The Journey Home

Having packed my two cases full to bursting, I had to lug them plus a big backpack across the metro system to Chamartin station where the Paris-bound tren hotel leaves from. Typical Spain, they waited until about 15 minutes before departure to display (and probably to choose) the platform it would be leaving from. I was a bit surprised when I got on to find I wasn't in a sleeper compartment but the (apparently only) carriage with reclining seats instead. I'm not quite sure how I managed that, maybe I was just assigned it when I booked. Anyway, there was plenty of room and the seats were comfortable enough. No power sockets though, disappointingly.

Off it chugged, north out of Madrid, leaving the four towers in the distance, through some beautiful mountain scenery in the evening sun, before emerging onto wide yellow plains that made for a pretty spectacular sunset. One thing was that it wasn't as smooth a ride as I'd expected. Walking down through the many, many carriages (about 8) to the buffet car, I had to hold onto the walls to keep my balance.

This turbulence didn't stop me from getting a pretty good nights sleep though. It was comparable to sleeping on an aeroplane I suppose, but with more room and more recline on the seats. I felt quite fresh when we were coming up through much greener France the next morning. No breakfast or anything by the way. I don't know if that's only for people in the sleepers but I saw no evidence of it.

The train arrived in Paris about half an hour late, turning the time pressure up a bit. I had about 40 mins to get from Austerlitz station to Gare du Nord in time for the 30 minute Eurostar check in. Unfortunatley, I'd forgotten that the Paris metro doesn't really do escalators and it was hard work heaving my suitcases up and down stair cases. I've only just got rid of the pain in my shoulders and blisters on my hands! I made it in plenty of time though, it only takes about 20 minutes if you are halfway decent at navigating your way through metro systems.

Boarding the Eurostar, (listening to a woman booming into a mobile "Yes, this is Mrs. Smith, I'm calling for Mrs. Johnson! Yes, Johnson!" in the Queens finest posh English accent- nearly home!) for a while, I thought I'd mistakenly booked myself onto first class. The Eurostar is seriously nice: big seats, power sockets, breakfast, but that's all just standard class. It was nice and everything but I couldn't help wishing it were a little less fancy and a little easier on the pocket. At £130, this part of the journey had cost more than the Madrid-Paris leg, and I don't really need Tropicana orange juice and ye olde English jam with my croissant. I'd rather sit on the floor and pay £30, but maybe that's just me. Maybe they should just have one paupers carriage where they pack you in?

Arrived in London at about 11am feeling pretty pleased to have made it with all cases etc in tact (I'm not good at catching trains on time) and after breezing through customs (they were on strike), I set off with my suitcases on our third capital city metro system in 24 hours. Luckily for my hands and shoulders, I wasn't going up to Sheffield (where my parents' house is) that day but just dropping the cases off at a friend's in Archway and then going straight to work at a festival (hence the delay in writing this).

All in all, I've got to say, it was quite a pleasant trip. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, but then again, not quite as romantic as I'd hoped either. I also realised, after taking Kate to the airport in Madrid, and having to do some comical last minute bag 'weight adjustment' ("I'll wear that and that, chuck these!"), it would have costr me a fortune to take all my stuff back by air. On Ryanair your checked luggage is limited at 15kg, and it's €20 for every additional kilogram. Mind you, I did struggle with the cases and it's not an option everyone would want to take (although my suitcases were old and not particularly fit for purpose).

For me, the train was definately the nicest way to travel. I like the journey, and don't like flying for environmental reasons. Also, I find airports quite stressful, and the restrictions annoying. The coach on the other hand, although considerably cheaper, was a little too long, and much less comfortable than the train.

So anyway, it's good to be back and I've been enjoying some much missed pleasures of England (fish and chips, bangers and mash, beer than isn't Mahou), catching up with friends, as well as spending a lovely evening in a picturesque Kent beer garden overlooked by some old hops chimneys.

It took me a while to take in the fact that everyone here speaks English. I found myself muttering and gesturing at waiters and cashiers in supermarkets for a couple of days but once it sunk in, the lack of any kind of language barrier has been great too, chatting away to barmen, taxi drivers and check out assisstants at will.

Catching up with friends and family (and gossip) has been amazing as well. People have got girl/boyfriends, split up, got jobs, changed plans and so on while I've been away and it feels weird to have been out of everything for so long. I also just went to visit my sister and see my nephew who was born while I was out there, which was pretty special. It's definately been the hardest thing for me, and it makes me wonder if I can do another year abroad already come September. Decision to be made very soon!

Hasta Luego España!

So I'm all packed and ready to leave for my train at 7pm. Amazingly everything seems to fit in my two suitcases and backpack, despite having bought loads of stuff here too. I went over the the Tabacalera squat/community centre in Emabajadores earlier to donate some old clothes and bits and bobs to the free shop. I haven't been there in ages and it's really come along a lot. It's an massive and fantastic old tabacco factory that was squatted and then given legal status. The bar area is now really cool, with loads of great little creative touches. It's only €1 a beer as well (with a €1 glass deposit too). Just a very lighthearted and free atmosphere in there as well.

I know, I know, I said I'd write my last post in Spanish back when I arrived, hey, at least the title is. Unfortunately my Spanish just isn't good enough to write anything interesting, which is my main regret from this adventure. I arrogantly thought I could pick it up without taking classes, and clearly haven't. I was using Rosetta Stone, which was good if a little slow, but a couple of months ago I just lost motivation really and haven't used it in ages. That said, I arrived here with absolutely nothing whatsoever so I have improved a lot, and I know loads of vocabularly but I can still only really speak in the present tense. I think I'm going to work on my grammar over the summer and then try and take some classes in Barcelona in September. I won't be turning up there penniless this time either (hopefully!) which meant that I couldn't afford classes straight away in Madrid.

So adios Madrid and hasta luego Spain! It feels very weird, but definately real now that most of my stuff is packed up. As I said to Kate as she was leaving yesterday, it's a real end of a certain phase of our lives for everyone leaving. I can feel the butterflies in my stomach.

This isn't it for this blog yet though. I'm going to write up my journey home by train, and compare it to the other two methods I've used, plane and coach, then when I've got a bit of time at home, I'm going to do some summing up of my trip and some 'best of Madrid' tips. Now, to think of a blog title for Barcelona: ideas for things that rhyme with 'homage' or 'Vicky Christina' are welcome.

Meetings, Heat and Trains

On Saturday, the 15th May Movement (as the protests have become known), held local meetings in squares across the city. I went along to our local one at Plaza Puerta del Moros, where around 300 people were gathered, sitting and standing under the trees, sheltering from the midday heat. It is incredible how organised this movement is for a spontaneous thing. There was a PA system set up with mics and two sign language interpreters on hand. The mics are open to anyone and consensus decision making is used, which makes the process very slow but ultimately, I always find, more satisfying. I watched a discussion about whether to meet locally, how often, and where unfold at a crawling pace. The mood was quite light however, and people blocking decisions would stand aside if a large majority was in favour, and were rewarded with applause. Many of the speakers also made the crowd laugh and, although their purpose was serious, people weren't taking themselves to seriously, which I have often seen in similar meetings in the UK climate movement. It seems that the camp in Sol will stay for now, and the neighbourhood groups will meet weekly so it looks like this movement is here to stay.

 
I've had some interesting reactions when getting my students to do mini-presentations over the last week, from 'I'm going tonight' to 'They need to shut up and get jobs'. Mostly though, they seemed to sympathetic, largely agree with the aims of the camp and share their anger at the political system, but not necessarily agree with their tactics. The fact that there's a fair amount of cannabis being smoked in Sol came up a couple of times too (I'd noticed this when walking around as well). I told a couple of them that if they really wanted a three-party system, we could probably spare Nick Clegg for a while...

It's now getting really hot here, and you can see why people describe Madrid as being a place of extremes, either frozen or scorched. It's cloudier today but I realised the other day that it had consistently been hotter than the hottest summer's day you'd get in England for about a week. Most of the companies I work in have air-con but bussing round the city is becoming an increasingly clammy experience.

I've actually been feeling quite homesick over the last week or so. One of my friends summed it up well recently when they said "Sometimes you just get sick of feeling like a foreigner." It's very true, and I haven't been home since Christmas and that wasn't for very long. Really looking forward to being on home ground and seeing people over the summer. I cannot wait to kick back and shoot the breeze in a good old-fashioned pub. I've just booked my travel home, for the rapidly approaching end of June. I'm taking the train to avoid flying (for environmental reasons), for which I'm paying considerably more. £240 for an overnight from Madrid to Paris and Eurostar to London. Surely it could be made cheaper? It's also ridiculously difficult to actually buy a ticket, and I ended up having to have the tickets sent to my parents house in Sheffield and then sent out here for some bizarre reason. A subsidy to make it more attractive compared to flying would be nice, but at very least could they make it less of an effort to get yourself a ticket.

It will be an experience anyway... an 18 hour one.

Scorchio! (River, Roof, Retiro)

Phew, Easter is nearly here. It's feeling like a bit of a long slog at the moment, with none of those nice Spanish days off at this time of the year. Spain still being Spain though, most companies take the whole week off for Easter so that means a break for us English teachers too. I decided a while ago not to go home for the Easter break to save money (I was going to buy a €350 train ticket), so I'll still be in Madrid but have a bit of time to relax, see some stuff and do some sunbathing. It does mean that I'll miss out on seeing some friends and family, but I realised I'll be back in a couple of months anyway as most of my teaching contracts run out at the end of June and I've got a job sorted for the summer in the UK (working at festivals - can't wait, much needed change of scene from teaching English!), and I've got a group of mates visiting the week after (to avoid the royal wedding). I can't believe I've got so little time left to be honest. The last couple of months have absolutely flown by. Still, I suppose 2 and a half months is still quite a while left.

Highlights of the week have included a big picnic in Retiro park in the scorching heat, the scorching heat in general, some lovely sunsets from our roof and discovering some more of the newly-opened riverside area. The roof is still proving to be far and away the best thing about this apartment, and is really beautiful at sun-down, with swifts and swallows wheeling and diving over the rooftops and aerials and the mountains hazily visible in the distance.

The riverside area, which I wrote a bit about before, is still being worked on, but the entire west bank is now open, from Principe Pio right down to near Legazpi. With the spring freshly sprung, it's arrival is very timely and every time I've been down it, it's been packed with people. It's not just the weather though, it is great. One of the best municipal projects I've seen. Being out of the real city centre, it feels more like a beachfront, with kids playing in sandy (and amazing-looking) playgrounds by the side of the pathway. The pedestrian bridges across the river are creative and well designed, there's some nice artwork on the buildings (although more would be welcome) and, although much of the vegetation is still growing and they're having finishing touches put to them, the park areas look like they'll be great. Way to go Madrid! I was cycling along there on Sunday afternoon while an Atletico game was going on in the Vincente Calderon on the city side of the river and the atmosphere was great. It's got to be a massive extra reason to live in the south west of the city now.

I was also out in Malasaña on Saturday night, when we came across and joined in on a huge botellon (street drinking social) in a square near Tribunal. There must have been at least 200 people sitting around chatting. Great atmosphere despite the lack of chairs, tables or music, with the street vendors making very efficient waiters, until the policia arrived and everyone quickly picked themselves up and made a hasty exit in the opposite direction. I noticed that someone had found this blog the other week (I know, I need to get a life and stop checking this kind of thing) by searching "what goes on in a spanish square after dark" on Google which is a curious thing to want to know, but I suppose a lot of sitting down, drinking and eating is mainly the answer!

Word of the day: gente - people

Fallas

The plan to go to Valencia for the Fallas fire festival had been talked about for a while but came together rapidly at the last minute. We booked a rental car from Avis on Thursday night (€80 for 3 days), showed up at their office on Gran Via on Friday afternoon really hoping they weren't going to insist on seeing our driver's paper license that he didn't have, but next thing we knew we were pulling out onto Madrid's main thoroughfare and past a couple of it's major landmarks in the warm evening sun. For a city of 6 million, Madrid is incredibly easy to get out of by car and we were soon coasting down the Motorway heading towards Valencia and the rising apogee moon in a rough two car convoy including 4 Brits, an Irishwoman, a Mongolian, a Romanian, an American and an Italian.

Arriving in Valencia after dark on the night before Fallas, I didn't really know what to expect. You hear a lot about the tomato throwing in Bunyol and the bull running Pamplona, but I'd not read or heard much about Fallas, despite it being held in Spain's third biggest city. What to expect, however, soon became apparent from the booming of what sounded like heavy gunfire coming from the city centre and the 3 year-old boy playing with firecrackers on his fathers lap... It's not an event overly concerned with health and safety! After meeting up with 3 Spanish brothers who our Mongolian had met in Mongolia that were amazingly lending us an apartment for the weekend, we all headed into the busy city centre amid bangs and flashes and saw a couple of the beautifully detailed and sculpted fallas (the huge creations in every neighbourhood that were to be burned the next night), tried some bunuelos (deep fried pumpkin pastry things) and saw a some live bands on a stage in the middle of a street in the centre. It's like a giant street party that takes over the whole city! And this wasn't even the night itself...

We woke up late the next day, despite the incessant explosions outside, with moderate-to-fair hangovers. Looking out the window, a cloud of smoke hung in the tangy air and walking down the street in the sunshine, surrounded by palm trees with explosives going off in all directions, it felt like we'd gone on holiday to Libya. We went off and found a crowd of people gathered for one of the 2pm firework shows which culminated in one of the most deafening series of bangs I've ever heard. Afterwards the firework technician guys come out and are treated like celebrities, getting photos taken with the women all got up in traditional Valencian falleras dress and even kissing babies! Instant heroes.

Last paella in town!

Anyway, this was followed by what turned into an epic quest for paella around the centre of Valencia during which we got to see some of the beautiful old town and some more children setting off fireworks. The town is so packed with people for Fallas that not only do all the hotels and hostels sell out months in advance but you can't even find any restaurants that still have any food at 3 in the afternoon! We were seriously lucky to have a place to stay though, there's no way you'll find somewhere last minute, although apparently a lot of people just sleep on the beach. The most creative solution we saw that night though was a load of people who had got into one of the card access bits of a bank and set up camp!

After finally finding what seemed like the last paella in town and seeing some more huge and intricate fallas, that come in all different shapes and sizes from joyous to bizarre, sexy to childish and satirical to downright dirty but all somehow manage to conform to a similar style, we headed for the town hall square to catch the fire parade featuring devils spraying sparks all over the street. This, however, is only the precursor to the main event which is la crema, the lighting of the fallas themselves at around midnight. We spent a while waiting for the big 'Jessica Rabbit' type one to go up, rather than pack into the town hall square for the main one but then decided to run around and look for the first ones to go. We soon came across the 'Bombers', as they (fittingly) call the Bomberos in Valencia, preparing for the burning of a 3 story high American themed one featuring a giant donut. Before the burning, someone hangs firecrackers over the falla and then pours a bit of petrol on for good measure. I was amazed by how quickly the thing went up! All that work and whooph! The heat is intense as well and the crowd shied back from where the Bombers had moved us. I was holding the camera in front of my face to sheild it! Meanwhile, the Bombers were concentrating their efforts, and their hoses, on a nearby building that was coming close to getting engulfed in flames... and then it was all over! They don't last very long, so we ran off to find another.

I have to admit, I was actually in a shop buying beer when the Jessica Rabbit one went up so I missed the best part but the heat from it was incredibly intense even at the back so god knows what it was like at the front. A big gasp went up when an overhanging part fell off too, in what surely can't have been a controlled manner! Once that had died down, it was on to the next one, and we ended up perched on the side of a stage in a more open square to witness a very unexpected spectacle. When the Bombers arrived, a mustachioed chap was presented to the crowdn and paraded around the square, and it became apparent that he was a local fireman, from that neighbourhood, who was retiring next week. Soon the whole crowd was chanting his name: 'Ximo! Ximo!' and he was on stage with the local fallera (an older lady who was soaking up all the adulation too), being presented with various tokens of appreciation and being tearfully interviewed in front of a TV camera. It was a lovely little local celebration to witness, and makes you remember that the fallas are still prepared on a neighbourhood basis, even though we were chatting to a group of Mexican tourists while we watched it all.

Eventually, the falla went up like the rest, in shower of sparks from fireworks strung around the square, and burned down to a smouldering heap, at which point the more boisterous sections of the crowd started teasing the firemen, chanting “Bomberos! Maricons!” (roughly “Firemen! Bunch of fairies!”) and the Bombers started spraying the them with their hoses in retaliation. It was all in done in good humour though and everyone seemed to be having a great time! Whenever one section of the crowd was drowned out by hoses, another section would take up the chant, very funny to watch. You'd never see something like that happen in England, at least not without punches being thrown!

 

Anyway, a great night, and a chance to get a bit of (cold) beach in the next day too. I can't recommend Fallas enough, if you get the chance to go. You'll never see anything like it. It's like bonfire night on steroids, and without health and safety supervision. Also, renting a car was definitely a good option, at €80 for the car and about €70 for the petrol, it's fine split between 4 or more. The main problem was finding somewhere to park! I think some more weekend trips will have to follow, where next?

Home James, and don't spare the horsepower (but do stay under the 110kmph speed limit)

A Day In The Life

I had a relatively quiet weekend that included a failed trip to Alcazar de San Juan to see a friend of my girlfriend who turned out not to actually be there... I can tell you however, that they will exchange train tickets without charging you again, which would definately hit a wall of officiousness in the UK. Alcazar? I wouldn't bother.

I thought it might be useful, for anyone planning on moving to Spain to teach English, to hear what a typical weekday is like for me at the moment now that I've settled into some kind of routine. I suppose in some ways it hasn't lived up to the ideas I had and in other ways it's exceeded them.

Torre Picasso in the early morn

So, I usually wake up around 9am, apart from Tuesday when I have to be up at 6 to go teach at 8. This has been pretty horrible until recently as it's still been dark and freezing cold on leaving the house and I have to trek across town on the packed (and still starey) metro, to the heavily concreted area near the Bernabeu to teach for 2 hours in the imposing Torre Picasso. Most days though, I spend the morning messing around, catching up on emails, planning lessons or doing the various things that life demands and when it's warm enough, having breakfast on the roof. Then from Mon-Thu, at 11.30 I have to set off for Aravaca where I teach 4 hours of classes at a friendly little company in the 'suburbs' (theres a little stretch of countryside between them and the main city). I go via the underground Moncloa bus interchange with another massive city gate sitting on top of it, often stopping off to photocopy some pages at the shop there where the two women are perenially amused at my foreigness.

The gate at Moncloa

These are classes that I get through the 'agency' company I work for, for which I have to prepare a lesson plan and lead the class in quite an intense way. On the bus there and back there are snatched views of the Sierra and the 4 huge towers that I keep meaning to go have a look at in the north of the city. After I finish I have an hour and a half to get some food and get to my other job at a language school near Plaza de Espana. I don't have to prepare anything for this and its pretty much a case of sitting and chatting to people in English for half an hour at a time. It doesn't pay nearly as well though! (€7 an hour compared to €17 an hour!). Still, it's handy extra income and being an independent teacher can be a bit of a lonely experience sometimes, so working in a language school has a nice feeling of actually working with other people.

This finishes at 10pm so its usually home for dinner and to relax or out for a couple of drinks (or more on a Friday). I have to say, I don't like working evenings and I'm hoping I can cut back on that soon, but I don't fancy getting up at 6 every morning much either! I don't know why they all want to start at 8, but I've turned down several offers of classes up by the airport at 8 because I just didn't think it was worth my while (an hour there, 2 hour class, an hour back) and I thought I'd just tire myself out. Anyway, all this is earning me around €1800 a month (although I have to pay €178 social security p/m) for roughly 35 hours a week, which is more than I need but is paying off some debts slowly but surely.

In other news, I found an English speaking dentist in Prosperidad, who told me I need to have some dental surgery done. I won't go into the details but it's going to involve stitches in my mouth (shudder) which might make teaching quite interesting for a week or so. It's quite a complicated proceedure and its costing €400 (its not covered by social security). It feels kind of masochistic to be paying all this money for someone to do horrible things to my mouth but I suppose its necessary. That's happening a week on Friday anyway so we'll see how it goes.

A strange thing happened to me on Sunday, I was cooking a vegan paella at my girlfriend's new flat (which is incredible: opposite Principe Pio, newly decorated, with a view over the river and the forest and not too expensive), when I forgot the English word for something and could only remember the Spanish - "do you have any...er, cominos?" Cumin! I'm feeling a lot more confident with my basic Spanish now and will happily break it out in shops. I do wish I'd had this level when I'd arrived though. Still weighing up moving, I've got some numbers that I'm going to call tomorrow (in Spanish) but on the other hand it is very cheap here (€230 a month) and the terrace is looking like more of a reason to stay now it's getting warmer.

Back in Spain, Back on Blog

I'm back in Madrid having had a nice 10-day break in the UK over Christmas and a break from writing anything here for a while. By the time I left just before Christmas, I was feeling pretty worn out. It felt the similar to how I remember feeling at the end of my first term at University  - its been great but now its cold, dark, no one understands you and you want to go home! (Although now its a language barrier thing rather than late-teen angst with the understanding). Having to deal with the court situation and juggling debts didn't particularly help either and I also ended up staying and working for 3 days after all my friends had left which really made it drag.

Anyway, having had a break at home, I now feel quite refreshed and have a renewed optimistic outlook about living here. I remembered on the way back the excitement I felt when I was first moving here, only now I have a job, some friends, an apartment, speak a bit of the the language and so on.

The language is actually starting to click into place a little now. I'm using Rosetta Stone as well as getting some Spanish classes through a job (although I've only had one so far). I'd done a bit of Rosetta Stone at home but its much more effective if you're immersed in the language every day. So for example, as soon as I learnt the word for clean (lympia), I noticed a sign in a shop for 'productos lympieza' (cleaning products) which just makes it stick. Also, you can't help picking up words day to day - you're not going to forget the word for anchovies once you've accidentally bought a can of olives stuffed with them, trust me. In fact by now, I can understand most signs in shops and on the street and get the gist of most conversations. Speaking is more difficult, I have to put a sentence together in my head before I can say it but practice is the best thing, and practice is made easier once your a little drunk, I've found...

Looking back over my time here so far, that doesn't seem bad for two and a half months spent speaking English all day! It feels like I only need a little more and then I can start speaking to people more and it will snowball a bit from there. I didn't study any Spanish while I was back in England, but it feels like my brain has been digesting what I learnt over the last couple of months which feels more solid now.

Now that I've got a bit of money coming in (the back-dated pay checks are finally kicking in), my next objective is buying a bike and, eventually, moving apartments I think. Racing bikes (bicicletas carretera) seem to be a bit less common and more expensive here (cheapest I could find on eBay was €100) but I need to do some more research and check out the Rastro I suppose.

Oh yeah, I had an awful trip back actually though. Having not flown from England in about 3 years I'd forgotten some of the aspects of international travel there. WARNING: if you move to Spain, don't get too used to how things work. They may be very relaxed about timekeeping, service, aeroplane boarding times and things like that here, but that does not mean they will be in England when you get back! Lesson learned.

Wintery Feelings

It's been getting colder and colder over the past couple of weeks, and cloudy days have become more frequent (although still below half), and today the first tiny flakes of snow started falling, which I'm now watching from whats become my local internet-and-coffee bar in La Latina, La Potente. It can still be quite warm in the sun, and I found myself sweating after walking quickly up to Puerta de Toledo yesterday, but out of it its bitterly cold. On the plus side though, it means its all feeling quite Christmassy all of a sudden. The Christmas lights are all on in the centre and there's a huge metal Christmas tree in the middle of Sol. They've really gone to town on Calle Mayor, with the air above your head packed with glowing rings nearly all the way from Sol to the Cathedral. There's a Christmas market in Plaza Mayor too, but it dissappointingly doesn't sell mulled wine.

Baby eel tostas, a Madrid delicacy

I went on another wonder round the El Rastro market, and Old Madrid in general yesterday, and got you a picture of the Madridian 'baby eel' tostas (although I still haven't plucked up the courage to eat any yet). I'm making it a New Years resolution to buy one thing from El Rastro every week - there's such a wierd and wonderful collection of stuff on offer, I really just want all of it! A bust of Caesar? Sure! A bronze walking cane? Absolutely! Yesterday I limited myself to a book of postcards of Madrid from the 50s to send to a friend I promised to write to (instead of just blog about...).

The cellar at Viva la Vida

I also stopped off at the amazingly decorated and super cool Viva la Vida vegetarian restuarant in La Latina, which operates a buffet system where your food is weighed at the till - although beware, the plates are quite heavy! The upstairs decor is pretty good and theres a lovely relaxed atmosphere to the place but the basement is even better, one of those arched cellar rooms, with the brickwork sprinkled in glitter and plants growing up the walls. The foods great too, definately recommended.

I'm having to go back to England this week for a court appearance - or as I like to think, I've been summoned back by Her Majesty (or at least her Prosecution Service). This has frankly proved to be a huge pain in the arse. Booking flights (as I've had to) for specific dates with two weeks notice is no easy, or cheap, feat and requires you to negotiate the web of lies and deception that is booking a cheap flight online. Quote: £150... actually £250... with 2 connections... and so on. I've ended up, exasperatedly, booking a return flight to Edinburgh for about £220, including a free unconfortable nights sleep in Amsterdam airport on the way there. Very frustrating. I wanted to get the train but for a return to London you're looking at at least £500. I think for Christmas, seeing as I've got time, I'll go by coach again which works out at about £160 return to London, but does take 28 hours each way. The idea of going back feels quite strange. I got my first real pang of homesickness the other day. Definately looking forward to a pint in a pub.

What's the court appearance for? Obstruction of a highway, during a protest at Manchester Airport. Oh the irony. To find out more or lend your support, please see the campaign website: http://www.manchesterairportontrial.org/, or Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Manchester-Airport-On-Trial/162820910424769?v=info.

Mustachioed goblets on Thanksgiving

On a (sort of) lighter note, tonight is El Clasico - Barca vs Real, which the Spanish press has been working itself into a frenzy for for weeks, only added to by Mourinho's posturing. Living near the Vicente Calderon, my two flatmates have become sworn Athletico fans, but personally I'm not so fussed, and I'm kind of rooting for Real, although they're are generally regarded as the team of the aristocracy here: they're part funded by the King (Real = Royal), Barcelona's Barcelona innit? We live in Madrid!

Ah, I nearly forgot, my first Thanksgiving was great! It felt like a practice run for Christmas dinner. I have to say, despite being initially sceptical, I was massively impressed by our host's veggie Tofurky! The objective, I was informed by several Americans is basically to eat until you can't anymore, wait, and then continue, which we did whist sporting fake mustaches and drinking from goblets found in our grandma flat. I'd decided to represent by dressing as Britishly as possible, complete with Union Jack hankerchief sticking out of waistcoat pocket and effecting my best 'ghastly' Prince Charles accent, but wasn't quite ready for the American reaction to this. I've never felt like such a novelty act in my entire life!

Hitching to Barcelona, Quitting and Wrapping Things Up

Time for a catch up, coming in three parts. As someone pointed out to me, not having internet was one of the least important and least interesting reasons that I haven't posted all week – its everything else thats been stopping me rather than a lack of connection. But today I have nothing better to do than sit at my laptop outside a cafe (its still just about warm enough to do that) and work through my tinto verrano hangover (essentially wine and lemonade, very cheap and very available) by telling you, good reader, whats been going on over here in Spain. <this was written on Saturday>

Hitching to Barcelona

After a false start on the Friday, I set off early to hitchike from Madrid to Barcelona early last Saturday to meet my friend Simon who lives there and some other old housemates coming over for the weekend. Instead of going back to the place I'd tried the day before, I got the train right out to Guadalajara, quite a way out, and then a bus to the tiny village of Taracena next to the E-90 motorway. Unfortunatly this took rather longer than I'd planned and I was stuck waiting for a bus for half an hour in very autumnal looking Guadalajara. Autumn feels really weird in Spain. The trees are losing leaves, and you can feel in the air somehow that its that time of year, but the suns out and its actually quite warm. I find it quite unsettling!



Anyway, I finally got to the little Repsol petrol station that hitchwiki had recommended and set about chatting to people at the pumps with my 'Hacia Barcelona' sign complete with little Union Jack in the corner. People think its less weird that you're hitching in Spain if you're foreign, it gives you a non threatening reason to be doing something so odd. I've hitched in Spain before, on my way to Morocco on a sponsored hitch and found it fairly easy but it isn't really the done thing here (its much easier in Britain) and people do think your crazy, so to begin with I got a lot of shaking of heads and excuses about living locally but then a car pulled up, the driver got out, and I caught a strong whiff of cannabis and thought, here we go. Sure enough the woman told me to hop in, she wasn't going far, but it was a start. An unexpected side effect of my journey was discovering quite how much Spanish I knew. When your thrown into a situation like getting a lift, where the person doesn't speak any English, its amazing the things you come out with! I picked up a few new words with every lift I got as well, and got plenty of tips on pronunciation. I got dropped off at a bigger service station about 50k down with a parting 'Suerte!' (good luck!) and straight away realised that now there was no turning back, I was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, with no services on the other side of the road, and if I didn't get a lift, I was sleeping here. But after taking and then ignoring some advice on where to stand from the petrol pump guys, I got a lift with a lovely English speaking couple. The (heavily pregnant) woman was very chatty and I spotted her German accent straight away. It turns out she'd come to Spain to learn Spanish for 3 months and ended up staying for 8 years, meeting her husband and starting a life here. Made me wonder how easy it'll be to leave after living here a year...

If I thought I was in the middle of nowhere before, now I really was. The servicio they dropped me at in the beautiful red/orange mountains between Madrid and Zaragosa, with little castles perched on steep atolls and dramatic drops into vast valleys, looked very remote indeed. But no sooner had I sat down with a sandwich after a confusing chat to the service station guy about whether or not I was on my way to see El Papa (the Pope, who was in Barcelona on Sunday), when a guy wondered over and offered me a lift to just outside Zaragosa. It was now about 3pm and I was getting a little nervous about all the short lifts and getting another once it got dark but the chances of me getting a lift direct from this spot was pretty slim. He turned out to be a forest firefighter on his way to run a marathon with his wife in Zaragosa (it does tend to be interesting types who pick you up in Spain) and we chatted away in halting Spanglish whilst driving through more incredible scenery. Its basically downhill all the way from Madrid, Europes highest capital city, to Barcelona on the coast, and the land is continually dropping away from mountains onto vast plains that then drop off again, and all a fantastic reddy orange that looks amazing in the evening sun. There's a huge windfarm just above Zaragosa which is pretty impressive too. So I was feeling pretty good about how things were going when he dropped me off at yet another Repsol garage just outside of Zaragosa, with the sun just setting behind the hills. And thats when things started to go a bit wrong.

With it being November, darkness falls very quickly and the temperature drops dramatically when the sun goes down, and an hour later I was still there, shivering and trying not to scare drivers at the pumps. Every single one claimed to be going to Zaragosa and not past it. I really wanted to get a lift direct to Barcelona, knowing that it would be very difficult to get another, but after a while I was just trying to get out of that place. Having been there now for 3 hours, I was just trying to get into Zaragosa but by now there were hardly even any cars pulling in. You know things aren't going well when you find yourself looking up 'anywhere' and 'desperate' in your English-Spanish dictionary. At 10.30, four and a half hours after getting dropped off, I admitted defeat and traipsed over to a nearby motel that I'd scoped out earlier.

The next morning, I tried the same place for half an hour before deciding the damn place was cursed and heading down the motorway in heavy wind to see if there was another sliproad to try. There wasn't. My face stinging from the wind and cold, I headed back to the garage wondering if I'd have to go to Zaragosa and get a train. The first woman I asked looked at me like I was an alien, and then unexpectedly, after talking to her husband, beckoned me over. I don't think I've ever been so glad of a lift!

She turned out to be an opera singer, and spent a good part of the way practicing her English by explaining what the songs on the stereo meant (“Hee love herr, hee buy herr theeng, but she no love heem!”). They dropped me off at a servicio with Monserrat (“the heart of Catalonia”) looming nearby and trucks full of pigs, sheep and cattle headed for Barcelona slaughter houses giving off a powerful smell. A couple more short lifts (an old couple and a young guy on his way to a poker tournament – “suerte!”) and I was in Barcelona! It had taken 2 days and 6 lifts but I'd do it again, its certainly an adventure, you meet all kinds of people and get a good workout of your Spanish.

I met the guys at the palace on top of a hill with a great view over Barcelona, a good place to start, and we headed off for some patas bravas, which are a much bigger deal in Barcelona than Madrid. The next day we took a bike tour of the city with a very random tour guide, whose English drifted between heavily accented and incomprehensible and descriptions ranged from interesting to surreal to simply baffling. I'm not that big on churches but the most impressive thing was definitely Gaudi's cathedral, the Sagrada Familia, still being built about 90 years after it was started. The old side looks incredible, like the stones melting and dripping off and whole casts of characters, fruit baskets on the top and lizards crawling down the sides, while the other side has the whole story of the crucifiction embedded in it. Barcelona feels like a different country to Madrid. Spain's, a big country and it looks and feels very different from the centre, the culture, the architecture, the plants, the air. Also, everyone speaks Catalan, which for someone just getting their head around Spanish is a nightmare! All in all, I have to say, I don't regret moving to Madrid rather than Barcalona which I was worried I might. It's very pretty and lively and a great place to go on holiday but Madrid's just more of a fully functioning major city. The coach journey home wasn't nearly as interesting as the trip there, but I did manage to get international editions of the Independent and Guardian to keep me busy for the 8 hours.

Matt Peel this is your personal mention

Quitting Smoking

I've been planning on quitting for a while now, and in Barcelona I decided that I shouldn't put it off any longer. So I had my last cigarette before my classes on Thursday and gave the rest of the packet to a student. I could probably write 10 pages on quitting smoking but I'll try to keep it brief. I've quit twice before, once for 11 months and once for 4, both times going cold turkey after reading The Easyway to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr, which is actually a really effective method. But I just couldn't face reading it a third bloody time and surely I know the score by now anyway. Cold turkey is the only way in my opinion (read the book for reasons), and its 20 a day or nothing for me. Also, I'd just been having a conversation with Mike, who passed through again this week on his way to fly to Mexico after his boat trip didn't work out, about my belief in free will and choice, and realised afterwards that if I really believed that then I should be able to quit, so its now a point of principle as well!

Lee and Luke, smoking whilst drinking

Its a weird thing, quitting smoking. It should be easy. All you have to do is not do something, but of course its actually incredibly difficult. And yesterday I was struggling quite a bit and felt like a social retard. I felt pretty tense and just couldn't focus on what people were actually saying to me. I do find though, that when you're really feeling like one, it helps immensely just to say to someone “I really want a cigarette”. We had people over round ours last night (hence the tinto verrano hangover) with a good deal of fags being smoked, but I wasn't as tempted as I expected actually. I think I've accepted the fact that I'm going to do it now, which is more than can be said for Lee and Luke who are supposedly quitting too (“I'm allowed when I'm drinking”). It is amazing though how much you realise your life revolves around smoking. I include cigarettes just subconsciously planning what I'm doing – go to shop, smoke cigarette, get on metro – or I buy a drink mainly to accompany a cigarette, and that takes a while to stop doing. I woke up really angry this morning because I'd dreamt I'd smoked a packet of Marlboro reds (a 10 pack, it was a very precise dream) and was furious with myself. It took a good 10 minutes to realise it was a dream, and I was much happier (but still hungover) after, and I think its good that that was my response! I'll keep you updated anyway.

Tying Things Up

I felt like I had good reason to celebrate last night because I just opened a bank account and paid my Social Security which marks a bit of a milestone for me – I've now done all the 'set up' stuff to live and work in Spain. No more running around to tax offices and sorting details for work, or manically looking round flats, I feel like I can relax a little. Flat, job, NIE number, social security, bank account, accomodation paperwork, phone, internet (sort of). It's all time consuming, expensive and a bit of an ordeal for the non-Spanish speaker. Opening a bank account was pretty easy actually, particularly with an English speaking bank person (cashier? banker?), although apparently la Caixa, who I'm with, isn't actually a bank... I tried to get the bank person to explain this but all I could get out of her was “its not a bank, its a caixa, you don't have them in England”. Eh? It gives you a card and so on though so I don't really care.

So its been a bit of a ride but now I'm ready, I can relax, and maybe start Spanish classes. It's definitely been worth it!