The home stretch

The wonderful and beautiful Joni Mitchell sang it best: Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. Never a truer word spoken. As is so totally typical of human nature, with less than a week to go until I leave I find myself focusing more and  more on all the fantastic things about living in Gijón - things that I suddenly feel as though I've taken for granted or not made the most of these past 9 months. 9 months?! Flippin' heck... where did it go? I naively thought that spending 9 months in a country was a sure fire route to fluency but when a class of second years asked me the other day if I'd speak Spanish to them, all I could come up with was to show them my finely-tuned flair for coffee ordering. Not exactly ground-breaking (although they did say they were impressed with the way I pronounce the Spanish 'r'. If that doesn't get me a first I don't know what will).

Living on the doorstep of a beautiful beach is gonna be hard to let go of. And having to pay more than 2 euros for a beer will be something of a shock to the system upon returning home. On the topic of food and drink: last weekend I took a road trip to San Sebastian with Alex and her two lovely friends from Navia. We had a very lovely and relaxed weekend that consisted of soaking in the atmosphere of the city, a spot of shopping, a bit of sight-seeing and a whole lot of food and drink. True ladies of leisure. I raved about the egg tarts in Lisbon and now I'm going to rave about the tapas of San Sebastian. THEY WERE SO GOOD. Bars literally laden with every combination of cheesey, meaty, fishy delight that you could dare to imagine. And the best part is that you just dig in and pay up afterwards - no waiting for service and better yet (after such incidents as order-a-chicken-sandwich-but-receive-a-cup-of-tea) no awkward ordering faux pas! (fact of the day: faux pas is the same in the singular and the plural. I know because I just googled it.)

Food glorious food

San Sebastian is definitely worth a visit. I can easily imagine whiling away many an hour simply strolling up and down the beautiful coastline in the height of summer. The reality of our mid-May visit was slightly soggier and umbrella-laden but the rain only meant that we head to go in search of shelter and shelter meant martinis. No complaints there.

Another week, another near death experience on a surfboard. Although I'm actually starting to think that getting in and out of the wetsuit presents more danger than the sport itself. Nothing destroys the illusion of grace and femininity that you've tried to maintain quite like slipping about on a wet, tiled floor with both arms stuck inside the torso of your wetsuit and salty, tangled hair plastered across your face. Like a demented, blind penguin. Surfing is great though... I'll definitely be looking into chances to take it up again in the future wherever possible. 

Last Wednesday I went to my weekly private class with two brothers. The younger brother, Rodrigo, is quite frankly one of my favourite people ever and has provided me with some of my most entertaining and soon to be most treasured moments in Spain. From him opening the front door and exclaiming 'good morning!!' every week without fail before remembering that it is, in fact, half past five in the afternoon, slapping himself on the forehead and stomping his way upstairs reprimanding himself under his breath... to the time when he branded Jack as a 'bloody imbecile' for choosing to climb the beanstalk. He is a legend. Anyway, on Wednesday at the end of the lesson his mum walked in and handed me a goodbye present that she said they'd both picked out themselves and that Rodrigo had been incapable of waiting two weeks to give me. Needless to say I was biting back the tears. I will wear my matching necklace and earrings set with extreme pride. 

Things are truly winding down at school too. Most of the kids are aware that I'm soon to depart. Today I received a goodbye poster from a fantastic class of first years adorned with emotionally gems such as 'don't ever change, you're special how you are' and 'we know you can be an actress!' and 'for our favourite blonde'. And they greeted me into the classroom with a standing ovation. It was a pretty special moment. And the eccentric male teacher who bakes a new cake for the staffroom EVERY SINGLE DAY has been plying me with double helpings of cake, which I've taken as his way of saying goodbye. 

So, it's really happening... Spain is drawing to a close. I hope to squeeze in one more blog before I leave and then there'll be a period of down-time before in all starts again in... gulp... Russia. 

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