♫ Pata Negra - Bodas de Sangre ♫ 

Que yo no tengo la culpa, que la culpa es de la tierra

Y de ese olor que te sale de los pechos y las trenzas

¡Ay, qué sinrazón!

Spring has arrived in February. I don't know enough about the seasons to say for sure, but it seems to me wrong. I'm not complaining about the early sun, far from it, but 20 degree temperatures have come out of no where. It feels miraculous now, and after 3 months of Dickens grey maybe it is, but when summer rolls around am I going to die?

I feel a real immediacy to this spring. "the time of plans and projects" Photosynthesising in the sun, I noticed an acute change in my mood, my thoughts, in even my expectations for life ahead. In winter, the comfort zone whispers sweet nothings in your ear. Time passes, but barely any sun in the sky is showing it. So it all blurs together into a smear of high temperature heater settings and blankets. During the winter, I got myself out most weekends to new amazing places, and met a bazillion people, and yet I haven't felt any real angst until now. An existential realisation of what's really happening here. Maybe it's the halfway mark of my trip ticking over, but I think the changing of the seasons has also sent an alarm off in my head that this isn't forever. And hey - nothing is, so I am obliged to join in on the fun.

Ramadan

My friend Naeem is busy doing Ramadan, as scheduled. I was invited to join in (thankfully for only a Sunday...) and he's helping me understand more and more just how hard that is to do for him here. But it's also a way to connect to a far away home. If Spain is a land of piecemeals throughout the day, ramadan exists in direct opposition to that indulgence. Eat only while the sun is down - no bocadillos or even olive oil. Alcohol when the sun's down is okay, but that means abiding by the ramadan rules even when hungover the next brand-new day. Confession - I cheated, cheated bad, and discovered my willpower is a lot weaker than I thought. Naeem is a consumate professional at it, and even with his help I greedily helped myself to (2!) glasses of water while the sun was reflecting off the glass.

The english term 'hangry' can only exist in a fattened culture accustomed to having food whenever it wants. In ramadan, the mind becomes less sharp, you have less energy to function. But when 7pm rolls around (and you are counting down the seconds), you've already spent the last two hours preparing and thinking about the food, its smells permeating the walls and your pores. When I ate that shwarma Naeem and I made, I felt such gratitude that I guess it began to make a bit of sense. Ramadan only made sense to me during those desperate bites at 7pm and afterwards when the wine came out. Before that I was not a nice person to be around. I take food for granted, its appearance to my mouth every few hours has become so habitual that I don't know what I am without it. In conclusion, I find ramadan to be worth it - but only with Naeem's Ramallah spices.

Goodbye Viv!

My great big international circle of friends, once a group of eight, has diminished to first three, now just Naeem and I. We were once having large international dinners with dishes from every corner of Eurasia, and now I have Naeem's cooking all to myself. Viv left for Rotterdam last thursday, but before she left we were given goodbye prezzies, had a nice dinner, were promised to see each other again at the end of the school year. For that reason we were spared many tears - but Viv became a fun, stable presence in our lives for a brief time. She taught us an intimate knowledge of Dutch and their directness, we gave each other life advice from three different corners of the world - sometimes clashing so beautifully - and were always the three loudest in the room.

Día de Andalucía

I'm lucky sometimes. Since the start, a selfish part of me has been crying out to be in Andalucía - the place I was originally assigned to work. The 1983 movie El Sur I think encapsulates my feelings towards this longing well. Or maybe listening to any music from that region too. For the past four months I've tolerated and survived the wide-eyed horror of being in the north instead (joke), with plans to go south for Semana Santa. Well, on Saturday I happened to walk into Bicoca Records, feeling up to the task of bar chat banter in Spanish. The bar-owner Andres I know is from Cadiz (Andalucians talk very quickly and prefer to go without the end of words). He's an encantador - endlessly friendly, kind and stupidly funny. The best character of the south. When I walked in, everything was decorated in green, southern football jerseys were out, and there was jamon on the table. I had waltzed into the bar on the day of Andalucía, at the pre-party where food is brought out. I tried two types of lomo, which is cured pork loin, I tried jamon which never fails, I tried chorizo, anchovies, more. The most novel was gazpacho blanco - a drink with the appearance of milk but is more like a garlic sauce you drink out of a glass. Eggs, garlic, olives, blended bread I think are all the ingredients. It's an economical and fast way to refresh and snack up on the olive tree granja in the hot south.

I <3 Bicoca Records

Here I was - still stumbling through the language as an extranjero, younger than most there, and everyone was more than kind, there was love in open arms. We talked about flamenco and its types, styles of dancing, we talked about the prickly character of people in Valladolid.

I ran into a woman called Ana, who I soon discovered used to work not only at my school but in my english department with my boss, Maria Jesus. They're best friends. She quite sincerely invited me to her TELEVISION SHOW for the Castile y León tv channel, where she is journalist and interviewer.

I met a few more blokes outside - one of them has an intense knowledge of Australian punk rock music even more so than I do. This 50 year old Pucelano couldn't contain himself when telling me a member of The Chats was here two weeks ago.

Asklepios

If I would have told you the best, most fun, non-conservative discoteca in Valladolid is the one that opens at 4:30 and closes at 7 two days a week, would you believe me? Back home, I usually reserve those kinds of opening hours for Revs Upstairs, for coke and speed, for regret. But Emma, Naeem and I went to Asklepios after a particularly bad club experience (aggressively heteronormative, fatally boring) at Cocoon, and after some umming and ah-ing at the entrance and early morning chats with coked up middle aged men (with knowledge to give!) we went inside. We were among the first, and the space we were greeted with was quintessentially Twin Peaks. We were in one of those Lynchian dream scene set designs, but a promise lingered in the air. Soon, the 60-something DJ started, people flooded from I-don't-know-where, all shapes and sizes and ages. The people were the kind of weird you want to investigate, not the kind you shield your female friends from.

While starting to feel disillusioned with the major way to party in Valladolid, this was the most fun club experience I've had in this city. Admittedly it took me a while to work out, but we're here now, I'll come back.