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This is it. This is the end and inside I’m a mess. A busy, dizzy, whirling unrest of feelings pools within me.
On the strident, proud, adventurous side my heart says ‘a new chapter is dawning. You leave these Spanish lands to journey further a field into the bowls and bosom of another country. More people and places await you. Rejoice in it!’ whilst my head can’t wait to have a rest at home again, with my family and friends; no worries, cooked for, cleaned after and welcomed.
On the emotional, clingy, defiant in comfort side my heart says ‘ah, to leave friends…why? Don’t. These extraordinary people, these marvels of life. These wonderful places. The sand in your hands, the wind in your hair, the freedom betrothed to you by Spain. Never leave it!’ whilst my head wants to sit on the beach drinking fine wines and eating ice cream.
Alas, it is the end today. As I write this I have stuff all folded up waiting to be in slotted into a suitcase. A suitcase that this evening shall be flung callously onto an easy jet and taken back to the UK. I leave today yes, but what happened in this last month?
Well, nestled in amongst larger activities have been smaller nuggets of liveliness; such as various house parties, thrown both by Italians and by our British quarter; had my friend Jon come to visit me for a weekend, and showed him how to socialise in the Spanish way – getting home at 6 30; had new housemates arrive – three charming Italians; set up some tables in the living room and played ping pong – using a couple of twisted up towels for the net; had lunch up at the castle, having been driven up their on Rodrigo’s moped; had a go on Rodrigo’s moped, and much more.
This last month has witnessed our ‘exam period’, so we have been doing a surprising range of levels of work. For the credit-less Spanish course we barely revised at all, for the Russian exam, a couple of hours, for the publicity exam a few hours and for the prehistory exam…a lot!
You know how in Bath, and indeed England, there is that process before an exam. You are all outside whichever building the exam is in, furiously reading your notes as if in a few seconds the ink shall leap from the page and be lost unto the wind. You are expectant for the mass of people to start shuffling towards the exam room/hall that has just been opened by the invigilators. You leave your bag in a selected dumping area, taking out whatever pens you need or taking out your see-through pencil case. You then silently, making occasional ‘good luck’ eyes and smiles to friends, slink your way through the aisles trying to find your seat and number. You sit down. You know the rules: talk and you’re out, your paper ripped up in front of you; cheat and god help you. You have butterflies. You have a confusing collection of pages to be filled out, torn, stuck together, signed and joined and then you start the exam. In Spain, let’s just say, it’s a little different.
Russian exam: very casual. We went in ten minutes late and our teacher talked us through the whole exam. She also left the room for a few minutes to take a phone call…we could have cheated.
Publicity exam: more casual. Hundreds of students chatting and laughing beforehand. Exam starts 35minutes late.
The Spanish and Prehistory exams were more like ours, but still very relaxed. The down side I can see in the Spanish university system is that cheating must be so easy. Invigilation was minimal and you could have you phones out, bags at your feet. Furthermore, if people talked the ‘invigilators’ just did a ‘come on now, tut tut’, shaky head face and that was it! It was a) alarming because of it’s relaxed nature and openness to cheating but b) nice because not once did I feel pressured and nervous and I usually had a very clear head during the proceedings; my butterflies never emerged from their chrysalises.
This last month also saw Alicante’s Carnaval (pre-lent madness) come and go. This consisted of the whole of the Rambla – the main road leading up from the port – being closed off and book-ended by stages that would house live bands. Everyone, more or less, dressed up in ridiculous, random outfits – ranging from standard things like schoolgirls and pirates to groups of people dressed as UNO cards, families all dressed as babies and mops, and troupes of wizards and witches. It was surreal and random…but brilliant. On our stage there was a band that sang join-in-now songs, with hand gestures, dances and suchlike, to which we did join in. At the heart of the Rambla between the two stages there was a bar and a catwalk type thing where people could parade and show off their costumes – my favourite being a group of 4 adults (three men and a woman) shuffling in a line, dressed and made up as geishas, bowing to everyone as they went.
One humorous affair still lingers un-typed that I would like to tell you all about now because it made me giggle when looking back, however at the time was appallingly stupid and created a statement that upon uttering became one of my catchphrases that the others would from then on vocalise at any opportunity. I shall now recount the tale. Listen well; it’s a ripping yarn.
For a while, maybe a month, we had been looking forward to the bullfight at Alicante. Philippe, our big Austrian friend, told us all about it and we said ‘yeah, February the 3rd? Book the tickets man!’ So time ticked along, January came and went, bringing thoughts of home flittering amongst casual conversation, more potent sunshine and tourists with chalky legs waddling into my city yearning to be burned. February the 3rd came and we all met Phil outside la plaza de toros. We then all divvied out our 20€ fees for the tickets and sat down. This was at about 3:45 with everything scheduled to start at 4:30. Strange, we thought, you’d think there would be more activity forty minutes before a big bullfight, maybe opening the doors or something. Oh well. We waited. Waited a bit more. We then journeyed into 4 o’clock territory, with still nothing happening apart from numbing buttocks.
“Okay guys”, chirped a forceful Austrian accent, “we’ve got to go to Catral”. Haha we giggled as he got up and started to walk away. “No really…the fight’s in Catral”. Silence reigned for a while along with some open jaws lolling about as is he had just proclaimed his imminent conversion to womanhood.
We talked to a Guardia Civil man (in his characteristic stupid hat) and he informed us a with a sigh and a shaking of the head that at 4:10 we were unlikely to make it to the fight in Catral on time, it being about 30km away. However we got out some money and went, begrudgingly to the taxi rank, determined to get our money’s worth. The time was now more or less 4:30 and the taxi man said it was 54 euros one way for a taxi and it took about an hour to get to Catral. Safe to say, we didn’t go there and we never saw the bullfight.
The one fact through all this that produced my aforementioned phrase is – through all this time of preparation and then having bought the tickets, how did Philippe manage to buy eight bull fight tickets in the wrong town, given that CATRAL was plastered all over the tickets…I was ‘literally flabbergasted’
Okay folks, that is the end of the Spanish year abroad blog. I hope it has been useful and insightful, frivolous and helpful. If it’s not been these things…then I apologise.
With a few goodbyes with promises of ‘I’ll see you in England yeah?’, a final bus ride out of town -almost choking up (you know that little sting behind the eyes and back of the nose) – and a two hour flight home, my five and a bit month sojourn in Alicante came to a close.
It was marvellous.
