Portugal

Thankfully buying tickets to get from Spain to Portugal was nice and easy.  They didn’t even want to check my passport!  The only downside was that the train left Salamanca at 0430 to arrive in Nelas at 0830 (so the woman in the train station told me).  The journey from Salamanca to Nelas was fairly uneventful.  I couldn’t relax on the train as I knew that Nelas was not the final stop and I was worried that if I went to sleep that I would miss it.  The train was a sleeper, but I was sat in the sitting compartment with what looked like a sleeping GAP student and an older man who got up at every stop to have a quick smoke on the platform.  He did give me a can of coke at about 6 am though and thus saved me from severe dehydration!

It was only as I arrived in Nelas that I remembered about the 1 hour time difference between Portugal and Spain.  The woman in the train station had forgotten about it too.  This meant my brother was not waiting for me.  I spent an hour in the cafe on the station being looked at suspiciously by Portuguese men who obviously thought that a woman should not a) be out by herself or b) be in their cafe.  Also couldn’t remember any Portuguese other than ‘I don’t speak Portuguese, do you speak English or Spanish?’ which was met with blank looks.  I ended up with black coffee as ‘cafe con leche’ is too far from ‘cafe met laite’ and obviously unintelligible.  It was 55 cents.  I had forgotten how cheap Portugal is!

Jason was half an hour late.  I spent this half an hour stood on the sunny side of the road opposite the train station trying to photosynthesise and watching the interactions between the stray dogs and passing traffic.

We went to see a friend of Jason’s who, despite being a football hooligan in a former life, was too much of a wuss to use a chain saw on his own and needed  help cutting down 3 pine trees that had become infected with some kind of nematode worm.  Jason got his chain saw out and the two of them played happily all morning while I had a couple of cups of tea, sat in the sun and played with the puppies.  I was exhausted having not slept the previous evening and had a nice early night.  I’m staying in a flat in the village, Jason and Maxine are sleeping in their tent on their land because it is warmer.  They have the flat as a storm decimated their kitchen tent recently and the solar showers are not to efficient when it is frozen and cloudy so they use the flat as a storage unit, kitchen and bathroom.  With 3 bed covers it was nice and cosy.  I woke up at about half past 1 the following afternoon.  Nice.

The next few days were spent chopping wood, looking for a quinta to buy, going shopping, trying, unsuccessfully, to put the roof beams into the house without a crane and eating nice cakes and coffee in places that said they had free internet but turned out not to and having roast dinners.  Eventually I found a quinta to buy and then had to spend a rather stress free afternoon getting a Portuguese fiscal number and opening a bank account.  Considering I speak no Portuguese and Jason’s is not as good as my Spanish I thought we managed remarkably well.  The following morning I went to the lawyer to give my brother the power to buy a property in the Seia region on my behalf and power to take out and transfer money from my new Portuguese account.  If he buys 30 000 pastel natas (a type of local egg custard cake thing – delicious) with my money I will be cross.  I also tried to buy a bus ticket back to Madrid for Wednesday, but was told they didn’t run everyday now and I’d have to go back on Thursday instead.  I hope Madrid isn’t too snowy.  We have had one day of snow here – it was beautiful, but followed by a very hard frost for 2 days, Jason and Maxine’s quinta is the coldest on in the town apparently – it didn’t defrost for 3 days and the ice on the dogs’ water in the morning was about an inch thick!  Daisy was the only dog pleased with this as she loves eating ice, the other two were less than impressed.

The overnight bus to Madrid leaves at 2245 tomorrow and should get me into Madrid at about 6 am.  This gives me ample time to get to the train station, catch a train to Alicante and then the tram to Altea, again.  A journey I will have to do in reverse the following day to get back to Madrid with Mum in tow for our flight to Lima.

Happy New Year

New year was stranger than I could have imagined.  I didn’t feel like drinking, but thought I’d better make an effort to fit in so behaved as if I had for most of the evening (up until the point that Anna, who couldn’t remember phoning the taxi 2 minutes earlier, said to mum ‘give me your car keys, I’ll drive us home’  when I decided that one of us needed to start acting sober and I was the only one who could pull it off… ).

The meal at Jan’s was delicious, and included another first – Ostrich steaks.  They are nice.  Just before midnight (spain time) we were given 12 grapes each and a party bag containing very silly hats, masks etc. which we all dutifully wore while posing for photos (see Facebook for evidence) and then we went round saying Happy New Year to everyone.  This involved a LOT of kissing, dutch and belgians kiss 3 times, the Germans twice.  Only at this point did we realize that the table behind us were Germans and the next table were Dutch.  We had been having a rather a loud discussion about the war during dinner.  Anna, being drunk, immediately started doing Basil Fawlty ‘Don’t mention the War’ impressions .  At no point did anyone vocalise ‘2 world wars and one world cup’  but I am sure I heard my mum sing do-dah, do-dah at least once.

We then had a glass of champagne with cassis in it ( I did drink that, it was yummy) and then Anna and I decided to do a bit of impromptu singing and dancing along to the CD…  I also introduced Anna and Jan to the game ‘would you still be my friend if I danced like this…’ with hilarious results

The bar crawl that mum had prophesied turned out to be more of  a bar ’stumble round the corner to the bar and then stay there’.  It was interesting.  Yet again Anna and I were the youngest in there by miles, and for any song written after about 1970 we were the only ones dancing.  Our word-for-word interpretation of  ’In the Jungle the Mighty jungle the lion sleeps’ was first class even if I do say so myself!  We then had to do the whole ‘Happy New Year’ thing AGAIN at 1 am as the British pensioners in the bar refused to believe it was really New Year until Big Ben had struck 12.  After that there was nothing to do but carry on dancing…  I probably should be more embarrassed than I am really, but I doubt I’ll meet most of those people again, and I doubt that they would remember much of the evening even if I do!

We left at about 3 am and got a taxi home.  Anna and Mum don’t remember that…

New Years day was late starting.  Anna made a delicious roast dinner for about 5 pm, I got dressed at 4.30 but everyone else ate in their pyjamas!  I then taught them to play the Peruvian dice game which they liked.  Then other games came out – Pass the Pigs, Pass the Bomb and Therapy.  I tried to go to bed, but gave up as I heard them starting to play Therapy at 2 am so I went to join in.  For those of you who haven’t played therapy it is a bit like Triv – you go round a board, answering questions to get pegs, but the questions are all psychology/sociology questions about different stages of life, and you can end up in another player’s ‘Therapy office’ where they try to ‘cure’ you by asking questions such as ‘on a rating scale of 1 to 10 how stubborn are you?’  then trying to guess what you have put.  If your answers don’t match you have to stay in therapy.  Jan was asked how romantic he thought he was, he put 8, Anna had put him down as 4.  There was a small,  but significant, argument at this point.  It is a game that invites them really!

Yesterday mum spent the day in the house in her pyjamas playing on her DS.  I got bored at 4 ish and walked in and out of Albir along the coast for some exercise.  I don’t think I would ever get tired of that walk, the scenery is just beautiful! I got back at 8 and went out for a pizza with Anna, packed and got ready to leave for Portugal.

I’m still not sure exactly how I am getting to Portugal.  I’m hoping that tomorrow I can sort this out!  I spent a LONG time on trains today, first the tram from Altea to Alicante, then a long distance train from Alicante to Madrid (with a film in Spanish… Apparently in English it is 4 Christmases – the Spanish title was NOTHING like that. I did follow most of it though.  Not sure it was worth the effort, maybe it’s funnier in English), then an hour in Madrid and another train from Madrid to Salamanca.  I arrived in Salamanca at 8pm having left the house at 8 am.  I have found a quite nice hotel though (and they have free WiFi which I can get in my room ).  I really need a lot of sleep now and then a good day wandering aimlessly and eating a lot tomorrow…  I hope sorting out getting to Portugal is easy, I fear it won’t be…

Winter blues.

The lull between Christmas and new year is always quiet.  This has been one of the quietest I can remember.  Generally days have run from mid-day through to about 1 am for me and have involved a lot of hanging round the house in my pyjamas waiting for mum to decide if she is going to come out and do anything or not.  She has only left the house once since Christmas as far as I can remember (and that was to go out for a Thai meal).  I tend to get bored by about 2 and go out for a walk, mess about on Facebook (I have spoken to quite a few people thanks to Facebook chat!) and get a late lunch.  Anna has come with me a couple of times too and shown me some of the nice eating places to be found in the area.  She also booked an appointment with her hairdresser for me, so I am now the owner of shorter, neater hair.

The weather has been variable.  Yesterday’s glorious sunshine has been replaced by grey clouds and a very blustery wind.  I am very glad of the 10 Euro jumper I bought from the cheap British clothes shop yesterday.  If it wasn’t for the scenery and the weather I might not know I’m in Spain.  I certainly haven’t needed to use any Spanish since I got here – the language I hear most often seems to be Dutch, followed by Russian, English and Norweigian.

The plan for new year is simple.  Go to Jan’s restraunt (Anna’s boyfriend is the chef/owner) then a pub crawl of the local bars.  Classy…  Hopefully mum will be able to walk herself home, but I’m not holding my breath!  I imagine there will be more Karaoke too.  My plan for after new year is to go to Portugal to see Jason and Maxine.  I doubt I’ll get to the UK, it just seems too complicated!  As it is I’ll probably have to spend a couple of days in Salamanca on the way (as noone in Spain seems to know what happens to public transport once you cross the Portuguese border) but It’ll be nice to get some peace and quiet!  Mum has decided she’s not going to come with me, she’ll probably stay in the house playing her DS game in her pyjamas…

I hope everyone has a happy New Year and hopefully I’ll see some more of you in 2010!

Christmas / Navidad / Nadal

Christmas has been a bit weird since we grew up, not as much fun as when you’re little, but this year has to rank up their with the oddest…  I thought that last year in Peru, with everything on Christmas eve was weird enough, but at least it didn’t involve me singing the ‘Fairytale of New York’ with my mum in a tiny, brightly lit bar full of pensioners…

Christmas eve started at about 3 pm when I finally got out of bed… mum had made some snacks because there was apparently going to be food in the bar we were going to (Hepburns) I then sat with mum on the couch and watched about 10 episodes of something called ‘Psychic’ which is some kind of police drama.  We finally got ourselves ready and headed out at about 8 pm.  Hepburns was half full and me and Anna going in probably brought the average age down to about 60…  Mum insisted on buying all our drinks and ordered us a rum and coke each.  There was more rum than coke – Spanish measures are large to start with, and the barman was being generous with the  Christmas spirit.

About half an hour later the place was crowded (and the average age had increased with every new person to come in) and the barman and his wife had passed out hymn sheets and we had all joined in with a few well known British carols.  Then the Christmas karaoke started.  After the second rum and coke I was feeling quite jolly and ended up singing with mum,  then,flushed with success due to the rapturous applause I’d had, I decided to help Anna out singing ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ by Miriah Carey… not necessarily a wise choice… there was a lot of karaoke, some dancing to silly songs (see the video of Anna on Facebook) and the discovery of some kind of vodka that, when mixed with chocolate milkshake, tasted just like a crunchy bar (Thank crunchy it was Friday…).  Thankfully they stopped the Karaoke then… and then it was midnight and I had to go round and kiss everyone a happy Christmas.   The promised food had never materialised… half an hour later we had to help mum walk to the taxi and then had to walk her downstairs to prevent accidents…

Christmas day itself was a lazy affair (Mum and Anna both had hangovers), I stayed in my pyjamas until it was time to get ready to go out for dinner and played on Mario Kart (on the Wii) and the Big Brain academy (on my DS) both of which were presents from Anna.

Dinner was superb.  Mum had booked us into a restaurant in Albir with a 68 Euro menu.  There was no choice, they brought the food out and we ate it – and what food!  We started with a glass of that pink champagne stuff , then had a Prawn in some kind of Pesto, followed by 3 types of duck pate with a truffle mayonaise, then a seafood thing, with puff pastry and one of the nicest scallops I have ever tasted, then sweetbread (pancreas…) which was nicer than I thought it would be, then a sorbet to clear the palate, then venison with some kind of cabbagey-mash, then a delicious pudding with hazlenut icecream, mousse and pastry.  There was nice wine throughout the meal (I drank most of a bottle of white by myself as everyone else was drinking red) and then coffee to finish.   We were all so full that after we’d finished we just wanted to go home and sleep, which is exactly what we did!

Today has been another lazy day – I didn’t get dressed until I wanted to come out and use the internet!  Hopefully tomorrow I’ll actually get out of the house in the daylight and get some fresh air…

Anna is currently making a traditional English Christmas dinner, so I ought to get back.  I am soooooo looking forward to the parsnips.  You just can’t get them in Lima!

The rain in Spain…

So, we finally left Amsterdam 4 and a half hours late because of snow on the runway and touched down in Madrid at about midnight.  By the time I’d got my bag, got a taxi (I wasn’t prepared to attempt the metro at that time of night) and got to the hotel I was seriously tired and just got into bed.  5 hours later my alarm went off and I had to get up, shower and get breakfast before catching the train to Madrid.  It turns out that the thing I had forgotton was my toothbrush… what would Chris Evans say?

I love the train – there’s more space than I had on the plane, and they put James Bond on (admittedly in Spanish with no subtitles, but that’s OK – you don’t really need to listen to the dialogue to follow it, you can tell who the baddies are just by looking and a gunfight and car chase are the same in any language!  I actually understood more than I thought I would).  I even got an hours sleep.  It did rain for the entire journey though, and flat, grey, wet fields are not all that inspiring a view.

On arrival in Alicante I walked up to the tram station in the rain, stopping in a cafe for lunch – where else but Spain would you be offered a Tortilla buttie?  Just what I needed!  The tram jouney was enlivened when 3 boys who were obviously stoned out of their trees got on and tried to buy tickets from the on-board machine.  I have never seen people giggle at a ticket machine so much!  Neither had a ever seen such a brilliantly disapproving face as the one on the VERY prim woman sat opposite.  Hillarious!  The view out of the tram was gorgeous though – the coast round here is cliffs and turquoise-blue sea, just beautiful.

I eventually got to Anna’s at 4 pm on Tuesday (having left my house at 4 pm on Sunday and getting about 8 hours sleep in total in between!) sat and listened to Mum talk at me for a bit and then went out for a chinese.  I fell into bed at about midnight and slept for 12 hours – bliss.

Today I have bought a few new clothes (I’m sure I’d packed more t-shirts than were actually in my bag when I unpacked…) and to celebrate mum’s birthday we are having pizza (classy) as none of us can face going out in the cold again!  Who knows what delights tomorrow holds…?  Hopefully it will involve finding somewhere closer to my sister’s house that has free WiFi…

Dreaming of a white Christmas?

My next visit to Europe is under way.  I am currently sat in the airport at Amsterdam waiting for them to call my delayed connection to Madrid.  So far it’s 2 hours late.  This is probably a good thing as the flight from Lima was late too.  It’s all a knock on effect from the snow in Northern Europe (which Anna assures me is not going to fall where she is.  As I only have one jumper and one waterproof jacket with me it’s probably a good thing…)

The flight from Lima was fun as always.  Made all the more delightful as there was a Peruvian family with 2 small children (and the nanny in uniform) behind me, and a large man, who snored loudly and passed wind constantly, sat next to me. I didn’t really sleep.  I did watch Aladdin though – and finally worked out who Sebastian Ferreyros reminds me of…  I am now completely jet lagged – my body clock is telling me it’s about 11.30 am, but I’m sat looking out into a dark winter’s night!  I really want to sleep and still have to fly to Madrid, navigate the underground and find the hotel.  I am also considering buying Mario Kart and Wii Sing from the airport shop, but don’t think I can get them in my bag just now! Maybe on the way back…

My winter (summer) holidays.

Well the first part of my epic journey, to try and see the majority of my friends and family spread across Europe, is underway.

On Friday night at 6pm (local time) I boarded a KLM flight from Lima to Amsterdam.  As usual I had forgotten a) how little leg room there is b) how nice their food is.  After watching 2 episodes of The Big Bang Theory, dinner was served. I had a nice conversation with the Norwegian woman sat next to me, and then I watched Slumdog Millionaire which, if you haven’t seen, you should watch.  I then tried to sleep. I dozed a bit, but was very relieved when I realised that it was light outside and they were serving breakfast!

We landed slightly ahead of time and then there was the inevitable dull wait for my bag.  The hotel (www.citizenm.com) was really easy to find, and is delightfully geeky  I did little more than drop my bags, have a wash and play with the room control pod for 5 mins, before heading back towards the Airport to catch the train into Amsterdam Centraal.

Once in the centre of Amsterdam I wandered aimlessley in the general direction of where I thought the Art museums were.  It had been pouring down when we landed, but soon the sun came out and I had a rather lovely afternoon meandering through the streets of Amsterdam getting some sun.  Eventually I arrived at the Van Gough museum and spent a couple of hours looking at pretty pictures.  Decided that Sunflowers is not that good, but really like the cherry tree ones. What you don’t get from the prints is just how thick some of the paint is – they are really highly textured!

As the museum was closing I decided to take another route back towards the train station, with the hope of finding food on the way.  In the end I went into a Mexican place just opposite the station as it was the first place I came across where I could understand the menu.  The owner was delighted that I spoke to him in Spanish, and then kept telling me how cute I was, which I found unnerving, especially as he was old enough to be my father!  Nobody else I had met that day seemed to be pleased that I was speaking Spanish.  Can’t think why…

Amsterdam, even though I have been there before, was a bit of a culture shock having lived in a predominantly Catholic, fairly conservative country for the last 18 months.  Tattoos, piercings, odd clothes, men holding hands and kissing each other in the street are just not things you see often in Lima.  Still, it is lovely to be looking at familiar trees, flowers and birds again – I got slightly over excited the first time I saw a jackdaw – even the grass is the right sort really feels like I’m back home (even though I’m not).

I got the train back to the hotel thinking that it wasn’t that late as it was still light, only to remember that it doesn’t go dark at 6 in northern Europe in the summer, and by the time I had showered, repacked for the morning, played with all the room settings some more, checked my email and got to bed that it was about 11pm.

Getting the plane the next morning was a piece of cake.  I went down for breakfast at about 7.30, left the hotel (having checked myself out on a funky little computer thing) at 8 and by 10 past was stood in the EasyJet bag drop queue.  No worries.  I think I will book myself in at the same hotel on the way back – it really takes the stress out of getting to the airport when you know you can walk it in 5 mins!

Thus ended the first part of my travels.

7 things

I am fairly new to blogging – I’m not really a computer geeky type and this blog was really a way of letting people keep an eye on what I’m up to in Latin America without sending them mass emails of the kind my mum is so fond of.  To be fair not many people read the blog – I prefer to think that this is because I don’t update it very regularly rather than the more likely scenario that I am just not that interesting…  However one person who does read it is Lorna (www.lornajane.net) and she recently tagged me in her blog (apparently – I am not 100% certain of what that means – I think it means she mentioned me and put a link to my blog.  If so I think I have just tagged her in return – this is all very complicated!).  The purpose was to get me to join in the memetic ‘7 things’ activity (rules at the end of the post).  I can’t actually tag 7 other people as it suggests as the only other person I know with a blog is Lorna…

 

1. When I was born I had an extra (but boneless) finger on my left hand.  It had a tiny nail and everything.  The doctors broke this news to Mum by telling her it seemed like I had extra fingers and extra brains…  Just goes to show you should never believe what doctors tell you!  They removed it by tying string round it so that it was starved of blood and fell off (in a similar way to how farmers remove lambs’ tails).
2. In Latin America it is usual to have 2 first names and 2 surnames (your mother’s maiden name and your father’s family name) hence many people here keep trying to put my first names as Cally Margaret and my surname as Anabel Nixon.  I got a VERY strange look in immigration when I told the man that my mother’s surname and my father’s surname were both Nixon (at the time I didn’t know about the 2 surname thing and didn’t understand why he thought it was odd!)
3. I have just put up 12 new photos in my front room.  six are of fungi, three are of insects, one is of an arachnid, one is of an amphibian and one is of a  reptile.  According to my boyfriend this makes me quite weird for a girl.
4. I am secretly addicted to Strictly Come Dancing and watched almost the entire of the recent series via You Tube.  I was gutted to find out that the videos from the final were taken down by the BBC before I got round to watching them.  I  would be perfectly happy to pay the licence fee if it meant I could use i-Player.
5. My first properly distinguishable words (after the mama, dada kind of things) were Peter Sissons.  This provides a source of great mirth in my family.
6. Whenever I leave fruit too long and it starts getting infested by fruit-flies I try to look at the colour of their eyes to see if I can spot any mutants.
7. When we were young my sister and I used to play schools with our teddybears and dolls.  We even used to make them exercise books, set them work, complete it for them and mark it.  Now she is a primary teacher (maths specialist) and I teach biology to secondary pupils.

 

The rules;

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some wierd.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

Christmas and New Year in foreign climes

The festive season is always less exciting when you are older than it was when you were a child, and with my family now spread out across Europe (or no longer alive) I wasn’t to worried about spending Christmas in Peru rather than trying to get back to the UK.   This Christmas was the second I had spent outside of the UK (having been in Spain with Mum and Anna last year) and it was quite a different experience! 

Firstly the decorations – they are everywhere as they are at home, but generally much more tasteful – peoples’ houses look gorgeous with all the white lights and an ocasional nativity.  I saw one inflatable Christmas tree decoration and NO Father Christmas ones.  In fact I barely saw a father Christmas – there was one in Wong (of course) – he doesn’t really feature in the Peruvian Christmas.  Christmas trees are a problem here though.  To say I hate artificial trees is far too mild a term to really cover my feelings.  I loathe their plasticy, uniform, ‘this is what shape a pine tree SHOULD be’, odourless banality.   Of course you can’t get real trees here.  So instead I had a christmas pot plant.  Sandra had bought me some Peruvian baubles as part of my Christmas present and I grabbed a discounted box from Wong on Christmas eve.  I couldn’t find any tinsel anywhere – I may have to import some… and by the time I got round to getting decorations most shops had stopped selling them anyway (the decorations go up in early to mid December here rather than Christmas eve like in my house!) so I didn’t manage to get any lights .  I still had an Angel that mum had  bought for me from Turkey to go on the top of the ‘tree’ so it wasn’t all bad!  I also have a little Peruvian nativity (another present from Sandra) 

 

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree...

Secondly the temperature – I am from the Northern hemisphere, I am used to Christmas in the winter, short days, long nights, cold weather and at least the possibility of snow at some point during the holiday.  I just couldn’t quite get into the festive spirit as I did my Christmas shopping on Christmas eve in 3/4 length trousers, a t-shirt, sunnys and factor 50 sun lotion.  Somehow it just doesn’t feel right.  Especially weird for me is that they use snowflakes for christmas decorations even though it has never snowed in Lima, ever, and seeing snow when it’s hot is just odd!

 

Thirdly Christmas itself – I spent Christmas with Marco’s family at his house (but rather irritatingly forgot to take my camera…)  Christmas in Peru is all done and dusted by 3am Christmas morning as it starts on Christmas eve at midnight!  This seemed very odd to me as I was sat in my flat, having wrapped my presents, waiting to be picked up at 9.30 pm (obviously the original time I’d been given was 7.30 pm but this is Peru).  I think we actually left the house about 10.30 and went to Marco’s where his Mum and sisters were busy cooking turkey, some kind of mince, apple sauce, beetroot salad and Turkish rice.  They had some fireworks (bangers), bought off men in the street, (which to me looked incredibly dangerous but they happily allowed he kids to carry them around the house) which they set off after midnight in their front yard, and sparklers which they let the kids have in the house – I am frequently amazed that anyone in Peru reaches adulthood!

At midnight we all said ‘Feliz Navidad’ and then Marco’s mum went through a weird ritual where she took the baby jesus doll out of it’s box, carried it round to everyone (who made a wish, then kissed the doll and then crossed themselves) and then placed the doll in the centre of the nativity scene.  I had a bizzare conversation trying to explain why I wasn’t going to kiss the doll or make any wishes over it, but that yes I did believe in God and I AM a christian and we do have Jesus in the non-Catholic world… in Spanish.  I really wish Marco had given me some advanced warning on that one!  We then drank champagne and opened the presents and then (at around 1am) sat down to eat Christmas dinner.  Watching two children, who were so tired that they could barely keep their eyes open, being forced to eat a full dinner at 1 am seemed a little like child cruelty to me.  Still, it was delicious food!  Unlike home there were no games, no cards, no Trivial Persuit, no Monopoly, no  Cluedo, just talking and eating.

 

Then I went home to bed and slept until 1pm on Christmas day!  I was amazed at how many bodegas and other shops were open on Christmas day and how many people were out in the park, sat in Starbucks  etc.  it was very strange for me!

 

New year was a quiet affair – a few of Marco’s friends came round to my appartment (at 1130pm), let some fireworks off from my balcony and had a drink and a chat and played with Sophia.  There were a LOT of fireworks being set off – it seems to be traditional here (but I suppose if you don’t have bonfire night you need an excuse some other time!) and I got a great view of them all from my balcony!  They left at about 3 am and tidied up themselves before they left.  Bonus!

Plans for the start of the year include going on holiday with Kevin and Lorna who come out in 4 days time  then either trying to book a last minute holiday to the Galapogos islands or somewhere in Latin America, or maybe doing an intensive Spanish course.  I have a lot of coursework to mark and a scheme of work to write too.  At the moment it seems like I have forever to worry about work, but I know that if I don’t try to get at least SOME of it started soon I’ll be doing it at 3 am the day before the marks are due…

The last month of school…

In the UK the last month of school is a fairly relaxed affair – kids in 6th form and year 11 are off on study leave and doing exams and the others are all dreaming of what they will do on their holidays.  The reports are all done, work is pretty easy – just the last topics to finish off and gained time to do other bits and pieces in.  Not so in Markham.  ALL the pupils in all the years sit exams in the last month.  These exams are written in school, invigilated by teaching staff, marked in school and count as 50% of their grade for the year.  If pupils fail a subject they have to do holiday work and sit recuperation exams in the holidays.  If they fail a number of subjects in recuperation then they have to resit the whole year.  It is tense to say the least and we have to have the exams marked and reports written for all the kids by the end of the second to last week.  We then come in on the Saturday morning to decide which kids have failed and need holiday work.  We then have to write the holiday work and the recuperation exams (and markschemes) ready for the lasst week.  The last week is on a COMPLETELY different timetabe – you have one or 2 lessons with each class that you teach to go through the end of year exams.  The kids don’t really care – the work ethic here is not ‘where did I go wrong and how can I do better next time’ but rather ‘did I pass the year – phew!’ If they didn’t pass the exam they listen, but only so they can try and beg a few extra marks. It’s quite sad really!  The IB kids also do their ‘Group 4 project’ in 2 days of the last week – the work never seemed to stop!

Also the S3 (year 10) Tambopata trip happens in the last month.  I went for both trips this year and hence had a week less than everyone else to write reports and do marking.  The Tambopata trip is great, but exhausting – you are working from 4am – 10pm (sometimes later if the kids won’t sleep) without a break, including the weekends.  I did actually get a bit of a rest, but only because I got stung by a scorpion while putting my trousers on one morning and had to spend a day in bed, then a day on the sofa.  I was lucky – the last person who got stung by the same species of scorpion had to spend a week in hospital with their whole leg swollen and paralysed – the guide’s quick action helped localise the toxins to my foot so 2 days not walking and one more limping about and I was fine!

Back at school it didn’t feel like Christmas at all – all the kids were focused on their exams.  There were no christmas decorations, no cards, no presents, no games, no videos, no carol concert – it was very weird.  There was however a LOT of stress and grumpiness and a complete lack of communication which was getting very frustrating – there are a lot of new staff in science (including the HOD) and noone really told us what was going on.  The reporting systems in the school are sooooo complicated that we wasted a lot of time getting nothing much done working it out!

Back at the flat I woke up one sunday morning thinking I’d go and read my book on the sofa for a bit only to find myself splashing through the lounge.  I quickly realised that the neighbour upstairs had a broken pipe (or something) and the water was dripping through my light fittings and  ceiling.  Thankfully, once I’d got dressed and gone upstairs to try and explain, she sent the workman she had clearing up her flat down to mine.  The ceiling is still wet though, and starting to go mouldy.  The arquitecht has been and said that it could be another 3 months or so until it is properly dry (this was after he’d drilled a number of holes in the ceiling to let the water out faster!). Delightful!

There were, however, nice things to break up the stress.  The British Ambassador’s Christmas Party was excellent – the house and grounds were gorgeous with fairy lights and candles and the food was delicious.  A nice excuse to wear a skirt (although my legs were still covered in bites from the jungle!) and high heels  The last 2 days of school had no teaching, they were ‘Commendations assembly’ ‘Speech day’ and ‘Graduation’.  All formal occasions.  I was out by 10 minutes on the length of the headmaster’s speech too, so didn’t win the sweepstake (or the bottle of champagne the head donated when he found out what we were doing!).  We found out who the prefects and house captains would be next year (with some nice surprises) and which kids had won prizes etc.  Graduation is a very American like affair (after all it is only high school) but the kids love it – it starts at 7pm, the kids in LN or UB who have now finished their high school studies process in in caps and gowns with different stripes depending on whether they have passed or achieved merit, honours or distinction.  A lot of this depends on effort and conduct during the time at school and if they have been involved in extra-curricular things.  What is strange is that a lot of people there only applaud for their own child, and after that just have a bit of a chat with the people around them and stop listening.  What is considered impolite here is quite different to the UK!  After the ceremony was a cocktail party and a chance to say congratulations and goodbye to my UB students.  It did seem a bit weird to see them graduating when they hadn’t actually got their IB results yet…  

After the cocktails a number of the staff went out for a celebratory drink in a nice bar in Barranco.  Somehow we ended up in a ‘club’ nearby and wended our merry way home at about 3 am.  Thankfully we didn’t have to be in school until 1230 the next day…

The final day of school involved nothing but the ‘Headmaster’s Christmas Lunch’.  All staff were invited to the headmaster’s house where we found the garden transformed into something similar to a wedding marquee – tables set with lovely christmas decorations and waiters bringing round wine, cocktails and nibbles.  We then had a DELICIOUS buffet meal with turkey and beef, rice (well it is Peru!), and about 300 different vegetables  (that may be an exaggeration…)  I decided to forgo dessert (either lemon or chocolate cake of some sort) for second helpings of the main course – especially the carrots and onions (which were dripping in butter and honey) – Mmmmmmmmmmmm. Saying goodbyes was strange – a lot of staff are leaving this year and many others are going ‘home’ for the 2 month break.  I’m one of the few that are staying here without family  - I hope I don’t get too lonely (although I’m sure Marco won’t let that happen!).  I expect I am about to find out what a traditional Peruvian Christmas is like – apparently it all kicks off at midnight on Christmas eve (when all good English folk are at Midnight mass singing carols…)

All in all it has been a very stressful end to the year, but I now have 2 months off and lots to look forward to!