Friday, March 16, 2012

Sunday feelings on a Friday!

I have had a very lazy day. I didn't get dressed, and I'm going to go to bed in a minute. Not working Fridays is amazing! Because if you go out on Thursday night, then Friday feels like Sunday, then you've got Saturday and Sunday again, and this weekend we're off Monday as well!! Happy happy happy face.

I was pretty tired after work yesterday, hadn't gone home in between classes so it was a long day, out of the house from 7.30 till 8pm. Slumped on the living room floor with a cup of tea and my big jumper, with no desire to get up, I ended up making plans to meet friends for drinks after tea. I don't understand how it happens!  So we did go out for drinks, and even after saying repeatedly I wasn't going out, I ended up suggesting the place to go next, leading everyone there, and getting dancey on the mostly-empty dancefloor. Where is my sensible side? I couldn't help it though, it was Ya'sta on a Thursday night, which as I've told you before, is great. So we danced.

What's great too is that I spent 6 euros. Pretty sure I owe someone a drink or two, but I might go out with only 6 euros on me more often. This morning I had a bit of a headache but soothed it with tomato on toast, tea, pineapple, coffee and biscuits. And more tea. I was going to go for a run (I know, out of character! Needless to say it was not my idea) but my flatmate couldn't find her trainers. What A Shame. I'm not sure how the rest of the day disappeared, but I did a quick drawing, and wrote a new cv, and started hunting for summer jobs. Oh yes, and I painted some petals purple, and primed some boards to paint on, and hung up my washing. And made some soup and ate some soup and then- the best bit- watched Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with my flatmate and some dulce de leche ice cream. That's not bad for a lazy day, except that I didn't plan any classes... and I need to go and have a shower now because one of the tiny flaws with this flat is that the boiler only holds enough water for one shower, and two of us are dirty and have to work early tomorrow.

I hope you enjoyed that account of my day.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Bleeding children and sticky floors...


I've moved house! My new flat is lovely, big, and feels like home. I live with one of my best friends and another lives close enough to pop in whenever. We have young friendly neighbours who didn't mind that we had about 35 people round for a housewarming party last night. The party was great, lots of people I didn't know but enough of my own friends too, lots of well-made mojitos and- predictably, with so many musicians about- a bit of singing*. We kind of have two living rooms, one that’s really pretty with a balcony which leads onto a darker, bigger one that has no furniture in (because we don’t have any spare) which turned out to be perfect for a party, and everyone was envious, which I like. (Hear me, friends around the world, I have a lovely flat, come and visit!)

At about 3am we decided to go dancing and all cleared out to a club called TaboĆ³ that I'd never heard of, but was cool. The music was mainly techno, but with live sax and congas on top! I think the place was India themed, but there were dragons above the bar so I can't be sure. Had a bit of a dance and some expensive and wholly unnecessary drinks. Ended up finally going to bed at about half 7, as it was getting uncomfortably light outside, very glad to be able to close out the morning with my big shutters.

Today was mainly mopping up the sticky floors of last night, and picking mint leaves out of cups, the sink and off kitchen surfaces, and later making and eating a few rounds of crepes to cure the hangovers. Tidying up revealed a number of full and half full bottles of spirits; turns out house parties can be profitable! We now have a well-stocked mini bar, and a lot of fizzy juice to use up. We've also been left with a guitar, but I imagine someone's going to want that back.

Recently, it's been quite busy as usual, but more so because of moving. Since having packed up my old room my piles of important notes and lists haven't emerged from the box I stacked them into, which means my mind hasn't been particularly organised. And the internet here doesn't like my laptop, so I'm feeling a bit out of touch. Tomorrow morning I have a lot to do including buying a mattress, because after over a week on an airbed my body feels like it's suffering a bit. Luckily I'm free all day until half 3 because- finally- I have finished my movement class!

It was a dramatic last class on Wednesday. I was meeting the new teacher there to introduce her to the kids, the teachers and the labyrinthine school and she was late so the kids had plenty of time to get very overexcited. (Overexcited, enthusiastic, and energetic are my words of choice for parents when I really want to say your child is an uncontrollable maniac in my class.) This meant that when we got to the gym, instead of the majority taking their shoes off and noisily getting ready to start while a couple went mental, they all went mental. I went to drag a child down off the tall heap of mats and when I turned back around, a sweet little 5 year old was clutching her face, bawling, and dripping a puddle of blood onto the floor. The kids told me that she and her friend had bumped heads. I don't know what the other girl has under her hair but it must be bloody sharp, because this one was bleeding, a lot.

Having no tissues and knowing not to expect there to be toilet roll in a school toilet in Madrid, I stripped off my jumper and started to mop up the mess, trying to distract the girl from noticing the quantity of blood and her horrified, gawping classmates. I got her rinsed off in the bathroom then headed upstairs to try and find someone with first aid know-how or at the least an anti-septic wipe. It had emerged from under the blood there was a fairly big gash above her eyebrow, and suddenly all I could think of were the inevitable phone calls from parents, sueing me, demanding to know how I ruined their daughter's pretty face in what is meant to be an English class, taught by a competent teacher...
Upstairs we found a teacher coming out of the bathroom and after I explained what had happened she took charge and took the girl to get some ice and stuff, and I went back to the gym to take back the class from the poor new teacher, who was looking a bit startled, but probably less so than me. And less bloody.

Turns out the girl had to go to hospital to get stitches so of course I called my boss and told her, expecting to at the very least have to fill in an incidence report or something, but no, this is Spain, no pasa nada. Excellent.

Ooft, just got a wave of hangover, time to stop gazing at the laptop screen and maybe just shut my eyes for a bit. . .

*My flatmate's boyfriend is in a band that's actually famous, apparently!