I'd walk/take the train 155 kilometres, for one of your goals........

.....but one wasn't quite enough. In the end we needed 3 for the win, 2 for an acceptable draw. So there I was, storming out the pub in my hoops, in a rage that our donkey like defenders cost us an unnecessary Old Firm defeat. Rangers 2, Celtic 1, and the world spins madly on. Walking out of the bar, I growled at a young Spaniard who had innocently come to comment on my Celtic shirt and stormed down the street, dissecting what had a occurred at Ipox stadium that afternoon. Yes, we'd been beaten, yes, my theory about Ranger's never winning against Celtic in the sun had been smashed, but then I tried to think positive. I don't know whether or not it was the ice cream, or a comforting text from Scotland that brightened my mood, or even a combination of both, but then it hit me. It wasn't all bad, we were still top of the league, and instead of spending my day in Glasgow receiving texts from gloating bears and running into smug Rangers fans in their Sunday best, I was in Seville!! No Rangers fans here (well until the plague gets drafted over for their game on the 9th of December), it was sunny, beautiful, I'd met up with Cheryl who had come all the way from Granada to watch the game with Roisin and I, and once again.....I was in Seville!!! Ever since the city was introduced to me on the week of the 2003 UEFA cup final, when 80 000 Celtic fans launched an invasion on a larger scale than the Moors for our match against Porto, I'd always wanted to go to Seville. Seeing as I'm now located in Córdoba, I felt that the first Old Firm match of the season was the ideal time to launch my own pilgrimage to the Andalucian capital. On Sunday, the 4th of October, I arrived at Córdoba station in my hoops to take the 9.38 train to Seville, with Roisin who had also come for the same reason, and my Erasmus friends Jolien, Verena and Sina, who'd decided to come along for a cultural trip. It was a big ask to get up in the morning, especially since I'd been out at my friend’s birthday party until 2 that morning. I had planned to stay out until only 12, for 'a few' drinks, but the evening turned out to be one of the best I'd had since coming here. It wasn't a wild out of control party, but one where a new group of friends who were forming tighter bonds had all come to in order to celebrate the birthday of my Dutch friend Nick, and his girlfriend, who had come to Córdoba for the weekend. Once the pirate hats came out and Guns 'n' Roses filled the airwaves, I couldn't resist staying for a couple more beers/sangrias/tintos de veranos. Merry as I was when I left, I was at a perfect level of drunkenness, as I woke up without the slightest hint of a hangover. Stellar stuff indeed! Upon our arrival in Seville, we made our way to the centre where we met with Cheryl, then split into 2 groups, the Scots to hit the pub for the game, the others to visit all the famous sites they could. Seville is truly a wonderful place, and I'd say without a doubt that it's one of the most beautiful cities that I've visited in my life. After locating the Irish pub where we'd decided to watch the game, we visited to the famous Cathedral for a look, and make the most of being in such a wonderful place. I found that Seville was a lot more expensive than Córdoba, with a mediocre ham and cheese baguette costing 4€ and then a pint of Guinness costing a princely sum of 5.90€. After that shock, the 2nd half was spent with a 2€ glass of Sangria in hand whilst shouting at the TV screen calling Nacho Novo a smug wee prick, and with my other hand giving the finger whenever his ugly wee face came up on screen. In order to get over our disappointment, we headed to the riverside in order to find the famous bull ring, but were then side tracked by one of the greatest sites we'd seen all day.....A pedalo boat, out on the Rio Guadalquivir!! Ever since I've watched the hilarious "I'm on a boat" video by The Lonely Island (youtube the unedited version if you've not seen it yet), I've always wanted to take a boat out, solely so I could sing it at the top of my voice. Heading onto the pier, we exchanged pleasantries with the bar man who had complimented our Celtic shirts, then paid 5€ each to get the pedalo for the hour. As Scotland was hit by gale force winds, I was lying outstretched on the back of our pedalo, shirt off and getting my tan on. It was a great moment, peaceful, relaxed, and funny as we couldn't quite believe how we'd come from spending wet drizzly afternoons in the Livingston Tower to lying out on a Pedalo under the scorching sun. Only after did we find out that it was 39 degrees!! 39 degrees, on the 4th of October!!! Incredible stuff! Out afternoon came to a wind down with a big plate of Nachos at an English bar whilst watching footballs darkest day of the season unfold: Chelsea 2, Liverpool 0. After buying the essential postcards and taking a daft amount of pictures, we met up with the girls to exchange stories of the day. Bull Rings, Cathedrals, Palaces and Starbucks.....Or Cathedral, Sandwich in the sun, football, pedalo, football, nachos......I wouldn't have spent the day any differently! The train back was very quiet, heads down, everyone sleeping, until the curse of the loud Spaniard hit us. I don't know if you've ever heard this stereotype, but Spaniards, are loud! Oh so loud! It was first brought to my attention last year when Keith always complained about the loud Spaniards putting him off studying in the library. I never noticed this myself until I was in the library one day and heard a rowdy group of them speaking at an incredibly high volume and an incredibly high tempo- Not understanding a single word in their five minutes of constant loud chatter was not a good sign for someone who's planning to go and spend his year in Spain!! A group of teenagers came on and, my god, I could even hear them over the music on my iPod...and there cometh the return of the post match rage!! All clouds however do have a silver lining and I managed to make it home to find that my flat, which had been occupied by only Anna and myself that week was full again, Laura and Carlos had returned from their respective home towns! Whilst Laura had gone to spend the week with her mum, Carlos had embarked on a week of partying from Wednesday onwards. His home town had their feast week, something that every town in Spain has (Yes, Córdoba are going to honour my birthday in May), so from Wednesday to Saturday, he was drinking with friends from 4pm until 7am, every day. The man turned 30 on Sunday! I take my hat off to him!! It was very quiet in the flat when it was just me and Anna, and despite some peace, I really missed the company of the other two, so was great to walk in and see them again. I took in the 2nd half of the stunningly good Sevilla-Madrid game, where to Carlos' dismay, Sevilla won 2-1. Watching Real Madrid in his company has really helped to improve the range of my Spanish swear words, never mind general football words. Life in Córdoba is still peachy, the fitness drive I mentioned 2 weeks ago is underway and I've been playing football regularly and even made it out for a run last week (Although my plans for another were shelved on Monday seeing as I went and pulled a back muscle on the pedalo on Sunday- signs of age!). The weekend before was spent at the beach in Benalmadena, near Malaga, but unfortunately, it was a complete wash out!!! The first 2 hours were great, despite a bit of cloud, we had an epic game of beach football where everyone had great fun, apart from the Italians who like the classic stereotype, whinged, moaned, and cheated their way through the game. The warm down was spent in the Mediterranean for 20minutes; until the air and sea got a bit chilly.....30minutes later, the rain started, and didn't stop for the majority of the day. It was ironic sitting in a bar in Spain wishing we could have the sun that we saw in England whilst watching football. More ironically, sitting at lunch, I actually lived out a moment from the Alanis Morrisette song "ironic"; where there appeared to be 10 000 spoons, when all I needed was a knife. As Ed Byrne so wonderful puts it, she's a whinging bint who doesn't know the meaning of irony, but she sure set that moment up for me. Cheers Alanis! The day ended spending 2 and a half hours at a shopping outlet, against the will of everyone except trip organiser Rafa. Upon hearing that no one wanted to stay until 10pm, he nodded, and said that he'll take it into account....."Right everyone, so we're staying until 10pm!" Classic Rafa-ness. We were bored and tired, although I did manage to get football trainers that fitted me, for a snip at 24.50€. 4 of us ended up buying the same pair, and we did have a laugh when my friend Adrien and I were presented with a pair of substitute socks in the form of plastic bags to wear on our feet whilst we tried the trainers on. We were in sandals, but they were adamant that these polythene bags would fulfil the same requirements as you're standard cotton socks. As far as university goes, well it's not too bad. French is easy as it's a basic course, Entrepreneurship is in English, so as far as speaking out in class goes, I'm the man, obviously due to my lingual advantage. As a Spanish girl pointed out, I was by far the best at English there- well I should really hope so!!! Marketing however, is a different kettle of fish. It wouldn't be ETEA if there wasn't an obstacle in my way, so when I'm not having to ask for guidance from my stoned but lovely co-ordinator, I'm stuck at the back of a Marketing class (the Spaniards always have class before so are sat at the front), unable to hear the lecturer drone on about a load of pish, whilst not seeming to care about her other students chatting and drowning her out, and the 4 Erasmus students up the back who haven't got a scooby. I had a small test today, to match areas of marketing to statements made. In English, a piece of cake, but seeing as I've not been able to access my ETEA site for the last 2 days to read over slides for the class, I had to ask her what were the choices I had to put next to the statements.....if only it was a 'true or false'. It ended with the bell signalling the end of class (yes, we have a bell!), and me guessing/copying the last 2 and then for the 2nd question, writing out my atrociously bland example of a mission status- "to increase market share". I'm going to get far in life with that!! I hope it will all fall into place like everything else, and no doubt when it does, I'll have another ETEA problem to nitpick at. My sister Laura arrives out here on Sunday and I can't wait. We may be going to Gibraltar or Malaga beach with Nick and Davey, depending on if there's room in the car, as we have a national holiday next Monday. It will be a fun filled week for sure, and I can't wait on showing her what my new life here is like. In other news, I also got Skype today; it's simple, free when you use it to talk laptop-to-laptop, and brilliant to get some chat. I had some of the best phone chat I've had in a long time today and I'm looking forward to plenty more of it in the up and coming months. Thanks again for reading, feel free to add any comments as I'm loving the feedback I've already received. Until next time, it's hasta luego and buenos noches.

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