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.