Food, glorious food!

Arh... Firstly I wanted to point out my very impressive use of bullet points in the last blog post. I can do photos, type and now use bullet points too! *brag brag brag*

Now to update you on the weekend before last... Yes! It's catching up on me - I'm being slack.

The weekend before last was the teacher's meal FINALLY!

Annalisa and I arrived at my school 2.30pm really not knowing what to expect - a sit down meal? Little nibbles? We had paid €20 each after all.

When we arrived at the school no-one was in the staff room and we followed the very typical, loud, animated, sound of Spanish voices across the playground. Lo and behold there were 60-odd teachers gassing amongst a waterfall of beer. (There wasn't actually a waterfall... There was just beer everywhere.) It turns out there is an old canteen that isn't used anymore in the school grounds with a bar!

There were random slabs of pate and small biscuity things scattered across the tables, it didn't seem to me €20 of food! We grabbed ourselves a beer from the non-stop tap (we probably could have extracted it from the air to be honest) and mingled as much as we could munching away on the fishiest pate known to man and the leekiest spread I've ever tasted.

Promptly so, the caterers arrived with a big paella dish - fanbloodytastic, I don't even like fish. Then they unveiled 'migas'. A typical Spanish treat - breadcrumbs and anything else they can find all mixed in together. I mean, I know I'm not selling it but it wasn't that bad... Just really bloody dry, which led me to drink, which led me to the kitchen, which led me to witness the second keg of beer and the 30 bottles of Bacardi, whisky, vodka and rum (aha - I understood how the money spending was calculated now!), which led me to cancel my lesson and help the poor buggers get through that awful amount of alcohol!

Some 'copas' (glasses) later Karaoke comes out to play. The pressure was on for us English girls to sing some English songs but Stacey decided that  'La Bamba' would be a lot more fun. Anyway, we sang the night away, mingling and relaxing with the teachers and got kicked out at 9pm when the head of my department decided it was late enough to be in an educational institution.

A good afternoon was had by all and I topped it off by hitting the port until 4am. 16 hours in total of Spanish partying - I was fluent by the end of the night!

I was struggling in the morning and had to go and give my weekly class to one of the teacher's daughters. The week before they'd asked if I like meat and invited me to dine with them.

I gave my class at their house outside on the sunny terrace, feeling very delicate and as we were wrapping things up family friends arrived for this meal. I didn't know how this meal was going to go; if it was going to be just me, or friends and was slightly relieved to know that the conversation wasn't going to be targetted at me.

We moved inside and my colleague asked me if I wanted beer or wine. Uh oh. I said I'd prefer water to which he reacted pretty badly. 'Don't you want my wine?'... To which I was forced to reply 'Oh... Why, yes... Of course I do.' Anyway, as you can imagine the meal carried on in a difficult manner.

My colleagues wife had pulled out all the stops and there was meat of every kind on the table. Then she brought out a big paella dish. Please. Not fish - my stomach can't deal with it (and I'd told them I didn't like fish!). Nope. Migas. Again. Great...! I was pretty much forced to eat (and chew whilst they all watched me) octopus, eat boneless fish and when I was completely full with all this magnificent food they pulled out an enormous array of puddings. Pumpkin pastries, pomegranate in a red wine sauce sprinkled with cinnamon (mmm!) and lots of different 'patisserie'. I'm about to pop...

Then my colleague loads the table with his fine collection of strong alcohols. Havana Club. Legendario rum. Jack Daniels. Gran Marnier. 'Which do you want?' he asks. Huh?! Who?! Me?! I think. 'I recommend the Legendario, it's really sweet and soft'. And before I know it there's a tumbler sat in front of me with ice and his classy rum. Him and our other colleagues (the family friends) sat there drinking their sprits... Neat!!! Now... I hope some of you can relate to this but when you don't know a culture and you're invited to someone's house to dine with them, you don't enforce your own culture. So Stacey sits there drinking her rum on the rocks, burning her throat with every swig.

All jokes aside, the meal was absolutely fantastic. I was absolutely flattered and privileged to be invited to their house for lunch. I got a real insight to a natural Spanish custom. They are an absolutely lovely family and their friends are just as nice as them. Some more great people here in Melilla. It was difficult in my suffering state but when I explained quite openly that I'd had a big night the night before when my colleague dropped me home he explained that he didn't go to the teacher's meal the day before as he knew exactly what it would be like - beer galore!

Anyway... The weeks continue to pass by quite quickly with lots of English so I really do live for the weekend; whether that be dining in an incredibly social, civilised environment or just watching a Spanish film I'm pushing my Spanish to the max.

Down time for Downton

After my birthday I sank into a pit of moaning, sulking, whining and grumpiness... 5 weeks had caught up on me and I was exhausted and grumpy. Just basically what I do best when I'm normally in England - you know?!

Everything seemed to be the problem. My flat being so far away from my school, my having to walk three hours a day on average for school and private classes, my feet hurting, etc. I convinced myself I wanted to bring my car here - it just doesn't make sense it doing nothing back there and me walking everywhere here. Then when I talked with other people I was convinced to just buy a car out here. I looked around and they were all at least €1000 and I'd need to buy insurance on top of that. I was then convinced to buy a motorbike - my UK driving license covers me for bikes up to 125cc, but again not that cheap. The last option was a pushbike and although I managed well in Pont-Audemer with one of those, here I have a reputation to keep, baring in mind my kids aren't 4 - 11 but actually 11 - 18. So I was in a sulky mood about transport...

Then I was in a sulky mood about being away from everyone back home...

Then I was in a sulky mood as Annalisa's flat is closer to my school...

Then I was in a sulky mood because she pays just 2/3 of what I pay in rent...

The point is that the friends I have here proved themselves as a great support network, dragging me out for coffee despite my grumpy face and making me laugh despite the tears. This got me thinking and I emotionally climbed out of my pit of stupidness.

And now 'in a reversal of fortune' (in the voice of the man from the Weakest Link) I'm feeling happier than ever.

I'm in such a cool city that has so much to offer on so many levels:

• Historically
• I've not delved into anything too historical as it bores me to death normally - it needs to be appreciated though, right?! I've heard that this place was Spanish before countries were even created in Africa. How true is that?!...
  
  
• Religiously
• I'm most definitely taking advantage of the different religions. Last Wednesday, for example was the Muslim festival (another bank holiday!) where they slay a lamb at the dinner table and enjoy a family meal together (the kids explained the story and I can go into more depth if anybody wants to know?). The fact is I didn't work!
• Disregarding the bank holidays it's just nice to appreciate the open mindness of people out here - I remember in my first week seeing a Muslim woman walking arm in arm with what appeared to be a Christian woman (something that I wouldn't normally see very often in England).
• I'm appreciating how this place has text after text written about it claiming that this place is harmonious and then I'm appreciating the fact of knowing better!
  
  
• Socially
• This place has 73,000 inhabitants so is about the same size as Bath in terms of population but because of the separated religions/populations I seem to bump into the same people all the time (it also makes me feel rather settled as I know the people I bump into now!).
  
• Economically
• This place claims to be independent but I'm learning that it relies on Morocco a fair amount more than I realised. Instead of importing everything in from the mainland they get some things in Morocco (I don't know the ins and outs of it) but it makes sense to cut costs when they can, doesn't it?...
  
• Territorially (is that even a word?!)
• The border makes the residents in Melilla feel trapped, and it's understandable, but for someone like me that's here for a fairly short stint it just makes me fall even more in love with this town.... Saying that there's a 5 day bank holiday at the beginning of December and I would very much like to get out!
• People are so proud of being in Melilla or being from Melilla. I've noticed that if I listen to conversations in the street people will often talk about this place in general conversation (another thing that doesn't really happen in the UK - other than in London, I suppose)...

• Politically
• I'm finding myself talking more and more with other people about whether Melilla will exist in 100 years time and where it will be. Whether it will be Spanish. Whether it will be Moroccan. What is it's fate?

Matter of factly on Sunday in the national newspaper 'El Pais' there was a 6 page write up of Melilla, it's history and it's future which I've asked a friend to copy so I can trudge through the vocab and learn a little bit more.
Also, Charlotte (the girl that I met before coming here) wrote her dissertation on Melilla and why it's so unknown to the rest of the world so I'm looking forward to sitting down and reading that one day too.

Wowzers - this post took a long time to write and should have been published ages ago - sorry for the blabbing! I'll try and catch up and not let it get on top of me - keep your comments coming please!

Remember, remember the 5th of November

The week went well and by Thursday I'd received four birthday cards! :-)

As I didn't have to work on Friday I started the birthday celebrations off on Thursday in my favourite bar with our friendly barman. Annalisa and I enjoyed a few glasses of red wine in true tradition and got talking about putting the world right with bull fighting, amongst other things. We were the only two in the bar and the two chefs and the barman were sat playing a board game. We invited ourselves over to their table and just enjoyed a nice night talking about Melilla, Spanish culture, etc. We were joined by two of Annalisa's housemates a little later. It was a really mellow evening.
We'd been in there for a few hours and at midnight the waiter shut off all the lights. I felt terrible and thought we were going to get kicked out as they wanted to go home, but he brought out a little cake with 24 on it and candles and they all sang to me! :-) Then he dumped what appeared to be a bottle of champers on the table. It only bloody turned out to be cider, didn't it?! So now, this guy has become my absolute hero! He certainly knows how to get the punters back in there!!! We stayed in there for a few more hours chatting away in a very civilised fashion, went to the port for one drink and then headed home.
I opened up all of my four birthday cards at about 2am on Skype with Bean and hit the sack at about 2.30am.

On my actual birthday I woke up and had a cup of tea with Christopher and my lovely, big brother played me Happy Birthday through Skype. It was a lovely morning just lazing about, being distracted by my boys from the fact that I was alone. At midday after my birthday shower (I'm overcompensating from the lack of detail of the other days - you really don't need to know all of this!) a man knocked at the door with a humongous bunch of flowers. Bean rocked my birthday socks off by sending flowers from London to Melilla!

I spent most of my afternoon taking pictures of my lovely flowers... I don't suppose you care to see them but it might make the blog entry a little bit more interesting?!....

 

OK. That's enough of that...!

In the afternoon I went out for a coffee with a friend and ran a few errands before heading back to my flat to get ready for the evening. It was another friend's birthday on 1st November and he'd demanded that I go along to the 'botellon' so he could introduce his friends to me (hence the ever growing social circle as I mentioned before). This botellon basically consists of having a drink together with lots and lots of friends by some pretty fountains near the beach before all going to the port. We'd bought alcohol in the afternoon (and I'd found Magners - what a great birthday treat!) and I headed back home to eat before birthday celebrations. I had a lovely little chat with Ellie in the evening and went out at midnight for birthday fun.

 

As you can see I'm not too lonely out here and managed to have a good birthday night out despite being away from all you lovelies!

Thanks to all of your for my birthday texts, cards and Facebook posts/messages. Very much appreciated and sorry I haven't had time to reply individually. Forgive me?!

Catch up time - Halloween

OK. I suck. I'm lame. Call me what you want... I have no excuse!

I've missed out on sixteen days and so consequently am going to have to divide this big, burdening cloud of typing into a few different sessions. This means that everything will chronologically be turned upside down but hopefully you can all understand!...

Last you heard from me I was getting pretty bored of Bank Holiday weekends but I'm now beginning to take full advantage and mix with my ever-growing social circle. Following on from my last entry...

The Sunday night was Halloween and I was thinking about Chrissy lots (it was around about Halloween last year that we met and I was feeling sorry for myself!). I decided to drink my sorrows away and Annalisa and I have been frequenting one bar in particular where we have got quite friendly with the barman. He gave us a free shot before we left last time and this time he was bringing us out complementary tapas (unfortunately seafood, which I was discretely passing to Annalisa after she'd finished her own plate!). I explained that I was on a downer and he left the bottle of red with us, made us another special shot (with gummy sweets and whipped cream?!) and we warmed up for Halloween shenanigans!

We tottered back to Annalisa's house and got ready in super, Flash Gordon timing (one hour). Within that one hour I got attacked by Annalisa's pet mosquitoes which was so great... I love it when mosquitoes bite me...
We'd all decided to dress up as pirates and had gone to the local discount store a few days before to pick up bits and bobs. We got slightly carried away painting our faces (I blame the red wine) and moseyed our way out to the port dressed like idiots...

 

Photo taken at Annalisa's mosquito ridden appartment before we went out

Needless to say, another good night was had by all (minus the mosquito bites).

When I went back to school on the Tuesday I was told that the teachers meal was in fact going to be Friday 12th November and not on my birthday and so I started to accept that I was going to be all alone on my birthday in my bedroom with my friends Blair, Serena and Chuck Bass (Gossip Girl characters).

However, that didn't turn out to be the case...
(I used to love a good, old cliffhanger!)