If everything was how it should be, I would no doubt have some lovely photos of my fantastic weekend in Valencia to adorn this week’s post with. However, sometimes life deals you a rubbish hand and you just have to grin and bear it. This was the case last weekend when I awoke, confused and disorientated, to a frantic phone call from Hugh on Saturday morning. He’d missed his flight, thanks to a broken down train on the tracks ahead meaning that his train (ironically named the Gatwick Express) couldn’t move.
By the time he arrived at the airport, check-in had closed. After finding out there were no more flights to Valencia that day, he made a spur-of-the-moment decision to hop on the next flight to Madrid (not Valencia, granted, but at least the right country!) at a cost of nearly £100. Having waited in a long line at security, thinking all was well, he got to the front of the queue only to be told that in his confusion he’d forgotten to check in for the new flight. Cue a mad dash back to the check-in desk, where the nice Easyjet man informed him check-in had closed one minute ago. Despite Hugh’s best attempts to talk him round, he wouldn’t budge: they’d received an internal memo from the big bosses that morning warning them that under no circumstances should check-in be re-opened for customers who arrived late, even if it was by 60 seconds. Cheers, guys.
Suffice to say, it was a big blow for both of us when reality hit that he wouldn’t be coming to Spain at all that weekend. Luck really was against us, it seemed. As the hotel in Valencia was already booked and paid for, I thought about asking one of the girls to come with me instead, but it was too short notice and everybody already had plans. I had to accept once and for all that my weekend in the land of paella and juicy oranges wasn’t going to happen.
Under such circumstances, I would’ve expected a weekend in Cuenca to pale in comparison and generally be a disappointment, but it actually turned out to be wonderful. On hearing of my misfortunes, Corinna invited Natira, Jaclyn and me over to her flat for a traditional vegetarian Bavarian meal of Knoedel (bread dumplings) with a divine creamy mushroom sauce; very filling! Afterwards, we headed to the shopping centre El Mirador for some retail therapy and went to the cinema. That night, we went out supposedly for a low-key drink and dance, but didn’t get home till 5.30 in the morning!
The rest of the week went by in a blur. It may be a cliché, but time really is flying – I don’t know how better to describe it. With less than four weeks to go until I fly home for Christmas, I’ve never been so aware of the fact that this year will be over before I know it, and this gives me all the more reason to make the most of the experience. Although from time to time I’m hit by bouts of self-doubt and worry about whether my Spanish is improving quickly enough, when I look back over the past two months I realise that I have already gained a lot. My confidence in speaking another language has come on leaps and bounds, though my self-consciousness hasn’t completely disappeared and I don’t think it ever will. In two months I’ve built myself a life here, and that’s something I was anxious I wouldn’t be able to do before I came. Although I’m having the time of my life, I’m very excited to come back to England for the Christmas break and spend time with all the friends and family I’ve been missing. Apart from anything else, it’ll be lovely not to have to speak a word of Spanish or teach a single class for two weeks!
There isn’t much to report on the school front this week. Things haven’t been so intense for me the past couple of weeks, for various reasons including some of my classes having oral exams, which has meant my presence hasn’t been needed. It’s been nice to feel a bit less pressured. Next week, I’m going to be teaching my classes about English slang (as I didn’t really get a chance to this week), followed by a lovely 10 days off, as the next Puente (long weekend) is from 3rd-8th of December. As I have Fridays off anyway, I would only have had to go in on Thursday the 9th, which seemed a bit of a waste, so I asked if I could have the Thursday off to make it a full 10-day run. They were more than happy to let me, so I wasted no time in making plans for how best to spend my time off. Hugh is coming on Friday (well, provided luck is on our side this time) and we’re hoping to spend the weekend in Madrid and Salamanca. Then on Monday the 6th, I’m jetting off to visit my friend Anna who’s on her year abroad in Marseille. At university, we’re pretty inseparable and last year we lived together too, so I got used to seeing her every day. Now that we’re in different countries I miss her a lot, so I’m very excited to see her!
Having said this, I don’t want to look forward to anything too much for fear I might jinx myself – clearly I’m still scarred from last weekend’s unfortunate events.
On Thursday night, Natira, Jaclyn, Corinna and I met with Isabel for a drink, supposedly to discuss what was going to be expected of us as ‘the natives’ at the following night’s English-speaking dinner. However, it turned out to be more of a ploy to get us to go out (that woman really does like to party) and we ended up dancing the night away in Cuenca’s gay bar – the existence of which we were unaware of until that night – with a rather flamboyant man called Raul and a few other random Spanish people. It was definitely surreal, but probably one of the funniest nights out I’ve had here.
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| Me with my first ever Thanksgiving feast |
The next day, however, after roughly four hours sleep, I was woken up by a phone call from Jaclyn at 9.45am. She was on her way over to the flat – the night before, after one too many vodkas, I had cheerfully agreed to get up early and go shopping with her for the food for the Thanksgiving lunch that she was going to cook for us. Nice one, Helen. Despite my self-inflicted sore head, I dragged myself out of bed, threw some clothes on and accompanied her to the butchers. Let me tell you, a typical Spanish butchers is hell on earth when you’ve got a hangover. Not only did it smell of dead flesh (as you’d expect, really) but the look of the meat on offer was enough to make even the strongest stomachs turn. Here in Spain, they don’t dress things up; the chickens still have their heads and feet intact, there’s a wide array of pig appendages (including trotters) on display and there are giblets galore. Worst of all, however, were the selection of whole skinned rabbits, complete with glassy, bloodied eyes staring menacingly at you. It really was like something out of a horror film. In the end we chickened out (excuse the pun) and went to a nearby supermarket.
As you can’t get your hands on a whole turkey in Cuenca for love or money, we opted for the biggest chicken we could find and made sure the friendly butcher removed all of the gory bits for us. When he proudly held open the chicken’s rear end and presented it to us, asking if we wanted anything else taken out, we nodded vigorously. Everything had to go.
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| Our pride and joy, roasted to perfection (it may not be a turkey but it was good!) |
Back at Jaclyn’s flat, we were a flurry of activity. The feast consisted of roast chicken, sweet potatoes baked in brown sugar and butter, sautéed green beans with bacon and onions, mashed potato, sweet corn and homemade stuffing and gravy. After 3 hours of slaving away at the stove, everything was ready and the four of us (including Corinna, for whom we had made vegetarian versions of everything – right down to the homemade stuffing and gravy!) sat down to eat. It was my first ever Thanksgiving dinner and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although the lengths we’d had to go to in order to prepare it had drained me of the little energy I had had when I woke up that morning. After waddling home, I conked out for 3 hours and got up in time to get dressed and go out to the English-speaking dinner.
Dressed to the nines in a skirt, tights and high heels, in anticipation of going out after the meal, I was mortified when I caught sight of the ‘restaurant’ the dinner was to be held in. It was a glorified fast-food joint, reminiscent of somewhere like Frankie and Benny’s and packed full of screaming babies and whinging toddlers. We slunk in feeling incredibly overdressed and self-conscious. To add to our embarrassment, we were given big red, white and blue badges with our names on and ordered to wear them so we could be identified. The only small consolation was that our party was to have a room separate from the main restaurant (albeit one with big glass windows, which smacked of being in a fish bowl). At first it was a bit awkward and unnatural, as we were all made to stand in a circle and introduce ourselves. I now know how it must feel to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
As the only three native speakers apart from the half-Australian organiser Mike, the pressure was on Natira, Jaclyn and I to make sure these people got their 25 Euros-worth and spoke English all night. In order to do this, we had to split up and circulate, flitting from one group to the next and making conversation. To begin with it was fairly excruciating, but as the wine flowed things got a little less tense and everyone began to relax. In fact, I was so busy talking that I only had about three mouthfuls of the tapas on offer (which admittedly weren’t great anyway) before they went cold. Add to this the fact that I hadn’t sat down all night – the ‘dinner’ was a standing affair – so my feet were quite sore.
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| Natira, me and Jaclyn with José Luis, an English teacher, at the English-speaking dinner |
In spite of this, it was certainly the kind of weird and wonderful experience I’ll never forget, and it was nice to meet some new people. Besides, for us natives the food and drink was free so I’ve no complaints in that respect! Afterwards, we partied in the gay bar again, before moving onto a club. This time, I didn’t get to bed until 6.30am, and woke up very disorientated at 4.30pm. I’m still feeling delicate and sleep-deprived now, but I must say it’s all been worth it. Nonetheless, I certainly won’t be going out tonight; I’ll be otherwise occupied curled up in bed with a good book!
¡Hasta luego!
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