So it's now half past 9 on Sunday night and I still haven't got a place to live! I assumed I could just turn up and there would be loads of places to choose from and I'd move in in a few days.. Definitely not the case. I have been to view quite a lot of flats now and the have all been absolutely disastrous. Seriously, terrible. I need to live in the centre to catch the bus to where I will be working so don't want to go too far out of the centre. How the landlord can show me round is beyond me, they are all filthy and way too far away. One of the landlords made me laugh though, he smelt my Englishness so spoke English to me while showing me around. Well, in Spanish the word for cupboard is armario, which sounds slightly like the English word 'armchair'..? Yeah, he kept calling all the cupboards in the place armchairs. The flat was disgusting but it gave me a little giggle when he said 'Open the armchair and have a look inside'. Or pointed at the wall and said 'There's an armchair there too', the first time he said it I just let it go and didn't think anything of it but when he said it again and again it became apparent what he was talking about. I probably should have said something but, alas, I didn't. I'm a terrible person.
I'm going to Madrid on Wednesday so if I don't have a place by then, I really will start to panic! I'm viewing some more tomorrow so fingers crossed!
Anyway, enough of that! The other day I received a Whatsapp from one of the English teachers at the school, she invited me round to her house for dinner and to meet her son and the children of another English teacher, Jesus. I read the message and was immediately terrified, but I of course agreed. I went along last night and with after difficulty finding her flat, I arrived.
I went up and said hello to everyone, when it became apparent that in Spain they greet each other by two kisses on either cheek - well I'm obviously not used to this! I must have spent about an hour kissing everyone. The girls, I hasten to add! Us men greet each other with a firm handshake. Because we are men. I greeted everyone and we headed up to the roof to eat, the flat was ridiculously hot - I was already melting and I'd only been in there 5 minutes. The heat here is ridiculous, it's nearly October and it's still in the high 20's / low 30's. It's crazy!
We headed up to the roof where Elena had prepared the food for us all. There was a huge Union Jack hanging on the wall and lots of London posters and English things, which made me laugh.
All the children were around my age, which was nice. They were talking amongst themselves and one of the teachers said to me can you follow what they're saying? Not a chance. They were talking unbelievably fast and with such a strong Andalucian accent that I understood literally nothing. They were told to speak very slowly to me, the speed they had to speak for me to understand was quite frankly embarrassing. It must have been painful for them to speak so slowly! We were left alone and it was slightly awkward at first but once we got chatting it was okay. They were all learning English so they were keen to practice it, and I was more than happy to speak to them in English, even though I shouldn't be. One of the guys told me he likes to watch Downton Abbey which I thought was quite funny. They all said that they love the Big Bang Theory, which is one of my favourite shows, but they find the American accent very difficult to understand.
Elena had made an Andalucian soup called salmorejo, it's tomato soup with lots of garlic and olive oil, and crushed up bits of boiled egg in. It was actually really nice! She had also made hollowed out boiled eggs filled with tuna and a kind of sauce. We all ate and chatted a bit more about our countries and their customs and after dinner they thought it would be a good idea to take me out and show me all around Sevilla. We walked for ages as they told me where is good to go, what each area is and things like that.
We got back and Jesus asked me if I had been speaking Spanish, to which I wanted to say yes but the truth was that I let them talk to me in English the whole night. They all got told off and didn't speak a word in English to me for the rest of the night. I found that on the whole, I understood them really well if they spoke slowly enough. It was when I came to reply that there was a problem. I just can't think quickly enough in my head of what I want to say, I have to formulate it, wonder if it's correct or not, if I think it sounds okay then I'll say it. Marcos understood and told me that in one month we'll be able to have a proper conversation - we had a bet on it. On the whole all I did was sit there and nod a lot, probably looking like an idiot in the process.
I think I am starting to get to grips with the Andalucian accent also, the main thing that I've noticed they do is miss out 's' in random places - there doesn't seem to be any kind of logic to it. Sometimes it's there, other times not. Muchas Gracias is interesting because the 's' can disappear from anywhere. I heard so many variations:
Mucha gracias
Muchas gracia
Mucha gracia
It just seems to disappear. If I listen very carefully I can tell where they should be. This lets me off the hook with my plurals because if I miss an 's' off a plural it doesn't really matter - I'm just adapting to the local dialect!
All in all it was a brilliant night, I met some great people who were probably some of the friendliest people I've ever met. They were incredibly welcoming and understanding of my position and I could tell they genuinely wanted to help me. It really does help me feel more settled with people like that. They also gave me some great advice about the city which I shan't bore you with.
As you know, I have no place to live yet so I'm still in my funky hostel. Well, I haven't really been eating that well. I have breakfast here than I usually only get a sandwich or something for the rest of the day. Today however, I thought I didn't care about the embarrassment of going somewhere to eat on my own. Driven mainly by my stomach and of course, my mother. Today I had a big lunch and for dinner I went and got myself a pizza. There was nothing that could have prepared me for it. I was so excited to eat it you couldn't believe - not even tr smell of horse shit on Avenida de la constitución could put me off it! Which reminds me of an incredibly annoying thing some people do here. I went into the pizza place and was talking to him in Spanish. My massively English look / smell / aura must have made him think that he has to speak to me in English. There is no way to stop this other than to tell him to speak Spanish, which is a bit embarrassing. If he were to speak Spanish and I gave him the blank stare that I have mastered over the last few days, he would have the green light to speak to me in English. Until then, pleaseeee speak to me in Spanish! Rant over.
That's all for now!
Cariños,
David
Xxx
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