DAY 65: Los Coños

Life here is pretty awesome but I do have to rant a little about Spain and the Spanish.

1. MEN. Oh my God I HATE Spanish men. They are vile and disgusting perverts. They just think it´s acceptable to shout things at you in the street or hiss at you because you look foreign. It is so disgusting. I don´t really get what they expect you to do either. Is it like, "Oh!! You yelled at me on the street/from your car/in the shop/in a café...let´s just have sex RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW. I want you baby." Seriously, what do they expect? Am I meant to be flattered? It is horrible and makes me feel so cheap and scared. It really does suck being a girl. Mother´s tip for this one: wear a burkha.
2. SLOWNESS. I can´t get over how slow people do EVERYTHING here. It´s like a population of tortoises and snails. At work, they´ll give me a task, and I´ll do it, and they´ll be like "oh that was quick!" And I´m like, "err not really, how long does it take to stick a few labels on some envelopes?" If I ask to get something done, then like 2 weeks later it happens. In restaurants and cafés it´s bad as well. You will go up to the bar, wait whilst they chat to their friends, they´ll ask what you want, start making it, then go ask someone else what they want, then chat to their friends, then start making the other persons drink, then finish yours, then finish the other persons, then ask you for money, then serves someone else and then finally they take your money. I´m not a very patient person so this is all just pretty shit. 
3. MY LANDLORD. So I have never really dealt with my landlord, everything goes through this woman at work, who I have to say (is a bit of a retard). I am still yet to pay my rent bills for the two months I´ve been here and they just don´t seem to care. I have sent emails and emails asking how I pay, and all this woman emails me back with is the landlord´s name, useful? NO. I bumped into her the other day and I asked her again and she goes "what else do you need?" I´m like "what do you think I bloody need? You can´t send money over the internet via one name.." Eventually she sent me his details, but without a bill or anything and none of it makes any sense. Basically the jist of it all is is she´s a retard and he´s a retard and sucks for them being both retards because no money is flying anywhere their way....not that they seem to care..
4. WHY ARE SPANISH PEOPLE THIN? They eat so much. Breakfast before work (perhaps cereal or something), breakfast at work (muffin/pain au chocalat/churros), 3 course lunch, tapas (all fatty and fried). I mean seriously, I am really quite happy I cater for myself as I am on my way to becoming a whale.
5. TECHNOLOGY. Websites for gyms etc don´t have prices. Bank websites don´t have opening hours. You cannot get wifi in a house unless you have a landline. They sell cheap knock off chargers that don´t work with iPhones. The email system is way behind. As a bit of an obsessive with technology (especially with my mobile phone), I don´t like this.
6. RUDENESS. The Spanish are known for being slightly rude. I guess to themselves they are not rude, but to everyone else in Europe they seem rude. They find it funny that I say "please" and "thank you" all the time and think that I am so polite. They don´t say "will you do this?" or "would you do this please?". They just say do it. They speak in quite an aggressive manner. It took me a while to get used to this. At first I just thought everyone was just a cunt. Actually, that´s another thing...they swear ALL THE TIME. Now I´m not someone to lack in the swearing department but there´s a time and a place. They swear in schools, in the office, it wouldn´t surprised me if they swore in church. Literally, I was helping out at an important event a few weeks ago and one of the big boss men just entered the meeting going "qué coño"...translated as "what a cunt". No one batted an eyelash/eyelid (I can´t remember what that phrase is...awkward).
7. DRIVING. They can´t drive. Rich coming from me, but they can´t. They don´t indicate, they don´t stop at red lights and they just beep their horns. I´m surprised I haven´t died yet.

Rant over. Happy weekend all!

DAY 38: La Nudista

Well well done me and my linguistic skills. I was talking to one of the girls at work today about my dad and describing to her the term 'dadd'y's girl'. In this explanation what I meant to say was 'I suck up to my dad so that he think's I'm a little princess'....what it came out as was ' I suck off my dad so that he thinks I'm a little princess.' F.M.L. The horror on this girl's face was followed by 'QUE?!' especially with the fact that I said it so casually. At first I thought, alright calm down love, I suck up to my dad yeah to fool him a bit what's the big deal, I don't like him knowing and I smoke, get drunk...and other things...(even though I'm fooling myself that he doesn't already know these things)...and then she told me what I said, forever scarring me with that image in my mind. Good one Sarah! Ew.

ANYWAY, apart from that work has been pretty busy this week with lot's of events. This means a lot of setting up tables and greeting people but it also means a lot of free food and wine. I got to go to an international event is this very fancy casino on Tuesday night and have lovely champagne and dinner. Actually, the dinner wasn't that great, it was fish (gag) - never give me fish - but it was still fancy. Today's event was a breakfast meeting called 'Fashion Lab' and so there were people coming from Luis Vuitton, Hermes, Cortefiel etc, and as you would suspect, a lot of very camp men! I tried to dress appropriately, you know business chic 'with a twist' but pretty sure my style didn't quite suffice. However, it was fun to see all these people none-the-less even though all I did was go up and down an elevator all morning bringing each person to the conference room. That's 50 floors by the way, up and down 50 levels every 5 minutes! There was a man and woman who came in and I just assumed they were business partners as they seemed to know each other reasonably well. Maybe they were, but they also seemed to have quite an 'initimate' relationship. As we went up the tower, he kept his hand on her ass whilst they kissed and stroked each other....not really something you would expect to see in an office for a global audits company..especially in a lift full of staff...but the Spanish are pretty fond of their PDA. Gag. Seriously, they are kissing everywhere you go, and in the park they practically have sex. So grim. Not a fan of a pda...

So I get the metro every morning to work and as you do on the London tube, I people watch. It's quite good because what I've come to realise is that Spain (I guess like London as well) really has a lot of weirdos. I've seen transvestites, more people practically having sex and women breast feeding with their full on boobs out, no kidding, I've seen their nipples and everything....and they call the English girls slags....:P It also gets so hot on the metro and as a fake tan user, this does not bode well, with brown beads of sweat dripping down my neck....lovely. Sometimes it should just be acceptable to walk around naked...although I guess that contradicts what I just said about the breast feeding mothers!

Apart from all that I have had a pretty quiet week chilling by myself, which has actually been quite nice. I can laze about and catch up on series, walk round naked, have time to cook nice food and skype my friends back home. Tonight, however, I am out for another 'despedida' (farewell party) so the free drinks will be flowing. Tomorrow then I off to Alcala (again)...it has become my second home! Here's to it being Friday! 

DAY 31: La Spaztica

Do we speak as quickly as the Spanish do? Literally sometimes they speak so quickly as though they have to fit a sentence in before taking a breath. It´s funny because even though my Spanish is improving, I still sound like such a retard as I say everything so slowly, and if I try and say a phrase quickly, they have trouble understanding my whatever-it-is accent....am I Scottish (all my life there)? Am I Northern Irish (my parents are from there)? Or am I English (born there). The only thing I know is, I´m not Welsh. Let´s just say British. I helped out with an event this morning, greeting people, but as my Spanish is limited, I only ever said ´Buenos días´, again coming across as a spaz. Thankfully though some of them instantly knew I was English (British...whatever) and so understood that I wasn´t just stupid. It´s not that hard to tell. I stick out so much here, not only because of hair and skintone but, they are all midgets! I am literally a giant! Saldy my cold is coming back but thanks to Lara, I have found this new power drug which works so well! Usually nothing ever works for me, I´m always ill and always have some sort of cold, I´ve even been referred to just as ´the germ´(my friends love me so much...). However, this stuff is amazing and they don´t sell it in the UK. I´m defs going to be a wee drug mule importing tonnes of it back with me at Christmas time! 1 hour left of work (yes...I´m doing work right now....clearly..) and then time for a boozy lunch with Rosie. Bring on the weekend :)