I am now in
my third week of working in the library of La Casa-Museo de Benito Pérez Galdós as a translator.
The tasks which I have been assigned are improving the English
Google-translated version of the museum’s brochure, which I finished in 2 days,
so I am now translating it from Spanish to Chinese. The hours are long and the
money’s terrible! Joke! My hours are 09.30-14.00 from Monday to Friday and it’s
an unpaid internship, so blurgh! The translations themselves ought to take
hardly any time but I’m making them last as long as possible, mainly because
there is no deadline and I am left to my own devices. In reality, work is a
really good opportunity to check my emails, surf the net, go on Facebook (much
to my own aversion), take super-long walks and chat to my colleagues for much
longer than I ought to. Just the other day I went out for a walk, lost track of
time and ended up taking 40 minutes! When I got back, Ana, the very chirpy
woman who sits behind me chatted to me for a while before asking me if I’d been
on a break and if not, then I should go and take one! I like Ana, she’s a
massive ‘foodie’ and loves anything sweet! She spent a good hour, in my first
week, talking to me about her trip to London London
There is a
place near our apartment called Cien Montaditos, which we frequent most
Wednesdays when you pay 2€ for a beer or tinto
de verano on its own, or the same price for the same drink AND a montadito (a small baguette with any
filling of your choice). As you may have been able to fathom there are 100
different types of montaditos. All you have to do is go to the counter to order
your drink and montadito and give your name. They then give you a receipt and
you have to wait for your name to be called. Last Wednesday, J-Frog[1]
(her nickname in Polish is Zaba which
means ‘frog’) showed me her receipt where her name was written ‘Yoana.’ I
proceeded to look at mine and written in four clear, capital letters was the
word ‘PONY!’ Naturally everyone burst out laughing, myself included, but what I
thought would be a transient joke has actually turned in to something more
permanent. Amma now calls me Pony, or Bonbon, but mostly Pony. When we went on
a yoga trip at the weekend, I introduced myself to some people who also thought
that I’d said Pony. This, of course, served to fuel Amma’s Pony-calling fire.
Due to our
different working hours, Mikey is no longer able to give me weekly ballet
lessons. This I have compensated for by trying out a whole host of other dance
forms and physical disciplines. Last week I tried out something called Biodanza, but it really was not for me.
The whole focus was on relinquishing stress and ill-feeling through creative
dance, then reflecting on your thoughts and feelings and those of the others
who are dancing with you, by placing your hand upon your heart after every
dance. Far too profound for my liking! Last Friday I had my first class in
Kundalini Yoga. Not what I expected at all! Here the focus is on breathing
loudly and chanting mantras to expel any stress, and cultivate the spiritual
awareness of the self in order to remain calm and help others. This class was
followed by a two-hour reflection about how Kundalini has helped each
individual. Amongst some of the comments made were: ‘Kundalini has helped me
find the real me’, ‘Before Kundalini I was sad and dissatisfied but I’ve been
on a spiritual journey and found my true self’, ‘When I went on a Kundalini
retreat I could feel my sexual organs pulsing in time with Mother Nature’s
heartbeat’… You get the general gist. It’s a bit too sensual and emotive for my
liking but hey, the classes are free so I may as well take advantage. Afterwards
Amma, Camilla (her Italian friend who was lodging with us for a few days) and I
were invited to a yoga meet which took place on Saturday evening at El Roque
Nublo - one of the most famous landmarks of Gran Canaria, situated over a
1000km above sea level. We were driven there by Hector, one of the yoga
instructors, who parked up at the bottom of the mountain. We had to hike around
40 minutes to get to the actual monument. After we arrived we had to wait
around for other yoga participants to arrive, which gave me precious time to
enjoy the spectacular views, meet new people and be at one with nature. From there you could see Tenerife ,
El Hierro, as well as enjoy panoramic views of all the nearby towns. Really, it
was AMAZING! The yoga class lasted over an hour and was followed by a short
course of meditation. Afterwards we had dinner on the mountain and froze our
asses off when Hector decided that he wanted to chant for longer. We arrived
back in Las Palmas
On Monday I
tried another class of yoga which was far more suited to my taste. It was more
‘orthodox’ (to put it nicely) and had a really calming and relaxing atmosphere.
The teacher was also very helpful with regards to my posture. One thing that
put me to shame though was the realization that the majority of the
participants, who are over 40, were more flexible than me! Oh well, practice
makes perfect. Yesterday I tried a class of Bollywood dancing and it was
SOOOOOOO FUN! Also, it’s much cheaper than the ‘orthodox’ yoga so I’m
definitely considering taking that up.
With
regards to my social life it’s still desenfrenada
(wild) as hell. I went out most nights last week, be it to pasarmelo de puta madre (have a fucking
mental night), to play beach ball, or just to take a walk.
J-Frog and
I have stopped frequenting Camaleón as we wanted a new place of interest. We
found one last Wednesday called Soul Kitchen, which I was invited to by 2
Finnish girls that I’d met at (ha, you guessed it!) Camaleón. On Wednesdays
they have live music and Sunday is their international social night. Last week
I went to both nights and met lots of new international people who are all
travelling, studying, or bumming around. I introduced myself to various people and
it seems that when they hear the name Bonny, it tends to conjure up the name Clyde . Most of the guys there took the piss out of me by
saying ‘Oh so you must be married to Clyde’, or ‘Do you have a boyfriend called
Clyde?’, ‘You ought to marry a Clyde .’ (How
about I marry a Clyde Tyler and that would be amusement at my expense for
life!) The night culminated in J-Frog and I on the beach with 3 German guys,
the 2 Finnish girls, some Italians and Luca, the owner of Soul Kitchen. We sat
there playing guitar, singing songs and drinking heartily. I’ve since taken a
liking to Luca, he’s a lovely old soul who never takes note of who has ordered
what and ends up charging people too much, too little, or as was the case
yesterday asking the customer for an offer! Luca himself is drunk or high most
of the time so if you were to walk out without paying, as Hannah did the other
night, he wouldn’t even notice. His waiter, Gustavo, is even fucking worse! He
gets pissed and walks home talking absolute shit, and thinking that he’s the
fountain of all knowledge. I would just have taken full advantage of their
fecklessness, but Hannah being the honest soul that she is asked me to go back
the next day and give him the money. God knows how they even manage to make any
profit! We went again last night and an Israeli guy, Itai, who I’ve met several
times thought that my name was Naomi and proceeded to call me that for the rest
of the night despite the fact that I’d corrected him every time.
So far the
no-sex bet is still on but J-Frog is almost verging on the point of breaking.
The other night, when we were all nicely drunk, with three dashing Germans, one
of whom J-Frog was getting on especially well, she even offered to run in to
the sea naked in dubious foresight of what the future may hold! As a loyal and
trustworthy friend, I persuaded her against
it for various, practical reasons. Firstly, Hannah wasn’t there to witness it.
Secondly, she would have been doing it with other people, so would actually
save herself from the humiliation of doing it alone. Thirdly, she might
actually pull through and win the bet. She’s done well so far!
So what lessons
have I learnt from the aforementioned experiences? Firstly, that pronunciation
has never been my forte, or most of
the people that I’ve met don’t actually care about names, and secondly that I
am audacious, *ahem* miserly, enough to walk out of a small-time establishment
without paying, but hey! at least my infallible logic and loyalty as a friend
compensates for that. ¿Verdad?
Oh yeah, we
finally got a new oven last week but lo and behold the mains cut out every time
you turned it on so we couldn’t use it for another week. This week someone came
to fix it and so far, so good. Only thing is the nobs are in reverse order so
you have to turn them to the left, instead of right, only one of the nobs has
numbers AND the higher the number the lower the heat! That’s Spain
That’s it
for now folks but join me next time for more fun-filled frolics in the
Canaries!
Lots of
Love,
Bugs BonnyPonyBonbon Naomi and Clyde .
[1] With respect to the individual’s request for anonymity, the author is
henceforth obliged to use an alternative name.
No comments:
Post a Comment