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Sunday 18 May 2008 Managed to get up with only 3.5 hours sleep and walked down to the B&B to pick up my moisturiser that Rich had borrowed. And to say goodbye of course. The owner - Ana - was nice, and we had a short conversation in Spanish, in which she asked for my number after I told her I was an English teacher. Maybe she'll have some work for me...
Walked up to Diagonal metro to hail a taxi, and saw the boys off. All in all a good weekend, and I appreciate the effort they made :-)
Monday 19 May 2008 First lesson at Delonghi, which is in the same building as CMA. I was told that it would be an Upper Intermediate class, but when I arrived it was frickin Elementary!!!!! So I was NOT happy. But managed to do the class and as I started late, it meant I didn't have so much time to kill before the evening class.
As Eduard drove me to the metro station after the class, I realised that we have pretty much exactly the same taste in music! Which is a nice change, especially as Alex keeps putting down
my taste... I also noticed how smiley and jumpy he is - he's basically a male version of me!
Got home to find Kylie there and tried to persuade her to join us for dinner at a Chinese we saw earlier, but she bailed. Boooo...
After 2.5 months, my toenail finally came off!!!!! Snowboarding events can take a long time to get over...
Tuesday 20 May 2008 My first upper intermediate lesson - I might actually get some conversation going, woohoo! Unfortunately when I got there I found out that there's 1 elementary, 1 lower intermediate, and 1 upper intermediate student. So pretty mixed class, which is just annoying, but I guess there's nothing I can do about that.
Trekked it back home then all the way out to the airport in the evening for the other class, where they told me that the Thursday class is cancelled, because none of the students would be around...
Wednesday 21 May 2008 There's an area on the ground floor of the Service Centre (the building where I work) with a few computers, and I found out that they're for public use, so I could actually use them for free while
the demise of the toenail 3
managed to get it mostly off but ended up having to twist the rest of it that was still stuck on... waiting for my next class.
I also found out that the Spaniards have difficulty hearing the difference between “love” and “laugh” - or maybe that's just these particular students... So we had a huge debate about it and I didn't have time to play the game I'd prepared :-( But after the class another woman from CMA came with us to the metro station who was really nice and offered to help me with my Spanish. I think I've made a new friend. I don't know her name though...
Thursday 22 May 2008 Again, only 1 lesson before my weekend starts! Was going to check out the fountains with Kyles, but it was raining so ended up staying at home while Alex went to play footie.
Friday 23 May 2008 Got up early to go to the police station for round 2 of the NIE acquisition. What a mission! Gave the forms to the police station, where we got given another form to take to the bank to pay EUR 6.80. So we went to the nearest bank, where we waited a few minutes before getting to the cashier and being told that they only do it between
9:00 and 10:30 (it was 11:15). So we walked to the next bank, where there was a big queue and we waited aaaaaages before we got to the front and told that we need to fill it in first. The 2 people in front of us had the same problem and I think the 1st one put the cashier in a bad mood because she argued with him about it. Anyway, the guy said I couldn't use the pen I was about to take from a desk, so we had to buy one from the shop (1 euro!!) and ended up queuing from the back again - silly really, but what were we to do? Eventually got to the front and paid, then went back to the police station to get the actual certificate. So 2 hours well spent. Not.
We checked out the Japanese supermarket that Alex had found online and spent 25 euros on not a lot. On the way back home, a dead pigeon FELL OUT OF THE SKY and landed between us - how weird is that???!?!! Alex reckons it had a fight with a seagull because he saw one flying away from the scene of
view of Tibidabo from our terrace
thought I'd end on a more pleasant note after those lovely toenail photos - there's a disney-esque castle that gets lit up at night for the amusement park at the top the crime...
Saturday 24 May 2008 Had to do a food shop today because we keep eating it all - funny that... So after a long walk to Mercadona (the best supermarket in Barcelona) and hiking it all the way up to the flat, we headed out again to Caprabo (possibly the 2nd worst supermarket in Barcelona) for some extra cheaper bits and trekked it all the way up the stairs again. The 2 footie games that Alex played this week clearly didn't help him with the climb!
We then decided to go to Decathlon so Alex could get a football top for tomorrow and I could buy some socks, as all of mine now have holes in them. Actually, all my clothes seem to be falling apart - both pairs of trousers I brought here are holey, which isn't good especially as it's so hard for me to find ones that fit length-wise. I'm trying to stick it out until we get back to England, but not sure how long they'll last... Anyway, Alex ended up buying a cap as well, and I got 2 tops. So we spent EUR 25.00, which I found fun but I don't think Alex appreciated...
We planned to meet Nayra at 11:00pm at Plaza Catalunya - she's one of my old students from the TEFL course and she's moving to Madrid for a new job so we thought it'd be nice to go out one last time before she leaves. We had a drink at a nice bar/restaurant, where the waiter asked if I wanted my beer with or without fish. It was obviously a joke I didn't get, considering I didn't know that caña means both a small glass of beer and a fishing line (as well as a type of cake). We then headed to the Llantiol theatre, where we saw a comedy night in Spanish. I didn't really understand any of it so Nayra was translating for me, and Alex understood some of it. Although there was one guy who was a magician and the only word he said was cinco, so I got that act. One of the acts was this guy dressed up as a Mexican and he said he was going to play a game with the audience (it wasn't big so there were only about 20 people in the theatre), and he got 1 person from each group of people to get up on stage. When he came to us 3, Alex put his cap down and I looked away from him while shaking my head, so inevitably Nayra got picked and went up on stage to do her Mariachi shout - or whatever they like to call it. Extremely amusing. The show finished around 3:30 so we went home after saying our goodbyes to Nayra, and Alex played some pocket tanks. I think he's found a substitute for Championship Manager. Thank God!!
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