My exams finally finished and I passed all except one! But in the true spirit of Spain being a bonkers country, the new semester started straight away the following Monday so I had to squish all my post-exam celebrations into four days. I think this new term will have a lot more success than the previous one (touch wood) because I actually like most of my classes and can understand all the teachers. Plus, no Carmen the evil linguistics teacher, which is always a plus.
I was never suited to linguistics anyway. As I said to pretty much anyone who would listen, take subjects you enjoy rather than ones you think will help your Spanish. So this semester I will be enjoying: English Literature II, Introduction to Comparative Literature, Introduction to Literary Studies and Judaism and Modernity. Sounds right up my street.
Surprise surprise, there’s another strike today (these Spanish students seriously don’t need to be complaining about fees, I’ll never be able to pay back my loans). So I have a two hour gap now until my next class and tomorrow’s only lecture is cancelled.
But going back to the end of my exams, it was 8pm, I had just finished and in the grand words of Bridesmaids:
You go girl, you tell ’em Kristen.
Naturally, the way forward was a visit to Mae West, Granada’s premier club, where girls go free on Wednesdays. We began the night with shots at Chupiteria, cocktails at Amsterdam café and upon entering Mae West found ourselves in the midst of an Erasmus pre-party where we were given stickers with our country’s flag on. Given that the Irish and Italian flags are similar, some confusion was presented to Jayne.
Once in the club we were dancing the night away, avoiding (as much as possible) creepy men and making friends with the USA University Ski Cross Team who were in town for some Winter University sports thing Granada was hosting. Though still to this day I’m seriously critical of the fact that they were wearing their ski jackets in the club. I get that they wanted to look cool, but they’re insulated for a reason and to me, that just screams sweaty.
The night ended with a fight between an Italian girl and her boyfriend (in which she kicked said boyfriend) and I collapsed into bed at 5am.
At the weekend we went to Cádiz for the famous Carnaval, which is apparently the most famous carnaval in Spain, where everyone wears fancy dress and spends the whole night partying. I went as a hippy, Jayne as Minnie Mouse, and Soraya as a Hawaiian. We’re so original.
Before we even got to Cádiz, there were stories to tell. We found ourselves on the bus full of rowdy Spaniards, including a gentleman dressed as Conchita Wurst, who serenaded us with All of Me, and Diamonds by Rihanna. My advice? Work on the stresses of words mate, though your dress was fabulous.
There were also bottles of alcohol to be won and we were advised on how to win these:
‘You can sing a song or do a striptease’.
Needless to say, us prim English girls weren’t joining in.
When we got to Cádiz, after a lot of wandering around, we eventually discovered that the famous Carnaval was really just a giant Botellon. Or in English terms, drinking on the streets. We perhaps didn’t pick the best weekend for it, because by midnight it was pouring with rain, freezing cold and we were literally stood in the streets until 5am.
Am I going to die out here?
I’m still really glad we went, it was the kind of experience you need to have on your year abroad, but I think it would’ve been better if we’d known more people and if the weather was a little better. I thought I came to Spain to get away from the rain?!
But the absolute icing on the cake was turning up to the bus at 5am, ready to leave and finding out that the driver had overslept and we had to wait in the rain for another hour before we could leave. HAHAHA. GR8.
Thankfully we made it back in good time and relatively good spirits, and so far, I’m yet to contract pneumonia.
We’re doing well.
And now classes have started. I have 9 hours of classes on Mondays and Wednesdays culminating in my extra Spanish classes at the Centro de Lenguas Modernas (which are by far the best classes I’ve ever taken – I’m now up a level from last semester and rocking it).
CLM classes started this Monday and we turned up expecting a bunch of get-to-know-you games and an introduction to the course. What we got, was the shock of our lives and we were incepted. But Leo was nowhere in sight.
The teacher introduced himself as Simón, a man who goes against the curve and doesn’t like the structure of a standard lesson. He also told us he wouldn’t be writing anything on the board because he was allergic to chalk when he was younger and permanent marker makes him itch. Also, he doesn’t like anything permanent, and prefers the transience of time. Bloody wishy-washy Spaniards.
Instead of telling each other our names, he suggested we play a game of spies. This game involved creating a false identity the complete opposite of ourselves and putting it into a hat, drawing someone’s out and trying to figure out who they were.
My false identity was Jake, a 50 year old man who loved sports and hated bright colours. Except his ginger hair.
Once we’d spent an hour and a half trying to figure each other out and Simón spent ten minutes trying to work out how to pronounce my name (it’s Chloë. Chlo-e. How difficult is that?? He can pronounce the Chinese girl’s name, Efan, but not Chloë. Srsly.) the whole thing took a turn for the bizarre.
Simón was not our teacher. His name wasn’t even Simón. He was Juan, and our actual teacher was Ana who had spent the last hour and a half pretending to be a student in the class. Honestly at this point I didn’t know what to believe.
Our faces exactly.
I’m still feeling a little shaken 2 days later and seriously don’t know what to expect this afternoon. Only time will tell.
In other news, my countdown to coming home has begun again: 4 weeks tomorrow, and time is really flying. I can barely believe that after this break I’ll be on the final stretch of my year abroad. It’s actually gone so quickly, and with all the exciting things I have planned, I have a feeling it’s going to go even more quickly from here on out. But more on those another time.
Peace out.
Obligatory Blair gif.
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