On our very first night out in Granada we met Oscar at a bar where he invited us to join him and his mates in a game of killer. Oscar is great fun - your typical geezer but a nice guy nonetheless - and we have seen him many a time ever since. He seems to know everybody that’s worth knowing in Granada, and for that reason, we just hop between the bars where he knows the staff and usually manage to come away with at least one free drink from each one! So, when I was in the Irish bar watching the City v Wigan game, there he was again speaking with Paddy, the landlord – I agree, his name almost sounds like I’ve just made it up to fit the Irish stereotype, but no, it really was his name. With the Chelsea match and Gaelic Football occupying the 5 TV screens in the bar, Paddy managed to get the City game on a dodgy website on his laptop. So I, along with the other 2 city fans that there were in the bar, sat in the corner and huddled around this laptop to watch a video that was so poor quality it was as if someone was taking photos every second and putting them on the screen. Still saw the goals though, both of them!!
So when we first arrived in Granada, we allowed ourselves to be tourists for the first two weeks but then after that we would have to just crack on with life. With us now having indeed been here for a fortnight, we crammed in the touristy bits in a day and just went round everywhere that we knew was nice and took a photo of it, sometimes with one of us in the photo holding that awkward, tourist pose. It’s a good job I don’t get embarrassed easily... One of the highlights of our day as a tourist was visiting the square of San Nicolas at dusk where you have a perfect view of the Alhambra (as far as I’m aware it’s just a big Mosque type place, but an old one!). Then at 9 o’clock, after it’s been dark for about 20 minutes, the lights come on and the whole place is lit up - it’s pretty incredible to say the least. With us having absolutely no idea where the Mirador de San Nicolas was, we had to just guess and walked through what appeared to be a dodgy part of Granada, through alleys no wider than 3ft, eventually (and luckily) stumbling across the square packed with people!
Prior to our trip up through the Albaycín, we bumped into an artist drawing on a large canvas on the floor in one the main squares in Granada, Plaza Nueva. He had a caption written on his drawing saying that he was a British artist that works for a charity and would like any spare change that we could offer. You know what it’s like when you’re abroad and you meet someone else that’s British, straight away you feel like you know them! So we got chatting and found out that he was waiting for his passport to be renewed and appeared to be without a permanent place of residence – hmm suspicion. Anyway, we got his number and may be going for a drink with him soon!
I’m now in my flat – it’s awesome, I love it. Mercedes, the landlady keeps stressing about us keeping it clean, but if you get literally everything in white, it’s going to be a tricky job! Daní seems to be the name of choice for Spanish folk as they struggle saying Dan so I’m slowly getting used to it. When Mercedes was showing me around as I moved in, she changed it to Daní herself - I was in no position to argue so it’s stayed! I’ve now met all of my flatmates but only Anabel and Azahara are here at the minute, who both seem really nice. I spoke with Anabel for quite a while last night about allsorts but it’s ridiculously frustrating knowing what you what you want to say in English but just not being able to say it as you want to. I’ll get there, just slowly! I think Azahara thinks my Spanish must pretty damn horrendous, so for the time being we stick to the phrases of ‘hi’ and ‘how are you’!! I haven’t had chance to speak to her yet as she was out last night, but I’ll have to show her that I can actually progress past the level of a 3 year old child – all part of the fun!
We start uni tomorrow but for these first few weeks you aren’t assigned to any classes, you just have to try the ones you fancy and make your choices. I think my choices will be made more on timetable hours than quality of the class, but we’ll have to see. I’ve got a ‘level test’ for my Spanish Language course that I’m taking tomorrow morning at 9.00 am so will be able to find out for sure what my level really is. Not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing to be honest...
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