big matt

i heard a joke the other day.

a goat goes into a job centre and in perfect english asks for work. the rather startled assistant flicks through his pages, desperately trying to come up with some suitable career path for the goat.

'maybe you should try the circus,' replies the job centre assistant.

'the circus?' says the goat, 'what would the circus want with a bricklayer?'

if anyone could explain this joke to me i would much appreciate it. answers on a postcard (or comments will do!!)

Labels: españa

i think i've got the commuter grumps.

previously, when i've been sat on a bus in a traffic jam, i've been chilled out - after all, what can i do about the traffic? i'm going as fast as i can. yesterday though, i was seriously pissed off/late/angry/stressed/knackered.

the broken up-escalator at the station which people were walking DOWN was just the end of it. i made myself as big as i could and walked into people.

when i arrived to catch the bus in the afternoon, the bus driver was canoodling with his girlfriend on the back seat, whilst a queue of about 500 people waited patiently to get on his bus. however, i let him off. seen as hannah's coming tomorrow i could see the romance of the situation, and i'm pleased to say, i think it has cured me of the 'out-of-my-way-you-bastards' attitude.

Labels: españa

last night, we went out to celebrate my birthday, though not as
originally planned.

in the afternoon, we went to an second-hand english bookshop and ended
up staying all night (they had a bar). by night, it became filled with
lots of english speaking people including a couple of nice americans
(who were happy to tell me their 'five year plans') and an incredibly
clever irish man, who i attempted to talk about europe with, but
failed miserably.

when we finally left, i realised i was a little bit drunk. having sat
there all afternoon, drinking slowly but merrily, i had actually lost
count of the beers, sangria and red wine. had had a really fantastic
time.

being in the state that i was, when we got back to katherines flat, i
had the munchies. fried egg, weeners and french toast out of a packet
was on the menu. it was incredibly tasty, although i spent a majority
of the night keeping the seat of the toilet warm and having serious
weener repercussions...complete with splitting headache.

and the moral of the story? never eat meat that is the same colour as
pink andrex toilet paper.

Labels: españa

the family i'm living with have satellite tv, that has english
channels in the form of fox and fox news. now, i'm not complaining
about fox, because every monday night they show a double bill of lost,
which i'm very much appreciating.

however, fox news is complete crap.

the other day, they spent 2 minutes talking about eight american
soldiers who'd been killed in iraq by a car bomb, then about the same
time showing live footage of a crocodile in someone's garage in
florida. now, i've never been to florida, but i do know that they have
quite a few crocodiles. i'm assuming, that every now and then some
find there way into garages. is that news?!

last night, they were showing some satellite images of hurricane wilma
getting closer to mexico and the news-man (Shepard Smith) said, 'if
you've ever been to cancun, i hope you've got some photos or mental
images,' implying that after the hurricane it is going to look a bit
different. i bet all the thousands of people who actually LIVE there
are thinking at the moment, 'ooh, shep smith is right, we must take
some photos so we can remember where our house stood.' dickhead.

Labels: españa

today, i am 21.

getting up at 6:20 this morning kind of started the day badly, but got better when the entire staff at school sang happy birthday to me (in english). the kids also were in fine fettle.

i opened some cards over breakfast (we get breakfast at school!), before proceedings stopped when i produced a photo of hannah and me - 'guapísima'. drawing inspiration from the poster i completed yesterday (complete with donkey, duck, doll, dice and dog), jane had kindly produced a card with pictures of mountains, mushrooms, money and midgets. thanks.

i've managed to bribe some friends into a cheeky jug of sangria in a jazz club tomorrow night, so i'm managing to spread my birthday out nicely into a long weekend.

when the children were guessing how old i was, estimates ranged from 10 to 80. this afternoon, i have art with forty 6 year-olds, a potentially deadly mix of children and paint. but i'm happy that it's my birthday, and so seems everyone else :)

Labels: españa

the train network in spain is still nationalised (maybe that's why it works
so well) and the name is renfe.

today, i sat on a brand new train, comfortable, clean and pretty hi-tec.
dotted along the carriages are lots of tv screens, which in between telling
you how far away your next destination is, show adverts for renfe.

for example, two people going for a job interview; the man takes the car,
whilst the woman takes the train. the man is frustrated, there's traffic
everywhere, he looks haggard and stressed. the woman, meanwhile, sits on her
train, gazing out of the window, does some reading and smiles a lot.
needless to say, the woman gets the job because the man arrives late for the
interview.

other adverts involve couples kissing on empty platforms, babies sleeping on
trains, ample seating space and catchy slogans like 'innovation in
movement'.

and they expect us to believe this?! they seem to have forgotten that people
watching these films actually take the train; we know what it's like!! being
squashed by a couples making out, babies screaming and no seats whatsoever.

however, maybe i'm just being too sceptical. it seems that taking the train
is really good fun; the people in the films seem to enjoy it. i think i
might take it more often...

Labels: españa

last night (my first night in madrid til the wee hours) was interesting.

having started in a bar full of men (in which i was the only one
without a boyfriend), we stumbled upon five mexican doctors. they
beckoned us to their table and practised their english in return for
some broken spanish information about ourselves.

group photos followed, naturally, as well as invitations to visit
mexico whenever we want. "my house is your house" i believe was the
exact phrase used. "next time i´m in mexico (?), i´ll have to drop
in," i believe was the reply.

having listened to incredible recollections of just how much sick you
can put in a toilet in the space of five minutes, the american went
home to think about what she´d done (uncharacteristically sober and
blaming antibiotics).

we finished in a rather small, incredibly smokey, spanish bar, that
was playing flamenco music. about 4am, those who were pissed enough
and who knew how to clap, began to dance the flamenco. goodly or
badly, i´m not too sure, but it was good to watch.

after a cheeky hot chocolate in a 24hr hot chocolate shop, and
deciding it wasn´t worth waiting for the metro to re-open at 6am, we
decided to get a taxi home.

catching a taxi at 5:30 in the morning in madrid is more difficult
than i had anticipated. the taxi driver knew his way, but it involved
driving across the equator - what is it about them knowing your
english and taking you for a ride, literally? i didn´t care, because
he was short and fat and when he laughed, it sounded like he was about
to die from smoking too many fags.

finally getting to bed about 6am, i left this morning with 3 hours
sleep, concerned the cleaner would discover my unauthorised presence
in alison´s flat.

for breakfast, i had a litre of orange and peach juice on a bench
whilst alison knocked hells bells out of her boyfriend over the phone.

i passed the time by leafing through a saturday morning newspaper, in
the fresh but sunny morning that was madrid. seems that out of all the
people in the world right now, i´m one of the incredibly lucky ones...

Labels: españa

having finished my first week at the bilingual school, i´ve been
evaluating whether it would work in england; and i´ve come to a
decision...

...no, it wouldn´t.

we´re so lazy in england when it comes to learning languages, and of
all the ones we learn at school, it´s french. great.

nothing against french, of course, but it´s even lower in the top 20
world languages chart than britain is at eurovision (click for proof). surely, in
a capitalist world, the point of speaking another language is so you
can sell your potatoes to as many people as possible; and frankly,
there are plenty more people who speak something except french. it
just seems strange to me.

nevertheless, i see that the first british bilingual school is opening
in battersea next year (link), so i´ll definately be interested to see
how successful it is. oh, and three guesses as to what the other
language is?

yep, french.

Labels: españa

there´s one thing that unnerves me when travelling abroad, and i´m
sure it´s because i´m from britain. it´s the fact that every policeman
has a gun.

britain is only of only several countries in the world (though i
forget the others) where police are not armed. in a world of apparent
everyday threats from ´john jihad jones´, i think we´re incredibly
fortunate.

fair enough, they´re probably used very rarely, but watching two
policemen issuing a ticket to a double parked car the other day, i
couldn´t help but notice a certain swagger that i´m pretty sure was
eminating from their holsters.

i think the difference is in britain, you assume the only chance of
meeting a policeman with a gun is if you drive into the houses of
parliament, whereas anywhere else, even parking badly produces an
armed response.

i suppose there is always the risk of mistaken identity and being shot
on a tube train; making the chances of being shot the same wherever
you go, whether policemen carry guns or not.

Labels: españa

do you know what's really bugging me about smokers at the moment? it's not
the passive aspect, or the smelly clothes aspect, it's the phlegm.

spain smokes a hell of a lot of fags. subsequently when spain commutes in
the morning, they have serious phlegmy problems. hocking, sniffing,
coughing, accumulating the green stuff in the mouth, swishing it round, more
hocking, blowing, pinching the nose. thing is, becuase they're on a train,
there's no way they can spit (thank god), so they just swallow it in one big
gulp...

...and the process starts again.

Labels: españa

today, i started work.

i listened to a class of 20 six year olds name five insects -
butterfly, caterpillar, bee, snail and ladybird, if you´re interested
- which they drew some pictures of, and then labelled. i wandered
about and helped out every now and then so that was good.

it was the pre-school class that was the most interesting. here, kids
of three years old are taught how to say hello by a glove puppet and a
laminate copy of mickey mouse; before being bribed into speaking
english with the offer of a biscuit.

and to my surprise, it works incredibly well.

yesterday, it rained for the first time in four months. just the first
five pages of the newspaper were devoted to that today.

Labels: españa

as of yet, i haven´t met anyone male to become friends with.

this problem only increased when i failed to meet any men over the
weekend. that means that, as things stand, all of my friends are
exclusively 18 years old and female.

when i voice my concerns over the lack of masculinity in the group
(not that i´m not masculine, you understand) it´s simply
misunderstood as me wanting to meet men for other reasons.

nevertheless, today i believe i´ve made progress. there are apparently
FIVE male english language assistants, working somehwere in the
vicinity of my school (so the other language assistant who i work with
told me - she´s female, naturally). so at least there´s hope.

Labels: españa

oh yes, i must just mention that the emergency stop the driver of my
metro train pulled yesterday was not appreciated. having just got out
of my seat in preparation to disembark at the next station (not easy
during rush hour i tell you), someone either pulled the emergency cord
or the driver spotted a leaf on the line.

fortunately, a handily located handrail saved me from ending up as an
embarassing mess on the floor. phew!

Labels: españa

this week, i got a job.

having been put in touch with a man at the madrid local education
authority, i received a phone call asking me to pop into his office
because there was an opening. (something lost in the translation there
i think, but anyway...)

having negotiated my way past the guard with the gun, my contact
informed me that a primary school were looking for an english language
assistant to work 14 hours a week, assisting the teacher in classes.
madrid has this programme to make staff and pupils in many primary
schools bilinugal; as a result, teaching in many subjects is done in
english. my tasks also involve teaching the teachers english, all for
rather a comfortable sum of money.

however, there is a rather fundamental problem. it is miles away from
where i´m living, and involves a rather complex journey on madrid´s
fantastic but tedious public transport system. it could involve me
travelling up to 2 hours each way to and from work.

nevertheless, it´s money, and i´m going to bear that in mind when i´m
sharing my pocket with a fellow metro commuter.

Labels: españa

there´s a motorway that runs past the end of the runway for barajas
airport. the bus i catch home goes down this motorway everyday, and,
more often than not, i see a plane or two landing at rather close
distance.

between the motorway and the edge of the airfield there´s a bar; it´s
name translates as ´aeroplane show bar´ where you can sit on the
terrace and watch the planes landing from even closer quarters.

if ever you visit joe, i´ll take you there! oh, and how much was that
subscription to airliners dobbo?!

Labels: españa

you would never have imagined it. this weekend i´ve met a homeless
american (who remains remarkably upbeat considering the circumstances)
as well as the soon-to-be europe nut.

spent quite a bit of time with both and had a superb weekend as a result.

highlight for me (except for a shifty mojito, cracking sunday market
and getting a free dvd with my newspaper) was walking through the
puerta del sol in centre of madrid on saturday evening. during the day
there´d been an equal rights march by deaf people. by night, hundreds
of them convened in front of a stage with huge speakers (think about
it...) signing to each other. as you walked between them, you realised
that everyone was involved in energetic conversations even though the
square was almost completely silent. the only time it wasn´t was when
they laughed.

it was a pretty magical moment i must admit; don´t think i´ve ever
heard anyone talk louder...

Labels: españa