Good Weekend, Bad Weekend

Hmmm interesting weekend so far, I changed flats on Thursday night to one that isn't as nice as the old one but in a much nicer location nearer to where the best bars are. I am sharing with a pretty French girl called Oceane and today I will be joined I believe by a fellow brummie. Later that evening I met with Verena in Anima and watched a rather nice folky band, she had been playing volleyball and was a bit tired so it wasn't a late one. I was back home by 1am.

The next morning I had to walk half way across town to drop off the keys to my previous flat with the agents, it was absolutely pissing down and I was soaked to the skin by time I got to work. There is no heating in my fridge of an office and there was absolutely no chance of getting dry so by the time I left I was feeling pretty sorry for myself and freezing and so I took myself off to bed.

Woke up about 7 had some food and sipped on a beer whilst waiting to find out what the other's were doing, by about 10.45, I'd not heard and was getting a bit fed up with waiting so I figured I would wait in the bar around the corner called Perro Andaluz which was having some live music. The minute I got a beer I recieved a text from Charlotte to say there were lots of Italians in her house and that she wasn't going out but I should come round anyway and meet them. So I walked over thinking "hmmm should I have stayed where I was this is a bloody long walk this?".

Not that I need to worry as when I got there it was all cool the Italians plied me with rum, vodka and more vodka and I tried out my Spanish with the Italian girls. There didn't seem to be any enthusiasm to leave the flat when suddenly at 1am everyone was out on the street and walking down the road to a flamenco music bar. This was pretty enjoyable, outside Bo with his excellent Spanish talked to some doctors from Barcelona who seemed very amused by us. There was a band inside that were just about to start but the girls decided they wanted to go home as we left.

It was only about 3am and Bo and I were up for carrying on so we walked over to a cheesy disco bar nearer to our flats' talked to some Germans (in Spanish) from Berlin and Koln and then some very drunk Irishmen who Bho reckons were looking for a fight but I didn't pick up on that if they were. We needed some directions so I went to ask some lovely but slightly drunk spanish ladies who didn't believe I could understand what they were saying to me and we shouting random English words at me even though I knew exactly what they were saying. Bho and I tried to get into bicicletaria but they weren't letting in and it was pretty late so I toddled off. I think I got home about 5am.

Woke up pretty yesterday morning but was too lethargic to leave my bed, until much later. I decided to go in search of breakfast and then head over to the CAAC modern art gallery on the other side of the river. They've got some interesting stuff in there a lot of it was from the 1980s. I was watching the surrealist film Perro Andaluz by Luis Bunuel when I got a call from Verena and we arranged to meet up at the Plaza de Encarnacion with the idea of going to another museum but instead we met up with her work colleague and boyfriend in La Macarena. When we got there we saw a flamenco jam session with a very famous flamenco artist called Manuel Molina and drank free bottles of lemon beer. It was a lovely afternoon.

We walked back home and arranged to meet later. I cooked myself some food and drank a small beer, Oceane hid in her room while I did this. About 11 I headed out to meet up with Verena again, we went to a couple of bars and had some Tapa and she told me some things that I kind of knew already but they still left me feeling a little crestfallen. After the food we meet up with Bho and the two Polish girl's who's names I can't spell in the Alfalfa, they are sat outside drinking mojitos by the litre. We sit round for a bit and then it is decided that we are all going back to Verena's flat where people talk about how rubbish teachers are and school in general is. 

I leave about three with Bho and am intent on going to bed but about twenty yards from my house decide that I need another beer and we head off in search of somewhere open, the only place that was definitely open was Munich . We had a few beers, Bho went off in search of ladies, I wasn't really up for that so had more beer and then walked home.

It is now 13.31 and I should really get out of bed and do something, I have listened to enough of Morrissey (as advised by Joe) and am in need of breakfast...

San Juan de Aznalfarache

I've had a very pleasant evening, after I came out of work, I decided to go and visit the huge church which sits on top of a big hill which I pass on the way to work each morning. To get there I had to walk through San Juan de Aznalfarache which is a strange town, half gated communities of big houses the other half, horrible council estates which look like they should have been knocked down years ago.

I walked down the hill to try and get to the gardens that the church is surrounded by but walked a little too far and came to the Guadalquivir proper as opposed to the canal which is what really cuts through Sevilla, there was nobody down there apart from the occasional middle aged man in lycra whizzing past on an expensive bicycle. For some reason there is a railway line that runs about 100 yards on a bridge out into the river but goes nowhere else, part of the bridge has been turned into a seating area but doesn't look like anyone had sat there this year or ever in fact.

Eventually I get to the gardens I am looking for and walk up lots of stairs to the church only to find the gate shut with no way of getting inside, what makes this worse is that as I turn around I see a funicular lift that would have taken me up to where I wanted to go for without the need for any exercise. I walk back down and get into the lift but there is no way into the church so I enjoy the view and head back down towards the nearest metro stop. As I go back down in the lift an elderly spanish couple complain about how cold it is, it's at least 25 degrees celcius and after walking up and down a big hill, I'm nowhere near cold and they look at me strangely and make jokes about ingles which I don't quite understand when I tell them I'm a bit hot.

I catch the train back into town, jump off in Triana and walk from there to the gardens near the Plaza España in search of a beer hall and festival that I have heard is rumoured to be there. The gardens are quite lovely and well worth wasting time in, as I walked Suicide by Spaceman 3 and Cursed Realm of the WInterdemon by Sunn 0))) came on my iPod and which was a very interesting juxtaposition.

Eventually I find a massive white tent that is selling Guiness or Murphy's Red for €4 a half litre or €7 for a litre of Paulaner. I decide not to stay and head off home stopping for a quick one in the Montaditos near the University whilst I looked up some of the words that had been shouted at me in Spanish today.

I got home about nine and received a call from Sam saying that he and Rafaela were in the bar around the corner, I joined them for two quick pints and came back to my flat and ate the most garlic laden dish I've ever prepared (almost as bad as that moxtcha sauce) soul sucking entities around here this evening.

Sunday Funday.

I woke up early and chilled out in mi casa and ate my staple breakfast of tostada y jamon york, una magdalena y zumo de naranja and then walked over to La Carpa which is a really nice theatre/arts space illegally (I think) built on waste land. I watched a circus show which really was for kids but I thought it was very enjoyable. I drank a couple of beers, tried to remember some spanish verbs and got chatting to a german lad and his spanish girlfriend who seemed quite impressed that a patán ingles estaba intentando aprendar el idioma, albeit very badly.

After the show had finished, the organisers started putting up sails around the site as to create lots of shade. A jazz band came on who were a bit too noodly for my liking so I said my goodbyes and went off to meet Chris in a rather nice hotel bar where I ate some pork slices, croquettas and patatas fritas which was a bit expensive but very nice.

It was absolutely baking outside by now and we went around the corner to a kiosk type bar where I had a lovely glass of white wine followed by a small beer. The barmaid was surprised to discover that Chris and I were both living Sevilla and suddenly went from loud talking to stupid foreigner mode to talking at a million and one miles an hour.

Chris wanted to go home to dump his laptop and get some more money so we popped over the river to his flat where Charlotte, Lydia, Kate, Roco and Guiseppe were lazing around chatting. We only stayed five minutes and headed off for a beer in 100 Montaditos which are the Sevillian equivalent of a Wetherspoons but at £1.50 a big beer I'm not complaining. We shared a destroyer tabla of 7 whole montaditos (little sandwiches) which cost us a whopping €3 each.

After a couple more beers we headed off down the road to a bar in a courtyard which was very nice but here the beer hit me and I was starting to feel a little bit inebriated, Chris recommend snorting coffee powder to give myself a bit of a kick, I didn't.

We moved onto a rooftop bar which was full of tourists but had a great view of the river and the city. We stayed for one there and crossed over the river to a cheesy dance music open air club type bar for another couple. I think here was probably the point that I should have gone home but instead we crossed over the road to O'Neills Overpriced Oirish Pub, I think three times Chris said "Lets just have one more" before we got talking to an american couple who were visiting their daughter who is studying in Spain. They insisted on buying us another drink which completely finished me off we left about 11pm and I walked home in a silly hat and got some funny looks from sober people.

I forgot to set my alarm this morning but amazingly woke up on time anyway, I felt totally awful and had no breakfast and couldn't work out how my monitor turned on when I got to the office much the amusement of Salvadore. I actually did loads of work today regardless of my confused state.

I am never drinking again.

The Weekend

He he...weekend so far...finished work at two yesterday, bummed around the flat until nine(ish) had a a tinto de verano which was turned into kalimotxo by Alba, went to Charlotte's only for her to ignore the front door, had a beer in a bar full of moneyed twats, one of them asked me to get him a beer even though it was totally clear that I am no camarero, I am standing at the bar holding a beer.

Back to Charlotte's to meet her new flatmates, Italians, nice lads and lasses. Verena and Kyle arrive and after a beer or two or we spend an hour going five minutes down the road to a bar next to the river where nobody apart from me buys any booze. The bar shuts, police turn up and shoo everyone down the road towards a naff nightclub/bar thing, it's not the best, I have one drink and another for the road. I get home about 4am after walking the (very) long way home and hit the sack immediately.

I wake up about nine but decide this is far to early to be awake and my head is a bit sore, I don't know what it is about Spanish beer, I had no more than five pints. I wake up again at one to find a message from Chris saying he wants to go and see the rugby. Beer for breakfast.

We meet at an Irish bar and see the second half, bit one sided, three beers later we decide to go elsewhere and move at least fifty yards to a riverside bar which appears to be closing as we enter, we are served with two beers that I am pretty sure are half full of washing up liquid. We don hang around an move up the river to a bar that looks pretty cool from the outside but in fact is full of trendy types (like ourselves) and has the worst service in the world, the staff are more interested in playing with their hair than giving me some of their over priced beer.

We cross over the river to another bar which is much nicer and Sam and Rafaela join us but the sun goes down and we move to another less pleasant place where the beer is €2 a bottle, I am quite tipsy and am in desperate need of food and we head home.

I am now sitting in my flat with a glass of shitty red wine listening to On by the Aphex Twin with the vain hope of stopping Fire In My Heart by the Super Furry Animals invading my internal radio which it has been for the last three days even though I haven't heard it for a good five years. I am also deciding whether or not I should go out and find a metal bar in Sevilla. \m/