Sorry for the lack of blogging. You'd have thought I'd have been on here every night since I arrived but sadly I've been so tired it's just not happened!
Emily and I have spent a lovely few days exploring the area in the simplest way possible. Saturday we left the piso and turned left, Sunday we turned right instead! Methodical, eh? We came across a million parks (randomly in the middle of the avenida), more benches than I care to count, and many many closed shops. Everything here closes at midday on Saturday and all day Sunday, but in fairness things aren't all that cheap here, given it's practically one euro to the pound. It's almost depressing that you don't have to do mental conversions in your head.
Anyway, Emily, in her marvellous style, found me Ben and Jerrys. I've no idea how she did it. But she did. What would I have done without her this weekend??? It was sad saying bye to her and putting her in a taxi with 'pervy McJuan' (actually, when he turned up, he seemed quite nice!), and let's just say I was literally crippled with a bout of 'why the blooming heck did I choose this degree, I'm going to email Olga (Spanish teacher) and tell her I can't cope, am moving back to England pronto and changing my degree to something that probably won't get me a job'. But then I had to pull myself together to go and sign on at the uni, so that was the end of that really. For the first time since getting here, some plonker said 'ayyyy guapa!' at me (oi, fitty! is a rough translation). I'm not sure whether to be offended that it's taken three days, or disgusted that it's happened at all. Hmm. Answers at the end of this blog post please!
I met some English people today (yes I know, the Spanish speaking starts next week, give me a break!) and we had a good old British moan about how we were finding things. I had my first coffee of the semester (un cafe con leche) which tastes like English coffee. But as all of us import coffee, it's hardly surprising. And after that I felt much better. Onward-ho I suppose. I'm eating more than I have done recently. Stupid culture shock. Everything's just a little bit weird, and I've had a lot of trouble eating anything. Obviously I forced stuff down, knowing that this was exactly how I felt the first time I went to France and that I'd get over it eventually. Well it looks as if I am. I was contemplating buying Heinz baked beans (yes you can get them here) just to see if something familiar would go down better, but actually I got a pasta thing that has cheddar in. You can't get cheddar over here (or at least I haven't found it yet) and, as my dad would attest to, there is ALWAYS mature cheddar in our fridge at home. So this is a tricky situation, as you can imagine. But anyway, ate this pasta business and am about to go help myself to some Lays (the equvalent of Walker's crisps, but better). Tomorrow I may also make my way to Lidl, as the supermarket here is OK, just a bit on the expensive side for some things. Though chicken was cheap (and HUGE portions).
Tomorrow I get to go to an official welcome and a trip to the town hall (el ayuntamiento. I remember using that in my AS level role-play... strange what you remember!). So, hasta luego bloggeros (clearly the Spanish term for a blogger. Clearly.) xxxxx
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