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.

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 Taboó 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!

It is not pancake day, you are mistaken.

What really is carnival? I know it's the big party and parade and dancing and stuff they do big in Brazil, but for me here it seems to mean people in fancy dress and adding feathers to any art project. Last week was Valetine's themed, this week carnaval, no wonder I've practically missed Pancake Day!

So I've decided to postpone Pancake Day to the weekend. It's one of my favourite days of the year, honestly, I think sometimes I prefer it to my birthday. So, seeing as I'm moving into my new flat on Friday (!!!) it will be a good start to New Stuff of 2012 to make a huge batch of pancakes. Providing the cooker works, and I can find kitchen equipment... damn I'd forgotten about that, I don't have any bowls, forks, pans or anything and my flatmate isn't moving in until Monday! I don't have a bed either, which maybe should be more of a worry. Hmmm. I just don't have much time before Friday to sort out any of this, and I have no money either, which is going to be fairly restrictive. But I got the keys today, there is electricity (though no lightbulbs) and a new washing machine and a front door doorknob will be fitted this week. Woohoo!
Need to get packing...

Things that make me happy.

Things that make me happy:

When D brings in sugar paper money to our little class and gives me some.
When I see the bus coming as I'm crossing the road to the bus stop.
It being light and almost sunny when I leave for work on a Saturday morning.
The prospect of not having to do my lunchtime class anymore.
Painting.

Things that don't:

The gas running out when I'm in the shower and having shampoo in my hair, and having to go outside onto the balcony, at 6:50, at minus 3 degrees, to change the canister.
Teaching my lunchtime class every Monday and Wednesday until the next teacher starts.
Having to go outside another morning, this time at 7:45, to swap the boiler back onto the full canister of gas so I can shower, because someone took it off the night before.
The difficulty of finding real turpentine.

Flashbacks

My memory is faulty. I proudly told someone yesterday that when we went out on Saturday i didn't spend too much money because we drank at the party then didn't buy anything at the place. Lies! I had forgotten, so honest lies, but oh dear, how selective my brain is.
I've just been reminded about not only the fact that I had a drink but that I accidentally drank someone else's (mine had a lemon in, hers didn't), and also- shocking that I forgot really- that someone pushed me!

For no reason, a girl just pushed me hard from behind on the dance floor. I was not bumping into her, I wasn't looking at her, I wasn't even dancing obnoxiously, I was, as my friend put it, just kind of swaying. So she pushed me and I almost fell and I'm pretty sure we gave her hell for it. Why are people needlessly aggressive towards me?! I try my hardest not to be an idiot foreigner but I'm clearly failing- remember the El Tigre incident?!

So far all the anger comes from the girls; the only trouble any boy gave me was that he kept trying to hold my hand, sneakily, from behind while we were dancing back-to-back, separately in 2 separate circles, which I thought was weird. It was as if he thought we were having a secret affair behind our friends' backs, but we definitely weren't.

If anything else is revealed to me I'll let you know.

Blues, the good type

On Thursday night I went with some friends to see a blues band at La Coquette*, and it was so good! I hadn't seen any live music for ages, and now I want to be a musician again. It happens every time, that and fancying the moustached band members. The band were great, but I can't remember what they're called! Definitely want to go back, it had a really nice atmosphere.


Did I tell you I'm moving house? Pretty sure I did. I'm imagining where all our stuff will go, what to bring over from Scotland to make it really feel like home, what bedclothes to buy in IKEA, etc... and keep forgetting that priority #1 is a mattress. At first I thought I'll need to buy a whole bed, but-  it can't be that hard to build a bed, can it? We'll see.


I wish there was a better rugby pub in Madrid, or that I could magically hop back to Scotland for each game. The one I was in today has staff who are like greedy hawks, as soon as your glass is half empty you can feel their 'buy another or get out' thoughts boring into your skull. Though if we had won I'm sure I wouldn't care! A try is a try at least.

Last night I went to a house party with the girls I work with at one of my many jobs. The flat was amazing, it has one of those showers that have jets that come from the sides, I was tempted to just get in right then. But it was odd because I think there was one Spaniard, one Brazilian, and the rest of us were Brits. It was the most English speakers all together I've seen in ages! And unexpectedly, I wasn't bothered. (At Christmas when I went to the pub i had to be dragged away, talking at top speed at anyone who looked at me, like I had too many English words to fit in my head.) Instead of being sociable we gossiped amongst ourselves and drank. For some reason recently I've been straying from my usual rum and drinking gin, or in this case, vodka I had leftover from another night. No more. Rum is my friend, it doesn't make me fall asleep in taxis or feel rough the next day. Vodka, unless you are caramel flavoured, I do not want you. Gin- you are nice but you make me fuzzy and almost immediately headachey. No thank you.

Anyway we went from the party to Rock and Roll Radio Club at Alonso Martinez and that was Fun. They played loads of old music and we danced our thick socks off. (It's freezing here at the moment, I am getting through lots of socks washing from layering them up.) I eventually left to get a taxi just before 6, and luckily the driver had a decent memory when i told him my address because I promptly fell asleep until he woke me, parked right outside my door. I hope I wasn't speaking or snoring. Lucky for me he was a nice taxi man and the meter only said 9 euros something so it's evident he didn't cruise around running up the charges while I slept. Thanks taxi man!

I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's today to soothe my hangover, it is so lovely.

 

 

Now I'm writing this while I wait for Glee to load. Maybe by midnight I'll get around to doing the things that I've written in my diary to do since Tuesday.





*La Coquette, number 14 on Calle de las Hileras.

I want a bath sofa!

Fizzy fizzy, good karma please!

Oh I AM TIRED but still fizzing a bit with nervous energy- I just did my movement class, that I normally do two lunchtimes a week, as a show for parents. So, picture me in my lovely p.e. kit and with Siberian wind-slapped red cheeks. Picture a big primary school basement gym with a green floor, with benches around the edges and big dance-studio style mirrors on two walls. One cd player, some foam coloured stars, a book, and a bag of scarves. Then add 15 tired Spanish children at the end of a long week and various family members, coats and wooly hats.

To be fair it went quite well, the parents on benches provided a barrier between the kids and the mats and jumping-horse thing, and some of them told their kids off when they were ignoring me. I found A Lot of nervous energy and jumped around like a maniac to the songs and tried not to make eye contact with the adults in the room. I tried to pretend they weren't there.
Because I was so hyper and the kids couldn't run so far away we got through the class in about a third of the time it normally takes, so maybe now the parents think they aren't getting their money's worth... maybe they'll stop sending their kids to class, that'd be nice.

Big sigh of relief that's over!

And, I don't want to jinx it, but we saw a niiiiiice flat today that I would very much like to live in, and we have to wait to Monday to hear if they'll take us with just one month's worth of deposit. Fingers crossed please, and I'll be building up as much good karma as possible this weekend. If I owe you a favour, now is the time to cash it in.

It's meant to be- we'd met to go for a walk around, looking for flats with 'to let' signs on, and stopped outside one with a browned old sign on and were phoning the number just in case. A woman stopped outside the door just then and was looking for her keys. No answer on the phone and we both thought, let's ask her if she knows anything, and lo and behold she was the woman! She let us in to see the flat right then and miraculously it turned out to be nice, with massive wardrobes and balconies with plant-pots and big blue inside shutters and not too far out of budget! So, I'll let you know on Monday if I'm extremely happy and packing or crying, gutted. x