A weekend of stereotyping!

Well I did promise I would blog about my trip to Granada, so here I am blogging!


So I slept on the flight out there (despite some French woman seriously taking the mickey behind me and laughing every time I came round then fell asleep again), then had a very strong coffee in Malaga airport, then got on the bus to Granada and slept again! As such, when I got there I didn't feel too rough, which I personally consider a miracle. Bex was there to meet me, and we went for some cheeky tapas with Jack as you get a free tapas with every drink in Granada (and the Spanish wonder why their economy is so far down the drain...) We had a good old wander round Granada in the afternoon and saw a lot of people dressed in traditional flamenco outfits, but we couldn't find out if there was a fiesta happening. 


On Sunday I went up to the Alhambra with Flat Ted, and it was absolutely stunning! I've finally fulfilled one of my ambitions, I've always wanted to go there. I spent ages there wandering round among the thousands of tourists, filled a memory card with pictures and ran my batteries down (good job I always have spares of everything!) Then I met up with Bex again and more tapas happened, then we sat in and watched the new TinTin film as neither of us had seen it, which is just ridiculous given Bex has lived in Belgium (no, TinTin is NOT French!) and many a French A-level oral class was spent pouring over comic strips with Guillaume!


Monday was spent walking down from the Alhambra to take pictures of the pretty views, and then we hit the shops. I've had a disaster with most of my shoes, my trainers literally had holes in the bottom of them! So I got new trainers and a pair of sandals while I was in a country where I could afford to buy them, as well as some other souvenirs. Bex was very patient with me while we scouted all of Granada's shoe shops (of which there were quite a few!) and we had more tapas after to regain our strength!


Then we walked up to a couple of the view points over the city and we watched the sun set while having a good old chin wag about life, the universe and everything. It really is always fantastic to see other Lancaster people, as I think I said after my trip to see Lorraine and Caz in Lyon (or maybe I forgot to blog about that? That happened last week anyway, a quick day trip to Lyon for a nosy at where I could have gone) Seeing other people going through the same thing always helps, and in a strange sort of way it is like group therapy! This is why as much as people say 'don't hang around with English people', sometimes you just have to for your own sanity. 


Anyway, here's a shocking fact: 4 weeks today I'll be back in the Motherland. Anyone know how that happened? It feels like I've been a Fisher out of England since forever, but equally I can remember having to set off on the 2nd September like it was yesterday (and I still feel a little traumatized when I remember my dear landlord not having the keys to the apartment...) But, somehow we survive. 


Very few things have rattled me recently, but one thing has. Someone from England asked me how I was, and I said 'fine thanks, just looking forward to going home'. To which they responded 'yes but you've been looking forward to that all year'. One the one foot, they weren't wrong. I have been looking forward to the end since I arrived. But, isn't that what we do in life? When we're at uni everyone's looking towards graduation or moving on to the next qualification, at work everyone's looking towards the next weekend, the next holiday. Revelling in the moment is actually a very hard thing to do, and something we don't do very often when you come to think about it. I look forward to the end because it brings me one step closer to being back around people I know and love, which leads me closer to graduation, which means being in charge of the rest of my life. If I end up back in Geneva, then great! It's not that I've not enjoyed myself here, it's just that four months is nothing - limbo. You don't know whether to bother settling in properly or not, because it's not a long time, and everyone here pretty much made their friends at the start of the year so it's hard to break into. I'm looking forward to me being in charge of my life. Is that such a bad thing? 


I'll say it again, it's very easy to judge when you're not here. So watch what you say or you might find yourself immortalised in my blog! 

A night in the airport...

Ay ay ay! (As the Spanish would say)


Sorry once again for the long gap between blog posts, I am a bad blogger! The main reason for this lack of anything was pretty well down to a certain project that has been hovering round like the smell of garlic: fine when you're cooking but by the next morning it makes you want to retch, slap your last night self and demand to know why you didn't clean the garlic crusher the night before. Anyway. The project is done and dusted, and I even got it bound (was dirt cheap at the uni print shop - about the only thing there that is). So it is officially out of my life until I have to do an oral presentation on it in the exam period *sigh*. By then my enthusiasm might have come back.


Currently, (at 00.29  BST+1) I am sat in Geneva airport. Why, you may ask. Why indeed. This weekend I'm off to Granada to see Bex and Jack et al, and all the flights to Malaga (which is where you have to fly to, then get a bus to Granada) leave at 6.10am. Fine, you may think. However, none of the flaming buses get to the airport before 6am (and of course, my gate closes at 5.40), so I had to get one of the last buses Friday has to offer, and it's a night in the airport job. Technically, the airport is closed from midnight till 4am, but so far no one's come to tell us to get out (and they'll have a job on shifting the bloke in the corner who is asleep). Luckily, staying up till 4am wasn't a problem last night, so it shouldn't be tonight either. I might be sad and start a queue for going through security from 4am, as coffee and croissants undoubtedly lie on the other side... 


So, not much else to report, other than it's only 4 weeks and 5 days till I come back to the Motherland for good... no more year abroad. The big Year Abroad Monster that I panicked about pretty much from A-levels to now will have passed and I'll still be alive at the end of it! Now no one saw that one coming ;)


Will blog after I get back to Geneva on Tuesday, I should have something more exciting to say then! Bonne nuit tout le monde! xxx