big matt

so i'm on the phone to han in the internet cafe and david guetta
'stay' is playing on the radio.

ah, im flodded with memories of the 94 margate boys...sniff sniff

Labels: españa

i've uploaded some more photos of this ol' life in spain onto the interweb. the handy links are situated to your right and include my visit to brussels, toledo and avila, as well as a night in pacha and that age old game of where's wally, with a pickles...enjoy

Labels: españa

as that famous carnaval song goes, 'carnaval, i love you'...and i do.

friday, i went to school to join in the shennanigans of carnaval. you
may have seen me; i was the one in the corner with the big red wig, a
beautiful moustache and glittery golden cheeks.

i was in charge of presenting the carnaval in english. 'and now the
four year olds will perform the dance of the typewriter' and so-forth.
of course, my enthusiastic introductioning skills were met with
applause that measured approximately 0.0 on the applause-o-meter. the
main reasons for this were that the audience consisted of spanish
parents and the kids ranged from three to five years old.

nevertheless, a good time was had by all.

Labels: españa

a cold front has arrived over madrid, bringing with it snow, rain and
general wind. this means the weekend involved indoor activites. as a
result, all of the music on my ipod has been tagged with the correct
genre field.

some people may call that sad; i call that two hours well spent.

Labels: españa

spent my thursday evening with a couple of americans; who are actually
cream of the crop americans, none of the usual rubbish.

but imagine my delight when one of them dropped the bomb of 'are there
many castles in england?'

i believe we hastily concluded that there were actually more castles
in scotland, before i rushed to the toilet to mop the piss out of my
pants.

Labels: españa

after my rather embarassing encounter with a pair of
mamakins/manakins/ mannequins legs last saturday, somebody did
actually die in the building opposite our house this week.

my housemate saw them being transported from the hostal in which they
died - her hairdresser told her that their death was not natural (you
can tell by the type of van they get picked up in).

it's possible it could have been another mannequin that died; but i
don't think you need a bodybag or a special van to transport a giant
barbie doll.

when i transport mannequins, i just carry them over my shoulder...

Labels: españa

i went into an electricians shop yesterday to buy a new bulb for my desk lamp.

i looked up 'bulb' in the dictionary as well as the verb 'to turn'.

i was prepared. what could go wrong..?

'hello, do you have an r50 bulb please?'

'yes, how many watts?'

'erm...a screw one.'

'yes, how many watts?'

'erm, i only need one.'

'yes, how many watts?'

'oh, 25 watts.'

that language barrier... it's not as high as it used to be, but i
still trip over it every now and then. duh.

Labels: españa

it's saturday and i'm moved onto my balcony by the sound of the
obligatory weekend emergency service siren. it's a fire engine. it
stops about 30 metres down my street and is closely followed by an
ambulance and a police car. between them, they close the street to
traffic. they're all milling around in the street whilst i'm trying to
figure out what they're up to - there's no smoke, no traffic accident,
i'm curious.

i look up at the building to which they're entering, and i see two
legs hanging out between the railings of the balcony on the third
floor. they appear to be women's legs, naked and still. there's a
flash of panic, as i contemplate the probability of an axe weilding
murderer roaming the streets of chueca.

suddenly, the paramedics bring out a woman from the door of the
building. she looks quite upset. then, once she'd climbed into the
ambulance, all of them disappeared.

as the flow of traffic resumed and pedestrians began to walk beneath
the legs again, i stood there transfixed on them. surely, they can't
just leave a dead body hanging out over the pavement like that?

after about 15 minutes, i realised i was hungry, went inside and
forgot about the legs.

on the way to the supermarket later that day, i passed the legs - they
belong to a mamakin.

boy, did i feel like a tit.

Labels: españa

today, i introduced a the letter i to forty 6 year olds.

when they learn a new letter, they do a worksheet from a lett's book
that drills new vocabulary and the new letter into their little heads.
they have to circle the letter i in the alphabet, colour the words
that begin with i, repeat all the i words and then it tells them to
draw a picture at the bottom. today, it said 'draw a tin in a bin'

having just learnt six new i words, circled the letter, coloured in
and repeated all the i words, they got to the bottom of the page to
draw a picture of a tin in a bin (NB neither of those words start with
i).

i can tell you, a picture of a tin IN a bin is very boring; it
basically resembles a rectangle (because ofcourse the tin is inside).
secondly, having just learnt six new words, they are drawing a picture
of things beginning with t and b.

because learning english isn't complicated enough...

Labels: españa

the people who work in the news kiosks dotted about the pavement in
spain went on strike the other day because they aren't allowed to sell
cigarettes.

my favourite spanish newsreader introduced the story the night before,
with this gem;

'if you're going to buy a porn mag tomorrow morning, you may have trouble...'

legendary, just legendary.

Labels: españa