DAY 231: Gracias Madrid

It only seems right that I end this blog in the hungover state in which I have written so many of these posts.

It was my work leaving party last night...or "despedida" as they call it here and I think everyone enjoyed one too many drinks. The 9 of us in the department went out for a lovely dinner to Mabel´s favourite restaurant, Makkila, and the amount of food that was ordered was ridiculous. In classic Spanish style, it all was all made to share, and we had croquettes, Spanish omelette, Spanish ham, bruschetta, pork, a goats cheese salad, spicy Spanish potatoes and lots more - all the food I love and am definitely going to miss. And of course with that all, we were all on the "cañas". A "caña" is a wee Spanish beer that everyone orders here. The guys were sweet enough to get me a wee leaving present as well, a photo of all of us in a beautiful frame, sweets and big card with lots of lovely comments signed by all of them, and of course I cried, which of course is now caught on camera. Cringe. Then I had to make a speech, which after a few beers and in a "fragile" state ended up being a complete mess. Anyway, we then headed on to a bar, after ditching the Big Boss who, (shhhh - no one really likes), and a many gin and tonic were ordered and the conversation moved on to sex, cocaine and Geordie Shore. Here it´s called "Gandía Shore". It´s fair to say that this morning, everyone is looking a little bit pale. 

So that´s it, my time in Spain has come to it´s end and I can´t quite believe it. Highlights - I don´t know, there are too many to choose from. The girls at work have been so lovely to me and I am really going to miss them all. Yes, there have been some days where I have had shit all to do, but generally I am kept reasonably busy - for Spanish standards anyway - and it is a fantastic experience to have. Events Management is definitely something I would be interested in doing in the future. The Spanish way of working life is damned relaxed and although in some senses this can be great - arriving into work late and no one caring, taking your time to do tasks, lots of coffee and fag breaks and a middle-day siesta - it also pinpoints the reason why the Spanish economy is so bad, and although I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here, it is sadly not where I want to live in the future. I think my department is special, we all get on so well and there is a sense of humour between us all, which is what made last night even more great. As Mabel said last night "I wish we all went out together more".

Of course there are also all my British and American friends I have made and I have good memories with them too. The number of pre-drinks I have hosted at my puny flat, having the neighbour complain far too many times, and the number of nights out finishing at 7am - is something I will never forget. Spanish nightlife is pretty crazy and it´s fair to say that everyone effectively dies the next day. Clubs in the UK are closed by the time people start going out here, and arriving back in daylight is something I wasn´t entirely used to. Kapital, Shoko, Joy Eslava, Starstudio, Space Monkey, Ocho y Medio - been to them all. Best nights, hmm, our St. Andrew´s day party where we all dressed up in tartan and painted the Scottish flag on ourselves, whilst Jared, a guy we all think is a bit of a "legend" turned up with his Ohio flag, not really understanding that it wasn´t just a "where you are from party". Any nights out with Andrew have been great, and very drunken - I blame him for all my chunders. The top one being a spontaneous Tuesday night out which ended up with us dancing on a bar, getting cava poured down our throats and people dressed up as LMFAO in their underwear dancing around the place. I have to also mention Oktoberfest which was absolutely brilliant. Cheesy music and some good old routines, whilst chugging litre glasses of beer and high fiving a terrible Elvis tribute act. I had my 21st birthday in Kapital, the 7 floor club which I absolutely love, but sadly I don´t remember much of that night. I´ve been told I was having a good time though as I ran up and down all the floors with no shoes on. Kapital the other weekend with Emily was pretty good as well, running away from creepy Spanish men and Emily telling a guy that he was a 5 after he asked her to rate him. 

With these friends I have also traveled around Spain, taking the party with us of course, and those weekends that we haven´t traveled we have found something else to do. Madrid has so much opportunity for that. The Retiro Park is genuinely one of my favourite places in the world, and generally Madrid is just a really beautiful city and always thriving.

Living on my own has been a challenge certainly and it definitely has advantages and disadvantages. I would, however, recommend it to anyone. There have been days where I have felt lonely and it is with that that you really have to push yourself to either meet up with people or do something productive. It´s good to keep busy. And there have been days where I guess I have had too much time alone with my thoughts, and I am a mahoosive overthinker, and this can really affect you, and make you feel sad, worked up, or even a little bit crazy. But, as I have mentioned before, there are advantages and generally I have loved it. It´s so relaxing and so free and as cheesy as it sounds, you learn a lot about yourself. 

The first blog I wrote was "La gordita inglesa" as I very much worried I would put on lots of weight here because of the Spanish food. Sorry to say, I have, I feel like a whale right now, but at the end of the day I have enjoyed myself and in a few days everything will be back to normality and back to a healthier lifestyle. People talk about the "Mediterranean Diet" and how healthy it is, but let me just say something, Spanish food is NOT healthy. EVERYTHING is fried, dripped in olive oil and salt and practically everything is full of carbs. Beers aren´t seen as alcoholic drinks here, it´s just the same as having a coke, and so you drink it whenever because seriously, that´s what they do.

My flight back to Edinburgh is on Sunday night and it is a weird feeling knowing that it is not a return. 2 hours left in this office, and I can feel that the tears are building up. 

Madrid, Spain - you have been fantastic. Te querré para siempre.

DAY 213: Me meaban los perros

The past couple of weeks have been fairly "normal" ones in Madrid. We had a bank holiday, yet again, on Thursday, so I was out for drinks on Wednesday night with a few friends....aiming to get the last metro home at 1.30am but instead arriving home 4.30am....my bank holiday was spent in bed watching Harry Potter. Last Friday it was Emma´s birthday, a big flat party eventually shut down after a neighbour called the police followed by a night out at Ocho y Medio Club...which if I´m honest is all a bit of blur, but apparently I was being very "loving" which I guess is better than my classic angry Sarah drunkeness. This most recent friday we went to Shoko but bailed quite early due to the lack of good music. When I say early, I mean 4.30am....this is Spain after all. On Saturday I went to Alcala and watched "Tangled" with Liz and Leo for I think the third time this month....such a loser....but such a great film...and then yesterday I met up with my friend, Emily, from Germany, who has just arrived in Madrid for univeristy after doing her Erasmus year in Paris. We drank A LOT of sangria...the jug seemed to be bottomless...and then chilled in the Retiro park with Liz and Lorena, where I happily indulged in an afternoon tipsy siesta on the grass in the sunshine. That was soon followed by yet more booze with a couple of beers with some good old chat about babies, Spanish tendencies, food, men and my now favourite Spanish phrase "me meaban los perros"......"I was so drunk, dogs were pissing on me"....aka "I passed out". 

Work has been fairly busy and I think I will be really sad when I leave it....depite some things driving me crazy, Mabel, as always, is such a sweetie, firstly organising a going away dinner for me, and secondly, after just spending the weekend in Ireland this weekend, where she met up with Niall Horan´s parents (family friends yanno...), asking them to get Niall to send me some One Direction stuff....hahaha, such a babe. I must also note that now into her summer wardrobe she is looking even more stunning. She walked in last week in this outfit that someone like Nicole Scherzinger would wear, hair done perfectly wavy, pretty make-up and killer heels....she looked like a blooming supermodel. No surprises when later that week, she told me that I was looking really nice and I blushed bright red thinking "omg the supermodel is saying that!" I actually feel as though I´m becoming more arrogant with my looks whilst I´m here though what with men always shouting "guapa" at me down the street. Not that I approve of this, and knowing that the men here only do it because of my pale skin and light hair and the fact that all Spanish men are complete sleazes....but still....when I walk down the road or into a club in Newcastle, lets be honest...I am not going to get that sort of attention!

Liz was asking me the other day if I am going to miss my wee apartment here. I guess there are kind of mixed feelings in regards to that. There are downsides to living alone definitely, you do get loney and you really always have to make an effort with people to keep your social life up. I´m also just a massive mahoosive over-thinker, so spending all that time alone can make your mind go a bit mad and fill up the ash tray with hundreds of cigarette butts! On the plus side, there is so much freedom, when I´m hungover I don´t have to talk to anyone (not the most sociable hungover person here....in fact...I generally just dislike people when I´m hungover...), I can eat when I want, sleep when I want, ignore tidying up for a while and of course the best part...NAKED TIME! I would say I spend 90% of the time in my flat naked....I´m even sleeping naked now, which before I ALWAYS had to have my jammies on lol. The only downside to being naked is the cooking part....oil splutters are not the funnest on bare skin!

Finally, although I´ve never been the biggest football fan ever.....of course the excitement of Atletico winning this weekend was great fun....town was filled with people in their Atletico strips all weekend and every single madrileño was in a good mood. ¡Viva Madrid!

DAY 75: La Cocaina

Fair to say I think I have officially killed my liver. 

Friday night was a good one and Liz and I were all dressed up for a big night. Pre-drinking a ton of (very cheap) gin and tonic, we then headed out with some American girls. First stop was an Irish pub, of course, but it wasn´t long before Slaw wanted to dance and sing and Liz and I had to drag everyone off to the club. Now don´t get me wrong, the club was fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed making a tit out of myself whilst I danced to the "beats" that were playing, but sometimes these "beats" just get a tad boring for me so it wasn´t long before I was trying to get into the DJ booth and request music. At first, the DJ was ok with this...I got some Avicci on and was pretty happy. However, we then slowly got into a fight. Being standard Slaw, I kept jumping up and requesting Cheryl Cole and he kept replying saying he didn´t know he she was. I was so disappointed, I started googling pictures of Chezza on my phone and shouting at him, declaring my love for Cheryl. . Anyway, eventually he basically told me to piss off so I ran outside to the smoking area to relax myself from the drunken fury that had built up inside me. "But it´s Cheryl!!!" I screamed to everyone outside and went on a big spiel about how I think she´s so amazing. ANYWAY, sitting in the smoking area, I had decided to take my jacket off....I do go to Newcastle Uni after all....and everyone kept on touching me saying that I must be cold and that I was crazy (that´s right....Spain is no longer the warm country that everyone envisions). I didn´t care though and I was blatently trying to be all laddish and cool being like "no pasa nada". It was then at this point I decided to wander off to another area all by myself (not really the best idea for a drunk, Bristish girl in a foreign country...but it is something I seem to be quite fond of when "under the influence"). I really don´t know how this happened but I started making friends with this group of men and telling them that I wanted coke. So handing over my money I was just like "yeah bitchezzz it´s time for some cocaina!" and then I saw Liz and got too excited and ran away. We continued sitting in the smoking area when two of my new "mates" came over....two big fat Spanish men. They said to Liz "so do you want cocaine as well?" and she (alarmed) went "nooooo" before I could even give me "enthusiastic" reply. Liz at this point decided it was best that I went home and dragged me back to the house where I (tactically) chundered and went to bed. Most probably a very clever move. Thank you Lizzy!

Of course Saturday was a "veg" day of lounging around and eating crap. We watched "The Holiday" and being my emotional, hungover and tired self I kept crying at it. It´s not even a sad film! I was seriously such a mess and the plans we had for later on that evening to me just seemed impossible. "Liz I think I might just stay here and cry and eat chocolate" I told her as we headed out to meet a group of people for the night but thankfully I didn´t because that night was soooo much fun. We went to a German beer festival called "Oktoberfest", but of course being in Spain, it´s in Novemeber, ALWAYS late. It was amazing. We each had litre glasses of German beer and sang and danced the entire night to the cheesiest of songs. Was a tiny bit like being at Flares (Newcastle reference). The Birdie Song came on (although the bloody Americans kept calling it the Chicken Dance and I was just like errr....no), along with YMCA, The Grease Mega-Mix AND The Pizza Hut Song!! Does anyone else remember that? .... A pizza hut a pizza hut, kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut, mcdonalds mcdonals....etc etc.....no? It was blatently aimed at all the children there but we were just loving life and people were even filming us because we were all obviously looking like complete idiots. There was also an Elvis tribute act who was hilarious but we couldn´t quite work out the connection with Germany....anyway, clearly a very cultural event.

Lovely Mother Cristina the next day brought her "cucarachas" (cochroaches as she likes to call me and Liz) freshly squeezed orange juice in bed the next morning. I mean seriously, this was like 5 star treatment. It was then not long before she invited me to stay for yet another big lunch with some family and friends. This couple arrived in with such cute dogs that I just could have cuddled all day but the funniest thing was that they both arrived in in wee wooly jumpers and then got them taken off when they came inside. Literally like having a couple kids! I still don´t think I will ever really understand the clothes for animals thing...although I do find it entertaining putting hats on my dog back home...but I´m just weird. Of course this lunch was filled with red wine, as always, and we were even made to do some sort of absynth-like shot after dinner. Crazy Spaniards.

Anyway, I practically died last night in bed and I still feel rough today. Slaw just can´t hack two nights in a row anymore...getting old!! Work is going to be dire....