Rachel's Year Abroad

Penultimate week in Bilbao

Beer in the sunshine, Señor del Tres, pintxos, Spanish Avenue Q and the return of an old American friend :)

The Tuesday after our trip to Burgos was back in school and quite chilled. I was starting to really love my routine of class between 9.30 and 1.30, then procrastination with Maider (another teacher in school, and an absolute legend) until about 3 when we’d both supposedly start working. She had a lot of work to do on her Masters thesis, but yet still we found enough time to sit on the balcony of school and talk about nothing. That evening at 7pm Teresa came to school to actually meet Jose, since she was going to start working in Hemingway the week after I left as the compulsory work experience as part of her International Business MA. After she’d chattered away to José, we walked back to my flat alllll along the river in the sunshine, very much enjoying the gorgeous temperature and having a nose at all the tents, or “txosnas” going up in preparation for Semana Grande to start on Saturday. We popped to Eroski for some salad bits and then made a GIANT salad for dinner, just like we used to do in our flat in Santuxtu. She stayed for ages, we got into a lovely little chat with Paco and she only left in time to catch the last Metro home. The tally of lovely Germans I have met this year continues to rise…!

This was the week that lovely American Phil returned from his 6-week Economics “Summer School” to Bilbao to experience some of the magic of Semana Grande before flying back to Philadelphia the following week. This Wednesday he came to school after class finished and him, Maider and I had a drink in the sunshine in Plaza Unamonu in the Casco Viejo before Maider and I started to feel guilty and headed back to work. It was great to see him and his hectic habits again….
That evening I didn’t get up to much except sorting out everything I’d not done at the weekend, as well as starting the never-ending process of packing because I knew my last week would be mad (and that it was!)

I had class and then worked as normal on Thursday, and then at 7pm endless students began to arrive for the ever-hilarious cata de vino, or wine-tasting evening. Phil, his sister and her friend also all showed up, since his sister and her friend were visiting from where they were staying in France. So we filled the biggest classroom with over 20 people to taste some red wine which, as it turned out, was rather horrid. But Alfredo always provides some comedy and me, Maider, Phil, James and the other interns all sat at the back of the classroom like naught schoolchildren and may have sliiiiightly taken the mick; having all done the tasting before. I love seeing keen-bean students taking notes, it’s adorable!

Phil had to leave before the end of the session to go back to his host family’s house for dinner, and then the rest of us headed out to Plaza Nueva for James’ last pintxos evening before his flight home on Saturday, which was nice. It did then start to pour, however, so we ran home and jumped on the Metro before the heavens opened. They had predicted thunderstorms…!

On Friday we worked and then straight after work I herded about 25 students across the river to the famous Arriaga Theatre to see a performance of Avenue Q…in Spanish. Now, I had already seen this in English and it was hilariously politically incorrect and I had mentioned this fact to Jose ages ago, when I found out the Spanish version was touring from Madrid. Jose took me up on it instantly and it became that evening’s activity – with incredible popularity! Shockingly enough,the Spanish version was even more politically incorrect than the English version, and when the curtains came down for the interval I was slightly terrified I was going to be at the receiving end of some strong words from José: quite the contrary, in fact! Everyone was loving it- even those students with minimal Spanish thought it was hilarious and Noelia and Diana, two other lovely teachers sat in front of me, were also killing themselves laughing. *phew*

Afterwards we headed in our big group to the old town for some pintxos in Diana’s bargainous bar just behind Plaza Nueva…they serve these delicious mini burgers things filled with deliciousness. James, being the chivalrous Australian that he is, was adamant in buying me something, so we had Kalimotxo and two delicious pintxos each – dinner, done! Phil and Maider arrived whilst we were in the bar, and some of the other teachers drifted off home. After that we headed back to the crazy bar of “Señor del Tres” fame and the barman recognised us instantly, as we were debating whether to indulge him or not. We decided “what the hell” and those of us remaining caused chaos building a huge table outside to play everyone’s favourite Spanish drinking game on. We were only about 10 people now; most of whom had never played the crazy dice game. Diana explained it to them and the huge jugs of Kalimotxo and beer  began to arrive on the table. As ever, the chaos ensued and by the end of a very long and exhaustive game – interrupted by some other comedy drinking games introduced by the Swedish guy Alex – we were all pretty tipsy. The highlight of the night game when someone pointed out to Diana that there was a giant spider on her arm, and her and I both jumped 5 foot in the air out of shock. It took Diana a lot less time to calm down than it took me  - and I was only willing to return to my seat once the barman had miraculously encountered the spider and killed it. As Semana Grande was due to start the following evening, nobody was really up for heading out, and I was super-sleepy, so I left everyone else to it and headed home in preparation for the next week! On Saturday morning I was very sad to say goodbye to James in his taxi to the airport…it felt like the end of a Bilbao era, and I did shed a fair few tears as I waved him away. We’d got so close with him living in my flat and although we potentially spoke more English together than we should have done, he has certainly become one of my very close friends from my time in Spain and I very much hope to visit him in the future…whether in Germany, to where he was next headed, or in Australia!!! It was certainly a brilliant way to end his time in Bilbao – after some rocky moments in Spain in general, I think he enjoyed working in Hemingway more than his hotel experiences…and going out with the bang of a really great evening was hopefully a nice goodbye. Gutted he missed the start of Semana Grande then….more to follow on that: officially the best week of my time in Spain!

A trip to gothic Burgos!

My penultimate week in Bilbao

I believe this is now at least a month overdue, but I am determined to prove to both myself and my mother that I am not a quitter and that this blog shall be finished. So *gets year abroad diary out*…. we got as far as Sunday the 14th of August, which means this entry starts from Monday the 15th. This Monday was actually a “Puente,” or Bank Holiday, which meant that it was my last proper opportunity to explore somewhere new. My original plan had been to head to San Sebastian to hit their Semana Grande, or “Big Week,” but I thought I’d been enough times to San Sebastian and I wanted to see somewhere new. And that is how I ended up meeting my lovely friend Nagore at the bus station at half 10, to jump on a 2-hour bus to Burgos.

Nagore is my lovely Spanish friend, and had recently been on a very spontaneous trip to Edinburgh, so we chatted on about that and before we knew it, we were in Burgos. It was interesting to witness the change in scenery as we passed from the mountainous and almost Welsh landscapes of the Basque Country and into Castile y Leon – the “heart of Castilian Spanish.” We arrived in beautiful Burgos at around half 12 and climbed out of the bus to temperatures already over 30 degrees – a lovely change to the miserable Bilbao we’d left behind!

Burgos forms part of the principal crossway through northern Spain, marked by the famous Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route and, because of this, we made sympathetic noises for the countless people we saw sweating it out with their huge rucksacks strapped to their backs! Burgos is a historic city, having once been the seat of Catholic bishops and the capital of the kingdom of Castile. We had thought that this Monday would be rather quiet in the somewhat sleepy university town in the height of summer, but it was the day before the official start to the world’s biggest gathering of Catholic youths in Madrid (the “JMJ”) and there were HUGE groups of children from countries all over the world, clearing spending the day in Burgos before heading south to Madrid. We didn’t let them disturb our day too much though…we wandered into town along the gorgeous Arlanzón river, whose grassy banks recalled images of Devon to mind. We then had a delicious bocadillo lunch in a café, watching these groups of children pass by, singing and banging their random instruments. Nagore also gave me some amazing birthday presents, including seriously cool “Happy Birthday” glasses from the gift shop we’d discovered together on our shopping trip…which I then proceeded to wear for the rest of my meal, much to the amusement of the Spanish OAPs sat next to us!

Then we headed into the heart of the city itself to try and visit the cathedral. It is a gothic cathedral dating from the 13th century and very much deserves its UNESCO World Heritage status; it’s gorgeous. Sadly there was a Mass taking place, since the Bank Holiday was in honour of a famous Spanish patron saint, so we only had access to the central vestibule. I’m not one for churches, but this one was particularly impressive, and became even more so when you regarded its monstrous size from outside. We then whiled away a few hours wandering down the streets of the beautiful old town; much bigger and quite a bit more attractive than Bilbao’s old town. We had an ice cream in the central square watching the delegation from Jamaica doing some seriously outlandish dancing in the searing heat. Then we decided to walk out along the river to keep in the shade for a bit, and had a rest on some grass. The city was eerily quiet once we were away from the children invasion, and it was brilliantly relaxing. Once we’d decided to get the last bus home at 7pm, we had 2 more hours to explore the city, so we brace dourselves and headed for the castle overlooking the city, perched on a hill.

We got a little lost en route through the old town to find it, but I always think you discover a town better that way. We finally made our way to the stone stairs leading up to the castle ruins, and with a few breaks along the way, we managed to reach the top. We decided to forego paying the entrance fees to the ruins, since the most spectacular views were on offer a little lower, where huge evergreens weren’t blocking your vision. And spectacular indeed they were – from the little viewpoint we stumbled across, you had remarkable views above the gigantic cathedral building, as well as all around the city walls and out to the dry plains of Castile y Leon. It was really quite breathtaking – so much so that camera-phobic Nagore even consented to having our photo taken together by a lovely Spanish man.

From there we sadly had to wander slowly back to the bus station and were lucky enough to get the 2 last seats on the last bus home – thank God we’d decided to be British and arrived extra-early to get our return tickets validated, otherwise we’d have been sleeping in Burgos for the night! We were split up on the journey home, and I think the minute we both sat down we crashed out asleep from the heat!

Tagged: Bilbao Burgos Spain

Fiestas, pintxos, spaghetti carbonara and a German reunion :) 

I am now back in Inglaterra, and it’s a bit strange. But more about that later. First, I believe I have an awful lot of time to catch up on with this blog. 

Sooo, I got up to Sian’s visit to Bilbao. That Monday, the 8th August, I had class and then worked as normal, and then spent the evening with lovely German Patrick, my English friend Steve and his girlfriend Lucy, who had flown over from England to spend 2 weeks of holiday with Steve. Patrick had reserved us a table in the rooftop bar of the Alhóndiga, and it had turned into a rather balmy evening, so us four, as well as 2 more of his Spanish flatmates, had drinks in the buzzy atmosphere that is the rooftop bar. By about 10pm, it had got a bit chilly, so we headed down the road to Moyua into another bar for Sex on the Beaches and Mojitos! I walked home, somewhat tipsy, and went to bed.

On Tuesday I did nothing, to my knowledge, as I had a lot of bits to sort out at home. However, Tuesday was the exciting day when the lovely Diana (a teacher in school) bought in personalised cakes for me and Maider! I had definitely eaten and drunk far too much with Sian at the weekend, but these were made with too much love to resist, and made the whole Spanish-learning process much easier :)

On Wednesday my lovely Spanish friend Amaia came round and we cooked dinner for the four of us. We popped to Eroski on the way home for ingredients and cooked up a giant pot of spaghetti carbonara, and then made strawberry cheesecake for dessert. It was a dieter’s disaster and I did feel awfully guilty – but it just tasted so good! The hilarity came when Amaia had brought us a bottle of wine to say thank you (very German, and totally not Spanish!) and, as it turned out, we did not have a single bottle-opening implement between us! This set me on a determined mission, knocking on all our neighbours’ doors. However, whether they peeped through their peep holes and saw “that foreign girl”, or whether they were genuinely not there ( a likely tale, since Spain shuts down in August!), no-one on my floor answered the door. I gave up for the first course and we drunk Kalimotxo with dinner instead, very uncivilised! But in the break before pudding (because we were all so full), I finally had success on the fourth floor – two floors up!!! – with an old lady, who obviously thought it was so scandalous that a Spanish household had no corkscrew, that she gave me her spare one when I went to return it! I went back to my flat and our dinner table, holding the corkscrew like a trophy. Ok, so you had to be there, but it really was very funny. Especially since I was hugely intimidated by her old-lady-hard-facedness, and could barely stammer out Spanish words, let alone a decent Spanish sentence!

On Thursday evening I was knackered from work and concentrating so hard all day, so I did my homework like a good little girl, had an epic German Skypeing session and that was about it. Once again, I managed to miss the themed night at my friend’s bar…but since they don’t start until half 10, and I have to be in school for half 9 the following morning, I find it hard to summon the motivation!

The weekend was then an absolute party weekend, I loved it. On Friday night we all gatecrashed the pintxos evening and had a brilliant time. We started in the dingy German pintxos bar, which saves Jose’s money, but then soon ended up in the sexy bars in the Casco Viejo. Noelia and Diana (two lovely teachers) were out too, which was even more hilarious. There was a fairly big group of us and my friendly neighbourhood stalker Andrés had turned up, GUESSING where we all were from where we’d gone the previous week! He is some random guy from San Sebastian that happened to turn up at school the week before wanting an English conversation partner, and happened to pick the exact time when we were all heading out for pintxos…so he came too and was not half forward! This Friday in question he was apparently going round telling everyone he was my boyfriend?! I was just grateful I had Noelia and Diana, proper Spaniards, to defend me haha! It was all quite comical really, because I just had a great time with this huge bunch of students and he was a bit of an outsider, bless him…

We spent ages in the Casco, so sometime after midnight we decided to move on. We crossed the river and had a few drinks sat outside a very cool bar whose name I have once again forgotten. But it was very casual and Basque, and they allowed us to take our drinks down to the riverside, which was cool. We sat there for a bit, playing with the famous football nicknamed “Klaus”  that had become something of a celebrity in school that week (don’t ask – it had a face like Wilson from the film “Castaway” and everything!)

Then we ended up in a club inventively called “Le Club” until the early hours of the morning. Since the month of August is the month of village fiestas, the city of Bilbao was pretty damn empty. But 20-odd students soon filled up the top floor of this tiny club, and soon after a few more people arrived. We didn’t particularly care though, it was a pretty cool D&B club and we had the whole dancefloor to play limbo, have dance offs and do all kinds of ridiculous things. I had a great time, and the night ended brilliantly with James cooking us both poached egg back in our flat. Nom nom nom.

That Saturday afternoon (once I was awake), I was in a bit of a confused state and fancied some alone time (the dramatic weirdo that I am occasionally…) so I took myself and my awesome book up to Extebarria Park and spent some glorious hours in the sunshine overlooking Bilbao. My sunbathing plan was slightly hampered by the gradual construction of a monstrous fairground in the park, in preparation for Semana Grande, but I found another area I’d never discovered before and joined the wrinkly, sun-seeking old ladies in their favourite pastime.

I hadn’t fancied doing anything in the evening, but a friend from CouchSurfing text me whilst I was reading, to ask me if I fancied joining a group of CouchSurfers to head to the fiestas in the Old Port of Algorta, out on the coast. This was a much better plan than moping in my flat, so I rushed home, wolfed down some dinner and then headed to meet them in the old town. From there, we got the Metro out to Algorta, which was absolutely SWARMING with people when we got out of the Metro station. It was only just before 10pm, but the fiesta was in full swing, with the little whitewashed Basque village overrun with people.

I feel I should try and explain the phenomenon of “fiesta” in the Basque Country. I say for the Basque Country, since I’m not sure if it’s the same across Spain and I don’t want to go making blanket statements. Each village, or “pueblo” has its own saint and, traditionally, “fiesta” was the celebration to honour this saint. Nowadays however, with the proliferation of our drinking culture, as well as a revived interest in tradition, “fiesta” now encompasses a wide variety of things. For example, upon arrival in Algorta, there were lots of Basque dancing troupes doing traditional Basque dances, there was the remnants of a tortilla-making competition and there were also endless little stalls selling food, blasting music and essentially inviting everyone to have a good time. We bought red wine, coke and plastic vessels (to use “glass” would be to undersell the size of these monsters!) and took ourselves down to the edge of the port, where a huge botellón (=outdoor drinking, a quintessentially Spanish phenomenon!) was taking place. We found Adrian’s other friends and made a little circle on the floor like everyone else. We combined our wine and coke and hit the Kalimotxo – SUCH a genius invention!

There was a seriously random group of us CouchSurfers…some of the regulars that I had met before had guests, so it was a nice mixture of people. I managed to stay until about 2am, when I made my polite excuses and got the Metro home. I had been having a great time, and had spoken loads of Spanish, but the grimy part of fiestas is that there aren’t always public toilets (say no more) and we weren’t dancing so I was getting sleepy and cold because of the sea breeze. I had early plans the following day, so I made my excuses and had a nice shower and sleep instead. 

On Sunday morning I got the bus to the airport to wait for Teresa to arrive. For those with good memories, Teresa was one of the 2 LOVELY German girls I lived with for my first 2-and-a-half months in Bilbao, before I moved to the Spanish-speaking gypsy apartment. She had finished her university course in Bilbao, gone home for 8 weeks and realised she loved Bilbao so much that she decided to come back and do her obligatory work experience here instead. She is far too overqualified, but she will be working in Hemingway, where I worked (*sob at use of past tense*). We went back to her new flat, which is slap bang behind Plaza Moyua (ie., you could not get more central in Bilbao!), dumped her things and then had a nice old chat with her flatmate. He’s an older Spanish man, and had been out at the fiestas like me, so he was a bit worse for wear! But he had spent a lot of time in Germany, so the three of us shared an obvious love of the country and we spent almost 2 hours talking to him on one of Teresa’s two balconies!

Then her and I headed across the river to Plaza Nueva for pintxos, which she had very much missed, and enjoyed the buzz of people in the square at midday. I had a hilarious Spanish failure, being presented with two glasses of white wine when I had only asked for two plates (“vasos” and “platos”…easily confused?!)…so we had a few pintxos with our wine in my favourite sunny square. We had an epic catch-up and I revelled in being able to speak awful German once more. I have often read that once you begin a friendship in one language, your friendship will always be based in that language – so Teresa and I very much have a German-speaking friendship, which I really like. It hurt my brain a fair bit that afternoon, speaking German, but I knew it was good exercise!

That evening I had dinner at home and then headed out to Getxo to meet a nice guy called Carlos, who I had been meaning to meet up with for months. We went on an epic wander all around the coast for about 2 hours, chatting Spanish the whole time, until it started to rain and we took shelter in the Puerto Deportivo, where I’d had lunch with my parents and with Sian…and then we walked back to the nearest Metro station in time for me to catch one of the last Metros home. I had contacted him through a Conversation Exchange website; he was a concert pianist and was really very interesting. I regret not having met with him earlier!

And that, my friends, is 7 whole days’ worth of blog. In less than 3 pages on Word. I am quite proud…

More to come …I WILL finish this blog, I am determined!!! 

Sian’s visit to Bilbao

Sian’s bus arrived in San Mamés on the evening of Friday the 5^th August and after lots of hugs (and me oogleing the beautiful guy she’d been sat next to for the past 5 hours!) we headed back to my flat. Unsurprisingly, Siany was shattered so we just had a lovely natter over tea so that we could take full advantage of the short time that she was in Bilbao.

On Saturday morning we got up and got the Metro to Santurzi, at the end of Line A on the Metro. If you are a) my parents or b) an incredibly avid reader of my blog (just my parents then…) you will remember that I did this exact thing when my parents came to visit: We walked from the fishing village of Santurzi along the coast to Portugalete, playing in the “OAP exercise park” on our way! In Portugalete, we crossed the river in the famous transporter bridge, which I think was a bit of a disappointment to Sian after our excitement on Madrid’s cable car the previous week! She was expecting a bit more action; perhaps a violent swing, but the truth is that the car in which passengers and cars travel is really rather smooth and you barely notice you’re moving. From there, we then walked all around the coast to the bar-and-restaurant-infested Puerto Deportivo in Getxo where we had lunch outside. The weather was gorgeous; really warm and quite bright – although not quite sunny enough for sunbathing, sadly. Sian was also enjoying the plethora of sailing boats in the harbour in Getxo, and I loved learning about how they work and how sailing races function.

After letting our lunch settle a bit, we walked around the sea wall with delicious homemade icecreams purchased from a lovely man, then went down onto the beach in Las Arenas and got comfy on Sian’s towel (much appreciated!) We lay there chatting, with me fighting an afternoon siesta, before the wind started to really whip up. At first, we thought it would just pass and that we were safe lying down but alas, since Bilbao is Bilbao and we were on the coast, the sandstorm just became more and more violent, so we walked round the beach and got the funicular railway up the hill into Algorta and got the Metro back home from there. It was a shame because I’d wanted to show Sian the very Basque village of Algorta, and its whitewashed houses poking out into the harbour, but the wind was really quite vicious and we were covered in sand, so home was definitely a better option. We got ourselves nicely showered and took a long, leisurely few hours getting ready to head out in the evening. There was lots of YouTubeing of music videos on Sian’s part, since I miss out on music videos here, and lots of dancing in my room, towels in hair and all sorts!

Sometime after 8pm, we headed to the Casco Viejo and did a cheeky little pintxos crawl. Plaza Nueva was quite nicely buzzy, but after a while it started to drizzle, so Sian and I had to retreat from our table outside and take shelter under the arches, being very Basque and balancing wine + pintxos at the same time. We bumped into some people from school, so I had a conversation with them as short as social convention allows without seeming rude! Once we were full of pintxos, Sian and I ambled up Gran Vía to head to a birthday house party of a friend. We continued the tradition started the previous weekend in Madrid, and bought ourselves some alcohol from OpenCor near Plaza Moyua, and then rung at the door of Patrick’s flat. Patrick is a lovely German, and he lives with 5 Spanish guys, one of whom had his birthday on that Saturday. We were invited to his little gathering, and had (hopefully for Sian!) a nice evening talking to a right old mix of people…to exemplify the mix, Carlos had Happy Birthday sung to him in nine different languages! It wasn’t massively ravy, but it was nice to meet some new people. But we’d been quite busy all day, and Sian was a little sleepy and I felt awful for buzzing about too much and leaving her to be harassed by people, so we hit the Metro home, only to be harassed by a desperately tragic man. No, I do NOT want to give you my phone number and no, I do NOT want to go on a date with you. In situations like those, Sian goes from being my best friend to my lesbian lover. And not even that joke worked on this guy, he was terrifyingly weird!

Anyway, we made it home safely and after some cheeky post-lash food and lots of water, we headed to bed. We were up and out of the house just before midday on Sunday and had woken up to a much calmer, sunny morning. Sian is quite into art so she really wanted to go to the Guggenheim, so we headed that way and joined the outrageously long queue that was tailing back out of the museum. I have probably been there about 7 times in total now because of work, and NEVER have I seen it so busy! But then again, it was a Sunday in Bilbao; there’s not exactly an endless amount of things to do!

I think she really liked it – in my opinion, even if you hate art, you can’t help but being at least a little pulled under the Guggenheim’s spell. The building impresses enough from the outside and the contents inside still doesn’t bore me. The only thing that was annoying was that it was SO busy that we even had to queue to get into some galleries, which meant that we couldn’t wander around as casually as we had perhaps hoped, we were on something of a deadline. We just about managed to get round everything; giving the new abstract art floor a very quick once-over and heading out. We were hungry by this point, and satiated our appetites with amazing Subway baguettes – SO much more exciting than jam on crispbreads, which is all I’ve ever really eaten for lunch since I’ve been here!

We had to eat on the move, walking back to my flat to pick up Sian’s bags before heading back to the train station. I don’t like what the Spanish lifestyle is doing to my best friend, it’s making her far too relaxed about timing and I was definitely stressing for the both of us that she would miss her bus! As it happened (standard!), we were almost 20 minutes early! But she left ok and I was sad to see her go : ( I was so touched that Sian had spent all that money coming to Bilbao, which isn’t necessarily the most exciting place to visit when you live in Madrid, but I had an awesome weekend and I love the photos we took! 

Visiting Sian in Madrid

I arrived in Madrid on the 29^th July at about 9pm….after a lot of delays and added confusion when Mr RyanAir pilot welcomed our plane to Terminal 1, where Sian was waiting for me, when really we’d landed in Terminal 2. Good one Pilot! 

I found and threw myself on Sian in the end, who had come to get me from the airport being the legend that she is, and we hopped on the Metro to her lovely flat in Moncloa, where I had a little nosey round, munched some things, chucked on a bit of eyeliner and then we headed out. Sian is currently working in Madrid in the European Space Agency (I like saying this because I can’t believe I have such intelligent friends!) and one of her friends doing a similar internship to her was leaving, so we semi-gatecrashed his drinks evening. Well, obviously Sian wasn’t gatecrashing but I definitely was – the guy even gave us free drinks vouchers, which was sweet! It was a cute small little Hawaiian themed bar in (ironically!) the neighbourhood of Madrid called Bilbao! We were there talking a crazy mixture of languages to her friends – I was lost since it was mainly French! – out on the street since it was so crazy hot in Madrid! We were chatting away until about 2am,w hen we decided we needed ol but didn’t want to pay the bar prices. So Sian had her first botellón experience, and we walked to the 24 hour supermarket OpenCor to buy some Sangria with her friends. In the time it took us to be absolutely ridiculous in the supermarket, two other British year abroad friends had appeared, friends of our future housemate Sarah. We therefore spent the rest of the night having a nice English chat, until we wandered home sometime after 3am.

We were up and out of Sian’s flat and into the searing midday heat on Saturday morning just before midday. We got the Metro to Plaza de España and walked to the Palacio Real, where we spent 2 very intelligent hours wandering around the staggering palace with our audio guides. Mine was in Spanish, which was the academic element to my weekend! The Palace really was staggering – a bit too opulent for my taste, but then again, if I were a Queen, I’m pretty sure my palace would be opulent too. My favourite part was actually the views offered to us from the balconies in the palace courtyard, from where a nice foreign man took a slightly-too-zoomed shot of Sian and I!

After the palace we headed to “100 Montaditos,” a famous chain restaurant in Madrid which has a menu of 100 different teeny tiny baguettes, filled with all kinds of exciting things. We couldn’t decide what to get, so we got the tasting platter of 12, and shared every single one to really give our tastebuds a workout. They were all so yummy – but afterwards we were so so full! We had to sit there in the shade sipping our Tinto de Veranos until we were able to walk again!

And walk we did! We walked from Plaza de Oriente, where we’d had lunch, alllll the way through the Parque del Oeste to the Templeo de Debod and finally to the Telefércio cable car, which I’d done with Danielle and Fatima the first time I ever visited Madrid back in temperate April! This second time with Sian was possibly even more hilarious, since we had far too much fun singing to Stevie Wonder and Sian was having the time of her life! Since the last time we’d got a bit lost at the other end, this time we went on a round trip, ending up back in the park where we started, a little over-excited! We had a bit of a chill in the shade and then treated ourselves to Frigo Dedo finger ice lollies, from which an endless stream of jokes came! We then spent a fairly long time with our footsies dangling in the fountain in Plaza de España, hugely perplexed as to why nobody else was doing the same thing because it was so incredibly refreshing!

With nice clean, fresh feet, we hit Gran Vía, which is something I’d never done properly in my 2 trips to Madrid. It’s like a mixture of Oxford Street, the Strand and Picadilly Circus, all on one very long road! We walked the length of it, potentially stopping in an incredible H&M (in an old theatre!!!) for me to perhaps have bought some sales bargains…! Then we did some backstreet wandering and finally ended up by the Círculo de Bellas Artes, which is an exhibition centre and museum with a staggeringly good view across Madrid from the top. It was Danielle’s tip for me, which I passed on to Sian  - who has now also taken her parents up there! We spent quite a while sat on the roof to the world, especially loving the appearance of a newly-wed couple taking their wedding photos in Madrid’s sunset.

We then got the elevator back down and headed to Sol to search for something for dinner. We’d eaten a lot at lunchtime and it was still pretty damn warm, so we only really wanted a salad. After much Daw-family-style restaurant hunting, we settled on a restaurant just behind the stunning Plaza de Oriente after Sian did a stellar job of stealing us a table in prime location as soon as another couple left!  We had a lovely leisurely dinner, with Sian delighting in the use of the restaurant’s free WiFi and being hugely antisocial :P Then we bought ice creams for dessert from a Carte D’or shop and just sat by the big fountain in the Plaza de Oriente until just past midnight…pontificating on the world. It was awesome, and once again reinforced just how amazing English friends are.

We wanted to hit the Rastro market early on Sunday morning, so we didn’t stay out very typically Spanishly late, and just got one of the last Metros home for a nice night’s sleep. Because I had eaten all of Sian’s yummy chocolate Special K on Saturday morning, we went out for breakfast and had a very typically Spanish breakfast in Moncloa station: chocolate croissants and coffee (tea for Sian). For €2 each! Bargain! We then spent a lovely few hours wading our way through the crowds in the Rastro market, looking for all the things on Sian’s list. We both got “gap yah” bracelets and I was even naughtier and bought some slouchy “gap yah” trousers, which I now love. Sian also bought a very pretty anklet and some other brilliantly useless Rastro things!

My flight was at 5.40, so we didn’t have loads of time after we’d finished browsing. We had a proper lunch of tapas, ordering patatas bravas, a mini paella and some “Russian salad,” all of which came with yet more carbohydrates in the form of bread, so bizarre! After that we were well and truly stuffed, so had a nice walk back to the Metro and then home to pick up my stuff. Sian, bless her, came all the way to the airport with me, and then shortly after we said goodbye, I had another surprise in the form of the lovely Danielle Crompton running at me! Her mum had visited for the weekend and we were flying out of the same terminal, so I had a nice 45 minute catch up with DanDan before boarding my nicely punctual (!!!) flight back to Bilbao – JUST as the heavens opened and we had to take off in a thunderstorm! I have never been more terrified in my life!

It was an awesome weekend, and I was sad when I landed back in Bilbao, realising that it would probably be my last trip to Madrid in a while. I feel like I know the city quite well now,  and I will definitely be going back!

Boat trips, pintxos, churros and farewells: week beginning Tuesday 26th July

The Tuesday after Salamanca was quite chilled, since my aim for the week was to finish and hand in my delightful year abroad essay. What a fun task that was. I wrote mine on Guernica, the famous tree and the terrible bombing that happened there; and I’m hoping that if all else fails in my exam, I can yak on about “how different the Basque Country is to Spain” etc etc. Wish me luck with that…

Wednesday was a little bit more hectic; I went for a run, and worked, which meant I had to take 12 students for chocolate con churros. In the 5 months that I have been here, this has been an activity every month and I have successfully avoided it every time because I know exactly what I’m like and, if you put delicious fattening things in front of me, I will eat them. If they’re not there, I’m normally safe. But since we were ordering in bulk, the waitress counted heads and shortly after brought over the corresponding number of scolding hot cups of molten hot chocolate. And I don’t mean like Cadbury’s Highlights hot chocolate, nor its “ColaCao” equivalent here: I mean pure liquid chocolate. Not long after 4 enormous plates appeared, piled high with “churros,” the long doughnuts, hot and doused in sugar. The weather had been miserable all day, which somehow excused the guilty pleasure…the truth is, it was HEAVENLY. The dunking of the doughnut in the hot chocolate is a magical thing. And at least now I can say I have ticked that particular “cultural experience” off the list. *Ahem.* Hello fatty Rachel.

That had taken quite a while since we were so many people, so I had to go running to Abando to meet the lovely Melanie (German) one last time before she headed to her new job and new life in Gran Canaria at the weekend. We had a coffee in La Granja, one of Bilbao’s three famous old cafés (there are lots more than 3 cafés in Bilbao…I mean to say the 3 most famous) and she told me all about her exciting plans. She’d been in Bilbao since about April and I’ve never met anyone who’s thrown themselves into anything quite as much as Melanie threw herself into la vida bilbaína. It was really impressive and I’m glad I got to know her.

On my way home, I may have made 2 guilty sales purchases – but in my defence, from the huge array of incredibly discounted clothes that were on offer during the famous “rebajas” (summer sales), I showed huge restraint! That evening I met with my speaking partner Aintzane and she took me to yet another cool bar outrageously near my flat!

On Thursday I had my last class with Javier in the morning, and the lovely man that he is gave me a box of chocolates and the standard two kisses when I left, which was quite nice. That day I was also paid a rather lovely €200 for my English “teaching” efforts, which was even nicer.

I worked from 12.30, which meant it was my turn to run the excursion that afternoon. Luckily it was something exciting that I hadn’t done before: a trip on the “Bilboat” sailing boat down the river. The first disaster was José telling everyone to meet in school for 4pm, thinking the boat left at 4.30pm, when in reality (ie., if he had actually read the brochure on his desk) it did not leave until 5.30pm. Strike two came when he’d only given me €100 and I had 17 students…and each ticket was €10! So I had to improvise with both my own money and a time-killing ice-cream-and-coffee-stop. The other students were all lovely though, and seemed happy enough with the plan.

The boat then left at 5.30, and we spent a really lovely hour crusing up the river Nervión, being waved at by everyone on the banks of the river. We even got a special Basque dance by a bunch of school girls in traditional dress in front of the Guggenheim. The sexy boat passed up past Deusto (where I live) and out past Zorrozaure, where there is a small peninsular and the river divides. Bilbao has been developed so much in the last 10/15 years that people who grew up here say it’s barely recognisable. However, relics of its past as an important docking city are very much evident once you leave the heart of the city; but somehow the shipyards held a certain charm in the sunlight, with their disused equipment gleaming in the sun’s rays. We also commented on a lot of buildings along the river edge that had serious potential to be modernised and sold as “loft” apartments, just like the Docklands or something…and the sole student listening to the audio guide that was on offer told us later that his audio guide informed him that the Bilbao council is planning exactly that! So we were all proud of our budding urban planning skills!

The boat returned to its little mooring infront of the Guggenheim just after half 6, and I went running home to wolf down a salad before dragging Paco out with me to meet the others for goodbye drinks for Melanie. There were quite a few of us, and it was a lovely evening, so we had some casual drinks around Plaza Nueva, before moving to Somera and then SPRINTING to the Metro station just after 11 to get the last train home.

On Friday I worked in the morning and then went back to the flat to grab my stuff to catch a bus to Santander, from where I was flying to MADRID to visit Sian. As is customary for me, I arrived horrendously early in the airport, but I treated myself to an interesting-sounding Spanish novel and settled in the ONLY café in the teeny airport. A fantastic weekend lay in store for me…but only after I had survived a 90 minute delay with RyanAir. NEVER AGAIN with that awful company, I swear. The endless announcements and promotion and irritating Irish music…and not once have I landed on time with them. Disaster. I wanted to get that rant over now so it doesn’t ruin my exciteable post about my amazing – and most probably last – weekend in Madrid during my time here! 

Salamanca: frogs, sunshine and a failed experiment

Ok so I’m desperately behind now, but I have 12 days left of this year abroad and I am determined to document it all, even if I must now divert from my usual style of endlessly dull and waffly drivel.

Here goes.

My weekend in Salamanca

Somewhat hungover, my 5-and-a-half hour train ride to Salamanca on Saturday the 23^rd of July was very much fuelled by coffee and sleep. I had bought my ticket the day before, and only when I arrived at the station in Bilbao did I understand how such a long distance journey had only cost me €48. The train consisted of ONE carriage and it was horrific. Ok, so it wasn’t really horrific but seeing as I had been semi-expecting an AVE high-speed train, to match up to my favourite high-speed ICE trains in Germany, I was mightily disappointed by the shabby carriage that greeted me in Abando station. But I had 2 seats to myself for the whole journey, which meant I could snuggle up and watch video podcasts to my heart’s content. Weirdly, the train stopped after 90 minutes in a station called Miranda del Ebro, absolutely smack bang in the middle of nowhere. Being an inexperienced Spanish train traveller, I was hugely stressed when everyone seemed to be casually disembarking the train, yet leaving some of their possessions behind. Thankfully, this is when I suppose it pays to have slogged your arse off learning a foreign language, as I was at least able to ask what the hell was going on. It turned out we had a 20-minute break, which gave me just enough time to get some more water and wonder at the awful provisions of this seemingly large changeover station in comparison to a regularly sized train station in Germany.

I arrived in Salamanca’s (much nicer!) train station around 7pm, and hopped in a taxi for the “7km” distance that the CouchSurfer I had arranged to stay with had promised me. However, these 7km turned into 17km, and I lost €20 before I’d even touched the city. This two-night trip was to be my first actual experience of CouchSurfing, in the sense of staying in someone else’s house (this is the point of CouchSurfing, in case you weren’t aware!)

The guy seemed really nice virtually and had messaged me loads of helpful things, but had missed out some fairly important details. For example, his “village”, as it was called on his profile, did not even warrant such a title. It was TINY. I knew I was heading for a village outside of Salamanca, because there was no-one offering couches in the city, but still. The bar I was told to ask for him in was the ONLY bar. And he wasn’t even there. He’d told me to ask for his mum who, after ignoring me for about 20 minutes in a grotty fly-infested bar, finally “showed me to my room.” And if I wasn’t suspicious enough by the lack of Mario, this was when my evening went from bad to worse. I was shown to a room that could quite easily have formed the scene to a horror film. In fairness, it had a gorgeous view over the arid land that seems to surround Salamanca, but the room contained 5 single beds, all in a row (???), and had an adjoining bathroom without a functioning lightbulb. I had been offered sheets, but I refused them since *thank God* I’d brought my sleeping bag.

The woman left me a key (“in case I wanted to go out” » WHERE TO?!) and disappeared. It was 8pm on a gorgeous evening in Salamanca, a city I had always wanted to visit the whole time I’ve been in Spain. And I was trapped in the middle of nowhere.

My first thought was to sit it out; that it wasn’t so bad, and that perhaps Mario would shortly appear and we would make lots of exciting plans for a Spanish-speaking tour of the city on the Sunday. But no. Mario was apparently otherwise engaged with a bachelor party and I never met him. I made a Plan B, which involved phoning the amazingly kind taxi man who had taken me to teeny tiny Pelabravo and telling him that yes, things hadn’t gone the way I had hoped and please could he rescue me. He was very sympathetic and sent his son to pick me up immediately, and it was genuinely like a rescue mission; the son said he was so impressed that I had braved such randomness, but didn’t blame me for leaving. And, apparently, he thought I was such a tragic case that I only needed to pay the half fare to the city.

Second *thank God* moment of the day came in the fact that I had somehow been clever enough to pick up a map on my way through the train station, which luckily had the addresses of restaurants, hotels and hostels. I picked the hostel I liked the sound of best, and the nice taxi man took me there, where I paid €14 a night for a 12-bed dorm. I have to say here that I am incredibly grateful for the fact that I know I am always safe in such random situations, because my parents are always there to help me – but that was my mess and I wanted to sort it myself, and the hostel thing worked out fine. That night I met a few Australians and, although they weren’t speaking Spanish to me, I didn’t much care by this point. We asked the receptionist for a bar closeby and it turned out there was a delightful little one, right on the corner. We had some beers, some chats and then, like law-abiding traveller people, headed to bed.

I promise I won’t write about the rest of my Salamanca adventures in such detail. It was just a shame that my first CouchSurfing experience ended so badly; I perhaps should have accepted it, stuck it out…but to get to and from the city would cost me €50 on a Sunday, and for half of that I managed to get my hostel room in the heart of the old town. So, sod the Spanish and the life experience there, quite frankly! I have still definitely met some lovely people via CouchSurfing in Bilbao, I’m just not sure I’d ever be brave enough to “surf a couch” again…

Anyway. Sunday I essentially spent all on my ownsome, exploring the absolutely stunning city of Salamanca. I think I’ve always wanted to go there because it’s a university city, just like my beloved Durham. In the same way as Heidelberg and Tübingen, it has a certain charm about it and, although the students weren’t there, you can really feel the power the university wields over the city. I spent the morning on a 4-hour Spanish walking tour, where I befriended a lovely couple from Barcelona by becoming their photographer. I hugely struggled to understand them, reinforcing my good decision to avoid Barcelona and Valencia on my year abroad, but they were nice and chatted to me a bit. We did all the “main sights” on the tour: the old and new cathedrals; the latter of which was built attached to the former, the university (Spain’s oldest) and the famous frog hidden in its main facade, the gothic “House of Shells”  the Covent of Las Dueñas and the Torre del Clavero tower. Our tour guide was fantastic and, as is the fame of the city, she spoke the most fabulously clear Spanish ever. By the end of the tour, my brain was hurting and I was starving, so I grabbed a baguette of jamón ibérico and went to do some hardcore people watching in Plaza Mayor.

Playa Mayor is my mum’s dream: people-watching paradise. It is considered as one of Spain’s most attractive plazas, and I can’t help but agree. The town hall stands impressive and tall on one of the facades, and restaurants and cafes line the other three. It buzzes with an energy, both during the day and at night, and you can’t help but be a little bit caught in its magic. After charging my batteries, I went off on an epic wander, in true Daw-family style, with my map and camera in hand. I went to all the places the tour had missed, such as the so-called “Padlock Garden,” where couples have engraved padlocks and hung them to a fountain in a garden overlooking the river. I crossed the gorgeous “Puente Romano” (Roman Bridge) to take some photos of the city from the other side of the river, and even managed to find the confusing “cave,” which didn’t seem to be a cave at all, but more a very attractive look-out point. I climbed the tower of the cathedral, which even allows you access to an internal balcony which I’ve never seen in a cathedral before. I also spent a fair amount of time sat in the sunshine on a bit of grass, working my through writing 45-odd postcards to people to say thankyou for my amazing birthday presents. (It cost me a fortune in postage, yes, but was so worth it. I will never forget that birthday.)

I managed to pass an entire afternoon on my own like this, which was quite liberating. It’s not often that I’ve done “solo tourism;” the only other time I’ve really done it this year was when I spent 2 nights in Dresden on my way back to Hannover after celebrating New Year in Berlin. In the same way as back in January, I just really wanted to see Salamanca and felt bad obliging people to come. I was perfectly happy on my own with my geeky guide book, but it was nice to grab some food with the Australians again. We sat in Plaza Mayor afterwards (I confess: we had cheap pizza – the restaurants in Plaza Mayor are far beyond student budgets!) and got frozen yoghurt from this AMAZING shop where you could essentially cover your yoghurt / ice cream in anything you wanted. I went for a bit of fruit (pineapple + icecream = good times) but it was mainly a chocolate feast and I was quite frankly in heaven. Ice cream, chocolate, a buzzy Spanish square on a gorgeous July evening and some Australian banter. Good times.

Again, we didn’t stay out massively late or go out and get wasted, since we were all moving on in the morning. I’d done one hungover train journey and didn’t much fancy another! I got up on the Monday (which was a Bank Holiday, in my defence!), had my €2 hostel Spanish breakfast of coffee and 2 mini-muffins and then headed back to Bilbao. I arrived at about 4pm, went for a run to burn off my ice-cream calories and that was the end of my lovely weekend in Salamanca. Definitely one of the most attractive Spanish cities I have ever seen…it would certainly have been good fun to have done Erasmus there!

19^th July and onwards…until this gets too long!

Scones, counting from 1 - 20 and a second 21st birthday party :) 

I arrived in Bilbao early on Tuesday the 19^th, and then faffed about with washing etc until I had to go to work at 3. Nothing much happened that day, since the weather was horrific and I was busy being amazed at the endless quantity of graduation photos pouring onto Facebook. I feel so old!

The following day I had my second and final trek to the Technology Park for another lesson with Francisco. Being as busy and important as he is, he had obviously not had any time to revise the phrases we’d learnt the previous week, so I managed to kill some of the lesson painfully repeating the pronunciation of phrases like “how are you?” and “I am fine,” as well as trying to teach him about English introductions (in Spanish of course). Then I had a brainwave for something super-simple AND useful to teach him: numbers! So I earnt my money that day counting to 20 an endless amount of times with a 58-year-old famous Spanish businessman. All in a day’s work, as they say.

On the bus back to town, I got off early as I spotted the rare supermarket “Dia,” which sells my favourite type of muesli, so I made a detour and then headed home to drop my haul of cereal before work. There were some drinks in the evening, but nothing overly exciting.

Thursday saw me working another “graveyard shift,” starting at 3pm when all the students have long gone and you have only the lovely cleaner and your computer to procrastinate with. I was going to meet my exchange partner that evening, but upon my arrival home, I was greeted by the delicious smells of spaghetti carbonara and baking! The lovely James Prindiville had been slaving away, making a GIANT pan of pasta for Paco and I, as well as SCONES for pudding! I was so excited for this epic carb overload, especially since my other alternative was salad! Paco put his Spanish eating customs to one side and ate with us at 8pm, two hours earlier than he normally eats. We had a nice chat over dinner, and I had to stay at the table for at least half an hour after because I was far too full to stand up! I spent the rest of the evening on Skype, which is always a big commitment for me because I much prefer to just write really long emails, but it was nice to see the faces of some of my favourites : )

On Friday I had a class with Javier, followed by some paper-reading time in the Alhóndiga library and then the midday shift in work. That gave me enough time to head home, change and then some “going out make-up” on, which managed to shock everyone in school when James and I rocked up at 8 for the standard tapas tour! Jose was overwhelmed, there were about 20 students and teachers eagerly awaiting feeding and watering on his expenses, so he gave Javi a nice wodge of money and we headed to the “cheap” bar first, with this amazing mixed bunch of people in tow, speaking all different languages. I always tried to wheedle my way into Spanish conversations, but sometimes English-speaking people are just too much fun to avoid. I just can’t banter in Spanish like you can in English and that is one of the fundamental reasons why England will ALWAYS be the best.

I don’t much like that first bar, since it’s not very “typically Basque” in the sense that everyone sits down to eat and drink, rather than standing up and balancing the food precariously on their hands, as is tradition. But Jose sends us there because it’s cheap, so we had some white txakoli and some pintxos and then Diana and Javi led the way to Calle Ledesma to get the evening going. I had put out an event on Facebook for my “Bilbao birthday,” to double the night up as my Spanish 21^st, which meant that far too much wine was poured into my glass! We stood around chatting along Ledesma, which is a brilliantly buzzy street when  the sun is shining, as it kindly was on my second birthday night! Lots of people had come out, and there was a great amount of chat between everyone, which I always love. From Ledesma we then headed to the Casco Viejo, where Jose paid for one more round before his money ran out and we all had to start buying our own wine, gutted! My lovely friend Amaia also came out for my birthday, for which I was touched! She even bought me an adorable little present, a necklace of the Basque national symbol :)

We were on Calle Santa María which, in my opinion, has one of the best pintxos bars in the whole Casco. The pintxos there are all very technical and experimental and the bar is always garishly bright with all the colours of the food they experiment with! We had a couple of glasses of wine there and then me, in my lary birthday-girl state led a breakaway group to Plaza Nueva, leaving some of the older teachers behind. We took the cool teachers with us and got us some more wine and some more pintxos, before repeating the pattern of a few weeks ago, and heading to the dingy bar on the edge of the Casco to play the mad drinking game Señor del Tres. This involves dice, buckets of beer and sangria and lots of yelling “BEBE!” (“DRINK!”) and “OCHOOOOOO!” and creating endless stupid rules. In essence, it gets everyone very drunk, really quite quickly. And we had a great time!

From there, we just about made it to a club in the Casco Viejo, where we did lots of silly dancing to lots of silly songs, as well as some awesome ones. Melanie had invited some of her Spanish friends along, so our group grew and we dominated the dancefloor. But it got to about 3am and my stomach started to really hurt, quite possibly from too much dancing after too much sangria, so James and I caught the Metro home and I had the best, alarm-free sleep ever. It was a perfectly planned night out since, at 2pm the next afternoon, I got a train to Salamanca. That particular *adventure* deserves its own entry, so I will leave this one here for now. Catching up little by little…boring everyone, one epic entry at a time..

Turning 21 in style

I slept terribly on  the night of Wednesday 13th July (soooo long ago!), and was definitely not feeling up to teaching a class at 9am, so I called work to cancel Javier´s lesson and treated myself to a rare “lie-in” past 9am! I spent the rest of the afternoon running and packing until my flight home for my birthday at about 5. The only interesting event of the flight was the ruckus caused among the Spaniards by a very English businessman pushing in right at the front of the EasyJet queue. They went wild on the tutting and disapproving head shakes, and he definitely got the point – and in the end, he didn´t even get to sit in the front row because richer and more important people than him had had the foresight to book “Speedy Boarding” (pronounced oh-so-fabulously by the Spanish stewardesses!) so he didn´t even gain anything. Serves him right for breaking British tradition and not joining the queue!

My lovely daddy picked me up from Stansted after he finished work, and I felt awful as we had a killer journey home. He´d already been stuck in traffic between his office and the airport, and then what normally is an hour-long journey round the M25 became almost 3 hours of hunger-plagued hell. But dad didn´t complain once and soon enough we were hungrily devouring a chicken creation made by mum. I think I ate about 12 potatoes, but who´s really counting?! That night I didn´t do much other than try to sort out the bombsite that had become my room in the process of me dumping as much stuff as possible on my parents and brother when they visited a few weeks ago. They then unpacked, dumped the stuff on my bed and I had to try to tidy it away before I could sleep. I swear my room is getting smaller…

I did have some plans for coffee catch usps on Friday, but upon coming home and seeing just how much effort my parents (and brother, not that he ever reads this!) had been putting into my birthday party, I cancelled all plans and tried to help mum as much as I could. I had a mission list: she had an entire FOLDER of recipes, plans, timings for all the mountains of food that she was cooking for everyone! So after the obligatory doctor´s appointment, I got busy in my little red car and spent all of the morning and some of the afternoon driving around Surrey to various supermarkets. I hit Tesco, M&S and then Asda, picking up a crazy range of necessary food, balloons, table decorations…you name it, if it wasn´t already in my house, then I was under instructions to buy it. I was back home by about 3, with a bursting boot and a backseat rammed with “21” motif helium balloons! It was a gorgeous day and here the excitement really began… What mum and dad had managed to beg/buy/borrow was a large marquee and enough tables and chairs for 30 people to have a sit-down dinner. My garden really isn´t that big, so this big-top like marquee looked quite impressive in the sunshine! I started decorating the sides with balloons and banners and all sorts of stuff, having far too much fun and probably getting a little carried away! Then came the absolute COMEDY of trying to assemble the “mini-marquee” that Charlotte´s mum had kindly lent us, to be used as a kind of “tunnel” from the house to the dinner marquee (and also as the drinks tent haha!) Mum and I started dreadfully, puzzling over how to assemble a marquee with only the tarpaulin and some poles. A worryingly long time later, it transpired that there was another carrier bag of joining contraptions and pegs, which helped us endlessly! However, we were still struggling, much to the amusement of the builder next door! So poor Kate herself came round to help, and between the three of us hopeless women, we eventually erected the smaller marquee. Even worse for Kate was that mum then thanked her by heaping her with 3 boxes of salads and some Waitrose canape deliveries, since our 2 fridges were already full! 

The rest of the evening was spent decorating, eating dinner (outside!!!), helping mum however I could (she may disagree with this) and praying to God that the awful forecast for the Saturday didn´t fulfill itself.

Sadly it did.

I woke up on Saturday morning, the day of my 21st birthday party in JULY, to torrential rain. I was the one going round all day Friday telling everyone to be positive and that the glorious weather of Friday would stay with us but no, I should have known that the British climate does not work like that. I drove to the hairdresser (very cautiously!) in the rain, very much enjoyed having more than 7 months of hair growth sorted out, and then came home to finish decorating the tables in the marquee. Who needs expensive party designers?! I was really quite proud of my creation by the time I was finished, with all the lovely things that my mum had been buying. Everyone had their cutlery, their glass and their place name, and the marquee was then off-limits until dinner time! I got myself ready, chucked on the dress I´d bought from Zara that was far too bright and colourful for the miserable weather and finished the “final touches.” 

From 2pm onwards, people began to arrive and, shockingly the weather began to improve. I felt awful, because I’d been in a really foul mood in the morning, probably mainly on account of the weather, but with the combination of some alcohol and my best friends arriving to celebrate my birthday, we managed to banish the black clouds and even saw some sunshine later in the afternoon! The whole afternoon passed in a whirl of catch-ups, AMAZING presents, champagne and a huge amount of love for my friends. I won’t go into every detail, but I did especially love these things:

1) The fact that my mum had SECRETLY organised to fly Sian back from Madrid after her only having been there in her new job for one week to surprise me! My brother picked Becca and, unbeknownst to me, Sian up at Farnborough Station and Sian hid in the boot of my car to surprise me. Becca took me outside for the surprise after she arrived and I could not stop screaming. My mum knew how much I wanted Sian there, it felt a bit wrong that she couldn’t be, so I was so touched that she’d made such an elaborate plan on the sly! I also feel awful for Sian as I launched my screaming, shaking self at her, barely believing she was real! 

2) How well my friends know me: I’m apparently quite difficult to buy presents for, but my amazing friendlings bowled me away with what they’d so kindly given me. From my Durham badminton friends, I have a treat for “afternoon tea for two” at the Ritz, so I’m taking my mummy to say thank you for the most incredible birthday weekend ever. From my Durham college friends, I am spending a weekend in a countryside cottage retreat near Harrogate, where 5 of us are able to cook for ourselves in this gorgeous little house with its own tennis court, epic TV and hot tub. I cannot wait! In first year they secretly organised a birthday trip to Edinburgh, last year we had a makeover before Summer Ball and this year something else amazing! Something to share together is what I love the most :) I was also treated to so many lovely things, such as a personalised Longchamp handbag from my favourites in Camberley, some gorgeous jewellery and an endless array of lovely cards. I do love a good card :) 

3) The fact that mum had organised a 21st birthday memory book for me. It’s a gorgeous little white photo album with a purple “21” on it, and all my favourite people have written me the LOVELIEST, most heartbreakingly kind messages. People from Durham, from home, from all over. I wasn’t allowed to read it when it was given to me because I was told I might cry. And they weren’t wrong. I read it at about 2.30am after everyone had gone and I could not stop crying for an entire hour. I love my friends and will cherish that book FOREVER.

4) My birthday cake. It was insane. It was the most incredible birthday cake I have ever seen, and I am saying that simply out of utter respect for the woman who made it (Nina’s cakes, Camberley). At about 5pm, mum penned us ALL in the lounge whilst she “did something,” leading to a very, very hot sauna of a room for about 10 minutes, with about 28 people drinking in my averagely sized lounge. We were finally allowed out, and I was led to my dining room, where this birthday cake was waiting for me. I was blown away! It was huge and had 4 parts: one representing Germany,  one representing Spain, one representing my life in Durham and one with a huge propped-up photo frame of my face. And the whole thing was edible. You have to see a photo to understand what I mean I think. Mum handed champagne to everyone and I had a lovely Happy Birthday sung to me by the 30-odd people who were there, and then my adorable daddy made a little speech about me. Being the mental person that I am, dad’s speech ended up more jokingly offensive than complimentary, but I was touched and had to try with all my might not to cry and ruin my makeup, since everyone was taking photos of me, embarrassed to the limit! 

5) The fact that Piggers also turned up to surprise me, making me an amazing photo frame collage of all the fun we had last year with badminton in Durham. I can’t wait for next year.

6) The fact that some of my friends had been sweet enough to bring a birthday card and some flowers for my mum’s birthday, and that at midnight we could sing happy birthday to her, say thank you to her, and give her the present I’d been desperate to give her. It was a photo book I’d made online and although it came nowhere near being as good as the present of my amazing party, I hope she liked it. 

7) The fact that Caroline came STRAIGHT to my birthday party from the airport after arriving from a long-haul flight from China, and managed to stay awake all through dinner! She then crashed out and slept through a pounding stereo for 14 hours straight, bless her!

8) The embarrassing, yet hilarious photos from mine and Michael’s childhood that mum had pasted all over the walls! They went down a treat with my friends and very frequently I was dragged to some cupboard or other to be told that any-given-God-awful photo of me was “MY FAVOURITE!” by my friends! 

9) Steph’s speech in the marquee at dinner. I gave a rubbish, forced one, as Louisa tinged her glass when all I wanted was to tell people to have seconds! Steph’s was hilarious, full of mad anecdotes, and suitably humiliating! 

We had been worried that people would get bored arriving at 2, but people hadn’t seen each other in such a long time that somehow it worked. Friends from school, from Durham, from Surrey badminton, even 2 friends I’d met in Bilbao were there, all chatting to each other. I LOVED IT. The highlight of the evening was at 7, when my superstar mum announced that it was dinner time. This is where mum really came into her own. She’d been cooking for days, and planning for months, and it didn’t half pay off. She had made an incredible birthday spread suitable for 50 people. My outrageously patient friends waited in line (so English!!!) to load their plates as high as they could with different salads, salmon, beef carpaccio and all the other yummy things mum had been slaving away to make. They took their food out into the marquee and were so patient to even wait for everyone to be seated. 28 people ate dinner - lots of people had come in the afternoon, spent a few hours chatting and then had had to leave, which left a perfect number of people to take their seats in the big marquee. We had table wine and after I’d taken my photos of everyone sat looking so pretty, the dinnertime chaos began. Mum and dad said the buzz from the marquee was impressive…we were in  there for about 2 hours, as we had seconds of the savoury buffet offerings, and then a suitable wait until mum’s SEVEN puddings appeared for dessert. The Maltesers cheesecake and white chocolate cheesecakes went down a treat, as did everything else. Some of my tiniest, most delicate friends were coming back into the marquee from the kitchen with slices of all the puddings on offer, I was so proud. I’d like to think my mum enjoyed making such lovely food, because she did an absolutely incredible job and everyone loved it. 

The rest of the evening was spent in a somewhat drunken, ecstatic haze. My brother somehow got some music into the marquee, which ended up in some casual games of “Roxanne” and therefore a few very drunken people, very early in the evening! The table wine was very much appreciated, as was the rest of the alcohol that my parents had provided. There was dancing to Saturday Night, the Macarena and to my favourite current songs and I had the absolute time of my life. Seeing all my friends, at varying levels of drunkenness dancing all around my house - (without a single bit of damage to anything!) - was amazing. 

People started to leave around midnight, since they had been drinking for over 10 hours! My home friends headed home, some lovely people who had driven and stayed sober headed back and I was left with Becca, Sian, Caroline, Lucy, Claire and Danni who all stayed in my house, which was amazing because it meant that my party went on even longer :) SLEEPOVER! We sorted out beds and everything, gossiping far too much along the way, and I think we were all crashed out by about 2. Thanks to my lovely brother for deserting his room for Claire and Lucy to share his bed! 

We started to wake up around 10am the next morning, me, Becca and Sian unsurprisingly being the first ones awake! Mum, on her birthday, cooked us a fried breakfast and our hungover bodies appreciated the grease hugely. Well, everyone else’s bodies did. As per usual, I just ate a massive bowl of about 6 different cereals mixed together :) 

Everyone’s trains back home started to leave around 2, so we slowly got ready and then we had a trip to Farnborough North for everyone to head back. I was so sad to say goodbye to the girls, it marked the end of an absolutely unforgettable party and I was so grateful to everyone who came, in whatever form. So THANK YOU to anyone who sent me a card, gave me a present, came to my party and gave me a hug, wrote on my Facebook wall or is just amazing. I’m sorry if I wasn’t able to chat to you for a long time because I was being my usual hectic self but I promise you I am so grateful for your presence :) 

The Daw family spent Sunday evening doing lots of tidying, although there wasn’t much mess, there was a lot of stuff to tidy in the marquee and a lotttt of food left over. What a shame. DINNER TIME! So we ate yummy salady leftovers for dinner, followed by birthday cake for pudding, and then went to see the  new Harry Potter film in Woking. We saw it in 3D and I thought it was AMAZING. I was actually really sad when it was over because it felt like the end of an era. The last 10 years of our lives have been marked by that franchise, which sounds tragic since it’s all fictional, but I was actually quite upset by the thought that there will never be another “new Harry Potter film” to see! 

Monday was my actual 21st and, in comparison to the unforgettable madness of Saturday, it was quite chilled. Nat came over for an epic catch up, which was brilliant since I hadn’t seen her since Christmas and a lot of things had happened in that time. It was great to hear all about the second half of her Argentinian experience and have a good snuggle on the sofa. Then Sophie came over and we did more or less the same, with me hearing all about the end of term and her amazing plans for summer. It really scares me that my best friends are starting law training contracts and all sorts, and that I’m just heading back to uni, but it’s all very exciting for them! I’m hoping for some grown up trips to London soon!

Then I popped to my next-door neighbour’s house, since she’d so very kindly let mum use her fridge space for some of my party food. I took Liz some birthday cake and chatted to her for a bit. Her husband, an endlessly kind man called Ray, sadly passed away back in March so she seemed desperately lonely so I have vowed to pop round again once I’m home.

Then my short stay in England ended with a lovely birthday dinner with my family on Monday evening. We drove along the Hog’s Back to Godalming, where we had a really nice meal in a highly recommended restaurant called “The Inn on the Lake.” It was all very swanky gastro-pub, which I LOVE, and they served clearly fresh food in a really cool atmosphere. I even got some ice cream with a candle in it after not having ordered a pudding! Despite initially protesting against having a birthday meal due to the outrageous effort that had gone into my birthday party, I loved it because everyone enjoyed their food and we spent a lot of the meal in hysterics, so mental is my family. And so mental is my family that they spoilt me rotten. My brother got me some lovely presents, including a spectacularly perfect-for-me “handbag organiser!” I was also given an amazing pearl Tiffany bracelet and the icing on the most incredible birthday cake was that I was also given a “voucher” for flights to New York paid for me, whenever I want to go. Amazing. I’ve always wanted to go and now I can!!! I just need someone to come with me :) 

I was so reluctant to get back on the plane to Bilbao the next morning, for the very last time. I knew it won’t be long until I’m home, but spending such an incredible weekend with all the people you love the most makes you realise just HOW AWESOME England is :) Thank you everyone, especially my famfam for giving me a 21st birthday weekend I will never forget xxx

(Soppiness over and out, I promise)