i’m still alive!!!

hours people have spent travelling to visit me: 24, fingers trapped in a door: 2, trips to Spanish hospital: 1, times I’ve tried to start writing this post and then forgotten again: 23

Sooooo I’m still alive! Since visiting Anna I have had the following exciting things happen to me:

Got a new flatmate! 2 have become 3 and Cristina has moved in, which means that there’s finally someone in the flat who can cook so Veronica and I don’t have to eat popcorn for every meal
Went to Granada! This made me really sad because Granada is sooo beaut and made me realise how much I miss city life (I hate being this person!!!!). We stayed in the NICEST airbnb right in the city centre and I realised how small Andújar is 😦
I SHUT MY HAND IN A DOOR (I know this is what you’ve all been waiting for.) This story is tragic for several reasons, which will become clear now. I went to work on my DAY OFF to get my jacket that I had left there the day before and as I left I pulled the gate shut behind me and just shut my middle and ring fingers in the door. Because I’m really grown up and good at dealing with pain I started crying in the middle of the street, nearly threw up, and then sent my mum the most pathetic voice note via WhatsApp. The worst thing was that I couldn’t just go home because I had errands to run (who have i become?!), which were going to pick up the teabags my mum sent me from the post office and then go to the bank and beg them to give me an account. Then I went home and just cried and stared at my big ugly club hand for a few hours. All weekend I just dosed up on painkillers and pretended it didn’t really hurt until Cristina dragged me to the hospital on Tuesday where I made a fool of myself in front of a different type of Spanish administration person. When you go in to A&E you have to sit and tell a man whats happened and because I’m not Spanish I had to provide some paperwork to prove who I was. So caught up in the embarrassment of having to go to hospital, I started waving my GIANT HAND around in his face for like a minute until I realised he was asking me for my EHIC (lol). Anyway they made me have an X-ray and it turns out nothing is broken (oh I also got lost walking from the X-Ray department to the waiting area), and he couldn’t pierce my nail to let the blood out because it didn’t hurt anymore. SO I took matters into my own hands, went home and pierced my hand like 14 times to get all the blood to drain out which was equal parts the most gross and satisfying thing I’ve ever done. And now I’m just waiting for my manky dead nails to grow out into shiny new ones.
A group of 6 year olds made me cry! Last Thursday I had to teach my school’s out difficult class about the difference between Spanish firefighters, ambulance, police and their English equivalents. Armed with a Fireman Sam video and a few printouts that I didn’t really know what I was doing with, I headed to class only to discover that there’s no digital screen! (give me a break pls) At this point the teacher left me alone with 24 6-year-olds for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES, which was basically just me shouting at them to shut up in Spanish once a minute. They were clearly really impressed with my teaching skills cos yesterday I walked into their classroom to borrow a book and they all audibly groaned ‘noooo not English’ 😦 BUT today they actually managed to do to worksheets and I didn’t have to shout at ANYONE sooo my approach to teaching with that class is just going to be to bombard them with activities and give up all hope of them actually learning anything.
Alice came to visit me!! If we’ve learnt anything so far living abroad, it’s that it is a lot harder to travel across Europe than you think when you’re living in a town instead of a city. It took Alice a very convoluted 24 hours to travel from Orleans to Andújar but she did it because she is a real life angel and my company is 100% worth it. With her, Alice bought the freezing cold and rain which meant I had to go out and buy a duvet and that all the teachers at my school have spent all week laughing at me because I don’t own any boots and I’m still wearing heeled sandals to work. I think Alice managed to restore a bit of my sanity cos I was starting to go a bit stir-crazy seeing the same faces over and over again every day and having people not understand a word I say. You really can’t overestimate the power of having someone listen to you moan and agree with you.

Sincerest apologies for my absence, thanks for coming back for another wild ride. Here’s some photos of my gammy hand to make up for lack of posts for a few weeks – you’re welcome.