Episode 15: Seeing off my youth in typical drunken fashion

It’s almost as if this weekend had been designed for me, I don’t work Fridays anyway, and school was shut, and almost every school in the country had decided to close on Monday – when I would normally be working at 8AM. Oh, and there was Barça – Valencia on the Sunday, my actual birthday. Oh, and the reason the schools were closed was Carnaval, meaning everyone would be out on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday getting drunk. So the plan was to go to the pyjama party (yes, pyjama party) in Vinaròs on Thursday and the fancy dress party on Friday, then on to Barcelona to get drunk Saturday and Sunday, and to watch the match, and on Monday Erin came in with “let’s go on the tour of Camp Nou and buy shirts”, hey, why not? Then wearily make my way back to Amposta, crawl into bed, and die. And it almost went to plan, on Thursday I opened the presents that had arrived from home this week, then went to work, but then I got home from work to discover that my drunken evil twin had escaped, next thing I know I wake up tied up in the wardrobe while he’s off in, I’m guessing Vinaròs at the pyjama party. I managed to escape sometime on Friday morning though, knock him out when he got back having lost one of my shoes, and tie him back up and put him in the wardrobe, then I headed to Vinaròs for the fancy dress party, had a couple of sangrias and a shot of something, nothing too much, and stayed out until about 5 which for Carnaval is amazingly early. Then on to Saturday which I can safely say is not up there with the best days or nights of my life, it was just a case of wake up in Vinaròs, go to Amposta, sort your bag out, go to Barcelona, after 2 hours on the train to Barcelona hear the intercom get stuck on a loop of “propera parada: L’Aldea-Amposta”, umm, I think not, given that that’s where I got on the train, get to the hostel, get some beers in, go round the Rambla area, regret having your nearly £400 HTC Sensation as opposed to your £30ish Nokia 5228 in your pocket when it gets swiped, get separated from your friends, forget which way to go out of the Metro stop to your hostel, spend SIX FUCKING HOURS looking for it, arriving at half 8 in the morning, halfway through breakfast, oh, and on your way have some guy try and swipe your wallet, notice, and crack him round the head about as hard as I physically could, he soon ran off.
Sunday was a little better, apart from having to spend an hour or two in Barcelona Police Station to report a phone stolen that you know you’re not getting back. Pricks. I wouldn’t mind, when you can lock it and wipe it remotely, do people really think they’ll get anything for it? Next time I go to Barcelona I’m going armed with a phone that would be worth about 0p on Envirofone and some “100 euro notes” “accidentally” hanging out of my back pocket. But back onto Sunday, we got out of the police station and went round a few bars near the hostel, walking into one to a chorus of “SCHOLESY! GIVE US A WAVE! SCHOLESY SCHOLESY GIVE US A WAVE!” Yeah there was a stag do in there watching the football and by Scholesy they were referring to, well, me. I was trying to drink less than I had on Saturday but hearing it was my birthday they went and bought me…something…I know there was a Jägerbomb and Sambuca in it, other than that I have no idea, we spent the afternoon in there watching Liverpool destroy Brighton, and Suárez missing a penalty, whay. Then we headed back to the hostel for a quick siesta, then had to get all the way across the city on an absolutely packed metro to get to the match, where we arrived late, missing the first goal, although we were close enough to hear the cheer, and then arrive to find that it was actually Valencia’s goal we’d missed, fair enough. We then saw 5 Barça goals and quite an easy match, of course though, no beer. After the match we headed to pretty much the same area we’d been on Saturday, with the dodgy prostitutes and ‘beer guys’ out in force, swarming round you like ‘you want blowjob? I give you sex’, ‘you want buy beer?’ all while touching you mainly in the pocket area, so that may be where my phone's gone off to, fantastic, I think we’ll be leaving now. Got to Plaça Reial which is quite a decent area given how close it actually is to La Rambla and went round a few bars there, then headed down to Port Olímpic where there were a few clubs, which were obscenely expensive, and again with beer guys and prostitutes hanging round outside, and no, I don’t appreciate being grabbed hold of when I’ve already said no and am trying to walk past you, if you weren’t a woman you’d be on the deck by now (although to be honest that rule may not have applied to some of them, not that I had any intention of finding out.) So if I ever go round Barcelona to simply get drunk again, I know the parts to avoid.
Then I had a relatively quieter Monday, went to see George off to Olesa then met Erin to head to Camp Nou for the tour and to buy a nice cheap Barça shirt (I have spent an obscene amount of money since getting paid) and we went round the museum, round the stadium, and into the shop, had our photo taken with the Champions League trophy, and this weird Spanish guy was behind us asking, well, anyone, if he could be in their photo with them, even a bunch of French kids who must have been 12 if not younger, it was kind of awkward. But we picked out the shirts, mine was 81€, 106€ If I’d had a name on the back, no thanks, and headed down to Sants so I could get my train back to Amposta and she could go across to Plaça Espanya to go on some trip with her Catalan class, we went into McDonalds and used this fancy ordering machine where you put your card in and tell it what you want, and then get to the payment stage and have it say ‘please insert your card.’ Uh, my card’s right there, in the reader, what do I press now? ‘Please insert your card.’ I have! ‘Please insert your-’ fuck this, next machine, which actually worked. So we went and got sat down and I must have necked half my Sprite in about 2 seconds, given all the previous alcohol consumption my mouth was drier than the Sahara, coming out of McDonalds we saw a train on the board going to L’Aldea at 18:03, “how long have you got?” “Well, 18:03 that’s *looks at watch* now. Shit.” I still had to queue up to buy the ticket by which time I’d pretty much accepted I’d have to wait for the next one in an hour and a half, so not too bad really, eventually got home to Amposta, crawled into bed, rung my mum as she’d been ringing but my English phone had died, and I never took the charger to Barcelona. And then set the alarm and went to sleep, got up the next morning with my alarm, had breakfast, got dressed, put my watch on, wait, my lesson started half an hour ago? Phone: 8:36am, watch: 9:36am, phone: London (GMT), watch: GMT+1 (Spain.) Son of a bitch! Thankfully though nothing too bad happened.
I think I’ve definitely decided though that the next weekend I hit this hard will be my stag do, or my 30th whichever comes first.

Episode 11: Barça 5-0 Levante, Gavin 2-4 Barcelona, and why it’s always inglés and never ingles

So last week I’m in class and it’s the end of unit exam, with the most hilarious listening part ever, when it came along Carme put the CD in the player, and then the voices came on, luckily I was stood at the back of the room so none of the students could see my reaction, but they just sounded like utter goons, just phrases like “it’s reeeeally exciting being surrounded by huuge mountains every day” (on about snowboarding) and even Carme who isn’t English looked at me like ‘yeah, this is totally how you guys speak(!)’, but before the exam she took in all their notebooks to mark them, they did their own front covers and everything, some said “English”, others said “Anglès”, and others said “Angles” which means, well, angles. No, seriously. But anyway, we then got talking about what it was in Castellano, where inglés means English, and ingles means bikini lines, apparently…so talking about bikinis instead of English…works for me!

And along came another ‘I don’t speak Catalan, honest!’ moment when the advance copy of the school’s magazine came in with an exclusive interview with the new English person, now we had the interview in English but it was all translated into Catalan, and I’m looking through it like “I think that’s mistranslated, that’s not what I said” etc. this was at the front of the room with Carme so away from the students, until some of them decided they needed help with something and figured the best course of action was to go to Carme, in full view of me reading this interview, I’m not sure this whole ‘I no speako Spanish’ thing will last much longer.

This is two rows from the very top.

But anyway to the 4-day weekend, along came Saturday and my sixth trip to Barcelona, no official business or anything, just going to get drunk and watch some football, then get drunk some more, then get a bus to Olesa, then drink a few more, simples. So got there, met George, went straight to the Irish bar where we’d watched the England match, and I had pretty much the perfect seat: screen on the left – Wigan v Arsenal, middle screen – Wales v Australia, screen on the right – Scum v Norwich, right then, get the beers in and let’s watch some sport! About 10 beers and 4 matches later we leave and make our way to, first of all Burger King, where they did beer, highly impressed, and then the Camp Nou and got in the queue for tickets, and there were guys there in the queue trying to sell tickets! Yeah because that’s real for 10 Euros mate, although I’m honing my pronunciation of “Ich spreche kein Spanish” because I figure less of them know German than English, but yeah we got to the window and made the mistake of not asking for our tickets together, meaning we ended up almost at opposite ends of the ground, but there were plenty of free seats up in the very top of the stadium so we ended up sat together anyway, then I went to the toilet figuring it was too early in the match for me to miss a goal…or not…bloody Fàbregas. So a while later into the match we decided it was beer o’clock again, and it wasn’t badly priced at all, the top stadium in the country, one of the best in Europe, and a beer was 3,20€, alright I’ll have one of – wait, alcohol free?! The fuck is this?! Cervesa sense alcohol? And it even had it in English underneath as if to just rub it in, there do not serve alcoholic beverages at the Camp Nou. I don’t even… So we went for the next best thing, a massive tub of popcorn. Yes, popcorn. This was also 3,20€ but somehow that much less satisfying, and saltier than the Dead Sea, leaving us gagging for a drink that we didn’t want because it had no friggin’ alcohol! Give them their due it’s one way of making people spend money, but I was resilient and refused to spend anything else save for the bus ticket to Olesa, then drinks, many drinks, think we must’ve stayed out ‘til about 4 or something, and this is just in the smaller bars, not a nightclub in sight, and just like last weekend I somehow functioned on about 5 hours sleep and la madre de todas las resacas, it was a case of ‘this place looks good for a huge fuckoff bacon sandwich and a huge coffee with plenty of sugar’, which it was, and got me through the day about as far as arriving back in Barcelona, bloody George gets his trains into Barcelona for 3,05€ where I’m paying upwards of 11, but anyway I bought my ticket back out to Amposta, got on the train and slept, only this time I’d know where my stop is when the speakers practically yell “PROPERA PARADA L’ALDEA-AMPOSTA” in my ear, it really was that loud, so slept as best I could, then got to L’Aldea and just couldn’t wait to get home, but from what I knew about the timetables I’d have to wait about half an hour for the bus first, I would have known more but some twat thought it’d be funny to rip down the timetable at the bus stop. So I’m there waiting and not knowing how much longer I actually will be waiting, turned out to be an hour, could’ve been worse, but I got on, got sat down, and really wanted to sleep, but we know what happened last time I did that now don’t we? So I braved it until getting home, where I finally just crawled into bed and slept like a baby.

Episode 9: If it can go wrong, it will, and if it can’t go wrong, it will find a way

So yet another trip to Barcelona is upon me, only there are no meetings this time, no official business, nothing to do with school, reffing or anything, although on about reffing I do have to learn the rules in Spanish by this Friday, though I mostly know it anyway, plus in the rulebook it says “Este libro se publica en inglés, francés, alemán y Español, si existe una diferencia entre los textos publicados, el texto inglés hará fe." So that’s advantageous, what with being inglés and all. And then I’m taking the exam Friday evening at 8, only it’s in Tortosa which as you may remember from Episode 3 was where I was meant to go instead of Barcelona to register in the first place, wish me luck! So when I got back from Tortosa I got everything prepared for going to Barcelona to get drunk and watch England get raped by the Spanish, so that’s England shirt, Town shirt (we played away at Swindon in the FA Cup, the less said about that match, the better), wallet, phone, sorted. Then the next day I got up, giving myself time to go round Amposta to buy the ingredients I’d need to have my own crack at cooking arròs al forn, well, today, and then get the bus to the train station, with half an hour to spare before my train (the cheaper one) left for Barcelona, so I had a sandwich and Coke to kill the time and got on the train, then got to Barcelona and met George first of all, had a couple of beers, then went to the Irish bar in Urquinaona which was quite fun to try and pronounce, then had a shitload more beers with everyone else and I was sat there like “Town are playing right now, what the bloody hell’s the score? Stupid phone credit and me not having any of it!” But after it had finished I took off my Town shirt to reveal my England shirt I had underneath – I always wear my Town shirt when we’re playing, kind of a lucky charm…usually – but anyway after the ‘transformation’ I was then left wondering how exactly they get Sky in Spain, not that I was really bothered, all I cared about was seeing the match, and then the weirdest thing happened that can only be explained by Steven Hawking, Stephen Fry, and a tear in the space-time continuum: England won. The free-kick went in, heads up, Casillas stranded, Lampard nodded it in, and “ENG 1-0 SPA” is the weirdest sight in existence. So we had yet more beers and then made our way to our various casas, some lived in Barcelona, George in Olessa, me in Amposta about 120 miles away, with a direct bus. So yeah, it’s been a pretty good day so far, now to go to the bus stop and go home, simples, so I get on the bus and “rest my eyes”, to then be woken up by “Oye, señor, tienes que salir ahora, hemos llegado a Vinaròs.” Wait, what? I’m not even in Catalunya anymore? Fuck. This isn’t good, to put it in England measurements, I’ve just caught a bus to Huddersfield to then wake up in Leeds, I had to ring Dan at like one in the morning because luckily he lives there (Vinaròs, not Leeds), and then try and find out where exactly in Vinaròs I was, it was especially fun finding out I’d walked a good half mile in the wrong direction, dammit I just want to get to a bed! I eventually found him and went to his flat and got to sleep. Then the next morning I was rudely awoken by what can only be described as about four churches all seemingly hosting a wedding or two, until Dan told me “oh, that’s normal for Sundays.” I could not hack that at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning. But after getting breakfast and getting dressed I got on the bus to Amposta (again) and this time didn’t fall asleep! Got off the bus and back to my flat and was like “yeah, I may have ended up in Vinaròs.” So for the rest of the day I’ve just been having a lazy, slightly hungover Sunday (that sort of hangover that you can tell is there, but it’s not too bad, but it won’t go away) and cooked the arròs al forn as promised, and my God it was good, I may have eaten about 4 meals’ worth of the stuff because I’m just that good at cooking, and now I’m writing this up and just arsing around on the Internet, as you do, ciao.

Episode 2: I no speak español

Well this is weird, I’ve spent the whole week speaking to Carme, the other teachers, and people round town in Spanish and Catalan, and even Italian a couple of times, then I start in the school where the kids are told “solo habla inglés.” So not only does this mean not speaking Spanish while in the classroom, it means having to sit there looking blank while the teacher (which this term will mostly be Carme) says something to the children, okay she mostly speaks to them in Catalan so my understanding genuinely is quite low, but I’m picking it up like nothing else, and when she doesn’t speak in Catalan it’s in English, so I’m allowed to understand XD. Then come the questions from the children, who like to revert to Spanish (or castellano) when they don’t know their question in English, so I’ll be asked “¿Qué es tu equipo favorito?” And just as I’m about to answer I’ll hear “¡chicos, en inglés!” Oh that’s right, I don’t speak Spanish, so I did not understand a word of your question. And then one that really threw me off my feet: “what Spanish words do you know?” Crap, think fast! “Well I know, hola, adiós, bueno, sí, no, and cerveza por favor.” “And I’ve been to Spain about 10 times *uh-oh, someone’s who’s been to Spain 10 times should really know more Spanish than I claim to know* but they were all holidays in resorts where everyone speaks English anyway, which is why I don’t know so much Spanish.” My pronunciations have proved quite useful though, when I told them I like David Guetta I was asked “You like the song Tee-tan-ee-um?” “Tee-tan-ee-um?” “Yes, it is a David Guetta song.” It took me about 30 seconds to figure out she was on about Titanium.

Saturday was a pretty strange day, it started off with a lie-in til 12 (we haven’t reached the strange part yet just FYI) and a pretty lazy afternoon. Then I fired up the computer to listen to Town’s match and it seems that the website takes the time from your computer but forgets time zones, given that English kick-offs for me are now at 4PM, so at 2:55 my time it’s telling me there’s 5 minutes to kick-off, not that it affected the stream in any way and that’s the important thing, but I had to leave because Carme had invited me to watch her son’s hockey match which started at half 4, so I left the match at 0-0 and went to watch the hockey. Now I know two types of hockey: ice hockey as in the NHL where there’s more padding than a Superbowl and dentists get rich, and the kind played on Astroturf with a ball and only the goalkeeper wears any real protection, the third kind I discovered today involves a sports hall type surface, a ball, rules much more akin to ice hockey (sans the fighting), and rollerblades. Yes, rollerblades, I saw this and I’m all WTF, and even stranger is the scoring: as opposed to counting goals, it’s a first-to-two in terms of how many 10-minute periods you win, Amposta unfortunately lost in both senses, they were 1-1, 1-2 and 1-3, but back to football-related matters, I knew that between me leaving and getting back we’d made it 2-1 so I went back expecting to calmly see out the rest of the match, that is, until I loaded the stream again to hear “it’s a penalty! Kay’s gone and pulled him back in the area and the referee had no choice!” Fuck. So that’s me on edge again, until Mousinho skies it of course :D final score 2-1 and we’re now 3^rd having played more games than just about anyone else in the division. So 9PM approaches and I decide I’m hungry and can’t be arsed buying anything in, so not knowing any recipes involving tomatoes, lettuce and orange juice I went out and found a place called Bon Gust, the starter salad was pretty standard: mixed leaves, tomatoes, red onion, then chorizo, jamón Serrano, tuna and cheese, it was actually quite a plateful. Then I had a main course of sausages with whatever garnición is, it turned out to be scrambled egg with mushrooms, a sort of sweet, spicy tomato sauce, what looked like fried sliced avocados, something similar only orange…and CHIPS! And I don’t mean “we read about these in an English cookbook, but we just can’t get it right” chips, I mean “did you order these in from a chippy in Yorkshire?” chips, they genuinely were that good, it was all I could do not to ask for salt and vinegar. Then came the dessert menu, it’s quite safe to say that this was the only thing I have ever seen or will ever see that was in Catalan, English and French, there was not a single word of Spanish on that menu, well, barring the odd Catalan word that happens to be the same in Spanish. Oh and did I mention that the salad, main course, dessert, a beer and a coffee afterwards came to 18€?

So yeah, that was my Saturday, one of the more surreal ones but probably one of many.