Senses of Reality

As  I’ve mentioned in the past, this whole year has very ‘unreal’ in the sense that I know it’s not real life – I don’t have a job here, I see Cardiff as my ‘place of education’ and despite having classes etc here, in many respects it is like an extended holiday. Even though Valencia feels much more like home than Chambéry did, I’ve always had the notion that this isn’t ‘real’ in the back of my head, and as the ‘end’ draws nearer, it’s hard not to think about everything that has happened since September along with the dawning realisation that my fourth and final year at Cardiff is fast approaching. While I will be sad to leave, I equally know that as soon as I’m back home surrounded by friends and family, go back to work and am surrounded by things I see as ‘reality,’ I’ll be happy to be back.

Last Sunday, after a weekend stuck in making revision notes and doing work, I suggested to Anya and Heather the idea of going into town for dinner, a catch-up and a break from the four walls of our respective flats. We ate at a restaurant in the centre of town between the bullring and the Ayuntamiento and there was a lot of reminiscent conversation about how crazy the past 9 months had been, the amazing highs, the horrible lows and everything in between and it there was almost an air of emotion as we realised that our time was nearly up. Every adjective imaginable could be used to describe the journey I, and we have been on and as cliché as it sounds, it has certainly been a learning curve. Nevertheless, we’ve come through it all, no doubt better informed about life ourselves, each other and life in general. This is without even mentioning the linguistic progress we have made and the many friends along the way.

This week Anya, Heather, Rachael & I have been working on our ‘Trabajo Final’ – a piece of work which has to be completed at the end of a module, Norma y Uso in this case. The task? We have to find 5 mistakes in a newspaper whether they be spelling, punctuation, incorrect uses of set phrases, and incorrect uses of accents – anything. Needless to say it was a time-consuming piece of work, scanning line by line, page by page desperate to find something. There were a few near-misses when I thought I’d found something but after checking the RAE (Real Academia Española, the body which ‘regulates’ the Spanish language, dictating what is correct and incorrect), there’d always be some exception to the rule. After a significant amount of reading, we managed to find 5 between us and we then had to write about why it was wrong, what the RAE says and how it should be written. Tedious, to be honest. Nevertheless, we’ve pretty much finished it and have to hand it in during our exam on Wednesday – hopefully we’ll get a good mark.

A ‘Milestone’ that occurred this week came on Thursday: The final class of 3^rd year, and my final class abroad! 2 hours of Norma y Uso can be quite boring, and it was as we went through pages and pages of questions. As we reached question 40 or 40 on the final exercise, at 13.59, that was it – Year Abroad classes were over and we were one step closer to going home. As somewhat of a celebration, and the fact Heather’s friend Ellie was visiting, a group of us spent that afternoon in Turia with a picnic and enjoying the sun. At one point, as I relaxed in the sun, a dog came and sat next to me. It was making sort of whining noises asking for attention and the more I paid attention to it, the closer it came towards me. Anya captured the cute moment.

PICNIC

 

El Perro

 

That evening, Barry had arranged drinks at a local cevercería for all of the TAs (about 20 of us) from this semester and we had a few beers in the warmth as the sun set, which was great. From there, Heather, Ellie, Sam J, Stevie and I went to Tanto Monta, a Pincho restaurant for dinner. I’d heard lots about it but had never been – it was GREAT. The food was delicious and there was plenty to choose from – another thing ticked off my list of things to do!

Anya & I

Pinchos!

 

With classes coming to an end, I didn’t have TA on Friday and so spent the day sat at the table in my lounge desperately trying to force myself to finish making notes on Norma y Uso as the exam is on Wednesday. While I understand the want to ‘protect’ the language and keep it in order, such strict rules on where to use commas, capital letters and whether there should be a space between a number and the % sign seem a little superfluous. What’s even better is that every few years, the academy will change its mind on things, only to change it again a few years later and so the average Spaniard doesn’t know what’s correct either! Anyway, hopefully the exam won’t be too bad.

Having spent quite a lot of time revising and making notes, I decided that I’d go out with everyone on Friday evening. We had pre-drinks at Han & Heather’s and then went to Umbracle, which is the “open air” part of the club down at the artes y ciencias complex while Mya is the “covered” part. There was a pretty large group of us – Cardiff gang, Greeks & Belgians, Stevie & Kris, Sibs and Heath’s friend Ellie and I had what was probably one of the best nights here – Everyone was on great form and Han, Ellie & I danced the night away, though Heather was keen to inform me that she wanted more hips and I was scraping a 6/10 – She likes to make me work, I guess, or perhaps it was jealousy..   

 

Everyone :)

Hannah & I

 

 

 

D-D-D-Dance The Night Away

Heaths & Anya

STRIKE A POSE

 

I didn’t get to bed until 6.30 on Saturday morning and having only a few hours sleep, plus 4 or 5 hours the previous night, I was EXHAUSTED. Rather than sleep in bed, Heather, Hannah, Anya, Ellie and I went to the beach for a few hours in the sun. Having spent so much time in my flat as of late, I’d almost forgotten what heat felt like. On the way back, Anya and I cycled to El Saler to visit Carrefour and I stocked up on a few things from the “International Foods Aisle,” probably the last time I’ll need to do such a thing.

 

Heather & Ellie

Sunny VLC

CLEARLY Loving Valenbisi Life

 

 

 

This week will mainly be focused on the Norma y Uso exam which on Wednesday. From there, the next exam will be translation, though we’ve been told it will be completed on computers and we are free to Google words and phrases... This seems to defeat the object of a translation exam in my eyes, but there’s still some theory based content I need to revise so that’ll be the next plan of action. Otherwise, it’ll be trying to catch a few more rays on the roof/ in the park/ at the beach and enjoying my ever shortening time in Valencia.

 

 

 

Vistante

Last Thursday, Joanna flew out to Valencia to visit me for the weekend. I was a little worried as her flight arrived at 11.45 and I had a class 12-2pm which I couldn’t really miss as I’d missed some classes the previous week to fly to London. However, Spain came up trumps – another strike!

Indeed, this time there was a strike arranged by teaching unions (from what I could work out) as lecturers have been told that they will not be paid from June as there’s quite literally no money to pay them. Not even a cent, let alone a euro. It’s kind of a crazy concept if you think about it, how there can be NO money to pay them, yet there was this ridiculous spending for Fallas. Sometimes I’ve thought the recession and such is noticeable in the UK but it kind of puts everything into perspective – it’ll be interesting to see what happens.

 

Strike

 

We spent the weekend as tourists, but the thing I like about Joanna is that she’s very ‘natural’ (I couldn’t think how else to describe her...). She enjoys being in the outdoors, parks, walking, cycling and so having some good weather (compared to the downpours we’d had earlier in the week,) we took full advantage of these opportunites. We ate paella in the sun, climbed to the top of the Torres del Serrano (one of the ‘gates’ to the medieval old town of Valencia) which offered some great views, visited the Botanical Gardens a 5 minute walk from my flat (which I never knew existed,) and went to the beach, to name just a few things.

 

Botanical Gardens

Smiley

Paella - Plaza de la Virgen

Torres Views

 

Sunday morning, we took some Valenbisi bikes and cycled down to Ciudad Artes y Ciencias and then on to the port where we sat with our feet dangling in some ice-cold water surrounded by yachts, one of which even had a helipad complete with helicopter. Crazy. We came across a disused shipping shed which was being used by a group on rollerblades and skates. It was a total mix of novices who could barely stand, to another guy who was performing some amazing stunts and tricks - It was such a cool thing to come across in this back-water of Valencia and we sat for a while and watched. We then cycled to one end of the beach, parked up the bikes and walked along at the seashore before stopping for some lunch, and naturally, we had Tapas. I think Joanna had eyes bigger than her stomach capacity though, as we struggled to get though everything.

 

Casual 'Copter

Jo & I - Artes y Ciencas

Artes y Ciencias

Skater - I'd love to be his friend!

Playa

 

After having only just arrived, it was time for her to leave on Sunday afternoon back to cold, and no doubt rainy, Wales. It however had been great to see her here in Valencia (especially as we’d come here on a trip with school 6 years ago) and I think it was nice for her to have a weekend away from revision-world aka Cardiff.

The rest of the last week has been filled with the realisation that exams are just around the corner, and I don’t really feel I know much at all in order to be able to sit them. As a result, I’ve started to make notes from books, at least I’m trying I guess... my first exam is on 29^th May so there’s still time, fingers crossed.

 

Reality

 

Last night was one of my highlights of the year, Eurovision. I spend months reading things online, watching selection shows (namely Melodifestivalen in Sweden) and hearing what countries have picked as their entry, good and bad. Last year, Alex and I had a huuuuuge Chinese take-away as I bounced off the walls with the Swedish victory (I actually liked, and had backed, the winner!) This year, I was sat in Spain watching with Spanish commentary and slightly missing Graham Norton (but I’ll watch it on iPlayer, there were Ad breaks out here and I don’t know what I missed out on!) María, Spela, Spela’s friend and I prepared a huge feast to watch this year – A Spaniard, A Brit, A Slovenian and a German, which sounds like one of “those” kind of jokes. The winning song is not nice though it wasn’t my favourite, but that’s the ‘joy’ of Eurovision. The next time I watch it, I’ll no doubt be stressed with tons of work and revision in Cardiff just before final exams – crazy!

 

Part of the Feast

 

Looking at the first post of this blog, I ended it with “46 days until the continent.” All of these months later, the opposite is true: “39 days until the island.” Indeed, my final flight back home is booked for 27^th June and then this crazy, confusing, exciting, scary, incredible experience is all over. That’s it, my Year Abroad = Over. I can’t tell yet how I feel about it – Naturally excited to be back home with ‘home comforts’ but Valencia really does feel like home now, much more than France did and there’ll be plenty I will miss from here.

However, what this does mean is that there’re 39 days left and I have to make the most of them, even if it means having to do some revision to pass exams and make my time here worth it, academically, at least!

39 Days Until Home...

 

A 'B' and an 'A' - London.

Hola!
Wow. That sums up everything, really.

Two weeks ago, I flew from Valencia to London for what was certainly the most spectacular few hours of my life – BEYONCÉ. Things didn’t start off too well when we were delayed for 2 and a half hours in Valencia but nobody ever came to tell us... Indeed, 20 minutes after the flight should’ve left, the screens simply switched to ‘retrasado’ and there was uproar in the queue at how nobody came to inform us, they just left us standing at the gate without members of staff nor a plane. Still, I managed to understand and participate in the negative talking of the airline, so there was a benefit to the day nonetheless.

Finally arriving in London, I met Rach and wished her Happy Birthday with a card and a Millie’s Cupcake and after having a rest back at her flat, we wandered from Victoria down to the Thames for dinner – I had the best nachos EVER and it was so great to catch-up and tell her about all the wonderful features of Spain. Later that evening, we went back home and had Ben & Jerry’s while watching Family Guy on BBC3, something I often watch when I’m at home – It was good to be back!

 

 

On Friday, Rach went to sign in at Uni while I popped to Starbucks for lunch. We then wandered along the Thames in the sun (This was definitely a good weekend to be in London, it was surprisingly warm) and we had lunch near the Tower of London. That afternoon, Rach went to class while I went and wandered Oxford Street – I’d packed very little into my hand luggage (surprisingly for me,) and so thought I’d buy a few new things to take back to Valencia. Incidentally, I could find hardly anything I liked and only bought 2 t-shirts and a new necklace. Later that day, Beyoncé published a web store page to buy tour merchandise and there were several cool t-shirts. I anticipated quite steep prices and so I knew spending less on Oxford Street meant I could justify buying something the following evening.

As a sub-story, anybody who knows me will know that I’ve been an ABBA fan from a very young age, since the age of 4 or 5 in fact, and this ignited my interest in both the solo careers of the four members and also in Swedish music in general. My favourite solo career is that of Agnetha, or “the blonde.” Indeed, after the crazy ABBA years and 3 English solo albums in the 1980s, apart from the cover album of 1960s standards released in 2004, she has taken a back seat in the music industry, understandable after the near-hysteria that surrounded her ABBA life. often described as a “recluse” or the musical equivalent of “Greta Garbo.” Indeed, for me as a fan it is clear to see she suffered some sad and traumatic experiences but I’ve seen pictures of her and she’s had small public appearances over the years. However, the global press tended to ignore these and maintain the “recluse” story. Nevertheless, a few months ago it was announced she was released her first album in 9 years, and her first with original material in 25 years. Big news. Even bigger news was that she would be travelling to London for a promotional tour, the first time she’d have been in London in 25 years AND she happened to be around the same weekend I was travelling to see Beyoncé. It later transpired that she would be appearing at G-A-Y in Central London – Her first public appearance of this type, again in 25 years. She wasn’t performing, she was literally coming to say a few words, no doubt wave to her adoring fans and a few minutes later, she’d leave the stage and go off into night. Despite this, many fans had flown in from Europe, America and Australia for this brief glance of her – THIS is how big this was...

That evening, Rach left London to go on holiday and I met with Chris, Mike and a few other ABBA fans for dinner which was cool – obviously chat mainly consisted of discussing the exciting events that would unfold the next day. We were advised to be there at 12pm on Saturday to collect wristbands which would give us reduced entry that evening. Indeed, as I had no plans for the Saturday, that’s what I did, and I got to meet some more fans.

Saturday afternoon, I made my way to Victoria to meet Beth and from there, we grabbed some things to eat and headed back to Rach’s to relax before the exciting evening to come. I didn’t really know how I felt- I never thought I’d get the chance to see Beyoncé live, then after the failure of getting tickets, Rach’s angel of a friend came along with spares, and I’d been counting down for months – EVERYONE knew I was going and indeed quite a few people had said they hoped she’d live up to my expectations. Well. She did.

She was INCREDIBLE. IN-CRE-DI-BLE. Flawless. We arrived and I quickly sauntered over to the merchandise stand to buy a t-shirt and a tour programme and we quickly took our seats, I was crazily excited. Rach’s 2 friends from Uni were sat next to us and I chatted with them quite a bit, telling then what they could expect as I’d practically seeing the whole show on Youtube, I was too anxious to wait for the show itself. Then it started and I screamed, sang and danced for 2 hours, just like she did. Indeed, she played the whole two hour set in one go with the exception of being off-stage after every 3-ish songs for a costume change but in less than 2 minutes she was back and powering herself through the next song. It was quite literally flawless in every sense of the word – Her performance, her vocals, her band and backing dancers and there were some great lighting sequences which created the perfect ambiance. A Highlight? Hard to choose. Perhaps Run the World/ End Of Time/ Why Don’t You Love Me/ Single Ladies/ Love On Top. She also sang her new song, which is yet to be released, “Grown Woman.” Indeed, this song probably received the least audience reaction as nobody knew it, but being the fan that I am, I sang the whole way through. As soon as it had started, she was thanking us for having come and in a flash; she’d left the stage for the last time. It was the quickest 2 hours of my entire life, especially when I think of how long a 2 hour exam can feel, for example. She was just absolutely phenomenal and she far exceeded any of my expectations.

When we left the O2 I almost felt quite deflated: I couldn’t believe the spectacle that I had just witnessed, but at the same time, after all of the waiting and anticipation, it was ALL over. This said, I was on SUCH a high. We left the O2 at 11.15ish and Agnetha would be on stage at 12.30. However, the tube was full and queues were huge and so I began to worry I wouldn’t get there in time. It almost felt like fate, that we were in London at the same time and I just had to be there. Eventually after some crowded tube rides and getting lost following my iPhone, I arrived at the venue and managed to get in about 12.20. Thankfully, she was running late and so I slowly pushed myself through the dense crowd and managed to reach the 3^rd/4th line of people back from the stage. As I stood there waiting to see her, i couldn’t quite comprehend what was about to happen – was she REALLY going to be standing in front of me? This woman, whose music I have listened to for the best part of 15 years, who I’d watched in so many performances and interviews and I had seen in thousands of photos – was she really about be standing a few meters in front of me? In the back of my head, I doubted it and thought something would change, something would go wrong. Just before appearing, I saw her stylist pop her head around the stage door to gage the size of the crowd – I recognised her and after seeing her, I knew Agnetha HAD to be here. A few moments later, the owner of the club introduced her, and there she walked on, waving, blowing kisses and bowing to the incessant adulation that the crowd were throwing at her. I was just in awe. I thought Beyoncé was incredible, but this, this was something well and truly phenomenal. She tried to speak but the roar of the crowd drowned her out. She looked so beautiful and well (especially for a lady of 63,) she beamed with pride and happiness and was clearly pleased to be there. I couldn’t quite comprehend that this woman, my idol, who had been in my life almost as long as my life itself, was there, right in front of me and I was simply dumbfounded. I got a little emotional at what was happening, especially after being on such a high after Beyoncé. This was just magical. After saying a few words, it was announced that a ton of balloons would be dropped from the ceiling and in 10 there were tickets to go backstage to meet her. I was quite the emotional wreck by now and I decided that I’d rather keep my eyes watching her on the stage – This IS why I was here, after all. Still, there was no guarantee I’d find one and I could miss something on stage. Indeed, I would have. As people continued to search, she was presented with a bunch of flowers and they played Dancing Queen, and she DANCED and MIMED to the opening part of the song. AWESTRUCK. It was just absolutely incredible to be seeing this, and after so long, I knew I was so lucky to have been there to witness the moment. After a few points at the crowd (“see that girl”... though I don’t think there were ANY there,) she left the stage and left a bunch of people who had been incredibly moved by what had just happened before us.

Never did I’d be lucky enough to see Beyoncé live in concert. Never had I even THOUGHT about seeing Agnetha live in public. Both of these two things had just happened within the space of 4 hours and I couldn’t quite believe it. I know it sounds dramatic, but I quite literally couldn’t believe it. Soon after, I decided I was too mentally and physically drained and it was time to go back to Rach’s flat. As we left the club, we decided to pass by Agnetha’s hotel, a mere stones-throw away on the way to our respective destinations. Just after arriving, Agnetha’s car came by but rather than stopping, it continued past the hotel and around the next corner. It became apparently that autograph hunters, who hunt down celebrities for their autographs to sell them online, were following the car and so it chose not to stop – clearly the security team looking after her were aware of these people and what they were after. 2 minutes later, the same car came around the corner, and I didn’t believe she was in it, but then she got out and she was THERE – right infront of me, cms from where I was standing. Some fans had CDs and LPs to ask her to sign – I obviously didn’t as anything I have is at home – but I recorded a video in one hand while trying to take photos with the other. Indeed, the autograph hunters got a little rough and so after a few signatures, she said goodnight and entered her hotel. She used Mike’s black sharpie pen for some of the signatures and give him the dearest smile when handing it back – all of this I had on video and this really did put both the icing and cherry on the proverbial cake.

Wow. I said goodbye to everyone and wandered through London back to Rachel’s where I just sat trying to comprehend what had happened. The next morning, I woke up and asked Beth if everything had actually happened. I just couldn’t quite believe it, and it still hasn’t really sunk in how incredibly special and lucky those few hours were. Magical.

The next day, I relaxed at Rach’s flat in the morning before making my way to the train station, then to the airport and eventually back to Valencia. I went straight to Heather’s flat as everyone had made some tapas and I filled them in on everything and ‘Just Like That,’ it was all over.

I’ve seen a lot of my Year Abroad through the lens of camera, wanting to document as much as possible. However, for this one night, I was very much of the mindset that I wanted to enjoy myself and treasure each second of the night. As a result, I took very few photos/videos and those I did take aren’t very good as I was too busy enjoying and “living in the moment.” I think they’re something more for me just to say “I was there” so here are a few photos I came across online.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Now, it’s back to ‘real life.’ However, tomorrow Joanna is coming to visit, my first visitor in Spain and I have lots planned so I’m looking forward to a great weekend J