Good view

I have to say that sometimes I don’t appreciate enough how lucky I was to stumble across the place I’m living in at the moment. It’s in the oldest quarter of Albaicyn. It has a terrace overlooking the massive cathedral of Granada. It’s a few minutes walk away from the Mirador of San Nicolás, arguably the best view of the Alhambra in Granada.

ImplicARTE

A few weeks ago I went on a Christian ‘campamento’ retreat at a youth centre near Málaga. There were about 20 of us in total from Granada, Málaga and Córdoba, a healthy mixture of Spanish, Americans and English.

The weekend, names ImplicARTE, was designed to give us the opportunity to express ourselves through art.

At one point I was asked to take of my shoes and socks, dip my feet in red paint and walk across a bridge of white paper across a floor-mural we had created as a group. It was meant to signify Jesus creating a bridge walking across the chaos of the world.

I think the group found it quite an inspiring moment. Many photos were taken of my footprints and feet, which was an unusual experience for me. Also, when we were asked to take a piece of the mural away with us at the end of the weekend, many (including myself) grabbed one of my footprints.

It’s funny to think that hanging up in rooms across Andalucía is my humble red footprint.

It's been a while

It’s high time I updated my blog, I think…

Hay fever

So, I managed to pop along to the Hay Festival a couple of weekends ago.

Yes, that's right: the Hay Festival at the Alhambra, Granada. (Clearly the organisers of the original at Hay-on-Wye, Wales, have gotten fed up of the rain, since they've now branched out not only to Spain - Granada and Santiago de Compostela - but even to Cartagena de Indias, Colombia).

I thoroughly enjoyed two very interesting talks by these two famous British historians (above).

Do you recognise them?

Mini rant

Why, oh why, when it's blue sky, bright sunshine, boiling hot outside, would you still have all the radiators on full blast inside the library?!?

Especially given that for anyone getting to Faculty has to either clamber up the side of a mountain to get here, or pack themselves onto a bendy bus along with the other sardines, and so arrives drenched in sweat to start with.

I'm sweltering...

It's dinner time

For those among you, and there are many, you believe that I can't cook, well... you'd be right.

But I am trying to prove you wrong.

Yesterday I cooked for myself a fillet steak. Today I made something out of nothing from the chicken, peas, mushrooms and tomato pureé, as you can see in the photo above.

Everything was coming along swimmingly and every individual element of the meal tasted fine (even better, thanks to the herbs I'd throw in - how professional is that?!).

Unfortunately, I then ran out of ideas. I just tossed everything together and it came out looking a bit of a mess.

It tasted fine, but the tomato was somewhat overpowering. Still, live and learn.

Even more unfortunately, I had left a bit of a mess across the kitchen (various pots, pans, plates and cultery had been sacrificed to the cause) and I was just finishing my meal when, unannounced and a day earlier than I had been expecting, Yann's mum and dad turn up.

Cue a flustered 'bonjour' and 'ça va?' and 'je suis desolée' and 'je ne parle pas français', then followed by some frantic kitchen clearing up while the tour went first to the balcony...

Anyway, all is well. They seemed to like the house. His Dad even commented on my 'petite chambre'. I don't know what else he thinks about it - those were the only words I understood. I just replied 'Sí, ouais, muy petite'.

A bientôt!

Weary weather

The week after Easter was seriously hot.

To be honest, it's been seriously scorchio since the start of March and I've frequently lamented my lot, looking ahead (but not looking forward) to the heat come May/June.

I am in the south of Spain after all, but I expected Granada (a little bit up in the Sierra Nevada) to be slightly cooler. And I was wrong: locals warn of temperatures of over 40 degrees come the summer. 

Joy.

This past week, however, respite has come in the form of some proper British weather. We've had cloudy skies, showers and, especially today, gusty wind. Okay, so it's not the snow storms that some of you had last weekend, but it's enough to make me happy.

I gather that the weather is to change again this weekend. Out comes the suntan lotion again... *sigh*

La Alpujarra

Yesterday the latest asee trip took us to Las Alpujarras - a group of traditional white-washed towns up in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada.

The day involved a bit of trekking and a good deal of walking.

All that excercise was on top of to a bit of a kick around of a football on Friday and a pain in my right foot, the result has been quite a sore Sunday..!

I must be getting old... More of that talk to come in May, no doubt!

Lazy blogging

Hello all!

As the eager visitors to this site may have noticed, I've taken a bit of a break from blogging. My last post was the weekend before the Easter holiday. Although I had intended to wrap up some loose ends (Zapatero won, we went for tapas, I went to Cordoba), I've decided that I don't have enough interesting things to say about them.

So, instead of going over old ground, I've had a rest and come back fresh to this blog. I had a delightful Easter break back at home, incidentally, and it was great to see everyone who I got to see. :)

While I was at home, one question that was often asked to me was whether I've made many Spanish pals out here, (what are they like, how's their accent, etc.).

Unfortunately, the simple answer is that I haven't met any Spaniards yet!

Well, that is an overstatement. I have certainly met some native Spanish people in passing, but certainly none who I would consider a friend yet.

That's not to say, however, that I'm friendless out here. On the contrary, it feels like I've met people from every European country around - yesterday I added Denmark to the list which already includes, well, France, Italy, Holland, England, Wales, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Greece... Basically students from everywhere except Spain!

There are a few reasons for this:

1. the Spanish don't turn up to lectures. (I'm exaggerating a bit here, but it is obvious that those who regularly attend are the foreign students. Whether this is down to the Spanish being lazy, or just knowing how the system works, I cannot say).

2. those who do turn up to lectures don't tend to mingle with us stuttering foreigners. (Birds of a feather and all that).

3. the university has a great organisation (called asee) run by volunteers especially for foreign students - they organise trips, go for tapas, and have even started a film cycle, all for us Erasmus students who are looking to practise our Spanish and meet new people.

Obviously it's through asee that I've made all my friends here in Granada. So, none of them might be Spanish, but at least we do generally talk to each other in Spanish (so I am getting a bit of practice...).

The reason I bring all this up is because I saw a film last night all about the experience of being an Erasmus student in Europe. L'auberge espagnole, (Eng: The Spanish Apartment) is about a French student who, while studying economics in Barcelona, ends up living in an apartment which already includes a mix of nationalities: English, German, Dutch...

The film is quite funny and plays heavily on the various stereotypes of the European countries (the German is very neat and organised, the Spaniard is fiercely patriotic, the English girl speaks terribly posh English and terrible Spanish, etc.). Although it showed far more partying than I've experienced here, it does faithfully represent what it's like to be living in a true European mini-community.

It's like they took our lives and put it right up there on screen! Ish.

Photos

Simon in the arabic baths at Ronda.

The French: Tony and Yann, my housemates

Photos - Ronda

The bridge ('El puente nuevo') at Ronda.

The cliffs of Ronda.

The view from Ronda.

Photo time - Granada

The view of the cathedral from my terrace just after sunset.

The Alhambra palace, taken from the top of Albaicin.

Looking across to the snow-capped mountains of the Sierra Nevada, again from my terrace.

The Spanish version of Nick Robinson

Today is election day! Spain is ‘going to the urns’ (a phrase that harks back to the early days of democracy when voting slips were put into urns) to elect a new parliament and senate.

Since I’ve arrived the publicity has gradually been building, although I wouldn’t say that tension or excitement have ever been palpable. According to Spanish law, the campaigns cannot officially start until just two weeks before election day (or 9M as its fashionably portrayed in the press), prompting the BBC to describe it as a ‘sprint’ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7253662.stm) especially when compared to the marathon of the US process (as interesting as that is).

The current prime minister is José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero from the Socialist Workers’ Party who unexpectedly came into power four years ago. The challenger is Mariano Rajoy, leader of the conservative Popular Party who was defeated by Zapatero last time round.

Personally, I’m quite a fan of Zapatero and his manner of politics. I’m a sucker for a good rhetorician, which Zapatero undoubtedly has (his trademark being a Ciceronian-style three adjectives to describe one thing). He has also built a good brand around not only his name (he is known in the press as ‘ZP’, or ‘Zapatero Presidente’) but also his distinctive eyebrows which look like this: ^ ^.

The upshot of this is the following campaign video for Zapatero showing some of the great and good of Spanish music, TV, etc. as well as a number of people off the street, doing the ‘Zapatero’ symbol: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yrLOyKPPKo

On the other side, Mariano Rajoy has a full-on beard which does his chances little good.

(Zapatero has invited the country to see the moustache of Aznar behind Rajoy’s beard. Aznar was the previous PP leader and is universally disliked here for his close relationship with George Bush which led to Spanish troops going to Irak. The first thing Zapatero was in office was to bring them back.)

As perhaps you can tell, I’ve been getting quite into the politics of it all over the last few weeks. Whatever the ultimate outcome is, it’s set up to be a close contest. The conservatives have promised to clamp down on immigration and the economy. The current government intend to carry on with their socialist policies in favour of women’s rights, continued education reform, etc.

Terrorism is also high on the agenda, especially given that ETA cut the campaigning short on Friday due to the murder of an ex-councillor in the Basque region of Spain.

For the first time in 15 years this campaign season has seen the Spanish people treated to two head-to-head TV debates between the two main candidates. Whether or not they will have excited them enough to vote today remains to be seen.

The day before the elections is known as the ‘Day of Reflection’. All campaigning is stopped and the public is invited to reflect on their voting decision. I spent the day chillaxing in Córdoba, more of which to follow in my next post. :)

Spanish language class: A tale of two teachers

So, as part of the deal for me to study here as an Erasmus student (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ERASMUS_programme), I have to enrol on a Spanish course for foreigners.

On Monday we had a exam to test our level of Spanish. Interestingly, those found to be in the lowest and highest level brackets (i.e. beginners and very advanced students) are not accepted onto the course. Having been forewarned by friends that the exam is quite easy and not wanting to miss out on the course for being too good, I threw in some equivocal answers for the harder questions.

Whatever I did, it worked – I was put into a group at the top level. For reasons that are too dull to witter on about here, I ended up going to the introduction class for two groups. Two groups, with two very different teachers…

The first was a self-proclaimed former hippie. The entire lesson (3 hours) was devoted to ‘getting to know each other’. Our first activity was to pair up with someone you’ve never met before, leave the classroom and learn as much as possible about the other person in 10 minutes. On our return to the class, we had to present ourselves to the group as the other person. (Out of interest, my partner was a Greek chap called Nicolaos).

Next, we moved into a circle and wrote our name at the top of an A4 piece of paper. This paper was then passed to the person sitting to the right. The teacher put music on and we had to start writing about the person whose name was at the top of the paper. In describing them we could right about what we knew, or, more interestingly, what we guessed they were like. When the music stopped, the paper was passed to the right again and the music started again. Eventually we made it round the whole circle till everyone had commented on everyone else in the group.

I had written descriptions such as ‘He has always dreamt of working in a bakery’ or ‘She prefers lying on the beach than skiing’. Others copped out by writing ‘she seems friendly’ or ‘has a nice smile’ etc. etc. Anyway, once we had our original paper back in our hands we had to present to the group one thing about us that someone had guessed right, and one thing that wasn’t true. Someone guessed right that I like to read. Someone guessed wrongly that I’m rich ‘because I’m from England’. I pointed out that I might be from England, but that I’m still a student..!

These were just a couple of the group-bonding activities which culminated with a 10-minute learn everyone’s name session. According to the teacher, she likes to use music and film regularly in her classes and has suggested that we don’t take the (normally compulsory) language exam at the term, but instead that she just mark us depending on our class involvement and improvement.

So, all in all, quite interesting.

In contrast, today’s teacher was less fun. We arrived at the classroom: it was tiny and there were only 10 seats (for a group of at least 15 people). The latecomers had to stand! The teacher asked each of us in turn the same questions: name, course and country of origin. She handed out the course programme (inc. an exam and a presentation on a topic of our choice), which listed all the grammatical points that we’d be covering, and then sent us on our way after 15 minutes (which was a great relief for those who had been standing/sitting on the floor!). The course starts proper on Monday. She stressed the importance of attendance. She didn’t smile.

What teaching style would you prefer?

(Well, for me, it doesn’t matter either way. I can’t make the ‘hippie teacher’ group because it clashes with one of my modules. Maybe the other teacher will warm up after a few weeks…)

 

The profound effect poetry can have on me

The other day I was sitting in my Spanish Literature class, waiting for the professor to arrive.

(The professors know that the majority of students don't make it to class on time, so they deliberately wait 5 or 10 minutes before turning up at the classroom to give everyone else a chance to get there first. Of course, the students have twigged onto this and so adjust their between-classes-cigarette-break accordingly so that they still manage to turn up 5 to 10 minutes after the professor anyway. Ah, good old Spain).

As I was sitting there, for whatever reason, I began to have some kind of allergic reaction. I started to sneeze ferociously every five minutes, continuing through the entire lecture. I wasn't doing it so much as to put off the lecturer, but it was certainly putting me off. I was trying so hard not to sneeze, and then sneezing so hard, that my eyes began to well up with tears.

As tears streamed down my cheeks, the Spaniard next to me must have wondered why the Golden Age poem we were studying was so particularly upsetting for me...

Anyway, all my airwaves were cleared up not long after the lesson and I'm happy to report that I'm breathing freely once again. Maybe I'm just allergic to that subject. Or maybe to poetry...

Wandering around Ronda

Hello all!

So, last weekend I had a day trip to Seville. This weekend has been a puente – a sort of bank holiday. Thursday was a day off because it is ‘Andalucía Day’ and when Thursday is a day off in Spain, Friday gets taken off too to make it a four-day weekend!

The idea had been for us (i.e. me, Yann, Tony and Tony’s girlfriend who is visiting us from France) to hire a car and drive down to Gibraltar and across to Cádiz for a couple of days. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a hire car last minute (not in our price range, anyway) and so the plan was scuppered. Fortunately, yours truly came up with a super stroke of inspiration: why not take a day trip to Ronda? After a quick search for the price for return tickets came up with pocket-pleasing results, the decision was unanimously approved.

So yesterday (Friday, or viernes as my blog would have it) saw us waking up early doors to catch the first train to Ronda.

“Situated in the far northwest of the province of Malaga, Ronda sits on an outcrop of rock in a basin surrounded by mountain ranges […] One of the oldest towns in Spain, Ronda has its origins in Prehistory.” I’m quoting here from the Historical Summary section of the free map/guide that I got from the Ronda tourist office.

For those who want to learn more about Ronda, you can read the short Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronda and discover, amongst other fascinating things, that Ronda is one of 5 sister cities for Chefchaouen, Morrocco.

Anyway, the four of us had a very pleasant day wandering around the tourist sites in Ronda, taking photos of the views and generally basking in the lovely sunshine (which, even at the end of February, is already warm enough to be height-of-summer, traffic-jams-to-the-beach, railway-track-melting weather if it were Britain). 

For those who are hoping to see photos, I’m afraid I forgot to bring the cable which connects my camera to my laptop. I’ll upload them when I’m home for Easter!

Not too much else happened this week. I’ve chosen my module choices now and I’m now getting fully stuck into my lectures, which is good fun. I’m taking two literature modules (Literatura Hispanoamericana III and Literatura Española IV) and two linguistic modules (El español de América and El origen del léxico español). That means I’m studying twentieth century Spanish American literature, literature of the Spanish Golden Age, Latin American Spanish and the origin of the Spanish language.

Well, I think it sounds interesting anyway :-P

Next weekend we (that is, me, Yann and Tony) have booked ourselves onto another Erasmus trip: this time to Córdoba. The week after: Fleet!

Settling in and Seville

That all happened a week ago.

I've been living here since last weekend and things, I have to say, are going pretty well. I've been getting to know Yann and Tony, my new housemates, and I've had my first week of lectures.

Yesterday Yann and I went on a trip to Seville. It had been organised by the Association for Foreign Students and we had been promised "a day trip to the capital of Andalucia including a luxury bus, tourist insurance, a cultural dossier of what we'll see in Seville, a map of Seville, a tour of all the local landmarks with our guide... all for just 25 euros". The idea of a deluxe bus did spark my imagination - I envisaged us travelling as if we were a football team or rock group. As it happens, it was just (what I woud call) an ordinary bus. And the map of Seville was a free version from the local tourist office. Still, it was a good day and our guide (Jorge, just a student at the Uni) was actually very interesting.

We stepped off the bus at a rather overcast Seville. The weather forecast had predicted rain and it wasn't long before we felt a few drops. Then the first shower. And then it really rained, and rained, and rained all day.

Undeterred we saw all the sights of the city - the Cathedral, la Giralda, the Rea Alcazar, la Plaza Espana, etc. etc. - and got drenched in the process. And along the way I met a number of interesting people. On the (luxury) bus journey I had sat next to and had a good chin wag with Peter, an economics student from Slovakia. Later on, we also came across two girls from Bratislava, making it 3 Slovaks in one day for me - quite an achievement, I say. I also met a French girl studying pharmacy, a Swiss economist and a couple of chaps who were half Polish, half Canadian.

My personal favourite was a girl from the Cech Republic who is in Granada to study English and, back home, is a drummer for a Simon and Garfunkel tribute band. You just couldn't make it up.

House search

I spent the next couple of days, in and out of Internet cafes, researching available accommodation in Granada. I sent some emails, I made some calls, I made some visits to flats across the city.

One potential candidate was a house on the opposite side of town from the university. Their online post said that students from France, Greece, Finland and Poland already shared it. This had to be worth a visit…

It was, although it was pretty hard to find. In fact, it took me an hour to get there, despite having a map with me and calling them three times to work out how to get there. When I finally arrived they said that they had had quite a bit of interest (“Funnily enough, more people call than actually make it here to visit…” Really?).

Anyway, after a few other flat visits and a bit of consideration, I plumped for the first house I had seen shared by the two French guys. It’s in Albaicyn – the oldest region of the city dating back to before the 15^th century reconquest. Best of all, it has a terrace which overlooks the city (see photo) and a sofa bed in the lounge should people want to visit (hint hint).

Weighing things up

“Bienvenidos a Granada”.

That’s what the lady at the Office for International Relations told me (she said it, strangely enough, on my way out of her office, but still). They were only three words, but I felt properly welcomed. It also helped that she had spent the previous 10 minutes explaining clearly and - in - a - nice - speak-slow-for-the-dumb-Englishman - voice everything that I need to know about: registering at the Uni, signing up for modules, etc.

It had been a bit of an effort to find her though. First I went to the main Office for International Relations, who sent me to the Facultad de Filosofia y Letras (my department). I went there and asked successively at the ‘Help Desk’, ‘Advice Desk’ and ‘Secretary’, each time being passed on to the next desk. It was very much a you’re not my problem, try this guy sort of thing. I did feel I was getting slightly closer with each desk, however, and I’ve perfected my “Hola. Soy estudiante de Erasmus” so that it now sounds almost apologetic.

According to Wikipedia (and who wouldn't believe Wikipedia?), Granada University is the most popular in Europe for foreign students to attend, so they must be used to people (like me) wandering round aimlessly, lost and confused most the time.

I finally made it to the Facultad’s Office for International Relations and met Dr. Marta, a.k.a. my favourite person, my best friend, my saviour, whatever. I walked into her office aimless, lost and confused. I left registered, informed and officially welcomed.

Well, now that the University side of things is all in hand, what I need to do now is find somewhere to live. This is a priority. What am I looking for? Well, some friendly Spanish-speaking housemates, a nice room and preferably walking distance from the Uni.

The first (and only, so far) room that I saw today is in the Albaicin region. It’s a very old, Moorish part of the city. Thin, cobbled streets. Plenty of Arabic shops and restaurants. It’s also very steep, which meant I was actually panting after the walk up to the house. I was shown around by Yann and Tony - two French economics students who (on the plus side) are my age and seem friendly but (on the down side) have heavy French accents which I did struggle to decipher. As for the room, it was alright - nothing too special. But, my word, the view from their terrace is stunning.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll have a look at a couple more houses tomorrow so I’ll be able to compare with how it stands up to the competition.

This evening I bought a panini for dinner at a local panaderia. The lady at the till weighed it to find out how to charge me - a la Pic & Mix! Very strange. The strangest thing is, though, the more I think about it, being charged according to the food’s weight does seem to make sense. Tomorrow I’ll have to go and by a bag full of light pastries ;-)

Day 1

A bright and early start this morning in order to get my 7.30am flight. I bought The Times at the airport which kept me entertained for most of the journey between Heathrow and Malaga. (For those interested in such things, I completed the Mild, Difficult and even Killer Su Doku puzzles, but it was a poor show on the crossword.)

Malaga? I thought you were going to Granada, Simon... Yes, I know. From Malaga I got a bus from the aiport to the bus station and from there I was to get a bus to Granada. Unfortunately I had a bit of a muddle at Malaga bus station:

The ticket seller had just sold me a ticket for the next bus to Granada. "You're on the one o'clock bus", he said. (I looked at my watch. 12.58. I would have to run for it.) "You'll have to run for it," he said, helpfully.

He then explained to me, "Something something something platform something something something 1." I gave my best puzzled look, but he just said, "Quick, you'll have to run for it!"

So I ran for it. I had no idea what he was gibbering about so I just ran to platform one. No bus. Damn. Now what?

I stood looking alternately at my ticket and the empty bay, as if in hope that a bus would materialise. It didn't. Fortunately, a bus driver from another bus did.

Simon [pitifully]: "Granada?"

Bus driver [shouting across bus station]: "Granada!"

A shout came back: "24! But he'll have to be quick about it and run."

Bus driver [to me]: "24! But you'll have to be quick about it and run."

So I was quick about it and I ran.

I got to the bus which was sitting, waiting, at bay 24. Breathing heavily, I got on, took a seat and soon we were off. I was on my way to Granada.

On last week's episode...

For those of you who missed out on the first blog: where were you?! Boy, you missed out. Bolivia Simon included a snake, a couple of trucks, a dead cow, Joaquin the horse and plenty of singing and dancing.

Oh, and lots of top quality nun moments too (see photo: Simon being beaten up by a nun).

Can I promise you more of the same from this blog which, for continuity's sake, has been christened Granada Simon?

The simple answer to that is, well, no. But who knows what lies around the corner this time round. I certainly don't. And you never will if you don't read this blog. And none of us ever will if I don't crack on with it. So enough of the suspense building!

Here we go.