So another
4 months down in Madrid and it´s time for my Easter holidays and I´m really
looking forward to a relaxing week at home. Spain definitely has had both its
fun times and hard times and the whole experience is something I will vividly
remember.
If I think
about work, I came out here terrified, and speaking Spanish all day every day
was so intimidating. Luckily my Spanish has improved a lot but with Mabel
speaking to me in English all the time, perhaps I should be better. I think the
whole thing when learning a language though is confidence and the more you
speak it, even if you do make mistakes, the more you will improve. Anyway,
despite her always speaking English to me, I have to thank Mabel for a lot.
She´s so kind and has always been so supportive of everything and she is a
really fantastic businesswoman. On top of that of course we have the fact that
she is bloody gorgeous. I know I´m not a lesbian but I definitely am attracted
to her ha. Her boyfriend is a lucky lucky man! The rest of the team are lovely
too and Mariangeles is another girl who I ´ve really appreciated here. She sits
opposite me and we chat all the time (this time in Spanish)…mainly about Ryan
Gosling! It´s been really nice sitting with her for the past 8 months and
despite her being a good 15 years older, she´s really been a friend. We of
course have the people I don´t like though, and for people who know me well,
the list of people in this world who annoy me is probably far too high! But
anyway, first we have Noelia. Noelia came about a month ago and she is an
intern like me but a few years older. Anyway, if I´m going to be honest here,
she just absolutely loves herself and I can see her judging me every day and
she always makes snide wee comments which piss me off. She´s so patronizing as
well and thinks I can´t speak Spanish so just doesn´t like talking to me.
Almudena is another one, or “Almu” as she gets called, which I don´t know why
cracks me up. She´s nice I guess but just very…very.. dull. Finally, we have
the German girl, Alex. It´s very much a love-hate relationship. For an 18 year
old she is very close-minded and judgemental and comes across quite rude, but
at the same time I do go for coffee breaks with her a lot and today we got on
ok so I haven´t closed my opinion completely on her yet. I think she´s just
complicated to understand, plus I guess we are just very different people.
Anyway, enough of that bitching and back to work – sometimes boring, sometimes
difficult and sometimes enjoyable – the matter of the fact is though that it
has been a very good and possibly rewarding experience for me.
When I come
back after Easter I will hardly have anytime left here and I know I´m going to
miss the friends I´ve made out here a lot. I don´t really socialize outside of
my work with my colleagues but of course I will miss them too. If I´m honest we have probably had too many
nights out of drinking far too much, doing silly things, kissing boys and
munching on McDonalds but that is part of what the year abroad is about, in my
opinion (that´s coming from the view of clearly a drunken mess). And of course
we have had fun travelling…..Valencia….Lisbon….Toledo….Salamanca… - I literally
just want to travel all the time now!
It also
took me a while to embrace the Spanish culture. First of all…they eat so bloody
much! I still don´t understand how most of them stay so thin – I swear they are
eating at every moment of the day whether it be a “snack” (although to me a
sandwich is not a snack?) or a big 3 course meal…with of course lots of bread
and litres and litres and litres of olive oil. Olive oil is literally put into
every single food they have here. You see people buying 5 litre bottles of it
in supermarkets and that’s just to get them through the week! I for one am
looking like a plump pudding. In addition to that, it took me a while to get
used to them eating so late. I have lunch at 3/3.30pm every day and I´ve been
out for dinner with friends at midnight, which isn´t even unusual! Spanish
timetabling is something else as well…it´s so relaxed and mightily inefficient –
the amount of times I have complained about at it this year has led me to write
my assessed university essay on the year abroad this year about it. We also
have the culture of the men, the very pervy, very sleazy, very sexist men. In
clubs they want to grab you at any chance they get, so much so that two of my
girl friends have ended up punching men in the face, and I´ve left the club
fuming ranting my traditional “I hate men” speech. In the streets they yell at
you and ask you to sleep with them and the sad thing is, that you just kind of
have to get used to it!
However, as
much as I do complain about things though, and I do like to complain, Madrid is
a great city. The madrileños are incredibly friendly and welcoming people and
the city is beautiful and always thriving. It feels like a city that never
sleeps and everything is also all so cheap (apart from make-up…almost every
British girl I know here really misses Boots). I can´t really complain about
the weather here either – blue skies and well today, its 27 degrees. Of course
I am sunburnt, and of course the Spanish are still going round in their unfashionable
polo-necks!
Anyway
that´s me off for just over a week. A nice big lunch with Sanderson after work
today to celebrate and then Newcastle tomorrow followed by HOME. Here´s to my
final stint in Madrid after Easter!! Not much longer to go!!!
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