A Medio Camino

Sitting here with the aid of a good old English cup of tea and a square (or five) of chocolate, you’d think the words would simply flow forth with ease and arrange themselves on the page in front of me to form this blog. Indeed, you’d be forgiven for assuming that after a blog-free fortnight – light-years for someone like me, who usually suffers from the writer’s equivalent of verbal diarrhoea – I’d be writing positively reams and reams.

As it stands, however, although I’m sure lots has happened and I should have a backlog of amusing anecdotes to pepper this post with, I’m somewhat drawing a mental blank. So forgive me if what you’re about to read proves to be more of a stream of consciousness than chronological story-telling.

The truth is I’m in a contemplative frame of mind right now. While enjoying the feeling I’ve reached a point where I’m the most content and settled I could ever be in a place that’s not ‘home’, I’m also all too aware of the fact that I’m halfway through my placement already. It saddens me to think that in just under four months I’ll have to pack up my bags and leave my cosy little mundo español. When that day comes, I’ll be leaving not only a city and country which I’ve grown to love, but with it my amazing readymade little group of international friends, all the relationships I’ve built up with my teachers and students, and of course the 3-day weekends, regular sunshine and free tapas with every drink which I’ve become so fond of!

The flipside is that in my efforts to make the most of my year abroad, I’m so busy that I’m constantly tired and have begun to panic that I’m not dedicating enough time to my Spanish. Of course, one’s rate of progress in learning a language has never been a quantifiable thing, but when left alone with my sometimes unnecessarily self-critical thoughts, my mind starts working overtime, torturing my conscience with notions of how much better my Spanish ‘should’ be by now. Nonetheless, I’m trying a new tack of ignoring my negative thoughts and telling myself I’m doing the best I can, which I really am; so take that, self-deprecating psyche!

And while I’m aboard the positive thinking train, I suppose I should tell you about the amazingly lovely weekend I just had in Cuenca with Hugh, who finally managed to make it to Spain – an achievement in itself, as those of you who remember his two ill-fated attempts to visit me before the Christmas break will know.

Hugh and me on the Puente San Pablo - short sleeves
in February!

He arrived on Friday afternoon after a taxing day of travelling, so we went out for a decadent (i.e. high-fat, high-calorie!) dinner at Foster’s Hollywood, an American restaurant here in Cuenca, with all of ‘the regulars’ (Jaclyn, Corinna and Natira) as well as a few others. I should probably mention at this point that we’ve acquired a few new English-speaking friends in the form of Robby, Kate and Erica – all of whom are from the States and are teaching English at the university here – and Sara, who has only been in Cuenca since the beginning of January and is working as a language assistant like us. For the benefit of those of you who remember Lydia (the girl from Liverpool with whom I planned to live with at the beginning but who made a swift exit after deciding Cuenca wasn’t her cup of tea), Sara has come to replace Lydia as the language assistant at the school in question for the remainder of the academic year.

From left to right: Sara, Natira, Hugh, me, Robby,
Jaclyn and Kate

After a long deep sleep brought on by a steak-induced food coma, we emerged from my cave-like bedroom to discover Saturday was a glorious day: sunny, cloudless and unseasonably warm. Naturally, a physically demanding uphill trot to the old town ensued, and when we reached the top we rewarded ourselves with tinto de veranos (a fruity summertime drink similar to sangria) on the roof terrace of a bar overlooking the whole of Cuenca, followed by a delicious lunch of morteruelo (a typical Cuencan dish made of game and eaten with bread; a bit like paté but better), chorizo and patatas ali-oli.

In keeping with the emerging theme of eating and drinking – after all, Spaniards themselves admit that to celebrate special occasions, both are done in abundance – that evening we ate at a restaurant called Nazareno y Oro which had been recommended to me for its excellent food. Needless to say it didn’t disappoint, although we made the schoolboy error of arriving at 9pm; of course the place was deserted, as no self-respecting Spaniard would even entertain the thought of having dinner much before 10pm! Nevertheless, it was a novelty to have the place to ourselves for the first half hour or so, and we were thoroughly impressed by the €26 set menu. It included a degustación de entrantes (an impressive parade of about six surprise starters – including goat’s cheese, stuffed peppers and fried eggs with sautéed potatoes – after which the thought of there still being two more courses to come was mildly alarming), a main course (typically carnivorous choices of steak for me, ribs for Hugh), a dessert, bread, wine and water. Now that’s what I call value for money!

The glass-like River Júcar at dusk

After stuffing ourselves to the gills, we waddled over to Quinto Pecado to meet the rest of the gang. One thing led to another and we somehow ended up partying until 6am, happily being plied with free alcohol from my friend Marta who is a student in my adult Alojamiento class at San José and works behind the bar in a club at the weekends.  

Sunday was unsurprisingly a write-off in terms of doing anything productive, although we deigned to crawl out into the harsh light of day at around 5pm to meet Elena, the Head of English at San José, for a coffee.

All too soon Monday came and Hugh set off for London again, leaving me feeling rather deflated and post-weekend-ish.

Still, things at school are great at the moment and I’m enjoying my private classes too, despite feeling too exhausted to really give anything 100% at the moment. I’ve been teaching my classes at school about the British Royal Family, which has been amusing to say the least. In case you’re interested, the only members of our monarchy known by most Spanish teenagers are the Queen, Prince Charles, Camilla Parker-Bowles and Prince Harry (the last of whom is known largely for his good looks, at least among the squealing giggly female varieties). Prince William (or Guillermo, as they refer to him) was recognised by some, although I sensed that his popularity paled in comparison to that his little brother’s. Poor William – he can’t help that he looks increasingly like Charles, can he?! Of course, Princess Diana (or Lady ‘Dee’ as they pronounce it) often came up too.

My homemade family tree designed to elicit family-related vocabulary from them (by showing them the diagram and asking things like ‘how is Peter/Simon/Jessica related to me?’) went down a treat. Somewhat disappointingly, my proud revelation that my grandmother was named after a small Spanish town was received time after time by a roomful of blank faces. Clearly Torla is a very small town...

Yoga continues to be a valuable source of relaxation, although thus far it hasn’t helped me to put my erratic sleep pattern to bed (pardon the pun) as I’d hoped. As well as helping to improve core strength, respiration, balance and stability I also feel I’m getting a 90-minute Spanish lesson thrown in for free! Not that being told to contract and release my cervix in unison with deep inhalations and exhalations while sitting cross-legged and meditating is something I’ll necessarily need to repeat in Spanish in the future, but you never do know...

¡Hasta luego!