Potential for Golden Week?

This morning when I got on the bus, I had a conversation with Ciara about having 'Golden Week', and how she was confident that for her it would be this week as she was feeling so fresh for a Monday morning. It got me thinking of the reality of whether this will ever happen for me here? And I started to think that it possibly won't. What with going away this weekend, I'll definitely miss classes next week as we will be in Madrid on Monday and then there is only two weeks left of class after - which we all know are going to be filled with hangovers and 7am bedtimes in the lead up to Christmas.

I figured that before Christmas, my best chance for Golden week is this week. It could possibly happen, providing I have good siestas before fiestas and sleep well the rest of the week. And also providing I go to the class just before heading to the airport on Thursday.

I'm already feeling positive, and counting down the classes left! I've also submitted my translation homework at a reasonable time already this week, which is pretty good for me (getting my nerdy side back).

Today I had two classes - It's started well, and I didn't hate my life when I was sat in them! Both of which were translation classes, one general and one humanísitca (based on actual books/articles etc). And I much prefer my new teacher for the second translation class, I contributed a lot today, proud.

Tomorrow I have 3 classes.

Wednesday I have 3 classes.

And, Thursday I have 2 classes.

On Thursday when I am on the plane, I want to say that I've actually had a golden week, and then I will deserve to have the best weekend ever!

Snap happy

Just a few of this week's photos. Hopefully my camera will be charged enough to take more this week!

Ronda 1 - Classic tourist snapshot

Ronda 2 - The Bridge (all of the other views were amazing too)

Ladies night - The second stripper was a)  less gay and b) much sexier than this one

James' 21st - The only picture I took of the night. I do not remember this!
DRUNK FACES

Being a tourist vs. Being ill

Since I last blogged I guess I have done a few things, but it hasn’t been as crazy as normal. First of all, was a lovely day trip to Ronda with some of the girls. All I can say is that it really is a beautiful place, the views everywhere are sensational and it is such a cute little city to wander around all day. The pictures pretty much sum up what we did there, we wandered, took photos and went in so many cute little gift shops. Oh, and we went on our first wine tasting experience. If you don’t include all the wine tasting I do at work :)

Whilst in Ronda, we missed the Málaga floods, which made the river start flowing again (exciting!). It was such a great day until I started to feel really ill after being in the cold/rain and wind for so long. So after getting home, I got all cosy in my pyjamas and fluffy socks and spent my first Saturday night in Málaga in bed! And bed is where I stayed pretty much until Wednesday afternoon!

I may have had a few outings, but I stayed relatively warmly dressed for them all! In 48 hours all I managed to eat was a salad and some carrot soup. I might have made a little appearance at ladies night on Monday evening, but who could say no to strippers and a free bar. Turns out the free bar was beer, so didn’t take long for the chunder dragon to appear, and the carrot soup to quickly follow… That certainly was not a late night for me!

Anyway, spent the rest of my week monging in bed and not going to class. Really ratchet I know, but I just had no energy at all to move, let alone imagine getting on that cramped uni bus. When I finally made it to uni on Wednesday afternoon, I was greeted by hot and cold sweats and felt stupid for even bothering to get out of bed at all. Thankfully, my super sexy lecturer ended the class one hour early anyway!

Wednesday night was come dine with me night, series two – episode one! Come dine with Sammie. She made some lovely homemade onion bhajees followed by a chicken balti and homemade naan bread. Accompanied by yoghurt too, gooood job!

Thursday brought the arrival of my Mumma and sister to Málaga, happy days! Although I do have to say that waiting in the airport arrivals area really was like being from that scene in Love Actually, I am far too soppy to be allowed in a place like that. Anyway, there were only a few tears on arrival!

We filled their three days here with a LOT of sightseeing of Málaga, a lot of walking, a lot of stopping for drinks and having some really nice dinners. I ate calves cheek on the first night, and considering I’d never had it before I was pretty impressed. We even had nice enough weather on the Thursday to have a little siesta on the beach, I was so happy the sun came out after the recent rain. Someone was definitely looking down on us and making sure we had good weather, thank you! What’s funny is that Victoria, my wonderful, older sister who has completed 4 years at uni AND a year abroad, was unfortunately too hungover on Friday to come and see the city with us. Of course, she blames me for this, however I just don’t think she deals with hangovers well! Either way, 2 litres of vodka between 3 people and then drinking a whole bottle of stolen gin is basically asking for trouble! Safe to say neither of us remembers the whole night. But what a good night it was, I was clearly rebelling against Sala Wenge for some reason! I even managed to get up (with Mum’s help) earlyish for a day in the city on Friday, and Victoria was much more alive to enjoy our long touristy day on Saturday.

It was so nice to have family visit me here and finally see the place where I am living! I loved having them here and it’s just a shame it went so quickly. Next up, I need to get the other blister to come out so I can show her Taco and a beer for a euro Tuesday…

Last week, we also decided that we finally had to book to go somewhere this weekend coming up. We couldn’t choose between Barcelona and Madrid, and we are running out of weekends so we decided to do both! So we are all sooo excited to be going on a 5 day weekend to both of the cities this weekend, 165 euros for all transport and accommodation is pretty good I think. Pat on the back for me for finding it all!

And one last thing, I am getting much more confident in speaking Spanish!! I spoke an awful lot when my Mum and sister were here as I had no choice, but just in general I feel like it is improving a lot! Little mini success for me, now I just need to keep it going and make more Spanish friends.

Going to bed now as I have a week of classes to actually attend this week! So I may upload some pictures in the next few days…I will also blog again after my weekend – which will no doubt be pretty amazing! 

As the Andalucians say… Haattaaaa luegoo x

Next stop, China!

It's getting real!! Got an email this morning which started with the following phrase...

你已被录取，申请完成。请等待录取通知书。/ You are accepted, application is completed. Please wait for our admission package.

WONDERFUL NEWS.

Now the slight issue of when the little
admission pack arrives so I can juggle getting my visa with needing my passport to go to Florida and Spain! Then remains the little issue of time... Do I fly home for the random 3 days in London and miss class here? Fly home for Xmas early and miss the fun week and CB's last week? Or apply for my visa 1 week before going to china?!

Decisions decisions decisions...

33 days!

Until uni finishes here and it's Christmas time. Can't explain how excited I am! Mumma and Vic are visiting this week which will be good, but the last week or so I have been getting more and more excited for England, even though I know it's freezing and I will moan when there...

So I wrote a little list in my head of things I can't wait to be back for. And I thought I'd share the blog love again.

Most of it may be food, yes, but if you've ever done a year abroad you would understand this feeling!

Here goes:

Gravy (pie, roast, sausages/mash) Proper english food, meat and veg. All warm and wintry, get in my belly.

TV evenings - sat in the lounge with a fat ginger lump on your lap and being toooo hot watching some rubbish like eastenders or x factor. Genuinely miss family tv time.

Chicken soup - maybe its because I'm soo ill at the moment so am craving my standard ill routine. But chicken soup would really hit the spot right now.

Cats - Literally miss them so much. Prepare to be squeezed and loved a lot, pussycats.

Zac - who wouldn't miss such a cheeky monkey. Looking forward to seeing his face when I'm actually at the door. As opposed to on the computer screen!

Squash - not sure why I miss squash. I guess it's one of those things you underestimate when you have it. Fizzy drinks are just getting boring now, I want safe English tap water with some Robinson's orange please! Ahhhh.

Toast - English toast is the best. It's a fact and something ive realised here! Marmite, jam, peanut butter, anything - I do not care what is on it!! The bread here is half the size, really wheaty and sweet and also has to be done in the microwave. We don't have a toaster so when we want toast can only have half cooked soggy slices. I can't wait to go get myself some maaamite at home and have to share it all with zigs again.

Curry - it's painful how much I want an English curry. Mum, I've already chosen what I want, chicken chat with a chapati followed by a lamb tikka pathia please. Don't forget the naan. I am SO bored of eating the same stuff here. Get me some spice.

Slippers and dressing gown- its not necessarily cold enough to wear them here. But I am excited to be all snuggled in the evening wearing them in chilly England. We don't need heating here at the moment but I love the feeling of walking in from the cold to a heated house and putting my slippers on :)

Sunday fry ups - I miss egg, I miss proper English bacon, sausages, fried bread, mushrooms. And I miss when my Mumma cooks it for us on Sunday mornings!!

Work - I miss everything about work. I love my job, the people I work with (although going to be interesting with my sister now), the food, the customers and just the atmosphere. I am sadly too excited to work Xmas eve!

Car - I want to sit in my car and drive. Don't care where but I am fed up of buses and am stoked to be able to drive again.

Family - its a given that I miss the fam, but there's just something about the mad house I miss SO MUCH.

Christmas build up - It's quite sad term finishes so late here! Not only this year will I miss the Brum Xmas market but i also won't get proper chances to go xmas shopping and feel all Christmassy in England. I have a feeling a lack of a Christmas tree here means I won't really be feeling Christmassy this year until I am home! I am so excited for walking into the house and seeing a Christmas tree with pretty lights and presents - even if they will all be zac's presents!

Friends - I miss them all, and being home for so little means it sucks I won't get to probably see them all over Xmas :(

I miss loads more too, they're just the obvious ones!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not counting my days down or wanting to experience to go, I'm loving Málaga and sad how quick it's going. There's just a few home comforts I can't wait to return to!

33 days! X

Preparation is always a good thing!

I was on such a high today, went bowling with a new English girl we met and her boyfriend and had a pretty good time. I didn't win, but did get to show off my incredible bowling tekkers, you will know what this is if you have ever been bowling with me. If not, it involves a weird flick of the arm and wrist and my back leg going up in the air in a strange direction. Didn't help me do well today though, definitely came 3rd overall! I also was the only one who was asked to wear the Bowling shoes, and had to pay 1 euro for the embarrassment of it! Hello boat feet.

The high ended pretty quickly after bowling when I went to withdraw some cash. I have been so so careful about which cash machines I have used that I figured this time it would be fine, it was NOT fine. I used the same bank as I normally do, but one that was a smaller randomly placed machine in a shopping centre. It was such a mistake as it ate my card. It just took it, no reason, no beep, I finished the process and it just didn't give it back. My main debit card too, the one I know everything off by heart for (probably not a good thing anyway). I nearly cried - as you would imagine, anything makes me cry. But thanks to Mumma and some helpful Spanish people behind me in the queue for the machine I got it sorted. Well not completely sorted, but got the card cancelled and a new one ordered and on the way in the post. But, it actually made me think/realise how prepared I was for disasters like this to happen. Pat on the back for me for bringing 4 cash cards to Spain with me, and keeping them all separate (don't worry Mum, I don't carry more than one on me at a time!). Although I was sooo angry it had been taken, I was pretty proud of myself for being so clever when I was packing to come here. Internet banking means I've sorted my life out pretty quick, and pay back the debts I have already made in the 4 hours since it happened! Now I guess I should learn all the details of my second debit card off by heart... ;)

I then decided to cheer myself up, so bought myself some new shoes. How exciting, I rarely buy shoes because my feet just love being awkward. But I bit the bullet, spent 50 euros and have a lovely pair of knee high leather boots - perfectly waterproof for this lovely rainy season that Málaga is enjoying at the moment. Thanks to Charlee too (having worked in Clarks for 4 years) she advised me on which ones would be best for me, so I now am less likely to a) slip over and b) have even worse posture in future than I already have in store for me. I am now really prepared for the rain, wahoo!

Another note which I think is worth a mention is the weather here at the moment. I chose the south of Spain for all year round sunshine, not rain. For the last two weeks it has been constant. Another reason I have been proud of myself, before coming here I was smart enough to consider this may actually happen at some point, so brought my Brum waterproof jacket and umbrella with me, another pat on the back. I've had a few compliments on how 'prepared' the English are for this kind of weather, and how cool my Brum waterproofs look. Who'd have thought I would be getting compliments for wearing the least 'fashionable' jacket I actually own!

But, I just love the way in which the Spanish deal with the rain, it is quite amusing. They just have no clue on how to deal with it. The city just stops, people don't go to class or work, buses take an extra half an hour to get there and everyone moans all the time. No joke, even a bit of drizzle and they hate life, everyone is in wellies and has their umbrellas and thick coats on - and us English are just walking around like it is no bother. Especially Charlee, who still hasn't bought an umbrella! People love to wheel spin here too, it just shows how little they have rain, they don't know how to control their cars when its so wet and slippery! It's fairly homely in a way to have rain, and because it isn't cold we can still get away with just a cardi, so long as you have a brolley! It has rained so much that the 'dry river' is no longer dry. On our first taxi ride into the city on our first day we were told that it had been dry for 40 years, but not anymore! It's a bit shallow, yes, but it still has running water in it!

This probably has been one of the most pointless blog posts I've written yet, but I hope you have enjoyed my rant, Mumma will love it even if nobody else does ;)

Lotsa love x

Confused

I don't really know why my blog is having such display issues... Apologies for the bad layout of the post below, I got really bored of trying to sort it out!

Hicimos Puente

For all of our hard work over the last 2 weeks and for attending so many classes, last weekend Spain kindly rewarded us with another 4 day holiday. Technically the Friday isn't a holiday, but the Spanish just take it off and make it a long holiday weekend.

The first night of our mini holiday was Halloween, which unbeknown to us the Spanish go loco for. Our costumes were fairly last minute, so went along the lines of 'I'm not really scary, I'm just dressing up because I can'. Most of us went as superheroes, which was actually fun in a strange way. Never gone out in such minimal attire before, I was pretty much just wearing what looked like a swimming costume and a blazer. Brilliant. Nevertheless it was fun, and I enjoyed it. We then realised how seriously the Spanish take Halloween, I can't even express how rammed the city was, it was just packed, there was so much traffic purely because the cars couldn't get through the swarms of people on the streets. And everyone, like everyone, was dressed crazily scary. The Spanish all love Halloween, not just the 5 year olds but the 65 year olds love it too. Spanish Halloween is honestly something that people should witness at least once in their lifetime. 

Catwoman and Batwoman...

Next up was the lazy day off, met up for a cheeky shawarma and had a few naps! Another night out followed and was actually great fun. Headed to a place called Malafama for the first time, and won’t be the last… I thoroughly enjoy it when clubs play mash ups of Scandalous and Pretty Woman. Added to the fact that Charles and I did the whole 'dance like nobody is watching' thing, it was a great night. Howeeeever, the fun ended there as when we left the club, our boys had a bit of a confrontation with the Malaga muggers. Lesson to the dumb muggers; if you're going to steal wallets in the same streets and same group of people all the time, at least don't let people see you. So anyway, the boys spotted them and asked for the wallet back. Probably not the best move (or the one I’d opt for) as things got a bit heated, but the wallet was amazingly returned (a little emptier…) after a bit of shouting/banging and bottles being held to threaten people. To be honest it was pretty scary and the first time I've witnessed a near 'bottling' or been in such proximity to a potentially dangerous fight. Thankfully there were about 12 guys so us three girls were pretty protected by the boys! I’m definitely witnessing a lot of new things here, put it that way!

We woke up on Friday and decided to book tickets to Granada for the weekend. Spontaneous, right? We’ve been saying for ages we need to get out of the city, so we walked to the bus station and bought tickets. Easy. €20 for a return bus ticket is so worth it, and €16 euros for a hostel is pretty decent too! We were pretty excited to be fair. I love road trips!

On Saturday we arrived in Granada and thanks to Sammie’s sixth sense and a bit of direction from the locals, we found our hostel. It was set in the middle of an Artesian market which was actually pretty cool to wander through; despite the fact every little shop had the same things and smelt really odd. Was a pretty chilled afternoon, wandering around, taking pictures and eating churros (amazing). We met up with another girl who is in Granada on her year abroad and all went for a sophisticated dinner out with wine. I had Paella, again, and it was delightful. I think I am actually going to miss seafood next year…

Pretty views of Granada

Meeting up with Robin, Paelllllaaaa

There was obviously only one option of how to spend the remainder of our evening in this new city, fiesta time. The club in Granada was pretty damn cool, it was set in an old theatre and it looked exactly the same just without seats! There were so many men it was like we were in a big goldfish bowl. We spent far too much time on the stage and the DJ wouldn’t let anybody except us on there – it was quite a privilege. I think he liked us once we had performed the Gangnam style dance to the entire club, ha!

Don't stop the partyyyy

Sunday was very cultural. I enjoyed it a lot, living such a party lifestyle means that when you actually do cultural things it is about 10 times more enjoyable, and also quite rewarding.  We climbed up to the view point of the Alhambra, which was beautiful. The sound of everyone ‘ooohing’ as we reached the top proved how amazing the views actually were. I am sure that the pictures I took don’t quite do it justice and on a clear day it would be so much more amazing to see. We also went to a chapel that had a museum attached to it, it was pretty fancy inside and was really enjoyable to look around – or in my case just sit and stare at how incredible it all was. The only part of this I did not enjoy was seeing the tomb/coffins of the old Kings, Queens and princes of Spain. That was so weird, and freaked me right out. A line of 5 coffins behind a window, underground, I ran away pretty damn fast. 

We wandered around the market again, and I bought all of my little gifts – it was like I was on a genuine mini holiday. The trip was actually so worth the money we spent when we were there. It has made me so excited to see where we can travel next within Spain… Barcelona, Ronda, Madrid, Seville...  The list is getting pretty long now!

However, for now it is back to another week of boring university, looking forward to the weekend already!