Having treated myself to a guitar a few weeks ago, I finally made it down to the shop that the guy I bought it from had recommended.
It was an experience. It was a proper guitar shop! Dark, dusty and filled with half-built guitars that the owner makes himself. He's about 150 years old and, needless to say, speaks no English. In I marched, completely unprepared, ready to get a case, some new strings and theoretically to ask him to replace one of the tuning heads at some point.
After much gesticulating, the case was easy enough though it took many repetitions of "menos cara" til I got the cheapest one he sold. The strings should have been easier but turned out to be more difficult. Had I spotted the big display of them under the dusty counter I could have pointed, but the charades were much more fun. The tuning head I just couldn't fathom at all. He got what the item was that I was on about, but trying to explain that I wanted to take the guitar in and get him to fit it, failed dismally. He got a huge box of tuning heads out and I just bought one to get it over with! By this point, his equally ancient wife/assistant had come out from the back room (where presumably they hide the bodies) to "help". Debbie was finding the whole thing very entertaining.
In all the excitement I completely forgot to buy a capo, so a few days later, I had to go back in there on my own. As soon as I walked through the door, he said "Ah, hola, .........." something else very fast in Spanish! Then he shouted to his wife "That English girl's here again". I don't know if he just assumed I wouldn't understand cos my Spanish had been so appalling the first time. Still, I got a capo and a very big smile out of both of them!
It was just as well I didn't ask to give one of his handmade guitars a try, cos I'm sure I would have had to buy it!
Now I just need my huge stack of music sent over from the UK and I'm sorted.
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Thursday, 8 October 2009
Damn dawn delights
Sunrise from the window of the Ministry of the Environment, before my class!In the words of The Monkees, and if I had my way, "the six o'clock alarm would never ring".
On the 21st of September 2009, I "officially" became employed again. Yes, I'd had private students before the summer, but now I had a real job. With a contract (though I've not actually seen it yet!), and proper pay - hurrah - minus tax - boo!
The day before my first class, I did the sensible thing and made a reccy out to the Ministry of the Environment, to time the journey and make sure I could find it. Easy enough. 5 stops on the Metro and a 7 minute walk down one straight road! Even I can do that. Having found it, I decided to take a stroll back a different way and to a different Metro station. The area between Nuevos Ministerios, Rios Rosas and Cuatro Caminos is really nice. If I were to move, I'd quite like to go there. During my wander I found a cool looking wine shop, the very posh Scuela Italian de Madrid, a Pilates centre, a million pastelerias with their tempting window displays, a great little travel bookshop, a couple of tempting restaurants, the beautiful Antigua Hospedal de Maudes (now some kind of council building) and my absolute favourite - a kitchen furniture/equipment shop called, in a particularly un-PC fashion "ForLady"!!!
Anyway, work! It's going pretty well, if I say so myself. My 2 students at the ministry are a director and a sub-director. The director is nice but scary. She's clearly something very, very high up and has an office that wouldn't look out of place in the White House. I'm meant to teach her every Monday and Wednesday morning at 8.15 but so far she's cancelled every Wednesday due to work commitments. I only get paid for a cancelled class if they cancel with less than 12 hours' notice - damn. The sub-director, however, is absolutely lovely. She's happy, bubbly, smiley, enthusiastic, does yoga and belly dancing and seems to find pretty much everything I say funny. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and taking that as a good thing!
As I said, the only down side is the early morning start. Alarm goes off at 6.30 and I'm out the door at 7.20. It's kind of weird being back in the normal working routine and going to the Metro station with all the other commuters! My Metro routine is to listen to my MP3 player all the way there, then pick up a free paper as I exit the station so that on the way back after class I can listen to more music, but read up on the news in Spanish. It's a hilarious free paper - it carries the important stories but mostly it's about Madrid and its suburbs. In that great way that those kind of local publications do, it has amusing stories about, for instance, a car being abandoned on a street corner in one of the suburbs. If that's the most exciting thing that happens there, well......!!
Getting into the Ministry has at least got easier and faster. On my first day, the security desk didn't have the requisite authorisation email about me and they wouldn't let me in! A couple of frantic phone calls to the school didn't help as it was out of hours so I just got the machine. Finally, I went back to the security desk and asked if I could at least phone my student on the internal phone to explain that I was there, I had actually turned up and that I would see her at the next lesson. The security guy rang her office, and 2 minutes later, I was in! I guess he rang the student himself and if she's as important as she seems, she probably just said "Let my teacher in!"
So, there it is. I'm working. I even got my first pay cheque on the 1st of October. It's all gone, of course!!!
Debbie's birthday decadence
September 27th not only saw the end of the reunion, but Debbie's birthday! Yay!
A small affair, due to various people being out of town - Debbie, Moira and I celebrated together. We met at Cafe Delic in Plaza de Paja, a plaza that I discovered was a total nightmare to actually find! Despite looking very easy on a map, I walked round and round (round what turned out to be the outside walls of the square!) for about half an hour, trying to find the way in. Finally, with the help of Moira on her mobile and her map which actually had street names marked (always helpful) I found them.
They were just reaching the end of a mojito each (which when the bill came and they turned out to be €9 each, I was glad I'd missed!). Being a birthday, cava was the order of the day. The waiter initially looked a little dubious as to whether they had any or not, but then came back with 3 very cute, individual bottles (much more reasonable at €3 each), 2 proper champagne flutes and a short, fat tumbler (no, not the acrobatic kind from the circus!). He apologised for not having 3 champagne glasses! As if that mattered. We were tempted to decadently swig it out of the bottle but propriety won out in the end.
Despite the desire for another cava, we decided to resist and walked all of 10 metres to Viva La Vida, a vegetarian food-sold-by-weight buffet restaurant we'd heard so much about but never been in. WOW! What a revelation! Like veggie heaven. First, the place itself is beautiful - all hippy and mad decor. But the food is just amazing. There must have been around 30 different dishes to choose from and that was just the savoury stuff. There were various croquetas, polenta cakes, pastas, fresh veg, salads, roasted vegetables, falafels, you name it, it was there. Loads of sauces, and pots of toppings (sesame seeds, pine kernels etc). Basically, you choose a size of plate, load up whatever you want and they weigh it. It's €2.10 per 100g. Now admittedly 100g isn't very much depending on the density of the food on your plate, but we threw caution to the wind! My plate cost €18 which is probably more than I'd spent on one plate of food since I got here. But to hell with it. It was absolutely delicious and it was more veggie food than I'd seen in 6 months. I may just move in there.
The desserts all looked good but I was so stuffed I could only manage a tiny little biscuit thing that cost me all of 67 centimos!
With that I took my leave of them, at a very civilised 10.30pm and headed home ready for my 6.30 am alarm call for the start of week 2 of teaching.
So - on here at least, happy birthday again Debbie, and no, I haven't forgotten I owe you a present. Forthcoming when the bank balance allows!
A small affair, due to various people being out of town - Debbie, Moira and I celebrated together. We met at Cafe Delic in Plaza de Paja, a plaza that I discovered was a total nightmare to actually find! Despite looking very easy on a map, I walked round and round (round what turned out to be the outside walls of the square!) for about half an hour, trying to find the way in. Finally, with the help of Moira on her mobile and her map which actually had street names marked (always helpful) I found them.
They were just reaching the end of a mojito each (which when the bill came and they turned out to be €9 each, I was glad I'd missed!). Being a birthday, cava was the order of the day. The waiter initially looked a little dubious as to whether they had any or not, but then came back with 3 very cute, individual bottles (much more reasonable at €3 each), 2 proper champagne flutes and a short, fat tumbler (no, not the acrobatic kind from the circus!). He apologised for not having 3 champagne glasses! As if that mattered. We were tempted to decadently swig it out of the bottle but propriety won out in the end.
Despite the desire for another cava, we decided to resist and walked all of 10 metres to Viva La Vida, a vegetarian food-sold-by-weight buffet restaurant we'd heard so much about but never been in. WOW! What a revelation! Like veggie heaven. First, the place itself is beautiful - all hippy and mad decor. But the food is just amazing. There must have been around 30 different dishes to choose from and that was just the savoury stuff. There were various croquetas, polenta cakes, pastas, fresh veg, salads, roasted vegetables, falafels, you name it, it was there. Loads of sauces, and pots of toppings (sesame seeds, pine kernels etc). Basically, you choose a size of plate, load up whatever you want and they weigh it. It's €2.10 per 100g. Now admittedly 100g isn't very much depending on the density of the food on your plate, but we threw caution to the wind! My plate cost €18 which is probably more than I'd spent on one plate of food since I got here. But to hell with it. It was absolutely delicious and it was more veggie food than I'd seen in 6 months. I may just move in there.
The desserts all looked good but I was so stuffed I could only manage a tiny little biscuit thing that cost me all of 67 centimos!
With that I took my leave of them, at a very civilised 10.30pm and headed home ready for my 6.30 am alarm call for the start of week 2 of teaching.
So - on here at least, happy birthday again Debbie, and no, I haven't forgotten I owe you a present. Forthcoming when the bank balance allows!
Raucous reunion
The weekend of 25-27 September saw the long-awaited reunion of at least half of the group from the Vaughan Town I did at the beginning of August.
Marta, Nacho and I had become the unofficial organisers of the whole thing, so come the Friday morning, I found myself with a long piece of paper containing the names, mobile numbers, planned arrival times, accommodation details and who knows what else of the group. They were arriving by various methods and all through the day - apart from those of us who live in Madrid of course.
First to touch down was Roz who came into Barajas and then found her way to the lobby of Kim's hotel to wait. Then Kim arrived - we had a very girly, screamy reunion of our own as she came out through arrivals, and then headed off to her hotel. Or we would have, if she'd had any idea of what it was called or where it was! Now I realise I had become the weekend organiser, but I wasn't aware that that stretched to knowing where she was staying or how to get there. With the help of various people on the street and finally Roz, we made it.
We spent a lovely afternoon after she'd checked in, first at La Mallorquina (great tea/cake shop on Sol) with Pedro, who was moving to Dublin the next day. It was great that he could manage to catch up with just a few of us before going to his own leaving party in the evening.
Over the course of the evening we managed to track down/meet as planned with: Carlos (known to me as Luis, long story), Mercedes, Margarita, Maria V, Nacho, Marta, Ana Belen and Geraldine. Oh, and Marta's brother and Margarita's husband! We moved around the area near Plaza Mayor for most of the evening, from bar to bar, attempting to eat but in 2 places failing, once due to no room and once due to no food! The travelling finally caught up with people and we drifted off.
On the Saturday, people went out in disparate groups. Kim and I met Roz, Geraldine and Marta at Plaza Espana and we went for a lovely walk all around the Temple of Debod, Palacio Real, Jardines de Sabatini, had a late lunch, sat in the sun, talked a lot and generally chilled.
In the evening, 12 of us made it to dinner at Bardemcilla (owned by the Spanish actor, Javier Bardem). What a great place! Google it - even the online menu is funky! Margarita's husband came out again, and this time Maria Angeles came and brought her husband along too. Halfway through the evening, we had some bad news and some great news.
The bad news was that one of the Anglo participants on the program had been involved in a really bad car accident 5 weeks earlier in Ibiza, and had been in hospital there ever since, with a severely injured pelvis and will have to learn to walk again. Poor Ali. We've heard from her since and she's very positive, bless her!
The good news was - JOSÉ LUIS was coming - as a surprise guest! Without a shadow of a doubt, the loveliest, most gorgeous, most popular (with both sexes!) guy on the whole program, and I know everyone else would agree. He'd said he wouldn't be able to make it due to work commitments, but he drove all the way down from Santander, with a work colleague, to come to the restaurant! The reaction from our table when he walked in probably made people think some film star had just entered! It was really good to see him, and his work colleague (Haagen from Germany) was equally lovely and entertaining! After dinner, we all headed to Chueca and took over a huge corner outside a great bar, that was full to overflowing with drag queens and various same/mixed/indeterminate sex couples and groups. We talked and drank til the small hours but finally admitted defeat!
On Sunday, most of us met up again, this time in the lobby of José Luis' hotel. The majority went off in search of culture by way of the Prado and the Thyssen. Roz and I, being the uncultured heathens that we are, went to the Retiro and just sat in the sun and chatted for a couple of hours. Roz then headed off on the train to Alcala de Henares to visit other friends and I went to find the rest in the Thyssen gift shop (generally the only bit of an art gallery you can drag me into!)
We went for lunch nearby and then it was time for everyone to head their separate ways. The usual 30 minute goodbye scene took place on the street and it was over!
It had been a lovely weekend, full of laughter, chat, fun, silliness, seriousness (Margarita had a totally life-changing experience the week after our program and is clearly very, very happy - good for her!), and a reminder of what good friends we had made on the program.
Whatever other nonsense might be going on with those programs at the moment, the fact remains that they're great experiences that always result in new friends being made, some programs more concretely than others. This was just one of those very special programs.
So thank you to everyone who made the effort to come, thanks to those who couldn't come but sent messages, and to the rest - see you sometime in the future. There is talk of this becoming an annual event so we'll keep you all posted!
Lazy, lazy, lazy blogger
I know, I know, I've been really bad and not blogged for ages. I could come up with various excuses but I won't.
So get your reading heads on - it's a quiet night here in the flat and I'm recovering from last night, so what the hell. Several blogs to be blitzed.
>>>>>>>>>>> TBC!
So get your reading heads on - it's a quiet night here in the flat and I'm recovering from last night, so what the hell. Several blogs to be blitzed.
>>>>>>>>>>> TBC!
Friday, 25 September 2009
Blognotes Inc.
I was flicking through the little notebook I carry everywhere with me and found loads of little entries marked "For Blog". None of which have been. So here is a somewhat random selection of stuff, some of it from right back when I arrived! And exactly how I found them in my notes:
- El Corte Inglés - important to have accent on Inglés otherwise it means a groin wax!
- Guy on Metro asking for money by thrusting a note in your face. Can't speak at all or just can't speak Spanish?
- César - at Quiet Man - chat about paganism. Emailed me. Oops, who is he? Can't remember.
- C/de la Huertas - Veggie deli, Moroccan restaurant, Karma Indian, lots of stuff, v touristy, prob not cheap.
- Esto no sierve para nada - This is good for nothing!
- Spanish don't really do birthday cards!
- Little local veggie restaurant (Ceres) full of workmen at lunchtime. (Not sure if I thought this was a good or bad thing!)
- Nacho's "other" friend = Jaime
- Why can't I buy just one potato?
- Terramoto = earthquake. Maremoto = seaquake. What the hell is a seaquake?
- Keep being asked question/directions especially at bus stops. Do I really look Spanish?
- Why don't Spaniards seem to sweat or smell in this heat?!
- There are almost as many travel agencies as hairdressers.
- Ferreterias - key cutting places. Millions of them. Do the Spanish lose their keys a lot?
- In 39 degrees, I suddenly understand the need for shutters on all windows and doors.
- Ugly Naked Guy on balcony opposite. Stares a lot. Maybe we should flash him!
- Guy in the little convenience store across the road knows what I want the minute I walk in. Predictable?
- That's 2 entire buildings near me they've knocked down now in 3 months.
- Great city. Apart from the dog poo.
- I should really have found a job by now!
Not scintillating, I realise but they were starting to annoy me every time I flicked through my notes. So now it's done. Blogged. As planned. Well, not quite as planned. I'll shut up now.
- El Corte Inglés - important to have accent on Inglés otherwise it means a groin wax!
- Guy on Metro asking for money by thrusting a note in your face. Can't speak at all or just can't speak Spanish?
- César - at Quiet Man - chat about paganism. Emailed me. Oops, who is he? Can't remember.
- C/de la Huertas - Veggie deli, Moroccan restaurant, Karma Indian, lots of stuff, v touristy, prob not cheap.
- Esto no sierve para nada - This is good for nothing!
- Spanish don't really do birthday cards!
- Little local veggie restaurant (Ceres) full of workmen at lunchtime. (Not sure if I thought this was a good or bad thing!)
- Nacho's "other" friend = Jaime
- Why can't I buy just one potato?
- Terramoto = earthquake. Maremoto = seaquake. What the hell is a seaquake?
- Keep being asked question/directions especially at bus stops. Do I really look Spanish?
- Why don't Spaniards seem to sweat or smell in this heat?!
- There are almost as many travel agencies as hairdressers.
- Ferreterias - key cutting places. Millions of them. Do the Spanish lose their keys a lot?
- In 39 degrees, I suddenly understand the need for shutters on all windows and doors.
- Ugly Naked Guy on balcony opposite. Stares a lot. Maybe we should flash him!
- Guy in the little convenience store across the road knows what I want the minute I walk in. Predictable?
- That's 2 entire buildings near me they've knocked down now in 3 months.
- Great city. Apart from the dog poo.
- I should really have found a job by now!
Not scintillating, I realise but they were starting to annoy me every time I flicked through my notes. So now it's done. Blogged. As planned. Well, not quite as planned. I'll shut up now.
I'll just walk in the road, then!
Just recently, the roadworks etc right outside the flat have been looking like coming to an end. October, they promised us. I'm not convinced but at least it's improving!
However, I now see that they've just moved.
Calle del Capitan Blanco Argibay, the fairly main road near me is becoming impassable. First they dug up the pavement on one side, completely, so everyone had to use the other pavement.
Now, rather spectacularly, not only have they dug up some of the useable side, but along the part they haven't dug up, they've just put up scaffolding. There is a whole stretch of the road with nowhere for pedestrians at all.
So we're taking our lives in our hands and walking in the fairly narrow road, full of taxis with their horns blaring, psychos on scooters who never seem to look where they're going, and buses that are almost the same width as the road.
Frankly, if I keep making it to and from the Metro station in one piece, it'll be a miracle.
However, I now see that they've just moved.
Calle del Capitan Blanco Argibay, the fairly main road near me is becoming impassable. First they dug up the pavement on one side, completely, so everyone had to use the other pavement.
Now, rather spectacularly, not only have they dug up some of the useable side, but along the part they haven't dug up, they've just put up scaffolding. There is a whole stretch of the road with nowhere for pedestrians at all.
So we're taking our lives in our hands and walking in the fairly narrow road, full of taxis with their horns blaring, psychos on scooters who never seem to look where they're going, and buses that are almost the same width as the road.
Frankly, if I keep making it to and from the Metro station in one piece, it'll be a miracle.
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
Louise's moving day!
OK, so I should be lesson planning but I can't get Word to open (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) so it's time to catch up on blogging.
Last weekend saw Louise, one of my Australian friends here, moving out of her little house. The very house that I lived in for a month when I first arrived. She's going back to Australia in a month and for the next 4 weeks, will be variously in Madrid, Santander and Mallorca. So it was time to quit the house.
For days, if not weeks, beforehand, she'd been talking about packing, and the move, and storing stuff elsewhere. I'd already said that she could leave a couple of cases at my place until she leaves.
The day of the move came around and when I texted her at 12 to see how it was going, what came back was "I'm up to my neck in it here. I need a calming influence. Please come." Now, I'm pretty sure I've never been called a calming influence before, but there's a first time for everything so off I trotted, having called in reinforcements in the shape of Debbie.
When I arrived, I could see what she meant! The landlady was coming for the keys at 6pm and the place looked like a bomb had hit it. She'd made a good start but really, 2 years' worth of accumulated stuff is an awful lot when you have it all piled in a tiny room. Wrongly, I assumed upstairs was finished. Not a bit of it. Not least, one of the wardrobes was locked and stuck that way. Various attempts were made by both of us to open it to rescue her work suits but it resisted any and all attempts, nice or otherwise. Still, once I was there, we cracked on with the rest and slowly but surely, it all came together. Or at least, it all came downstairs. Debbie arrived soon after and lo and behold, a bit of Reiki and positive thinking (not to mention a screwdriver and some now missing wood from the lock) resulted in the wardrobe popping open and releasing its contents!
Downstairs, the main focus of attention was the huge wooden cupboard/press/thing! The drawer at the top contained, well, a bit of anything and everything, as drawers like that are wont to do. The main part of the cupboard contained 2 years' worth of teaching materials! So much paper! I believe there may have been an entire Brazilian rainforest in there. Not any more. Now it's mostly in the recycling bin nearby. Debbie and I even found it quite therapeutic taking regular trips to the recycling places, and the bins, so I imagine it was either more so, or very painful, for Louise!!!
Finally, everything was packed up. There were 4 cases, innumerable bags and boxes plus of course the odds and sods that we kept stumbling over that she had forgotten about!
It took a total of 3 taxi journeys (2 to my place and 1 to Debbie's) to shift it all. The corner of my bedroom has now disappeared, and Debbie's flatmates are marvelling at the arrival of actual kitchen equipment (like forks, for instance!), and a working TV and DVD player. In true Louise style, she was determined to pass on/recycle as much of it as possible, so Debbie and I have her to thank for our large bags full of goodies! Debbie was unfeasibly excited by a pot of plastic animals - I'm hoping due to her imminent teaching of children!
It was a fun, but exhausting day, and has served to convince me that I must not accumulate stuff while I'm here if I can possibly help it! I don't want to be faced with that if/when I leave.
Louise, for a nomad, you're a terrible hoarder, love! And we will be very sad to see you go!
Last weekend saw Louise, one of my Australian friends here, moving out of her little house. The very house that I lived in for a month when I first arrived. She's going back to Australia in a month and for the next 4 weeks, will be variously in Madrid, Santander and Mallorca. So it was time to quit the house.
For days, if not weeks, beforehand, she'd been talking about packing, and the move, and storing stuff elsewhere. I'd already said that she could leave a couple of cases at my place until she leaves.
The day of the move came around and when I texted her at 12 to see how it was going, what came back was "I'm up to my neck in it here. I need a calming influence. Please come." Now, I'm pretty sure I've never been called a calming influence before, but there's a first time for everything so off I trotted, having called in reinforcements in the shape of Debbie.
When I arrived, I could see what she meant! The landlady was coming for the keys at 6pm and the place looked like a bomb had hit it. She'd made a good start but really, 2 years' worth of accumulated stuff is an awful lot when you have it all piled in a tiny room. Wrongly, I assumed upstairs was finished. Not a bit of it. Not least, one of the wardrobes was locked and stuck that way. Various attempts were made by both of us to open it to rescue her work suits but it resisted any and all attempts, nice or otherwise. Still, once I was there, we cracked on with the rest and slowly but surely, it all came together. Or at least, it all came downstairs. Debbie arrived soon after and lo and behold, a bit of Reiki and positive thinking (not to mention a screwdriver and some now missing wood from the lock) resulted in the wardrobe popping open and releasing its contents!
Downstairs, the main focus of attention was the huge wooden cupboard/press/thing! The drawer at the top contained, well, a bit of anything and everything, as drawers like that are wont to do. The main part of the cupboard contained 2 years' worth of teaching materials! So much paper! I believe there may have been an entire Brazilian rainforest in there. Not any more. Now it's mostly in the recycling bin nearby. Debbie and I even found it quite therapeutic taking regular trips to the recycling places, and the bins, so I imagine it was either more so, or very painful, for Louise!!!
Finally, everything was packed up. There were 4 cases, innumerable bags and boxes plus of course the odds and sods that we kept stumbling over that she had forgotten about!
It took a total of 3 taxi journeys (2 to my place and 1 to Debbie's) to shift it all. The corner of my bedroom has now disappeared, and Debbie's flatmates are marvelling at the arrival of actual kitchen equipment (like forks, for instance!), and a working TV and DVD player. In true Louise style, she was determined to pass on/recycle as much of it as possible, so Debbie and I have her to thank for our large bags full of goodies! Debbie was unfeasibly excited by a pot of plastic animals - I'm hoping due to her imminent teaching of children!
It was a fun, but exhausting day, and has served to convince me that I must not accumulate stuff while I'm here if I can possibly help it! I don't want to be faced with that if/when I leave.
Louise, for a nomad, you're a terrible hoarder, love! And we will be very sad to see you go!
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Strum strum strum
Finally, after 6 months and 5 days here, I have a guitar! I didn't bring mine with me due to luggage constraints and the fact that I don't have 12 hands!
For the first few months I didn't miss it so much. I had plenty of other things to do, plus I went back to the UK twice and could play mine while I was there.
But my week at Pueblo Inglés was a reminder. Unlike Vaughan Town, there is a guitar at each venue with PI so I got to play. Not as much as I wish I had the nerve to, and probably should have. But in a couple of group activities, quietly in the bar area a couple of times, and then outside on the last morning. And I realised how much I missed it. Not so much the performing, because unlike singing, I haven't really played the guitar in public all that much. Just simply having it there, in reach, to play around with when I'm bored or can't sleep or feeling a bit down.
I have to admit to there being another incentive. A certain rather lovely guy who I met on the program (yes, the one mentioned in a previous blog) picked up the guitar when I put it down on the last day, said he really wanted to learn so I taught him a couple of chords. He's clearly musical so picked it up easily. On his return home, an infuriating 6000 miles away, he bought himself a (very nice) guitar! Which just made me want one more.
So I trawled through strange Spanish eBay, and a couple of second hand websites til I found some. I struck lucky with my 3rd attempt. A 2-year old, good condition, Spanish classical, nylon strung guitar could be mine for the princely sum of €40. All I had to do was meet a complete stranger at an out of the way Metro station. "Just look for the guy carrying the guitar", he said. Well, to be fair, that's exactly what I did.
I gave the guitar a test run, sitting on a bench in the street while I chatted to Mark, the seller, a Brit who's been living in Spain for 2 years variously as an English teacher, a guitarist and a music teacher. He plays amazing flamenco guitar and gave me a little demo, which made my embarrassing little test play even more mortifying.
We ended up chatting for over an hour about all sorts of stuff. That's what I like about this country. In the UK, if I'd bought a guitar of a guy on the internet, I'd have gone to his house, checked it was in one piece, handed over the money and that would have been that. People here have the time and the inclination to chat, are interested in your story and happy to tell their own. He has since sent me info about good guitar shops in Madrid, how not to get ripped off should I decide to take flamenco guitar lessons, and I've sent him info about the whale and dolphin watching company I holidayed with once, and about a garlic restaurant in San Francisco. Weird and wonderful.
So anyway, I'm the proud new owner of a lovely guitar! Now I should really practice more......
For the first few months I didn't miss it so much. I had plenty of other things to do, plus I went back to the UK twice and could play mine while I was there.
But my week at Pueblo Inglés was a reminder. Unlike Vaughan Town, there is a guitar at each venue with PI so I got to play. Not as much as I wish I had the nerve to, and probably should have. But in a couple of group activities, quietly in the bar area a couple of times, and then outside on the last morning. And I realised how much I missed it. Not so much the performing, because unlike singing, I haven't really played the guitar in public all that much. Just simply having it there, in reach, to play around with when I'm bored or can't sleep or feeling a bit down.
I have to admit to there being another incentive. A certain rather lovely guy who I met on the program (yes, the one mentioned in a previous blog) picked up the guitar when I put it down on the last day, said he really wanted to learn so I taught him a couple of chords. He's clearly musical so picked it up easily. On his return home, an infuriating 6000 miles away, he bought himself a (very nice) guitar! Which just made me want one more.
So I trawled through strange Spanish eBay, and a couple of second hand websites til I found some. I struck lucky with my 3rd attempt. A 2-year old, good condition, Spanish classical, nylon strung guitar could be mine for the princely sum of €40. All I had to do was meet a complete stranger at an out of the way Metro station. "Just look for the guy carrying the guitar", he said. Well, to be fair, that's exactly what I did.
I gave the guitar a test run, sitting on a bench in the street while I chatted to Mark, the seller, a Brit who's been living in Spain for 2 years variously as an English teacher, a guitarist and a music teacher. He plays amazing flamenco guitar and gave me a little demo, which made my embarrassing little test play even more mortifying.
We ended up chatting for over an hour about all sorts of stuff. That's what I like about this country. In the UK, if I'd bought a guitar of a guy on the internet, I'd have gone to his house, checked it was in one piece, handed over the money and that would have been that. People here have the time and the inclination to chat, are interested in your story and happy to tell their own. He has since sent me info about good guitar shops in Madrid, how not to get ripped off should I decide to take flamenco guitar lessons, and I've sent him info about the whale and dolphin watching company I holidayed with once, and about a garlic restaurant in San Francisco. Weird and wonderful.
So anyway, I'm the proud new owner of a lovely guitar! Now I should really practice more......
Moroccan munchies
Thursday was Louise's birthday, so a group of us went to Arabia, a very lovely restaurant near Chueca.
I can certainly recommend the ambience of the place - it looked and felt like you'd want it to. Lots of cushions, low seating, carved wood, nice music.
Yet somehow it appears we pissed off the main waitress simply by arriving. Maybe it was the fact there were 7 of us for a booking of 10, but these things happen. Can't be helped.
Because we were a group, we had to have the set menu which basically means not ordering off the menu, you get what you're given. It's a starter, a main and a dessert per person, a glass of cava and a bottle of wine between every 3 people.
A couple of us had ordered a beer at the beginning but confusingly, this resulted in said stroppy waitress immediately starting to collect up all 7 wine glasses and try to take them away. We pointed out that wine came with our set menu and could we please have our glasses back. Cue them being banged back down on the table at each place setting!
7 very delicious all vegetarian starters arrived. No complaints. Divine. All of them.
Then 7 main courses. I'm assured they were lovely, but unfortunately only one was veggie so my main course consisted of 2 spoonfuls of couscous! Partly my fault for not checking, I admit.
7 little baklava style cakes, the little glass of cava and the most sugary mint tea in the world followed.
Really, the only downer was the behaviour of the one waitress who continuously glared at us, banged things on the table, snatched things away and was generally entirely undeserving of a tip. Which is why she didn't get one!
All in all, it was a great evening though, as the company was marvellous. I learnt all kinds of things about wine, courtesy of Rafa.
I'll be going back there again, but to order from the menu next time. And hopefully when the waitress is in a better mood! Or on a day off.
I can certainly recommend the ambience of the place - it looked and felt like you'd want it to. Lots of cushions, low seating, carved wood, nice music.
Yet somehow it appears we pissed off the main waitress simply by arriving. Maybe it was the fact there were 7 of us for a booking of 10, but these things happen. Can't be helped.
Because we were a group, we had to have the set menu which basically means not ordering off the menu, you get what you're given. It's a starter, a main and a dessert per person, a glass of cava and a bottle of wine between every 3 people.
A couple of us had ordered a beer at the beginning but confusingly, this resulted in said stroppy waitress immediately starting to collect up all 7 wine glasses and try to take them away. We pointed out that wine came with our set menu and could we please have our glasses back. Cue them being banged back down on the table at each place setting!
7 very delicious all vegetarian starters arrived. No complaints. Divine. All of them.
Then 7 main courses. I'm assured they were lovely, but unfortunately only one was veggie so my main course consisted of 2 spoonfuls of couscous! Partly my fault for not checking, I admit.
7 little baklava style cakes, the little glass of cava and the most sugary mint tea in the world followed.
Really, the only downer was the behaviour of the one waitress who continuously glared at us, banged things on the table, snatched things away and was generally entirely undeserving of a tip. Which is why she didn't get one!
All in all, it was a great evening though, as the company was marvellous. I learnt all kinds of things about wine, courtesy of Rafa.
I'll be going back there again, but to order from the menu next time. And hopefully when the waitress is in a better mood! Or on a day off.
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