10 things I won’t miss 

-Being so hungover that we have to get Dominoes, which is a three-minute walk away from the flat, to deliver

-Being so hungover that the only contact I have until 10 at night is with the toilet bowl and my pillow

-The toilet doors of restaurants. Whoever thought it was a good idea to make them out of glass was either backwards or a pervert

-Being plunged into darkness when attempting to use both the oven and one ring on the hob

-Feeling out of place in a pair of heels. Being 5’2’’ I fully appreciate the irony of the following statement, but I have never felt so short in my life as I have this year

-Almost being run over by a pram or a pushchair every five seconds. Either the storks have made a huge cock-up by oversupplying newborns to this particular city or the inhabitants of Alcalá are an extremely fertile bunch. Either way, I have become very skilled at diving out of the way of these four-wheeled weapons

-Being so desperate to get a good tan that I will sunbathe in my bikini in the park perfectly aware that the man with binoculars is never too far away

-The lack of regular use of email, electronic whiteboards and PowerPoint, added to the fact that there are only three printers between two of the main university buildings. Six weeks and counting until I am propelled back into the 21st century

-My terrible, terrible sleeping pattern. Damn you, nights out until six in the morning and Project Free TV, you have ruined me: my body thinks it is an owl, my liver is constantly metabolizing alcohol and during the past few days I have experienced a general lack of interest in anything that isn’t Desperate Housewives

-Why didn’t the Erasmus student cross the road? Because this is what goes through a typical Spanish driver’s head: What are those black and white stripes on the road? And that glowing red light? What do these things mean? Although health and safety in the UK has gone a bit OTT, I certainly won’t miss its lack of application where it is due


10 things I will miss

-Living what has essentially been a year-long Fresher’s Week. Having to actually work and use the library more than twice next year is going to be a shock to the system

-Tapas. I shall be demanding free food with my drinks back in England

-Travelling to new and exotic places. High Wycombe’s chair museum has nothing on la Alhambra in Granada. Likewise, monkeys and snake-charmers in the square in Marrakech easily trump people dressed up as cycling reptiles in Waterloo (see below) 



-All of the shops being open until 10pm, some even later. Very handy for impromptu shopping trips or nights out. Very disagreeable for my bank balance.

-Although I said I missed wearing heels on a night out, I will regret saying this as soon as I go out in a pair back at home. Wearing flats to go out at night is the norm here, and although this hasn’t reduced the number of drunken trips, bumps and falls by quite as much as I’d hoped, my feet shall be forever grateful for a year’s break from high-heel hell

-Living in a bubble: I enjoy walking into a club and recognizing half the people in it. On the same note, it’s nice always bumping into someone you know even if you’re just out on a 20-minute walk

-Missing ten days of class in a row and the teacher not even bothering to ask where you’ve been when you finally make an appearance, assuming that as an Erasmus student you have been in bed with a ten-day hangover. This lack of concern makes skiving on a regular basis – to sleep, sunbathe, watch the dolphin show at the zoo, or holiday in Ibiza – extremely manageable

-Wikipedia being a legitimate referencing source. Equally, the Disney version of Pocahontas being legitimate teaching material

-The storks! Alcalá de Henares is famous for its elegant white storks; High Wycombe was in the paper for being home to a vast quantity of disease-ridden pigeons. Give me storks standing serenely in their nests watching the world go by atop castle walls over squawking pigeons fighting over the last crumb of a leftover Subway any day

-Meeting people from all over the world. Leaving Spain out of the equation for a minute, I have learnt about other cultures, different ways of life and have managed to pick up helpful snippets from other languages (if it wasn’t for my year abroad, I would never have known how to say ‘balls’ in Turkish)


I underwent a huge culture shock when I first arrived in Spain, but having got so accustomed to the way this country functions (somehow, it manages), I reckon that during the first few days of being back in England I’ll go through the same experience all over again and have a few problems settling back into my old life. I had so many questions before I left for Spain – how will I cope so far away from everyone and everything I know, will I get by on my level of Spanish – in six weeks I’m also going to be asking a lot of questions, although not quite of the same style: I’ll be wondering why I’m not waking up with a banging headache three times a week and why there isn’t a power cut when I use two kitchen appliances simultaneously; why I get thrown off my degree course for using Wikipedia as my main information source or why I get chucked out of a bar after getting shirty with the management when they don’t bring me a sandwich mixto with my drink. Thanks to all the positive experiences I’ve had here, and despite the negatives (of which there have been very few), I’m going to miss this place a hell of a lot... The only thing for it is to make the most of the next six weeks. With a concert in Madrid as well as trips to Ibiza, Granada and Cordoba planned, two visits from some lovely people back home and some (hopefully) upcoming sunny weather, this shouldn’t present too much of a challenge.

Saturday, 23 April 2011

Procrastination and nudity: Easter in Alcalá

Instead of the sunny weather continuing into our Easter holidays, which would have been ideal, we have had a week’s worth of rain, thunder and lightning and grey, overcast skies.  Accordingly, instead of our pre-planned day trips and topping up our tans in the park, we’ve been stuck in the flat all week doing very little other than watching with an air of sadness as our skin pales from lack of sunshine. This means that I have had a free week, which, if I'd have put my mind to it, could have been very productive. However, that didn’t exactly happen...

Productive things I have achieved this week:
-Finally writing that essay I was given to do back in February.

Unproductive things I have done this week:
-Watching all the movies from the past five years that I never got round to seeing
-Sitting in a pitch black living room watching the sheets of purple lightning fill the sky
-Getting so outrageously drunk on Thursday that on Friday I was forced to set up camp in the bathroom, I discovered two bruises and one cut of unknown origin and I vowed never to drink again (for the tenth time this year)
-Watching all the episodes of 90210, The Big Bang Theory and Desperate Housewives that I’ve missed since being away
-Getting up at 3pm for lack of anything else to do
-Making a cup of tea every half an hour
-Writing lists of things I have to do (nothing)
-Rewriting the lists once every two days
-Joining StumbleUpon. I only joined yesterday and I’ve already come across the top ten ways to annoy people, a frog that looked like it had swallowed a chunk of a red lightsaber and some baby pandas playing in the snow, none of which are particularly useful pieces of information.

Despite the fact that the ratio of unproductive things to productive things I have achieved is 9:1, I’ve still not managed to find the time to go to the gym. I still cross it off my to-do list at the end of each day though, so I still feel a vague sense of guilty accomplishment, albeit hugely undeserved: I don’t think my gym card has seen the light of day for about five weeks. 

Speaking of the gym, it came as little surprise to me that a gym in the Basque region of Spain has begun offering naked classes and workouts. Yes, I know that Spain is a Catholic country. And yes, despite the heat wave last week, the Spaniards refused to remove even their coats. However, if any country was going to come up with this wacky initiative, it would be Spain; happy-go-lucky, carefree, just plain weird Spain. I sort of understand the concept of nudist beaches (of which there are hundreds along the Spanish coastline), but nudist gyms seem not only more than a little odd, but also rather impractical. Apologies to any males reading this, but I think any girl would agree that running on the treadmill without a sports bra would be hugely uncomfortable. Secondly, as the BBC article pointed out, where does all the sweat go that is usually caught by gym gear? You’d probably need a suction to remove the pools of sweat that would collect around the machines, or failing that, an excellent air conditioning system – either of which would cost an arm and a leg (or perhaps more suitably, a boob and a bum cheek). Taking this, and the fact that only four people turned up to the first session, this apparent recession-countering initiative isn’t exactly set for success. The same gym is apparently planning naked yoga classes too. One (non-existent) word: ugh! The objective of yoga is to attain perfect tranquillity. Imagine firstly doing, and secondly watching someone else do these positions in the nude:



Perfect tranquillity my arse (no pun intended). An afflicting state of distress, more like, and sin duda enough to put you off yoga for life. Fun fact about naturism before I bring this blog to a close: in the world of nudists, people who wear clothes are known as ‘textiles’ (reminiscent of Muggles), as if we are the exception, a strange species of clothes-wearing people.

There are two days left of our Easter holiday (although I may take Tuesday off if it’s sunny and drag my flatmate to the zoo, treating myself to a well-deserved – hmm – three-day week). I did actually have plans today – the King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, was due to pop into Alcalá de Henares to present the Premio Cervantes, a Spanish literature prize in honour of the 16th century novelist and author of Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes. However, like I’ve been doing all week due to the miserable weather, he cancelled his plans and is now due on Wednesday instead – although I doubt he’ll have been spending the resulting spare time this afternoon finding pictures of glowing frogs or catching up on Desperate Housewives.  

Sunday, 10 April 2011

Oddities in Alcalá: classroom paedophilia, dressing for the Arctic and putting the ‘p’ in plaza


I am familiar with the fact that this country operates very differently to England. I am also aware that there seems to be no logic in anything anyone in this country does. Despite this knowledge however, I am still constantly surprised at the things I see or hear...

1)   We saw a woman wearing odd shoes. Not odd socks, odd shoes. One black and one red. It really was very bizarre.

2)   A grandfather let his grandson urinate in the plaza, at the bottom of one of the benches where people sit. As well as being a beautiful sight while we were trying to sunbathe, I absolutely understood why he let the little boy do this – it would have been a lot of effort to take him to the public toilets located less than a minute’s walk away.

3)   Our philosophy teacher said that we should call him if we ever think we’ll need to miss a lesson. One of the Spanish students then proceeded to give him her number, as if this suggestion was perfectly normal. I suppose it sort of makes sense as they don’t seem to use email here, however, if you take away the classroom situation, what she did was give her number to a (albeit very nice) 60-year-old man. Us girls have had so many awful experiences here with the creepy old men – one came within millimetres of me the other day while I was sunbathing in the plaza and leaned over me so that when I opened my eyes, there he was, walking stick and all. Marvellous. So, bearing that in mind, giving my phone number to my elderly philosophy teacher wasn’t something I was terribly inclined to do. 

4)   On walking into Carrefour the other day, the sign on the whiteboard that they use to advertise any offers read: Rape entera €6.90. A whole rape for just €6.90? Golly. What a treat living in a country that effectively encourages rape and paedophilia.

5)   Urban Dictionary’s definition of ‘flash mob’: A group of people who appear from out of nowhere to perform predetermined actions, designed to amuse and confuse surrounding people. The group performs these actions for a short amount of time before quickly dispersing. Alcalá de Henares’ definition of flash mob: Announce the start of the flash mob to everyone in the plaza with two loud blasts so that everyone knows that something is about to happen. Create no confusion whatsoever. Then instead of dispersing quickly, get everyone to join in at the end with the Macarena.  
  
6)   As the temperature rises, so seemingly do the number of layers the Spanish wear. What on earth do they think when they wake up and see 30°C on the temperature gauge? A lovely, summery overcoat to leave as much skin uncovered as possible? A big pair of Ugg boots to keep my feet cool? Some tight jeans to let my skin breathe? Perfect. And a big woolly scarf to finish. It’s madness! I swelter in just shorts and a strappy top, let alone all these layers the Spanish bundle themselves in. The classrooms get so hot sometimes too. As soon as we walked into the classroom for our Spanish theatre lesson last Wednesday, we opened the windows to let some air in. Alas – as soon as the teacher walked in, wearing a jacket may I add, she went over to the window and shut it, as if she were a little on the chilly side. In 30°C heat. She then sat serenely in her chair at the front of the room and started to chatter away, perfectly comfortable. Meanwhile, us English lot were feeling very much the opposite of comfortable. Stuck to our seats, we spent the entire lesson wiping sweat from our foreheads, gulping down our body’s weight in water, fanning our faces with an agitated desperation and feeling as though we were about to faint. Combined with a hangover, as is often the case during this particular class, it’s about ten times worse. If only the classes weren’t timetabled for such early hours. Midday really is too much, especially when you’ve been drinking the night before.

7)   The storks have started swooping a lot lower than they ever did before. This worries me slightly – while researching out of interest what the storks eat, we were informed firstly from WikiAnswers that they live on a diet of hot-dogs and vegetables (that would have been my first guess too), and then from Wikipedia that one of their actual food sources, along with fish, insects and small birds, is apparently small mammals. To which one of my flatmates said to me (5’2’’) that I’d better start keeping an eye out on my way into university and around town. Obviously I realise that this is a joke...but they’ve also started circling in an almost vulture-like manner in recent weeks. I’m definitely never letting myself fall asleep in the sun – staying still for too long under the glare of several stork nests could potentially bring this lovely Erasmus year to a rather undesirable close. 

That’s all for now, but no doubt I’ll have more Spanish strangeness to add to this come tomorrow!