By now, I’m sure the whole of Europe (including my modest readership) and probably much of the rest of the world will have heard about the Spanish air traffic controllers’ strike. If not, where have you been? Get out from under that rock and switch your telly on!
I wonder if those *insert swear word here*s who decided it would be a good idea to pull a sickie en-masse and send the country into utter chaos – to the extent that the government has declared a state of alarm for the first time since military rule ended in 1975 – thought about just how many hundreds of thousands of people they would be severely riling. The answer is they probably did, which makes it all the more infuriating.
Of course, if your business is transport and you want to cause a stir, it makes perfect sense to strike the night before one of the longest weekends in the Spanish calendar, when everyone who is anyone will be making the most of their 5 days off work and school by travelling elsewhere. However, my objection is to the fact that it was an unplanned and therefore completely illegal strike that (supposedly) nobody knew anything about until the very moment it happened on Friday evening. Cue cancelled flights, stranded passengers and airport-cum-dosshouses. The strike may have been nipped in the bud now, but its effects will take days to rectify as the ten affected Spanish airports attempt to deal with the backlog of aborted flights and irate travellers.
Well, I happen to have had the misfortune to experience it firsthand. Yes, I am indeed one of those estimated 250,000 ‘affected’ people that you’ve heard about on the news (it sounds like we have some sort of disease, doesn’t it?!), although admittedly indirectly. I’d better warn you now that this post won’t be as chirpy as usual. In fact, it will largely be a rant. Therefore, if you’re mainly reading to find out what I’ve been up to in the past week and would like to save yourself some time, I’d suggest you skip ahead a few paragraphs.
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| A bit of festive cheer to break up my complaining... Cuenca's Christmas lights are finally on! |
All was going suspiciously smoothly. Hugh left work overzealously early on Friday afternoon, still scarred from the Valencia non-event two weeks before. He arrived at the airport with hours to spare, sailed through security and even had time for a snack while he waited to board. When the gate was announced, he went and sat next to it. It was only when the screen at the gate said his flight was ‘boarding’, when it clearly wasn’t – there was no plane in sight and Hugh overheard a man on the phone saying something about a strike – that alarm bells began ringing, despite the fact that there had been no announcements from the ever-reliable Ryanair.
Meanwhile, I was on a Madrid-bound coach nervously waiting for news. For me, there was no going back, and I began to envisage a lonely night in a 4* hotel. Of course, you will have guessed the ending of this story already; no need for me to tell you that Hugh didn’t get on that plane (principally because it was still in Madrid), or that I did indeed spend my Friday night holed up in a hotel room alone, watching live news streams about the ‘caos aeropuertuario’ and consoling myself by eating the chocolate coins which I’d bought as a little present for Hugh. Worse still, the hour Hugh spent standing in a queue of fuming passengers (not to mention a group of rioting Portuguese football fans who tried to push in – seriously) at Ryanair’s ticket sales desk to get himself booked on the next evening’s flight turned out to be fruitless, as all their flights to and from Spain on Saturday had to be cancelled too.
So this morning I had no option but to check out of the hotel, pay 80 Euros for the miserable night I’d spent there and head back to Cuenca, exhausted, depressed and dejected...
...Which brings me to the present. On top of the disappointment and fatigue, I’ve also been suffering from a sore throat, headache and congestion for the past couple of days. Add to this that I still don’t know if I’ll be able to get to Marseille on Monday to visit Anna as planned (considering Madrid, where I’m due to fly from, is the worst affected airport), and it’s safe to say that I’m not a happy bunny. Equally, I’m a snivelling snot-machine; don’t cross me.
Still, qué será será... no point crying over spilt milk and all that jazz. If I throw enough tired old clichés at the situation, maybe somehow it’ll become less gut-wrenchingly awful.
On a serious note, if by some miracle (and it will be a miracle, because I’m taking nothing for granted these days) I do get to France on Monday at least this week won’t be a complete write-off. My Puente is still possibly salvageable... just!
Okay, rant over now. This is where those of you left off reading at the end of the fourth paragraph should pick up again!
This week at school was another fairly low-effort one. The last few weeks before Christmas seem to be prime exam-taking time, and many of my older classes were affected by this, meaning that my presence was yet again unnecessary. In the few classes I did go to, they were either reading a book – during these lessons my role is to explain vocabulary they don’t know, which is more challenging than it sounds! – or taking oral exams, which I was able to help out with. The latter made me feel strangely powerful and important, as I got to have a say in the marks they got!
Needless to say, most of them were embarrassingly bad and really didn’t justify more than a 2 or 3 out of 10, but this worked in the favour of the ‘good ones’ as their efforts shone all the more among the heap of duds that were their classmates.
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| A dusting of snow over Castilla-La Mancha... taken from the coach window on the way back from my fruitless journey to Madrid! |
Sorry if I sound harsh, but you haven’t witnessed how poor they are. Not that English schoolchildren are any better at learning Spanish, of course – indeed, they’re probably worse – but the point is that these kids (and I’m referring to Bachillerato level, which is non-compulsory pre-university students) have got to pass their English exam with a B1 (which is a reasonably high level) in order to get a place on any kind of university course. That’s how important having a respectable level of English is here, although you wouldn’t know it; most of them really couldn’t care less. I feel sorry for them in a way, as for many of them English is something they’re being forced to learn, but as many an exasperated English teacher has said to me, they’ll regret it in the future when they realise how useful English is.
In terms of the social side of things, it’s also been a pretty tame week. This is probably due to the fact that I used up all my energy and inclination to be anywhere near alcoholic drinks on Monday night, when I went to a bar to watch the Real Madrid v. Barcelona match with Jaclyn. The football fans among you will know what an important game this is, especially in Spain. Although admittedly not a football fanatic myself, not to mention someone who is still thoroughly baffled by the offside rule (despite several gallant attempts by Hugh to explain it to me), I felt it was my duty to witness this match and soak up some of the Spanish culture that came with it. The idea was to have a couple of glasses of wine, fill up on the free tapas and stay for the first half, before going home to bed. After all, it was a school night.
This was all fine until just before the end of the first half, when what I can only describe as a Spanish ‘chav’ came up to the bar to order a drink. I could feel him eyeing me up, so wasn’t surprised when he started a conversation. The bar was absolutely rammed (as well as deafeningly loud) but I chatted to him politely for a few minutes while he waited for the barmaid to serve him. Then, when she came over to take his order, he ordered Jaclyn and me a drink each too, despite our protests. This happened a few times, as he just didn’t seem to be able to take no for an answer when we said we didn’t want another drink, and we didn’t have the nerve to just leave the drink on the bar and flee!
It was an awkward situation to say the least. He was nice enough, but he was quite clearly only buying us drinks because he fancied one or both of us. This was made embarrassingly apparent when he summoned his friend’s very cute 6-year-old son (who, in my opinion, shouldn’t have been in a loud, smoky bar full of drunk football fans in the first place) and started playing the part of macho-man-who’s-good-with-children and making the poor child kiss us on both cheeks, as is the Spanish way. We dutifully cooed at him (the child, that is) for a while and then started a conversation among ourselves, hoping he’d go away. Of course, he didn’t. Instead he tried a new strategy, whipping out his mobile phone and waving it in my face. On the screen was a photo of a red Ferrari, which he triumphantly told me belonged to him. Er, great... if I were the sort of shallow, gold-digging girl who’s impressed by men with flashy cars. Frankly, I’d probably be equally impressed if he drove a tractor. I didn’t tell him this; instead I just smiled and nodded.
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| A snowy field and nothing else for miles... |
By this point, the second half was nearly over and Jaclyn and I were looking forward to the match ending so we could make our excuses and leave. He had other ideas though, and bought us yet another glass of wine. Once we’d drunk that (far too quickly, as we didn’t want to hang around longer than necessary) and the match was finally over, we made a speedy exit, despite his best efforts to persuade us to stay for another. His parting line to me was: “¿Tienes novio?” (“Do you have a boyfriend?”), to which I nodded apologetically and all but ran out of the bar, Jaclyn hot on my trail. Poor guy; not only did he spend money on buying us unwanted wine all night only to be rejected at the end of it, but he was also supporting Real Madrid (who got slaughtered 5-0 by Barcelona, for those of you who don’t know). It just wasn’t his lucky night...
Right, now that I’ve filled you in on all my rather uninspiring news, I must go and drug my snotty self up if I’m to have any hope of sleeping through the night. Who knows what the next two days will bring in terms of my flight to Marseille; I’m trying not to think too much about it. Instead, I will try the traditional British remedy when times are hard: a nice cup of tea.
¡Hasta luego!
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