The Chill Sets In…

It’s starting to get chilly here in ol’ Alicante. It’s been as cold as 15°C during the day…I know, arctic. OK, compared to back in England with its 5s to 10s and wind and rain, my 15 degrees seems pretty nice. However, you will (should you come here) have acclimatised to the rather impressive, or oppressive, heat during the first couple of months. So a day of 15° with wind and/or rain feels pretty cold in comparison, and certainly warrants the use of a large coat/jumper/scarf. It has to be noted that in the last week, everyday has had its chill in the shade, but the vast, Spanish sky of Alicante has always been sin nubes and lleno de sol, and I have still been able to wear t-shirts and notice people still on the beach. That’s December in Alicante for you!

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I was an addict. I had a dark passenger within me. It made me use, and I liked it. I have recently overcome my fiendish desires and filled it with better things. People urged me to stop, compelled me, but I couldn’t, I carried on. Further and further I feel into my addiction. I was addicted…I was addicted to Ensalada Rusa (Russian Salad). Oh, it’s creamy, meaty, tasty, sometimes crunchy, sometimes smooth, goodness. My lord, I had it most days. I sampled it at every place I frequented. But now I am clean, I have found help, I have discovered redemption. Although, I still have my bad days when I cascade back into the darkness and wallow in the delights of the Ensalada Rusa.

 

Also these past couple of weeks I have…here comes another list…

·        Discovered new ways to eat steak – Massage a fillet steak in salt, pepper and crushed garlic; put chips (sprinkled generously with herbs, spices and more garlic) in the oven; fry steaks for four minutes on both sides for medium; create my reggae reggae sauce – take some reggae reggae sauce, add cream/greek yogurt and some butter, some red wine, some more garlic if you like and a few, healthy splodges of Worcester Sauce and heat; serve together. Try it; it’s so delicious it hurts. Well, it can do…it’s quite spicy.

·        Purchased a fat Puffa jacket to bear the brunt of the -19°C temperatures when I go to Voronezh (Russia) in March.

·        Had our friends Meg and Selina visit from Madrid, which was nice.

·        Had the internet, albeit stolen internet, disappear from our flat. To say it was annoying is putting it lightly. I literally could have selected any country from a map whose name I didn’t really like; for example Kyrgyzstan, Eritrea, Yemen or France, and wipe it and its inhabitants of the face of said map without a flicker of emotion or a smidgeon of giving a crap.     I miss the internet.

Other places visited these last couple of weeks included:

Tobarca: We have visited this charming little island twice now, and I strongly recommend it. For €17 you take a small passenger ferry (at 11:30 in the morning) for an hour and a half in a straight line away from Alicante. You get to spend a few hours on the bedazzling little rock, then take the 4:30 return ferry back home. The island itself is now one of my favourite places in the world; it could be any tiny island off the coast of Scotland, with its green grass and cliffs. There is a little Famous Five-esque cove where we climbed about, made sand castles and skimmed stones (all the while looking out for smugglers and pirates). There are local cats and dogs and finches abound on Tobarca – in fact one finch made it into my “Top Wildlife Experiences” book by (with me holding lonely, uneaten crumbs) sitting next my hand, one foot on my little finger, nibbling contentedly while the others frittered and flittered about timorously. There are ruined houses, desolate lighthouses, little corner shops and lazy fishing boats on Tobarca. It is quite simply, if you’re ready for an Enid Blyton adventure (we named ourselves “The Thrilling Three”), a magical little place.

 

The MARQ: This is Alicante’s little (pre) history museum, and even won the ‘Best museum in Europe award’ (not official name) a couple of years ago. It is quaint, detailed and smart and, for about one pound a pop, well worth having a look at.

 

The Argentinean Steak House: This place surrounded itself with a kind of legendary status by being the place that we wanted to eat at since, more or less, the second day we got here. We – Nicky, Philippe (our Austrian friend), Christian and I – finally went there on a Monday night, and what a night it was. We had some of the finest steak we had ever tasted, a cosy couple of bottles of red wine and some brilliantly stimulating conversation. We finished the food stage itself in, well, about 40 minutes or so, as one does. However, we then stayed in the restaurant for another hour, accompanied by another bottle of wine, and vigorously debated war, death, science and religion. I tell you, it was simply brilliant. Never had my neurons and synapses been firing so exotically since I reached these Spanish shores.

On the scholarly side of things, we had, and you will have, the mid-way grammar test. It mainly comprises question concerning ser y estar and their uses; se y impersonalidad; and other vocab and grammar constructions you will have learnt during the preceding weeks. Now I am what I would call, and probably some Bath lecturers would call, pretty pants at grammar. It’s not my strong point. I talk and I write, but, under the pressure of an exam, am quite poor at the finalities of grammar. Nevertheless I received 75%, which I was quite chuffed with. So think, all you clever little Bathonians, with your clever little brains and your high marks, think what you could get. If nothing else, this is a good example of how much I have improved/how good the teaching is here.

 

Other joyous, and at points insufferable, escapades included:

• Trying to sort out the learning agreement/Erasmus EU grant sheets. This needs to be printed out, that needs to be stamped, this email confirmation needs to be acquired and that sheet needs to be stamped by somewhere else. It was a pain and an ordeal, but hey, it’s sorted and it’s free money.
• Booking a train to, and accommodation in, Valencia in order to meet up with our Bath friend Rob Carlisle, who will be taking an early bus from Zaragoza to meet us.
• Having to divert Marina´s (my flatmate Rodrigo´s girlfriend) attention by showing her swathes of photos from Tobarca – I’m sure she didn’t care, but she feigned interest quite well, whilst Rodrigo himself cooked her a surprise meal. She also wasn’t allowed into his room because he had set up his desk with a candle and wine and had dimmed the lights. The whole evening went down a treat though, and I am sure she now loves Tobarca.

 

Well that’s all for now, Christmas is coming and I can’t wait.  Five little windows are open on my imported calendar. Five little chocolates have been gobbled down before breakfast and five little reminders that I’ll be home in a couple of weeks to rejoice in the festivities with my family, beam at me from their cardboard home every morning.

 

Hasta pronto chaps!