Travels in Spain

2003-12-27T17:20:00.000Z

Just added over 250 photos available through the following page

http://photos.blueyonder.co.uk./leokelion@blueyonder.co.uk

To see the pics full size make sure you click on the thumbnail and then the mid-size image. The slideshow does not show them full size.

Anyone wanting larger print quality files sent to them please email me at the blueyonder email address

2003-09-28T18:43:00.000Z

Last night in Spain. Very weird. Still hasn´t really hit me that it´s all coming to an end. Plan to write emails to friends from the trip tomorrow, but in the meantime just a quick thanks to a truly amazing group of people with whom I´ve shared some of the best months of my life. Am strangely ready to go back now - don´t think I have the energy for another week of partying. Hope to see everyone at one of the reunions or back in the UK

hasta luego...

2003-09-24T17:50:00.000Z

Didn´t post during my last week in Barcelona due to a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning. After months of eating fresh I gave into temptation and got a Kentucky Fried chicken. Thought the burger looked and tasted odd but was too hungry to care. A few hours later the cramps began and pretty much lasted for a week. Hadn´t eaten in over 24hrs so it can´t have been anything else. Seems to have been a weak strain of salmonella - yuck!

Anyway had to give up plans to visit more on my list of selected restaurants and skipped several nights clubbing, but managed to make all my classes and ended up getting ´notable´in the final exam (equivalent to 75-85%) which I was happy with. Since then have had a ´relaxing´time with the folks down near Cadiz on the south of Spain sunbathing, reading (in English for a change), Sherry tasting, eating a wide range of fresh seafood, walking around the streets of Cadiz and generally catching up. Now back in Barcelona for the night of the Merce (big local festival) and four more nights of holiday with little if any study before heading back to Scotland. Only problem is the lack of a flat to live in...

2003-09-04T18:06:00.000Z

Had a nightmare last night that I was back at the BBC and asked to put out a news bulletin with John Milne at very short notice. On arriving at the broadcast suite I discovered someone else was using the computer and another producer told me they were too important to disturb. Instead I was supposed to use a 1970s computer with a 1 inch screen to put out the bulletin - and there was no TV, script print out or talkback available to help. Remember thinking that the BBC couldn´t possibly expect a decent bulletin but feeling incredibly stressed as the second ticked away. Not a good sign - this is just one in the latest of a series of work related nightmares I´ve had this week, including others in which work colleagues have told me that they intend to destroy my career and getting stuck in traffic with a key interview.

Spain continues to be a blast - hopefully I´ll finally meet up with some of my Spanish friends this week and put it all to good use. Ironically outside of the classroom I´d often speak to more Spanish people back in Glasgow than here (at least over the past week). Tons more UK friends are about to arrive so I´m going to have to start juggling the hours.

Hope everyone´s well back home - scary to think only a month to go... (and yet in the past when I had month long holidays they seemed like an eternity).

2003-09-01T18:13:00.000Z

Just a quick entry to confirm I am still alive - if only barely. Have had an amazing past week in Barcelona with a really superb bunch of mates. Probably one of the best times out in the city - visited tons of superb restaurants, nightclubs, sailed on a catamaran around the city at sunset, seen Parc Guell (Gaudi park in the north), done a bicycle tour, visited numerous bars, walked miles, listened to singer songwriters, danced to a big band, chilled in several of the city´s squares, sunbathed on the beach and even managed to squeeze in a bit of Spanish learning. All this should explain why I haven´t been updating this too often.

About to have my first night ´off´ - a bit of study, supper and perhaps even an early night (ie before 4am). More soon...

2003-08-23T12:35:00.000Z

Well another break between blogs. Since I last wrote I finished up at Valencia and had a week of rest in Ibiza and have now arrived in Barcelona for what should be my last month of school.

Valencia was great and once again I met a great bunch of people and had a series of great days out at the science centre, tapas bars, open air nightclubs and much more. Also managed to complete ´Advanced Class 3´at the school so am really getting to grips with the language.

Despite all this it was ironically in Ibiza that I got the best opportunities of the trip so far to put my Spanish to use - chatting with numerous taxi drivers (one of whom seemed generally pissed off at the tourists and told me at the end of the ride he would have chucked out the other passengers at one point had it not been for me - cool!), several Spanish girls and a couple of Spanish guys who let us hitchhike with them after we missed the last bus back from a remote beach. Because the classes are always pushing you to improve yourself it can seem that you aren´t really getting better til you have the chance to speak to the locals.

Ibiza was a different experience this time round. We (me and a mate, Martin, who flew over from the UK) went to the trendier beaches and bars and only had 2 nights at the clubs. The result was that we hardly met many Brits. It also meant that I got a chance to chill out and relax which I needed after the past few months.

Quick recommendations - Pacha (club) as ever was amazing - especially a DJ playing in the small room called James Fielding (I think) who was mixing what seemed to be electronic-house (ie. old style electronic but new music - not electro or techno). Didn´t draw a huge crowd but was the first NEW thing I´ve heard in dance music for years. Bars KM5 and Underground also were great. Though Space (club) was definitely overated. Overall the music is getting harder and harder and some of the prices for a bottle of water (up to 8 euros I think for 20cl) are ridiculous.

Am now really looking forward to my time in Barca. Was very strange arriving by boat yesterday - had a real sense of returning home which I wasn´t expecting to be so strong. I guess after so many travels in so many places it´s a bit weird to be back in a place I know so well. Also the fact I don´t have a flat in Glasgow or London means that I´m pretty rootless back in the UK as well.

Anyway have friends coming over every weekend - people from the Salamanca, San Sebastian & Valencia schools as well as from back home. Also think one of my mates from Sevilla is here as well. In addition several Spanish friends will be in town from the start of September so I plan to put the Spanish to good use.

Running out of credit again so will write more soon---

2003-08-07T18:14:00.000Z

It´s been nearly a month since the last entry. Can´t believe so much time has gone past.

Am now in Valencia coming towards the end of my penultimate week before taking a break from Spanish studies. I don´t think I have ever been quite this exhausted before.

Since writing last I had a great fortnight in San Sebastian in the Basque country. Made some amazing friends and enjoyed the best nights out since Sevilla. Had timed my visit (by luck) to coincide with the annual Jazz festival. Great music provided free for a week including nightly DJ sets on the beach. Very, very cool.

The school was OK - one of my teachers was the best I´ve had yet. He always knew exactly what he wanted to acheive with each lesson and gave brilliant advice and instructions on how to improve our accents - a topic which is often skipped elsewhere. The other teacher, however, had a ´unique´sense of humour which involved repeatedly telling us we weren´t great at Spanish and pulling ´unhelpful´expressions if we made mistakes. I don´t want to turn this into a character asassination so I´m going to stop writing about her now. The end result, though, was that we did improve our standards even if we didn´t always feel inspired to speak Spanish afterwards.

I´m currently in the ´Advanced´level in Valencia which sounds quite impressive (at least to me). In truth I´m very happy with my grammar, but over the past few days seem to be struggling when speaking. Think (or at least hope) this is just a side effect of being so tired. Currently have classes from 1pm to 7pm each day incl. a 30min break and then will work in the flat from 9pm til midnight or 1am and then a couple of hours in the morning. Not much time for anything else and have yet to explore the city. However I can tell you it is bloody hot. The problem is not the temperature (around 38-40 degrees) but the HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGHHHH level of humidity. I have to take a change of t-shirt for when I get into school (after a 30min walk). yuck.

Computer has just told me I have less than a minute before my credit runs out so I´m going to save this now in it´s rough state and try to write more about the past few weeks soon.....

2003-07-16T19:45:00.000Z

It´s been nearly two weeks since the last blog. Blame Gordon Brewer (newsnight scotland).

Before leaving I asked everyone in the office to recommend 3 books which I then bought in a huge amazon purchase. Gordon recommened a book by Neal Stephenson called ´Cryptonomicon´ which is over 900 pages long and has a pretty small typeface. It´s also overwhelmingly compelling. It took a week to finish, devoured much of my spare time and left me wanting more. It´s about efforts to decrypt the enemies communications in the 2nd world war, current internet cryptology techniques, war, a treasure hunt, wisdom teeth, living in Sweden and much much more. Highly recommended.

Am currently half way through my second week in Madrid at my third school. Starting to struggle with the Spanish as I want to express increasingly complicated concepts and keep coming up against the wall of vocabulary/complicated grammar. For days at a time the brain packs in and I find myself unable to say any more than a few phrases, then at other times I suprise myself by being able to be at least semi-fluent. Over the past couple of weeks its been more the former than the latter. Perhaps too much marcha last week, so I´ve stayed in every night this week studying.

The hitch is that my flat is a good 35-45mins metro ride from the school and there have been days when I´ve spent more than 3 hours underground. As a result there´s been a lot of reading and as a consequence I started my first Spanish book a few days ago - the new Michael Chrichton.

Now it may seem a bit perverse to be reading the translation of an American book, but I have a reason. First of all I´m not being swamped by a sea of Spanish metaphors which don´t translate (as is sometimes the case with the music/poetry of Joaquin Sabina), secondly all the scientific jargon he uses usually translates as the same word with -o or -a stuck on the end, and finally there´s an awful lot of speech in there which is always easy to follow.

Progress with the language is frustratingly slow. The teacher drew a curve for me today showing an exponential curve followed by what looks like a straight line which has a very slight incline if you squint. I´m on that line right now - all the zoomuing forward through the basic rules of grammar is behind me and now comes the hard slog - vocab and going over the irregular verbs over and over again. The fact that Spanish has two words for To be (Ser and estar), two for the word for (por and para), two for know (saber and conocer), two for ask (pedir and preguntar).... etc... each of which has to be applied in a specific case (i.e. are not interchangeable) doesn´t help. Plus I´ve discovered that not only do they have a different mathematical notation - 2*2 means 2x2, 2,2 means 2.2 etc - but they also rename foreigners, so our queen is Reina Isabel instead of Queen Elizabeth. My brain hurts.

The country, however, is simply amazing and the Spanish seem to have oodles of pacience with the swarms of foreign language students here. The Madrid school is OK and most of my friends here are either French or Brazilian so we usually end up speaking Spanish (or Span-mangled-ish) when we go out which I guess is good practice.

Also managed to see the Spanish chica I mentioned in June again, and got to practice my Spanish with her and her friends which is was one of the high points of the past fortnight - sadly for various reasons I´m unlikely to see her again before leaving the city. Strange to come all this way, speak Spanish for hours of the day and yet hardly know any of the locals. Definitely plan to intercambio again in San Sebastain if I can drag myself away from the beach - discovered yesterday that my flat will be less than 5 mins from the sea - yay!

If anyone´s interested one of my mates (Martin) has twisted my arm into going to Ibiza for what looks like 4 days in August after Valencia, so if any of you are interested in coming let me know asap before we book accomodation.

Hope everyone´s well and will try to be a bit more regular on the internet...

Leo

2003-07-03T17:21:00.000Z

Just discovered something rather weird.
If you mistype the address to this site and enter - http://spaintrip.blogpsot.com - you come to a rather weird site

It´s a bit freaky

2003-06-30T13:53:00.000Z

NB Further problems with my alternative email account at macace.com means it´s no longer working. I´m trying to reset it up but to be honest after having all my emails deleted twice without having the chance to use them, I´m loath to rely on it.

So best to contact me at my hotmail account and if your email accounts won´t accept hotmail emails in reply I´ll try to find an alternative method of writing back to you.

2003-06-30T13:51:00.000Z

2nd week at Salamanca and the city´s starting to feel very familiar. Maña´s playing on the radio in the internet cafe and I can recognise a whole lot more of the lyrics than I used to be able to when I listened to the group in Glasgow.

Since writing last time I narrowly missed out being interviewed on BBC morning radio and have had a great trip to Madrid.

On Thursday evening I received a phone call asking if I´d mind discussing the appeal of learning Spanish abroad. A study had just been published showing a rise in the number of Brits going abroad to study/do charity work etc in their holidays rather than just sit on a beach. My initial reaction was to find an excuse as there was a party that night and I´d need to be up for 6.45am to do the 2-way, but I decided the chance to be on the radio was too tempting...
So I stayed in, did a bit of research (% of students from different countries, how long they study for, initial level of entry etc) and got up bright and early - to receive a phone call saying that the Saudi authorities had caught the Riadh bomber and there was now no room on the programme. Arse.

Anyway it saved me from a night at the bar leaving me able to cope with a major Friday night out at the chupiteria (shot bar) and a number of clubs in Salamanca before shooting through to Madrid the following day. I´d arranged to meet Sara - a Spanish friend I´d met in Glasgow. Had a superb night out chatting in Spanish the whole time. Sara´s accent is easy to understand and I guess I understood her 90% of the time (it´s strange, for minutes at a time there´s no problem and then one sentence will throw me and I´ll not understand anything for a short while - like falling off one of those ski lifts you put between your legs and then climbing back on again). However I had huge problems understanding what one of her friends was saying. He´s also from Madrid but had a really strong accent. One side effect, I guess, of only practicing my Spanish with women outside the classroom!

Anyway looking forward to catching up with her next week and exploring more of Madrid´s ´marcha´. It´s a huge city and it´s a real bonus to know a local who can tell me the best places to go and not just the guiri-magnets.

Plan to dedicate most of this week to studies and not go out too much - really feeling like I´m making good progress at the moment - trying to learn a couple of hundred words a day. In most situations I can now make myself understood even if there´s still words in the reply I haven´t learnt yet.

I love this life!

2003-06-26T13:58:00.000Z

Just a quick one for today just to confirm I´ve booked 2 weeks classes in Madrid after this week and then will be straight onto 2 weeks school in San Sebastain before 2 more weeks in Valencia (then a break). So anyone thinking of visiting should consider waiting til August unless you also fancy a week at language school - great fun - really!

Up to 7 hrs of classes a day now as the school is running a free 3 day course on colloquial spanish. We did animal phrases yesterday - things like as small brained as a mosquito, as sleepy as a doormouse (things are a bit differerent here). I managed to contribute with "mas puta que las gallinas" - which translates as more of a bitch than the chickens i.e. she´s a real cow. Am starting to realise that my Sevilla teacher taught us a fairly liberal course!

2003-06-25T13:27:00.000Z

Third day at school in Salamanca. During the oral part of my ´first day exam´I discovered I´d signed up for the super-super intensive course here which means 6-7 hours of classes each day. Yesterday I was in school at 9am and finished my homework at 1am having taken only an hour off for dinner and another 2 for a siesta. All three teachers had given me homework and I found myself with around 250 words to learn.

The good news is that my Spanish is really starting to come on. Once again I´m in an intermediate class for grammar but they´ve put me in the intermediate-advanced class for conversation practice - something that came as a huge suprise to me and no doubt to any of you who tried speaking Spanish to me in Seville. Nevertheless it´s forcing me to raise my game. The plan is to do tons of work this and next week and then slack off a bit when I study in Madrid. I´m still waiting to hear if I can shift my San Sebastian course without having to pay the penalty payment - if not I´ll just do one week in Madrid but three in Valencia.

2003-06-22T17:25:00.000Z

This has been a non-stop week - a glimpse of Gibraltar, Sotogrande, Granada, Cordoba and Toledo and am now in Salamanca.

Sotogrande was great - a day of rest and recuperation with at my aunt and uncle´s palatial villa which has a swimming pool and 3 patios to ensure you always have a choice of enjoying the sun or shade in comfort. Grandparents, cousin Louise and Abigail Sheridan were also there so it was quite a gathering. Had one of the best meals of all time that night at a Sephardi restuarant 20min drive from their home. A huge selection of starters, each more scrumptious than the last before a main course of red tuna and sea bass baked in salt. Swear I ate more that night than the previous 4 weeks put together. If you´re reading this thank you very much for your very kind and generous hospitality. I may have stayed just the one night but it really recharged my batteries.

Managed by chance to time my visits with festivals in the three cities - the feria in Granada (huge funfair and all night discos), the festival of guitar in Cordoba (or that´s what the posters said - to be honest I was there for the last day and saw no sign of it) and then Corpus Christi in Toledo (huge processions, free opera, rock and celtic music concerts).

Granada was a blast - within an hour of leaving the hostel I bumped into a friend and former flatmate from Seville (Jamie) whom I hung out with over the following couple of days. The feria was crazy - huge amounts of alcohol consumed, dancing til around 4.30am, crazy fairground rides including a huge tower on which you shoot up to the highest point of the fair - get a great view - and then hurtle to the ground. You´re not sure if the machine´s going to stop your fall until the last minute. Huge adrenaline burst. Also had the delight of seeing one of the locals throw up overhimself and the girl next to him on one of the other rides - the two then had to suffer the remaining 4mins of the ride. Very amusing though I´m not sure she saw the funny side.

Granada is a bit of a weird city. The city centre feels very small compared with Sevilla and seems to be ignored by most tourists who head straight for the Alhambre - which is jaw droppingly incredible and definitely worth a visit. The detail on the walls of the palace make the brain jibber - instead of patterns the decorations are made up of Islamic texts carved or created in ceramics (this will become more clear if I ever find an internet cafe with a usb port so I can post pics). Lots of photo opportunities, though after walking around for 5 hours (you could easily spend days there) in the heat I was starting to yearn for a beer.

Time to discuss the heat. It turns out I´ve picked one of the hotest years to organise my visit. I thought it was hot but didn´t realise how out of the ordinary it was til I picked up a paper and read people were collapsing and dying because of it. Believe me when that happens in Spain it´s probably worth making a note about. So I went back to my original average temperature chart to compare it with the actual climate. Past years suggest I should have been enjoying temperatures of 25-30 C in Andulucia - it was closer to 40-45 C!!! Anyway have started to go nice and crispy brown...

Anyway back to Granada - this city has one of the best bar policies in the planet. Near Placa Neuva there´s a selection of bars that serve tapas with each beer you order. That´s right free food. If you want to quibble you could argue it´s included in the price, but when a beer costs less than a euro I´m not going to complain. And here´s the best bit - the more beers you order the better the food. Anyone else considering visiting should definitely make a stop at Cafe Europa - first serving was slithers of tasty ham with a piquant sauce in fresh thin but long rolls. Second was mini ham-burgers (Spaniards love their pork - it´s yummy!) then third course was chicken kebabs with fries cooked in olive oil. No idea what 4th servings would have been because at this point neither of us could manage another mouthful.

Cordoba was very chilled - the Mesquita - a mosque with candy cone coloured pillars was impressive - despite a decision to plonk a cathedral right in it´s centre (!) - and I managed to fit in some study in the afternoons.

Toledo is ridiculous. A maze of winding streets on a hill - after wandering around for 5 minutes you think you´ll never get your bearings. After 3 hours you feel as if you know your way around the whole city. It felt like a kind of fairytale city - a feeling enghanced by all the festivities going on everywhere. It´s not often you see a procession of tall historic Spanish figures followed by Fred Flintstone and his gang dancing to Las Ketchup played at double speed.

Am now utterly exhausted - and absolutely hate my bag which seems to have got heavier as the week has gone on despite the fact I`ve been ploughing my way through a series of novels and then leaving them behind. Have tried several schemes to make it lighter, but short of going without underwear or shoes for the next couple of months I can´t see a solution.

A few of things have become apparant. Whilst traveilling alone is fun it´s also expensive (hostals and trains mean it´s often more expensive per day than a school incl. accomodation), you don´t make any lasting friendships (lots of brief conversations - but hard to make lifelong buddies when you´re only in one place for 2 days at a time and constantly on the move). I hate lugging my bag around. Spending up to 5 hours travelling every other day seems a waste of time - AND I swear my Spanish has become worse through lack of use - there´s only so much practice you can get from ordering food/directing taxis. Attempts to chat to Spanish girls in clubs have also been futile - the combination of blasting music and my accent means the conversations have barely lasted 5 mins.

So I´ve decided to change the schedule and fit in 2 weeks of classes at a Madrid school after Salamanca - that means no Santiago de Compostela and I´ll fit Bilbao into a weekend whilst up San Sebastain. After 4 weeks in Seville I´ve decided if I´m ever going to become even adequate at the language I need to spend as many of these initial weeks at school as possible - plus the social life is better.

So - if I can get the booking confirmed for Madrid and get the San Sebastain school to change my booking free of charge, the revised schedule will look like this:

June 22nd: 1st week STUDY in Salamanca

June 28-29: Weekend in Madrid catching up with Sara (Spanish friend who I met in Scotland)

June 30: 2nd week STUDY in Salamanca

July 6: Travel and 2 weeks STUDY in Madrid

July 20th: 2 weeks STUDY in San Sebastian

July 26th: Travel and 3 nights in Bilbao
July 29th: Travel and 2 nights in Zaragoza
July 31st: Travel and 3 nights in Valencia

Aug 30th: 2 weeks STUDY in Valencia (incl weekend in Ibiza or maybe that will be after the study?)

Aug 16th: 3 nights in Tarragona (if not in Ibiza)

Aug 18th: Travel and 6 nights in Barcelona

Aug 24th: 4 weeks STUDY in Barcelona

Sept 20th: 9 days in Barcelona/Madrid/Menorca

Sept 29th: Fly back to Glasgow

So I´m going to see a whole lot less of the country - but if my experience in Cordoba holds true I wouldn´t meet that many enlish speakers in the smaller Spanish towns I had planned to visit and this way puedo hablar mas castellano.

Anyway have been wandering round Salamanca this afternoon and definitely think I´m going to like this place. Lots of bars, an amazing Plaza and every other person seems to be a cute American blonde.

Life could be worse.

Hope you´re all well - email me with your news dammit

Leo

PS One of the books I read this week as ´Lanark´as recommended by Ken and Craig (by the way everyone is v jealous of me having a boss who let me go off for 4 and a half months - expect a shed load of job applications over the coming weeks). What a weird book. Not sure a story about alienation in a strange land is the best read when arriving in a strange city where everyone speaks funny and you don´t know anyone. Still mulling over whether I liked it or not. Whatever the case I think the author has a lot of issues to work out - especially bearing in mind he´s quite open about the fact its semi-autobiographical. Would love to know what it was that grasped your imaginations putting it in both your lists of favourite books.

2003-06-13T13:19:00.000Z

Conclusively disproved my theory that you can´t get drunk in the sun as you sweat so much yesterday. It will probably suprise few of you that in fact you get completely pissed incredibly quickly. Great fun though.

Anyway have finished all my classes in Seville and am about to return to the flat and pack. Feeling a bit weird about leaving as I really feel quite settled here. Temperatures are soaring though - think it must have been in the mid-40s yesterday. Very hot and very sticky.

Met up with Christian last night - my one remaining friend in the city from the original October visit. Along with two of my other flatmates we headed down to calle betis, along the river, where several families were returning from the Rocio (religious spanish festival where families spend a fortune on big colourful traditional clothes, a wagon and oxes/horses to drag it along. Someone said more than 2million people took part this year - though I suspect that may be a slight exaggeration). Apart from the travellers the city seemed pretty quiet and we ended up back on the terrace of the flat where we stayed up drinking most of the night. I was the first to head to bed at around 4.30am! My head was not in a good place for the final day of classes and I really struggled with the preterito imperfecto subjunctivo y condicional which is every bit as icky to decline as it sounds. Our second and final class took place at a tapas bar (my idea - por supuesto) where the teacher proceeded to tell us blonde jokes in Spanish for much of the duration.

For anyone considering a Spanish course the school in Seville is simply superb. Great teachers, a fun environment and the chance to advance your level quickly. Juanma Romero and Clara Cavanillas (my teachers) were particularly good - but the school has a reputation for selecting the best available. Will be interesting to compare with the other schools as I was disappointed with Clic´s sister school in Barcelona (International House) when I went there last year.

OK gotta run and soak up what´s left of the Sevilla sol...

2003-06-11T11:46:00.000Z

Time is shooting by here now - scary to think I only have another few days in Seville - it´s begun to feel like home. Went out last night to a great tapas bar hidden away down an obscure sidestreet with a couple of flatmates - only to bump into CLIC (lang. school) students there. Then went onto a weekly flamenco show at a bar my guidebook describes as one of the least known in the city only to meet another CLIC friend there. It´s such a small city and there are so many students - I wonder what the locals must make of the constant invasion.

Have been incredibly lucky with flatmates in the Calle Viriato house. Una mezcla de personalidades diferentes pero una piso en que todos son agredables. Que guay, y que suerte.

Just finished the present subjunctive today (as far as I can figure we don´t even have tenses for the subjunctive in English - a basic rule of thumb is that you use it when there is an element of doubt/opinion about the statement you are making) and will hopefully do a few more tenses before the end of the week. My main concern now is that I don´t end up repeating the same material when I move onto the next school in Salamanca.

More intercambio this afternoon - that´s if I survive the heat. It´s really getting sticky here at the moment with the temperature edging into the forties. The main streets are being covered with canopies hung high up attached to the rooftops to make it possible for people to continue shopping. Wouldn´t want to be here in July/August. In fact the school is already getting quieter and people are starting to look more haggard as itcan be hard to get to sleep in the heat at night. Lucky for us it only costs 9 euros for a big bottle of vodka (about 6-7 pounds) while the cerveza (beer) is often cheaper than the bottled water. One of my favourite bars serves it by the tubo (long glass) for 80 cents (60p)! But the heat means it takes a lot to get tipsy as no sooner have you drunk it than you have started to sweat it out. And on that delightful bodily function I´m going to sign off.

2003-06-05T11:52:00.000Z

Just back from coffee with some Americans, followed by lunch with a German friend. In an hour I´m off to the local theme park with Danish and Enliglish friends before meeting my Spanish intercambio this evening. Meanwhile my flatmates include people from Holland, the Faroe Islands and Scotland (me!). It all seems very international.

Classes are going great. After the 1-on-1 lesson my confidence has shot up and am finding it much easier. 15 mins of yesterday´s class was spent defending the BBC´s coverage of the recent Gulf War and I became so caught up in the discussion that I didn´t even have to worry about vocab - though I´m sure the teacher will have found some of my phrases pretty hideous.

Thanks to everyone who´s been emailing me. Always puts a smile on my face to keep up to date with your exploits via my inbox. I´ll try to reply as soon as I can. Meantime I still haven´t sorted out the photos (blame the Spanish pool halls) - will try to do that next week.

Leo

2003-06-03T14:27:00.000Z

Sorry - haven´t been updating this as often as I planned - and still no photos! Just doesn´t seem to be enough time in the day, despite the fact most days start at 7.45am and end at 3am.
Just come back from an extra lesson I booked - a one-on-one with a teacher to improve my accent. It´s something the teachers don´t bother with in the normal classes where we concentrate on grammar followed by conversation practice. However I find some of the examples of the language being mangled by heavy native accents terrible to listen to and the locals must be pulling their hair out at some of the examples. Anyway was incredibly useful and a huge confidence booster
Weather is fab outside (again) and I still have a couple of hours homework to do so will keep this brief and head now. Plan to add a big update sometime soon...

2003-05-28T12:55:00.000Z

Still incredibly hot here. Just back from lunch with a couple of flat mates in a shaded alleyway and am steeling myself to learn a couple of hundred new words this afternoon.

Went out with my intercambio(a) again last night - ´she´s moving out of her parent´s house this weekend to go live in Valencia so I´ll know someone in the city when I get there. It´s normal for kids to live with their parents until their late twenties or beyond here - I think it means most families are much closer, but there can be a severe lack of privacy. Anyway we were talking about doing a weekend trip to Ibiza (would be my third time there) so will keep you all posted on that. If anyone else fancies a wild weekend away on the isla blanca let me know...

2003-05-26T13:42:00.000Z

Just back from an hour and a bit with my intercambio - a 26 year old air stewardess. We spoke in Spanish the whole time and tomorrow will chat in English so she can improve her skills. A great way to get more confidence at using the language and a chance to meet the locals and find out the best clubs to go to.

All the celtic fans have now gone. They reckon there were about 80,000 of them and not one arrest on the night. They´ve left behind a superb reputation and a lot of money.

Went to Cadiz on the weekend with a trip organised by the school. Toured the city in the morning and then spent the afternoon on the beach. I decided to try sunbathing without cream and turned a nice shade of crimson which is finally turning to brown 2 days later.

Still adjusting to Spanish hours. Went clubbing at the weekend - the clubs (called discotecas here) don´t get busy til past 2am. We left at 6.30am and the place was still busy. Tried explaining why our bars shut at 11pm (at which point the average Spaniard is probably surveying the menu and deciding what to have for dinner) and realised how stupid it sounded. I know which system I prefer.

Have spent tons of money on Spanish CDs - good music and a useful way to add to my vocabulary. For anyone interested try and get hold of Rosana´s Nueve Luna - superb.

2003-05-21T12:13:00.000Z

The city is going mad - around 70-80,000 celtic fans slowly roasting in the midday sun. One of the Irish pubs has sold more beer in the past 3 days than it did last year. Not sure what result to hope for as many of the fans plan to stay here up to a month til their money runs out if Celtic win. Everyone seems bemused at the moment - just hope it´s a good match.

Have taken some photos and will try to organise posting them over the weekend. More soon...

2003-05-20T11:46:00.000Z

It´s hot here! The local paper had a picture of a street sign showing the temperature as being 43 degrees - though I think it´s only been in the high thirties since I arrived.

Got here after an easy flight and already feel as if I´ve never been away. Wonderfu.

Have great flatmates and as ever it´s easy to meet others from all over the world at the school (Icelandic, German, Japanese, Dutch, French and lots of Swiss, Americans and English). Have been to the beach, sunbathed on the terrace, munched on a variety of tapas and wandered along the many winding narrow streets of the city in the early hours of the morning. Have also had IRA songs sung to me (and the rest of the city) by the thousands of Celtic fans who have invaded the city for the UEFA cup final. Expecting around 60-70,000 on Wednesday. Hardly noticed them until yesterday but they are now starting to spread out all around town. They´re being welcomed by the locals so far and are noisy but fun - just hope there´s no bad feelings after the match.

Classes are great - one of my teachers is the same as last time - but I´ve managed to get to a higher level and am quite happy maintaining a conversation in Spanish (even if my grammar is probably all over the place).

Am absolutely exhausted so have keept this brief - expect more and maybe some photos later in the week.

2003-05-08T09:43:00.000Z

Have set up a hotmail account for anyone who comes across this site and wants to get in touch.
It is leoblogger@hotmail.com
Feel free to email me any questions, comments or suggestions

Anyone else who knows me and wants to get in touch should do so via my other hotmail account which you/they should already know

2003-05-07T18:15:00.000Z

Have added a whole list of links - I haven't added a comprehensive list of transport contacts as there are a huge number of options - the 'OK Spain' link has the best list of useful web sites

2003-05-06T16:10:00.000Z

Less than 2 weeks to go - still have several hostals to book but am basically prepared (packed up the contents of my flat, packed the bags etc).

Anyway here is my itinerary:

May 16th: Fly to Seville

May 17th: 4 weeks STUDY in Seville (incl. weekends in Cadiz, Jerez & Soto Grande)

June 14th: Travel and 4 nights in Granada
June 18th: Travel and 2 nights in Cordoba
June 20th: Travel and 2 nights in Toledo

June 22nd: 2 weeks STUDY in Salamanca

July 5th: Travel and 2 nights in Santiago de Compostela
July 7th: Travel and 2 nights in Leon
July 9th: Travel and 2 nights in Valladolid
July 11th: Travel and 2 nights in Burgos

July 13th: 2 weeks STUDY in San Sebastian

July 26th: Travel and 3 nights in Bilbao
July 29th: Travel and 2 nights in Zaragoza
July 31st: Travel and 3 nights in Valencia

Aug 3rd: 2 weeks STUDY in Valencia

Aug 16th: 3 nights in Tarragona
Aug 18th: Travel and 6 nights in Barcelona

Aug 24th: 4 weeks STUDY in Barcelona

Sept 20th: 9 days in Barcelona

Sept 29th: Fly back to Glasgow

2003-03-05T20:48:00.000Z

Just over two months to go. Have made most of the hostel bookings and just set up this website.
The aim is to record my experiences in Spain and provide helpful advice for other travellers.
More soon...