Starting over.

Alright kids, here’s the deal: (I don’t know why I just said that, forgive me?)

I arrived in Madrid! 12 days ago, around midnight. 

Got to work straight away on my conversation skills, chatting to the taxi driver about unemployment and au-pairing. At least that’s what I chatted about, he might have been saying anything.

Then on arriving at the hostel I was greeted by a lovely boy who had great patience with my language ‘skills’ and heaved my extremely large case up the stairs. I must have seemed looney; giggling about everything, I was just so excited! 

The FEAR that suddenly overcame me on the flight over (why am I doing this I can’t speak any Spanish I don’t know anyone I’m going to be that boring silent creepy person standing in the corner trying to make friends without saying a word laughing at all the wrong places and I have no-where to live my clothes are creased and I have to have interviews where will I find an iron and I can’t teach I don’t even like children and I forgot a towel will I have to dry myself on a bathmat) turned into pure JOY at having got there and hearing things like ‘tapas’ and ‘flamenco’ and ‘churros’. Unfortunately as it was one o'clock I had to go to bed, not-so-silently crashing into my bunk bed in my shared dorm.

Lucky for me, next morning I hired a towel and went to meet my Spanish friend, who found me a flat pronto, with added benefits of living with Very Holy Flatmates. Well, in name anyway. Call us Jesus Mary and Joseph, and Mercedez, but I’m not sure who she was in the bible?

Having met a fellow Scot in the hostel we immediately made friends (as you do when new in a city) hung out all week exploring bars and cafes, until I moved into my flat. So far I’ve had 2 interviews, taught 2 classes (which went tolerably well), eaten countless fried squid-type things, met 3 different groups of Spanish people (friends of Fiona, Martin and Jose Luis) and spoken to them with varying degrees of success, done some food shopping, stuck postcards on my walls, and trawled from administrative building to another trying to get an ID number, travel card and social security sorted.

It is also HOT. I like it, but I can’t cope with it when I actually have things to do.

Helpfully due to my various jobs not starting till next week or even October, I have a bit of time to finally write to you, and plan some art classes. That’s what I’m here for by the way, teaching ‘fun’ English to small children with songs and exaggerated hand movements and stuff 

(think me jumping around a room oo-oo-ee-ing like a monkey and a bunch of kids looking at me not knowing whether to laugh or not.) 

But also art classes in English, which will be fun. So far I’ve planned some messy hand painting stuff and a bit of wax relief fish making. Slightly dubious about the 2-3 year old class though,; surely this will just be an exercise in teaching them not to eat paint?

So that was a bit of a long update, I don’t know if you’re even interested, but if you are please comment to give me some sort of direction for this ‘blog’ as it’s in danger of becoming a rambling mess, as usual…

New words of the week:
Resaca = hangover.
-Voy a trabajar manana con resaca (I’m going to work with a hangover tomorrow)
-Estoy resacosa (I’m hungover)

Edredon = duvet.

Tener prisa= to be in a hurry

Love at Last!

Earlier in the year I said I liked Paris, I enjoyed living here, but I didn't love it. Well now I love it!
Sunshine is the key to real love it seems. And sunsets.



 I decided this while sitting in the park next to Shakespeare and Co., eating falafel, hearing Notre Dame's organ and bells in the background, on a bank holiday Monday, with a hangover and laughing to myself about the nights before.

I'm not so sad to be leaving, partly because I'm moving onto another terrifically exciting adventure in Madrid. But also because I know we'll see each other again soon, we'll always be friends, with lots of memories and a few secrets.

So to Paris and friends, aquaintences, and randoms we've met along the way... au revoir and thanks for all the crepes.

The things I'll miss the most...


orange skies

crossing the many bridges over the Seine

the green chairs in the parks

eating croissants on the banks of the river in the sun

walking home at night past Notre Dame

drinking tea and eating biscuits in my studio with a friend or two

my local pub up the road with it's lovely people and impromptu nights out

the happiness I feel when someone says 'oh la la'

meeting really interesting people

surprising people with the size of my studio

falafel and vintage shops in Marais

the really buttery St Michel biscuits that the shop next door sells at hugely inflated price after Monoprix shuts

Amorino gelato: speculos and caramello

speculos biscuits

coffee in cafes

eating out really well for cheap(ish)




I already miss all the girls who left before me, and I'll miss the one I'm leaving behind!






I won't miss...

the price of a pint
being asked the same questions by boys in bars-
"English? So where are you from? Are you on holiday? Are you studying? So, what are you doing here? What? Why? Do you speak French? You drink a lot you English, no? Whisky?"

-although maybe I will miss that a wee bit, because it is funny.

All change!

Hello,
To anyone who may read this, sorry for being so unupdateful. Moving country is tiring, and 32 degree weather does not encourage me to sit for long at this dangerously overheating laptop. I'm sure I wrote a last Paris post and hid it somewhere for when I got back on the internet, so I will attempt to find it, tie up loose ends and begin the next. xx
PS. It's going to be along the lines of I Love Madrid. Just a warning.

Last Nights Out

Paris you are too good to me. And bad for me. My body cannot take any more drinking. Lucky I've got more Irn Bru and strawberry tart left over... Thank you for two consecutive nights of total madness. I don't even know how to put it into words.

(I began writing this on waking from a few hours sleep after the second of said nights- I might have still been a bit drunk.)

On Saturday night I went to Wos to celebrate and share my utter joy at having finished my last ever shift as an au pair. I sat, with my pint, happy as Larry (happy as Mairi) chatting to Emma and Matty behind the bar and a guy who was doing the same beside me.

We ended up chatting all night, about all sorts. I told him my childrens' story idea about the boy who though he was a ladybird, he told me about Russia, and how being Armenian but not looking it, like him, is the best possible situation, and how there are so many hot girls and too many fat ugly men. We discussed driving bad cars. He's rich, it seems. His grandad makes cognac, he made me taste 'the good stuff'. When I apologised that though I appreciated the gesture, the supposed chocolateyness was lost on me, he admitted he gave me the cheap stuff; only the 200 euro bottle- he knew I wouldn't have appreciated the 1000 euro one! At this point my memory is telling me he said 10,000 euro, but I'm just not letting myself believe that... We talked about imaginary French boyfriends and how he's given up having girlfriends because it's too expensive. He thinks economically, I don't, but I did laugh at a maths-based joke.
An interesting night, after only going out to have a pint by myself.

I'm telling you this to back up my claim that in Paris you meet a lot of people you wouldn't otherwise- I do anyway. More later:

Sunday night was my official leaving night, as it was the night Claire wasn't working. Dinner was a nice burger, cocktails and a sugary coffee, and off we went to Wos. The football was finishing, Barcelona versus Real Madrid, and that reminded me how much I love shouting abuse at the ref in Spanish.

The crowd cleared a bit and we got our bar seats and some wine and were discussing how boring it is to be asked the exact same questions every time a guy speaks to you in a bar- that is, if you are a foreigner in Paris. (It's fairly generic, and seems to be based on what you learn in standard grade- 'who, why, what, where, how long' questions.)
Quick as a flash, someone appeared to do exactly that! After telling us off because it's "not French" to drink wine at that time, (around midnight) 'Snow White' came and began talking to us, mainly to Claire because I figured if I stayed silent he'd think I didn't understand French therefore I wouldn't have to discuss the odd name choice. Claire demanded to see ID, which showed him to be Maxim, which is much better. His said his jokes were all about skin colour, said "the riots in London are funny, no?" and got himself into a heated debate.

We ended up chatting to the group of them, and among them: someone who got the highest marks in a clever subject (finance, economics?) in the whole of Morocco, a boy who likes to dance, one who is going to the States to work in real estate and finance because it pays more and "money is the most important thing"... My point- so many people come to Paris and being foreigners we don't quite end up in the same situations as we would at home, so we mix in very interesting circles!

At closing time our friend the barman suggested a little bar around the corner that stays open till 5am, it turned out to be the one and only South African bar in Paris, 'Pomme d'Eve'. Claire made me drink some sort of fruity baileys (?) and we danced. On the way to the bar we passed the Pantheon and thought it a
perfect spot for a last-night-out-in-Paris-together photo shoot. It was. Spinning and twirling in front of Pantheon, sitting on the chains, hanging off the statues. (Later accidentally deleting the photos= heart-wrenching.)

We met friends of friends in the bar and decided, at very early in the morning, to go to the flat of the one who lived the closest, for some pasta, and a creme caramel for pudding. There was an obscene amount of out-of-date chocolate and iced tea in that flat; I'm still not sure why.

After eating we left and came back here, our new friend came with us on his bike, helped me get my suitcase down the stairs and admired my painting of the ladybird boy. He left. Claire made me a multivitamin, I made her tea. We both fell asleep sitting up, she jerked awake and spilt her tea on herself. We crashed, basically. She went home armed with a water filter jug, a book, sugar, lentils and couscous, around 7.30am.
I went to bed and woke up a few hours later, in awe of my last weekend in Paris.

The countdown is on.

I'm listening to The Sound of Music- right now it's the one where Maria's saying "I have confidence in me, I can do this children thing, easy peasy, aye sure." If I'd listened to this at any point during the year I'd probably have been angered by the annoying children- give a nanny a break! But now, with 5 shifts to go, I can deal with nanny and child references. I have one 5.45am start shift, one all day shift, and 3 afternoons to go. I've packed my sleeping bag and my teapot.

And even though I could be shirking my au pair responsibilities - what can they do, I'm leaving anyway- I've been a blooming good au pair. We painted a masterpiece, had an english lesson each, and went twice to the park yesterday, and they watched Robin Hood while I hoovered their room and changed their beds.


I'll definitely not miss being an au pair, but Oscar said to me yesterday "I really really like you" and I almost cried. Is it crazy of me to suggest annual trips to Scotland for both of them?! Will I regret it if I do? Will they expect me to pay for it?

Sorry to deviate, but...

London.

This is people pushing it, realising how little can be done to stop them, and getting high on the thrill of destruction. A failure of the police or a lack of numbers. Politicians absent. The army? To be used at home surely, not just abroad.

People gain a new tv, a top, pair of shoes, a suit, some food. People lose a livelihood, a house, a job, money, a life, hope. People lose faith in the country as it loses safety and security. Britain loses it's good reputation. (Britain loses money. People lose jobs.)

It's disgusting. People attacking people. For what reason? Yes people are disillusioned, disaffected, angry, jobless, poor, deprived, bitter, powerless and desperate. People are also greedy, selfish, destructive, mindless, terrifying. Other people are sad and disappointed, horrified by what people can do, are doing.

The last time London looked like this was the Second World War. That was a tragedy. This is self-inflicted.

Excuses, excuses...

I make excuses all the time. Some of the time they're harmless little lies, "oh sorry I can't talk just now my tea's ready and I have to go to work"... But a lot of the time they're completely honest real reasons, not even excuses, mostly involving money and not having enough of it.

Talking to Claire and Laura the other day made me notice that we talk about money a lot. It's not because we're all money-hungry capitalists who don't want anything else- the opposite really.
We've taken badly or barely-paid jobs for the benefits of living in a foreign land, lunching on cheese, and drinking by the Seine or the sea, living in the 'city of light'. (Or in a shared caravan, which I reckon is less of a benefit than a daily struggle.) The thing is, I bet when you have enough money for everyday living you don't talk about it as much- you'll be spending the time we use talking about money just spending it.

I'm passing up an evening at the pub and a half pint for 3.50; therefore I talk about that 3 euros and fifty cents that I've just saved; I make comparisons between various possibilities for that money, (3 bottles of fresh milk would leave me with 29 cents, which I could then add to my collection of centimes for the stamp machine) and thus convince myself that I'm much better off sitting in, on my own, drinking tea with disgusting UHT milk. As I'm leaving tomorrow evening and it's only sold here in massive bottles, I cannot justify buying the milk I've just saved up for. I'll appreciate it when I get back though.

No-one's even asking me for excuses today, as I have no friends to invite me to do anything. Woe is me. It's just that I feel guilty for sitting in my studio all day, eating chocolate digestives (I didn't buy them- they were a luxury gift!!) pretending to pack, half-heartedly taking postcards off the walls, when Paris is outside. But I'll say it again- Paris is blooming expensive!!

For goodness sake, I'm writing to myself about making excuses to myself about doing nothing. Sorry everyone, this is boring.