My Spanish Life.

Ok ok ok… I’m sorry. It’s harder to keep a blog up-to-date than I thought. So before I go into any detail, here is a dot point summation of some of the things I’ve been up to lately.

• You may have seen the death of a young anti-fa at the hands of fascists in Metro Legazpi – then again, if you’re in Australia, it probably didn’t make the news. Well, it wasn’t me, but I went to the antifa manifestacion (as a protest is called here) on November 17.
• I neglected to mention in my poorly written, but I was oh so tired, entry on Segovia and Salamanca that I also went to the Real Jardines in La Granja near Segovia. The most beautiful gardens I have ever been to.
• Work, work, work, – if I haven’t mentioned it I start at 8am and finish at 7.30pm four days a week. This means I leave home at 7.15 am and get home around 8.15 every day. I’ve wanted to murder both adults and childrens, but it’s still ok work.
• Reading a lot. Soon to start trying to read in Spanish.
• Experimenting with new foods like Cullas de la Madrilena – which is the best parts of the cow (maybe it was pig) - the hoof, the stomach and the nose  – hell, I don’t even know if I spelt it right. Also, the tail of the bull – fantastic, y’gotta try it. Morcilla (mmm, blood.. so good and so bad for you.. that’s not sarcasm by the way)
• Toledo – without a guide book – slightly less satisfactory than it could have been.
• Good bars, bad bars, bad clubs, bad clubs, bad clubs, and Spanish bars.
• mmm… what else? Spanish lessons every day. Draining but people keep telling me I’m improving. And then the proper Spanish lessons from my students like joder, gillipullas (sp?), cabron, cono, (with the n that my computer can’t do), marika, marikon,  etc etc – (if you’re offended by bad language, don’t look these up). I can now explain the difference between tu putta madre and de putta madre, and swear like a Spaniard in guiri costume.

Other than that, not a lot. I’m trying to organise Christmas with a friend in Lithuania – hopefully we’ll meet somewhere in between. But I’m not sure. If not, maybe Morocco, maybe France, or somewhere.

I promise to be more regular.

I’ve just returned from three days out of Madrid. It was absolutely fantastic to leave Madrid and see some of Spain. This weekend was a local holiday in Madrid… for what I can’t recall… which meant we had Thursday off from work plus puente on Friday. Luckily, I only teach one class on Fridays and it’s in a school thus I too had puente (means bridge – when a holiday falls on a Thursday and you take the Friday off).

My British friend, Tom, and I decided it was high time to make an effort to see some of Spain and decided to head to Segovia, Avila and Salamanca for the four days. With little planned – no rooms booked, no real time line, – we left Madrid, finally…, late Thursday afternoon.

Segovia

Segovia is a short trip from Madrid. It’s about 60 odd km and is home to the last Gothic Cathedral built in Europe, the Alcazar (a building that has served has a royal palace, a military training centre and a prison), and an 800m long Roman Aqueduct, built somewhere around the first century and up until a few years ago, still used!

Unfortunately, we hadn’t counted on the whole of Madrid coming to Segovia for the weekend – and spent a good period searching the streets for a room. Finally, my guide book saved us with a suggestion that turned out not only to have a room but also to be a reasonable price. We were even escorted to the room – which was in another building, a street or so from the hotel.

Next stop was food – not having eaten all day. We steered clear of the tourist restaurants, searching for a reasonable priced menu. We came across a little local restaurant – which had reasonably priced cochinillo asado (suckling pig) – a 16€ menu I think. A couple of bottles of wine, two courses later, we decided it was time to crash out.

Friday morning, we rose relatively early to have a look at this Roman aqueduct. As the oldest thing I have ever seen, it was spectactular. 2000 years old and only recently had it stopped being used. Plus it was built without the use of any mortar whatsoever – a marvel of the Roman ability to use keystones.

We journeyed on to Salamanca – the old university city. The philosopher, Unamuno went there and a professor Luis Fray was imprisoned and tortured during the Inquisition for five years. Upon returning to teaching, he started his next class with “As I was saying yesterday…” and continued on his merry way. It was all the seat of Franco’s government during the civil war.

Salamanca is a beautiful city, filled to the brim with huge 500-600 year old buildings. Every corner you turn appears new, which unfortunately resulted in us getting lost every ten minutes. Luckily, we had a map but it made the town seem 10 times larger than it actually was. This was particularly bad on the first night – when every Madrileno and his dog was there. It took us 2 and a half hours to find a hotel room. Everywhere, completo. Completo. Completo. It seriously looked like we would be sleeping in the car. But we were saved by a backstreet hotel, who had created a doble habitacion by adding to single beds. Dodgy but at least it was a room.

I do have some photos of the trip, but I’m having difficulty uploading. I will attach some asap (perhaps this w/end when I’m rested). On Monday, I have a Spanish exam. Not looking forward to it, but with significant study – instead of other options – I will hopefully be ok. I’m trying to talk more Spanish with my room mates, but with limited vocabulary, it’s difficult. There’s only so many ways you can say voy a la cama, soy cansado, que quieres etc without someone getting bored.

However, I no longer hear Spanish as a long string of words. I can distinguish the gaps and the voices have slowed down. I think this means I’m adjusting. I’m pretty sure my English is slowing down to an ultra slow pace. If I even try and talk at a normal pace with non-English speakers, they get the same look that I give when I hear Spanish. Y’know – that blank stare of confusion.

Well, I must head for bed. I’ve been slack with the blog of late, but it is tiring trying to work, live and communicate.

BTW, you can see some photos here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19812&l=bb8ca&id=627244273  (Salamanca)

and here

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=19810&l=8fa8f&id=627244273 (Segovia)