Friends, Cecilians, countrymen,
another month, another dispatch of gossip. These past few weeks have been
mainly overshadowed with Exams, which was quite distressing ' I won't bore
you with details of the European Transfer Credit System, but basically of
the seven semesters' worth of work that I have to sit exams in here, 4 of
them will be counted towards my final honours mark. Happily the results I've
got so far will probably be among those 4 which count and are 80% and 85%,
which is good news all round. the last exam we sat - Theory Of Law - was a
horrific nightmare and gave rise to what will hereafter be known as the DAY
OF MADNESS. Between 11am on Wednesday the 7th of feb and the same time on
Thursday the 8th was quite probably the worst day of my life. Collette and I
lived in a twilit world on the edge of sanity where nothing existed outside
of coffee and legal theory. we had around 200 pages of notes to work
through, and the exam consisted not of questions but of 5 statements which
corresponded to paragraph headings from our course handout, eg "the
iusnaturalista approaches to law throughout history", which invited us to
merely regurgitate that page or so out of the 200. We slept only between
3.30am and 5.30am, and wore pajamas all day (most depressingly this held
true even when I left the flat to buy milk, and neither of us noticed until
after I got back!). Really feel that I have been to the edge of madness and
peered over, but happily am now back to my... self.
In happier news, the Spanish choir's trip to Madrid was a great success - we
were put up for free in a lovely 3-star hotel with a view of the opera house
and the royal palace. Unfortunately we had about 160 pages of music to sing
and only received it the weekend before, so it was an exercise in fairly
complex sight-singing for most of us. We met the choirs from the CEU in
Madrid and Barcelona, which was fun, and rehearsal went fairly well except
for one disastrous page-and-a-half of Vivaldi's Gloria which I, for reasons
unknown, decided to sing at the top of my voice a bar ahead of the rest of
the choir (much to the amusement of the other Valencians, and the bafflement
of the others). Happily the Barcelona choir, with whom we went out dancing,
followed the general pattern whereby all Spaniards think I am the most
impressive dancer ever. (I am also frequently informed that I speak Spanish
like a Spaniard, but more surreally have been declared a veritable style
guru by most of the Spaniards, with particular skill for
colour-combination). The performance itself went fairly well, despite being
at 10am, and the free food afterwards was as welcome as always.
Have just returned from Leon, where I went to visit Teresa for a weekend.
The trip began well as I knew I had to transfer to a different bus station
in Madrid to get to Leon, but found the other bus station on my map and even
figured out how to get there using the Madrid metro system. Was
exceptionally proud of myself for this, as should any of you who have ever
been exposed to my sense of direction. Disastrously, the bus station was not
there!! I found instead a demolition site, and was informed by a passing
pedestrian that it had been moved several months earlier to be right beside
where I'd started from. Thoroughly disheartened I hailed a taxi and made it
with minutes to spare.
The first night in Leon was quite an adventure, and deserves to be related
in some detail. Before leaving to go out with Teresa and two of her
flatmates, we consumed a healthy amount of vodka and Tia Maria. Then moved
on to Bacardi in a few pubs, then Cuarenta y Tres (which translates as "43")
which is an incredibly sweet Spanish liquer. Tequila followed in great
quantities, drunk properly - bite lemon / lick salt / down shot / suck
second lemon / screw up face and yell. We then arrived at a bar which had a
large mirror which advertised a whisky named 100 Pipers, claiming that when
one drinks it the ghostly sound of 100 bagpipe players will be heard.
Thoroughly sceptical, I offered my services to the bar staff as a proper
Scotsman who had a duty to verify this claim - generously, I agreed to waive
my fee for doing so. The barman agreed and the free whisky flowed. We liked
this bar so much that we decided to help out the DJ, by providing a list of
about an hour's worth of classic hits which we felt were sure to boost both
attendance and enjoyment no end. Further aid to this cause was lent by my
extremely vocal performances of most of the songs as they were played,
including a particularly fine rendition of "It's Raining Men". (Hallelujah,
it's raining men, Amen). Returned to further discussion with the DJ and met
a group of Spaniards, 3 girls and 1 boy, who looked quite a bit younger than
his companions. Decided to take him under my wing and gave him a fairly
lengthy lecture on How To Handle A Woman. The barman reappeared at this
point with 10 more shots of whisky which were shared out between me, my
companions, the other people who happened to be standing next to me in the
bar, and all the members of staff, in a group toast in my honour. Was
thoroughly excited by this and felt the best expression of my excitement
would be to kiss the DJ. The bar remained in between us throughout but
decided that kissing the DJ was quite good fun and the bar not a big enough
obstacle to stop it any time soon. More free whisky was the result, not
foreseen but certainly not refused.
By this point Teresa's flatmates had moved on to some other bar, so the two
of us decided to take our leave and try some of the other places. Leaving
our new friends behind, we visited a couple of bars briefly before meeting
some French people whom Teresa knew vaguely from classes; I immediately
cornered one and began a lengthy treatise on the constitutional significance
of Gibraltar, a rundown of the monarchy and their role in modern society,
and a general overview of the legal structure of the United Kingdom. Why I
felt this was appropriate I have no idea, but I was most insistent at the
time. Teresa came to tell me we had to go and meet her flatmates somewhere
else, so she would meet me outside; I took this is the ideal cue to pull my
hapless French victim (not that this was met with complaint), presumably to
reaffirm whatever political accord I'd been attempting to reach, and then
merrily wandered off without even saying goodbye. Teresa was highly amused
by this, especially when she had to remind me of it the next morning.
We made our way to the presumed location of he flatmates, but they were
nowhere to be found. While Teresa was looking for them I started talking to
another group of Spaniards, mistaking them for the same people I'd been
holding court with over the free whisky earlier. I picked one of the boys in
the group and decided I hadn't finished my Woman-Handling lesson, so
launched back into it with gusto (much to his bewilderment) until Teresa
realised what was going on and dragged me away home before any more havoc
could be caused.
The rest of the trip was slightly less eventful, but still enjoyable, with
the exception of the 2 hours spent in the cinema being subjected to "Limite
Vertical" which was truly dire. My last night in Leon saw us making a vast
amount of sangria (following my friend Federico's well-taught recipe) and
staying up until 5am laughing - not ideal when my bus left at 9am.
Consequently was very tired and still a little tipsy during the journey,
which perhaps explains why throughout the film ("The Agony And The Ecstacy",
featuring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo whilst painting the Sistine
Chapel) I kept bursting into tears. Puzzlingly I wasn't quite so affected by
the second video offering, being "Volcano" with Tommy Lee Jones and an
odd-looking daughter.
All in all an adventure not to be forgotten. And in only a week´s time I
will be embarking on a similar trip to come home and see you lot! I hope you
take the above as an example for appropriate behaviour during show week, and
that you are all having fun (though not too much until I get there).
love etc
JP
