Episode 16: “Are you naked?” “Yes.” “I need my camera!”

So this weekend started out with an absolute ballache: buying the bus tickets. I found this website called todobus.es that would let me buy my HIFE and Alsa tickets at the same time, quite convenient, until it wouldn’t accept my British bank card, or my British credit card, I must have tried about 5 times before deciding to just do them separately, so I went to HIFE’s website and bought the tickets to Zaragoza no problem, then spent the next 2 hours trying about 20 times to buy the tickets to Bilbao from Alsa’s website. I think this is where the problem was, the woman on the phone even told be their systems can’t really deal with debit cards, or non-Spanish cards, who the hell built their system? I wouldn’t mind, the only reason I was using my British card was because El Ministerio hadn’t paid me on time. Again. Leaving me with very little in my Spanish account, though it was still a debit card so Alsa would probably have still been a bit dodgy, so much for “Hacemos tu viaje más fácil”. Luckily La Caixa came to the rescue, in that you can buy Alsa bus tickets through their cash machines (or most of them at least), I’m not entirely sure there’s anything they can’t do. I went to the mahine with my credit card (it still didn’t work with my debit card) and bought the tickets no problem, this is definitely something to remember for next time.
Now onto Friday and a good 11 hours spent travelling, as is tradition. I had to get up at 6AM for my bus that left at 7:45, and here came the next hiccup: I hadn’t had chance to print off my HIFE ticket, resulting in having to carry my passport, NIE, and a piece of paper on which I’d scribbled all the details off the PDF on my computer, the driver did look at it a bit dodgy – can’t really say I blame him to be fair – and rung Tortosa bus station, where he told me they’d check my details and what have you. So we got to Tortosa and everything actually went smoothly, there was a 20-minute wait so I got off and went to the desk, handed over all my papers, 2 minutes later I had an actual ticket in my hand for the rest of the journey to Zaragoza, via a whole host of places that not only did I not know existed, but half of them led me to wonder why they existed, and who decided that buses would be suitable for their roads, and then there was a good couple of hours of desert before arriving in Zaragoza. Zaragoza should be good though, go round the city for a bit, see the sights, grab some dinner, or alternatively discover that you’re a good 15 minutes away from the city centre and instead sit outside the station in what is actually quite a nice square (could use a bit more greenery though) next to the water features with a magazine, then the next ticket related hiccup: receipts from La Caixa don’t exactly look like tickets, so I handed it to the driver and he had a list of names, of course La Caixa hadn’t sent over my name, it simply came up as “Caix” luckily I saw this and noticed that it corresponded with my seat number, and he seemed to believe me, so let me on. And then a few annoying hours, only I could end up sat next to the only other English-speaker on the bus who has some of the most bullshit problems that just have to be shared with whoever she’s talking to on the phone, and the rest of the back of the bus, even if only one person could understand her, I couldn’t put my music on because my phone had decided to go from 5 bars of battery when I arrived in Zaragoza to “battery low” warnings 10 minutes later, I still don’t understand that. But anyway I arrived in Bilbao and got off, and straight to the Alsa desk to swap my Caixa receipt for an actual ticket for the return journey, met Laura and Sefo, a Canadian guy, and headed to Eroski, where Laura talked me out of my alcohol-based Lent promise with some Sunday-based logic (yes I know it’s still Friday, don’t ask), I still blame her entirely. After finishing all the alcohol we had we headed out to Laura’s German friend’s leaving do, which was basically drinking, a lot of German food, and some weird ball on a balance board thing where you had to get the ball round some path into the middle of the board using only your feet, no-one succeeded. We just decided to be boring and head home after that given that by that point I’d been up about 20 hours and Laura even more.
Saturday then and we headed to the centre of town again, and Bilbao were playing Real Sociedad that day and that’s basically the Basque derby, cool, what I found out the hard way though is that Real Sociedad have similar colours to Huddersfield Town, it got me some looks. Met Sefo again in the park, still in last night’s clothes, stay classy Canada, and went round eating ice cream and doughnuts, and then the one thing happened that I never thought would happen in Bilbao: I had to take off a layer, now I know this may be hard to believe but it was actually hot and sunny in Bilbao, but I won’t complain. I did that fancy trick where you take off a shirt from under another shirt and got some more looks, but oh well, we basically trekked round the city and the Guggenheim, and took my photo next to a massive spider for some reason, then back to Laura’s to drink more and head out again, and then get back at about 6 in the morning, the only problem being that my bus left at half 9 in the morning, Christ help me. We got back and watched random YouTube crap for about an hour before randomly falling asleep, I had set my alarm to go off every 2 minutes after 8AM so there was no chance I was waking up without it. Until I did. I woke up, looked around, heard no alarm, saw that everyone else was asleep, and panicked, “oh my God, what time is it? What time is it? What time is it? What time is it? What the…it’s 7:55!” I had naturally slept for less than an hour which I don’t think has ever happened before, after having drunk for the first time since my birthday, incredible. This didn’t stop me being groggy as hell though as I collected all my stuff together while filling my coffee cup half with sugar, this still didn’t work and I almost, ALMOST, fell into the ‘fall back asleep’ trap, Sefo woke up at some point to pick up a mattress, fall on it, and go back to sleep. Then I said my goodbyes to anyone who was conscious i.e. no-one, and made my way to the station, got on the bus with my real ticket, and slept, very awkwardly, given that I was right behind the driver in an aisle seat with someone sat next to me, not cool. I’d perked up a bit by the time I reached waiting for a couple of hours in Zaragoza again though and got on the bus to Amposta, thankfully not Barcelona because I fully could not be bothered with another 2 hour train journey and a taxi, the bus went straight to the bus stop in Amposta, or alternatively the bus station in Tortosa where we had to change again, gah! Why?! Just take me home already!
Eventually when I did get home I did what is becoming the done thing, falling on my bed to wake up at 6AM the next morning to go to work.

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 6: Gavin 0-3 Barcelona

So today (Friday 28th) was the third time I’d be in Barcelona since starting my year abroad, surely a la tercera va la vencida, right? Wrong! This time it was for a meeting at the Departament d’Ensanyament’s main building.

Thursday afternoon I still didn’t know if I was actually meant to go to the meeting or not, hopefully not given that it would be almost literally impossible to get to Barcelona at 11am, but then I got ‘es importante que vengas’, well that’s just fantastic, so it’s a case of get up at stupid o’clock to get a bus at stupid o’clock to get a train at slightly more reasonable o’clock to arrive at Sants-Estació at something past 10 giving me time to get on the Metro etc. etc. Or alternatively I could ask pretty much anyone who lives in Barcelona “help! Can I sleep at your place? Like, tonight, in 4 hours?” Thankfully Karina, an American girl, said I could, so that’s the bed sorted, now the getting there.

The buses from Amposta to L’Aldea run at 20 to the hour on weekdays, getting me to the train station on the hour, or 10 minutes after the train leaves to Barcelona, there was one at 19:50 or another at 21:44, I decided it best to get a taxi only by the time it had showed up, picked me up, got stuck behind a bus that didn’t stop in Amposta and would still have got me there late, I missed the 19:50, fantastic. So now I’m waiting here for nearly 2 hours and the 19:50 was 11,25€ as opposed to the 21:44 being 24,30€, now this presents a problem as I took out 40€ to last me the two days, the taxi was 13 plus 24,30 = 37,30, leaving me a whopping 2,70€, this was to get me round Barcelona’s Metro system twice and then back home. This is not good. So I’m sat there in the train station wondering just how I will manage this (to this day I’m still not entirely sure) and suddenly it occurred to me: my credit card! That’s got some money on it and I brought it just for this sort of emergency! And it’s in my room. FUCK! Not bueno, not bueno, not bueno, not bueno, but it wasn’t like I could do anything about it, so I got on the train when it eventually arrived and just sat down watching whatever film it was showing, got into Sants and rung Karina to find out the stop, and it was on the same line meaning it would only cost me 1,45€ so that’s a plus, got to the machine and it turned out I could pay by card (on which I couldn’t withdraw money because I didn’t have 10 euros) so this helped a fair bit, bought the ticket, got to Vallcarca and met Karina, went to her flat and got a decent night’s sleep, knowing that I could get up at a normal time the next day as opposed to 5 or 6. Woke up the next day, had breakfast, showered, etc. then set off from Vallcarca to Diagonal, another 1,45€ then I bought another ticket on the way across Diagonal to get to Muntaner, tried getting through the barrier onto L6 and it wouldn’t let me, tried again, wouldn’t let me, on the third time of trying it turned out I’d got the wrong ticket, BCN has 2 underground systems, there’s the Metro and the FGC, meaning I’d just wasted 1,45€ at a time when I really could have done without doing that. Ended up buying an FGC ticket which was exactly the same price (so a bit of a middle finger if you ask me) and got on the train and arrived at the meeting, where there were a grand total of 7 people, and it wasn’t even in a meeting room, it was one of those open plan offices where there’s about 100 people with their own desk, I just travelled 90 miles for this? I was highly unimpressed, also at the fact that 3 of the other lived in Barcelona and the other Reus. But anyway we had the meeting and then I set off back to Sants and I figured I’d walk to save money, which wasn’t actually that difficult, found the train station and then this is where the fun began, I got to the ticket office and had 8,70€ and my card to buy an 11,25€ ticket, only it’s not like England where you can pay some by cash and put the rest on your card, so this meant I had to then find a Bancaja in Barcelona given that I couldn’t just nip to a cash machine, so first of all I had to find someone who knew where one was, then find Carrer de València on a map, then figure out where I was on said map, and this bit took a good 15 minutes. Eventually found Carrer de València and after walking for what felt like about 2 miles I thought ‘surely I would have found it by now’ so I asked someone who thankfully knew where it was, and I got to the other side of the road I saw a sign saying Avinguda de Roma, meaning I was never on carrer de València. Smooth. So I got to the Bancaja and then came the one tiny glimmer of good luck that comes with every one of my trips to BCN: they asked for my passport to make sure I was the cardholder (it’s standard in Spain for some reason) which they’d only gone and told me to bring so I could get into the building where the meeting was in the first place, so I withdrew what I had and set off back to Sants, and it’s always a lot quicker when you’re going back to a place, got there in seemingly no time (looking on Google it was an exact 2 mile round trip) and got my ticket, now just to wait for the annoyingly infrequent trains to L’Aldea for nearly 40 minutes. Then when I finally got to the station my luck wasn’t to end there, I now easily had enough money to cover the bus to Amposta, only some twat had ripped the timetable down from the stop so I didn’t know if I’d be waiting 50 seconds or 50 minutes, as it happened it was 50 minutes. So eventually at half 6 I got into Amposta, having left the meeting at about 11:45 that morning, this was meant to be a short, simple day.
Well, now to wait until the next time that I have to go (November 8th), if i don't pull one back this time it may well just be game over.