Week 2

Argghhh! A bad 24 hours… Feeling all at sea, lonely and like the whole thing was a stupid idea. Why would I move myself to a city that I don’t know, where I don’t have any friends and where no-one understands anything I’m saying!?

College has been very frustrating this week. Emma & I keep trying different classes but it’s really tough not speaking Spanish. None of the professors speak any English at all (except Mariano the painting teacher who’s been off sick since our first day!). Even Beatrice who runs the ‘Officina de Estudiantes Internacional’ only really speaks Spanish. So we’ve been turning up at classes and trying to enrol ourselves with mixed success.

‘Anatomia morfologica aplicada’ has probably been the most successful class so far. We arrived late and I persuaded Emma that we should sneak in the back to have a look. Unfortunately as we opened the door and walked in we realised that there were 50 students staring straight at us with the professor at the front next to us. The professor obviously stopped to ask what we wanted. I stumbled along saying: “los sientos, nos estudiantes Erasmus, es possible para…?” and ran out of any words. Teacher started talking lots and we had no idea what he was saying… it was all very embarrassing and all the students were laughing.

Eventually he gave the class a break and one nice student came and tried to translate for us, and he agreed to let us sit in on the class (even though it’s officially full so he can’t allow us to join for 3 weeks when he finds out if people have dropped out).

So we then spent 2 hours copying his pictures of how the back works from a board at the front of the class. All quite random! His drawings aren’t that great and since we didn’t understand a word it was kind of funny to be copying out a pretty ropey picture. But at least we were finally doing some art!

The same class on Tuesday was better. We learnt how to draw the skull (well I say learnt… we copied his pictures again – but it was good). And then after an hour we had a life model for us to draw. Seemed like life drawing rather than any anatomy but that was good. Fine that is until he spotted me from the front measuring out the basic dimensions and started shouting “no no” with lots of arm waving and ran up the stairs (we all sit on strange box things on tiered levels to get a good view) and stood behind me explaining very fast about how I have to be gestural and let the energy move through me (or something like that I’m pretty sure). I was nodding and feeling like I kind of understood, as he was being very expressive with his body language and kept grabbing my pencil and drawing on my sketchbook, when he suddenly asked me a specific question. I’ve no idea what he actually wanted to know – but clearly it was pretty funny as once again all 50 students were laughing at me! Not great. But then since I don’t know what he’d said I couldn’t really get upset about it!

Since Mariano de Blas still seems to be sick there wasn’t anything to do in the painting class – but a pretty woman came and talked for 20 minutes about what the class entails (again of course we had to kind of guess!), It seems that you have to research and make your own work in your own time and space and have one on one tutorials with Mariano. This is great for us because it’s the way we’re used to working in Camberwell so this at least feels familiar! Although of course there’s a good chance we didn’t quite understand it right.

We tried a class in ‘Sistemas de analisis geometrico de la forma y la representacion’ where the teacher was nice (no English but a tiny bit of French in which he explained that there was no point coming if we couldn’t speak Spanish). We stayed for some of the class – but he was completely right. It was like a class from the 1950s. He was stood high up at the front of the class with a big old fashioned blackboard and chalk. All the students sit in rows writing notes. No questions, no interaction. Just information download. He was astonished that we don’t study geometry at Camberwell – he kept saying how can you paint if you don’t understand the theory of perspective. “no ce’st ne pas vrai, c’est tres mal”. I just kept saying “c’est tres different!”. After 40 mins of bafflement we sneaked out.

The other frustration was life drawing (Dibujo del natural). We stayed for about 2 minutes of the year 1 class until we realised that all you do is draw statues (you’re not allowed real people in your first year!!?!). And we decided we could do that outside in plazas in the sunshine or in the museums here.

The bigger disappointment was being thrown out of a level 3 life-drawing class. Again (theme of the week!) we’re not entirely sure why! We think the class is full and because we’re not here for a year we won’t have the progression required (or something like that). Anyhow the professor was really rude and impatient and basically just asked us to leave. Again, rather embarrassing! Once we’ve got our courage up again, we’ll try another life class with another teacher next week.

Perhaps the funniest thing we’ve signed up for is ‘Pintura Mural’. There’s a whole section of the building that’s given over to doing murals. You have to work in groups of 4 and are given a big chunk of wall and have to come up with an idea and execute it as a group. We’ve been given some space outside by the cafeteria which is fab as the main room is crazy. We walked in and it was full of about 30 people in full length jumpsuits, masks, goggles and gloves on scaffolding hacking away at the work that is there already with pickaxes. The entire building is full of dust. It’s mad but exciting. Emma & I signed up with Anthony a very funny French Erasmus boy who smokes non-stop and is beautifully enthusiastic about most things and anything he doesn’t like he says “it is sheeeeet”. I like him and I’m sure we’ll have fun wrecking and re-doing our wall.

I think my lowness has come from finding it so difficult to create the structure of a timetable. I hate not knowing what’s happening when. Language is such a big barrier, so we’ve signed up for ‘Intensivo Espanol’ lessons next week in the centre of town (the university ones cost €950 which is crazily expensive and it’s not intensive). Who knows how much we’ll really learn in only a week but it’s got to help and build up our confidence (which I confess is pretty damn low right now!).

There have been some funny experiences this week too though…

Going to look at a flat for Emma in Lavapies (bit like Bethnal Green). Our appointment was at 10pm and we turned up to find a 2 bedroom flat with 6 people (south American immigrant men – mostly waiters I think) already living there. She would have had one room. The other bedroom had 4 beds in it, and then in the living room there was a curtain and behind it a bunk bed!! It was kind of comedy trying to find out exactly how many people actually lived there… “quando personnes???” in terrible spanish. They were really nice and friendly and explained they were out working lots and it was “moy tranquilla”. But I nearly freaked when Emma said she’d think about it. There was no way she should live there – a 20 year old girl on her own! Especially when we saw the door on the way out with about 12 different bolts and locks on it. It was like a mafia Fort Knox!

We went for great soup at Max’s flat on Thursday night. A lovely and very trendy one-bed apartment near Anton-Martin (like Shoreditch). It belongs to his brother’s friend who’s an animator. Very stylish décor with great collection of books and films…I started to get a crush on the imaginary owner but fortunately he’s gay.

Max invited Nathan to dinner too. Very bizarre 31 year old Australian DJ & English teacher. He completely dominated all of the conversations and didn’t really ask a single question. Within 2 minutes (literally!) he was on the subject of his sister who died 10 years ago of a heroine overdose having just got out of prison. He was full of stories and his own philosophies of how to live life, which did make it quite an entertaining evening (I was in a pretty sparky mood so there was a lot of banter), but he really was quite crazy. His style of DJ-ing is very “underground” and he only likes to mix music that he’s not heard before so that he gets the thrill of mixing tunes while he’s hearing them for the first time. Sounds quite cool and he was infectiously passionate about it – but I wasn’t surprised to hear he’s not broken into the DJ scene big time yet.

Then a whole lot of other students turned up (Canadians, Americans, Germans – who had been staying in the hostel with Max before he found the flat). It was very funny being with a gang of 19 year olds again. Everyone was drinking as much as possible before going out (necking whisky & cokes) to make it a cheap night. Then we headed out to a club where we were apparently ‘on the list’. No-one quite knew where it was so lots of wandering around, phoning, waiting for others in the group to catch up. Went to wrong place (‘Suite’ instead of ‘Sweet’ – ha! ha!). Eventually got to ‘Sweet’ to find the person who could get us in was themselves in the queue so we jumped in with her and waited outside this Hip Hop club for about 45 mins with all the black boys in their low slung jeans, baseball caps and gold chains. By this time it was coming up to 3am. We’d not been in a bar all night – just wandered the streets and queued - so I decided to call it a night! It did make me laugh. I remember those nights so well – but it’s been a while!!! Was sorry not to have the chance to “bust some moves” – but I reassured the kids they’d get to see my hip hop expertise sometime soon.

I had a really nice night out with Matt (he’s been here working for a bank since August), and it was good to chat to someone from home (even if we don’t really know each other) and to exchange stories of strange differences – good and bad! It was great to finally go out for some good tapas. Great gambas, calamares, patatas bravas and meatballs in a fuity sauce. We ended up near where I live so I walked home in 5 mins – it’s great to be so central.

Yesterday I went to Retiro Park which is really great and lay in the sun and listened to my Spanish course on my ipod. I discovered an Andy Goldsworthy log installation in the glass pavilion which looks wonderful, right by the lake.

I didn’t really sleep last night though, and was very glum when I woke up.

I went shopping to try and cheer myself up. I bought some boots that I do love (even though they’re not the practical ones I was meaning to buy), and some sunglasses.

I got stopped by an elderly man near my house on my way out, who took my hand and asked me to sit on the bench with him. He kept hold of my hand and told me “soy poetica y cantanto” (which I think means he’s a poet and singer), and that he was 94 years old. He asked my name and then started making up a poem about me. Using my name and the word “bonita” a lot (which I think is a good thing!?!). And stroked my cheek lots. He was very sweet (and very neatly turned out – not like a crazy old person), but it was rather surreal. I just smiled lots, said “gracias”, and my favourite phrase “los sientos, soy ingleses” (“I’m sorry I’m English!”) and as soon as I could “hasta luego” (see you later!).

But I chose a bad place for lunch and when Rups phoned I couldn’t help bursting into tears in the street. I just felt that I was wandering around spending money to make myself feel better and that I’d be having a much nicer time if I just stayed in London where there’s lots of nice things to do and where people that I love live.

Have been close to tears all day. I’m sure it will get better, but it is quite tough being on your own in a strange place.

Know I should call up some of the people who’s numbers I’ve been given who’ve offered to take me out, but I’m too glum tonight to meet strangers. I think instead I’m going to stay in, watch a DVD (Amodolvar from Kirsten – so I can pretend I’m learning Spanish!) and then be brave again tomorrow.