Wednesday 26 February 2014

DAY 151: El Finde

The weekend back home was awesome. I ate so much of Judith´s lovely home-cooked food, cuddled with dog, caught up with a couple of my friends and did A LOT of shopping. 

Thursday Night - Arrive in Edinburgh (after a horrendously slow boarding of the plane a la Spain) and get picked up by Mum. At home we proceed to drink a bottle of red wine and feast ourselves with food. So was not much different to my lifestyle in Spain.

Friday - Shopping. Again, something I´m quite keen on in España, the difference being this time that mumma is with me, aka...I wasn´t funding the expenses. Bought way too much stuff, and mostly all summer clothes, so the weather better pick up in Madrid soon! The rest of the day was filled with more eating (bread and Camembert - so again not really taking a break from the food in Spain) and Mum getting me to test a bed from one room to the other to see if "noises" can be heard. Yes, she wanted me to roll around and jump up and down to assess the slyness of having sex in it - don´t ask - all I can say is, it´s for particular guests that are coming, not for her and my father thank god. 

Saturday - A cheeky morning virgin cocktail with a friend (so so Chelsea) in Cent O Tre on George Street with a lot of chat about how things are, facebook stalking and gossip. A big lunch then of lasagne and cheese to follow with some family friends. Saturday night was a chilled one with the padres and I had almost forgotten how amusing (and sometimes irritating) it can be to watch tv with my father. As we watched "Take Me Out" Dad decided to rate each girl. "Paha no one´s going to pick that whale Clarissa" and when she did get picked "I don´t get it. I don´t get it." Such a charming father.

Sunday - A glorious roast for lunch - yes I´m obese ok - and then back to Madrid. Was pretty sad coming back actually and arriving back at my wee apartment all alone made me feel lonely...but I´ve already been back on the vino socialising again so things are back to normal (although work this morning isn´t too dandy).

I have a uni essay to write (in Spanish fml), a lot of laundry to do, a stack of dishes to wash and it´s still fucking raining, but apart from that, I will be doing more eating, more drinking, more "working" and my life in Madrid rolls on...

Thursday 20 February 2014

DAY 145: Estoy harta de España

Yesterday I was helping out at an event for people who claimed they had "too much money". Our business was to advise them on what they could invest their money in or spend their money on. As I arrived at 7.30am at the office, there to help out with the setting up as per usual, Mabel came up to me and said "So Sarah, do you have a boyfriend? There´s a lot of good looking rich men coming and you know, you could do well here". Bingo Mabel - you wise wise owl. Luckily, as it was an event, I was dressed smartly and had tried making an effort with some sexy (yet murderous) red heeled boots to top it off. These boots seemed a bit of a stupid idea later on in the day, as I ended up with blisters after walking to and from to and from to and from the meeting room with clients. Anyway, to my disappointment, all these men were really a bit too old for me....and married, so my dreams of being spoilt rotten with Michael Kors, fancy restaurants and romantic getaways went out the window. 

Apart from that, work has been pretty shit lately and I´m not enjoying myself as much as I was previously. I´m working with this girl Marta, who is lovely and all, don´t get me wrong, but she really is not the most interesting/logical/organised person to work with. My days are filled with checking bloody excel sheets against databases to make sure that all details of clients are correct and honestly, after doing about 2, I´m checking Facebook as a way to "interest" my life. It´s a shame because I liked Marta before, I´ve been out with her and she was very welcoming, but working with her is a whole different matter. This is why maybe its good not to "mix business with pleasure" - my social life and my life at work are two different stories.

I´ve also been ranting recently about Spain in general and how backwards I think the whole country is. Horrific timetables of businesses prove inefficient; the service industry cannot even compete with that of the UK (which only in comparison I have now noticed is much superior); men are sexist; and women are far from equal both socially and in the working world. There are a lot of other things that spring to mind, but I´ll save that for another day...

Living alone can be quite hard too. Yes, most of the time I like it, I can do what I want, have my own space, not care about washing up etc etc etc, but it does get lonely. It´s probably not the best idea that I spend my "lonely" time streaming episodes of 90210 instead of doing anything sociable or productive, but sometimes after work, I just get so tired (and fed up) that my wee bit of "relaxing time" turns into hours of tv, sleeping and eating. There´s a reason why I am getting so fat here! And socialising here, from my experience, consists mainly of drinking beer and nibbling on the free food they give you with it. Not that I´m complaining, I love my beer, but my belly really doesn´t and my professors back at uni most certainly wouldn´t either...

Anyway, fed up of all this, I have decided to go home this weekend, take a break from Spain and spend some time with the fam (and my dog...). Of course Mabel was fine with letting me off yet another day to go home early (she really is the most chillaxed boss) and my mum has been asking what I want in the fridge for when I get home (ahh Mummy you treat me well). Djibril (my dog) will be awaiting, and my Harry Styles cardboard cut-out from my 21st will be standing there beautifully. I´ll have the car and not be afraid to use it because of crazy Spanish drivers and my tv will be just a little bit bigger ;)..the only thing lacking is the beautiful Spanish sun - but I´ll be back in front of that next week (to "top up" my (very very fake) tan)!

Friday 14 February 2014

DAY 139: Pedro

I had started to think that beautiful Pedro from when I first came to Madrid had forgotten me! I saw him when I first came and since then hardly ever. However, today as I was working on some boring excel with my ears completely blocked by blasting music from my headphones, Pedro appeared, beautiful beautiful Pedro, and naturally, I went all red. Either it´s the fact that he is just so handsome or my difficulty in understanding sexy Spanish accent, but literally my mind always fails me when I speak to him and he now thinks I´m a retard who still can´t speak Spanish after 5 months here. Anyway, being all charming (it is Valentine´s day after all ;) ), he invited me for dinner with him and his family. How lovely and very kind, but also, how awkward....let´s just say..things with his nephew, Alvaro, the fittie Hollister model from a while ago, did not end so well....*cough* asshole *cough*.  After Pedro left, you could see all the other girls giggling and smiling and then they all came up to me and asked "who is that Sarah?"...yes beautiful, beautiful Pedro is still well and truly "smokin hawt".

So I did something I hadn´t done in a while yesterday...I slept in through work! I thought those days were past me now that I am a mature 21-year-old, but sadly no. I knew I shouldn´t have been going out on Wednesday night in the first place but it was Sanderson´s friend´s last night in Madrid so something had to take place. Fair to say, the night did not end up so smoothly though....my neighbour now literally hates me and was buzzing on my door all day yesterday (of which I never answered because I´m too scared), I got into an argument, got punched, failed to make it to the club, got a taxi home which I couldn´t pay for and called my friend back home crying my eyes out...total mess. It´s times like that I just think, wow I´m an idiot, and that it really is time to cut back on the alcohol consumption. Saying that, I am going out tonight BUT I aim to just drink some beers...(come on, not not going to drink at all..).

So apart from a cheeky wee day off yesterday work has been pretty dire this week. My life is filled with boring databases and excels at the moment and the highlight this week, as always, has been getting the left over food from events - fat pig here. I´ve tried to be healthy, I really have, and I managed it up until Wednesday, but when Thursday came and that hangover was bangin, salad just wasn´t going to suffice.

Thank God it´s Friday though, and I plan on being a little more chillaxed this weekend. Also I´ve been thinking about the fact that if I hadn´t extended my job until June, this would be my last day, which just seems crazy. I don´t want to leave - I love it here! Viva Madrid.

Monday 10 February 2014

DAY 135: Sanderson

Well after a horrendous week at work of office fuck-ups, people I wanted to slap and some mind-numbingly boring tasks, I was so so so ready for Friday. I met Rosie after work in Starbucks where she was waiting after her flight had come in and we went for a big fatty pizza lunch and it was gorgeous. We also indulged in a bottle of wine which lead to a very sleepy Sarah who had a siesta in the afternoon, waking up with a massive cock drawn on my face by Rosie 2 hours later - great. 

That night, it was time to celebrate Sanderson´s birthday and I had offered to have the party in my flat seeing as Sanderson lives way out in Alcala. It was good and very loud, and luckily the neighbours didn´t complain this time! There were 3 neck nominations, one of which was me drinking whisky and vodka through a straw whilst doing a handstand...fair to say, it did not end very smoothly. Anyway, we left at about 1am in order to get the last metro into town but by 2 metro stops down, it was fair to say that Sanderson just wasn´t going to make it out. As we all carried her out of the metro and into the street, causing a lot of attention from the locals who looked at us British folk with disgust, Sanderson proceeded to chunder and we all knew that really she wasn´t going to make it into the club. So, off Rosie, Emma and I left, leaving the others behind, to take Sanderson back to mine. As we reached mine, Sanderson had completely gone by this point and the taxi driver had to help us carry her up to my apartment. I have to say, it did feel a little bit like we were carrying a dead body. At mine, I threw glasses of water over her to wake her up (and to half amuse me) at which she woke up and replied "stop chundering on me"...oh Sanderson. Anyway, she got to bed, slept it off and Rosie and I got pizza and danced around to One Direction for a couple of hours....taking the party with of us of course (even if it was One Direction..). 

Sanderson wasn´t even hungover in the morning, much to Rosie and I´s disappointment who were feeling the effects of last night´s pre. Anyway, we did get ourselves up though to do something "cultural" as last time Rosie was here, we missed that part out. Of course first we decided to have a nice lunch though and surprised ourselves greatly by ordering a salad....this never happens on a hangover. I then attempted to take Rosie on a tour of Madrid, telling her that a cathedral was the Royal Palace and that a mosque was a cathedral and so on....god, I´m great at this stuff. We ended up at Madrid´s Egyptian temple "El Templo de Debod", which really isn´t as facinating as it sounds. All it is is like 3 small walls with a wee moat around it. But you know, at least we were doing something. Soon it was time to head back to the flat for yet another siesta, which turned into a good 4 hour sleep. We needed it though, as we were determined to have a proper night out this time. 

We went to this club called Joy, which is an old theatre and looks really cool. It played all the classic songs you could sing a long to and we found this amazing man who had some incredible dance moves...oh he was hilarious. We even got on the stage with him at one point just because we thought he was so cool. Surprisingly though, Rosie and I did not feel the slightest bit drunk. We had had 3 gin and tonics in the space of an hour before we left, 2 strong vodka red bulls when we first came to the club, and then a jaegar and another strong gin and tonic later on. We just did not understand why it wasn´t hitting us. Sanderson was being very sensible this night and sipped on one gin and tonic for about 4 hours. 

Waking up the next morning, we didn´t feel ill but just exhausted and proceeded to spend the entire day in bed watching episodes and episodes of 90120 on Netflix...shit show but addicting. There was a small trip out to lunch but it didn´t last long and we were quickly back in bed after being practically blown away by the strong wind and drenched by the rain. Seriously, the weather at the moment in Madrid is horrendous. Should probably just move back to Scotland where it likely to be nicer. 

So I´ve probably gained about 2 stone this weekend as we have literally eaten so much pizza, ice-cream, sweets and cheetos....(the guy at the corner shop must have thought we were weird with the amount of cheetos we kept going in to buy..but they are just sooo goooood). Attempting to detox a bit this week, but knowing me it will probably only last a day. I really am an unstoppable fatty. 

Hate Mondays and I am exhausted, but hopefully work this week is just a tad better...if not, could be getting into trouble for wacking someone in the face...really need to stay reserved.