Let's celebrate...

It has been a busy week or so on the social calendar and a month full of surprises and celebrations.

First of all, Mª Angeles and Javi (whose wedding we attended in May '05 ) became the proud parents of Celia on Wednesday 21st of June, so Nedra and I went to the hospital on Friday to visit the happy family.

Then on Saturday we went to Robledo de Chabela, a village an hour or so out of Madrid, where Sam and Josue have a beautiful house. We had a barbecue, which of course the men were in charge of, to celebrate Sam's birthday. There were lots of delicious treats and plenty of homemade sangria and cava followed by some birthday cake and coffee, prepared by the lovely Nedra.

I was thoroughly enjoying lounging around on Sam's veranda on a sunny afternoon but unfortunately we had to rush back to Madrid for further celebratory events. We had a dinner to get to in La Camocha (venue of last June's farewell party) to say sayonara to Katie and Lewis who are moving back to England today after 2 years of teaching at the BLC. I couldn't face all the food and drink after the BBQ and I don't know how I managed to keep going until 6 in the morning! A good night was had by all, I think we had most continents represented at the meal, here are Alex (American), Renée (Australian) and Dan (British) enjoying themselves.

Sunday had me celebrating alone in a neighbourhood bar watching England v Ecuador. I was a little shy to cheer when we scored so the Spanish locals decided to give me a helping hand, which I thought was really sweet. I'll be able to cheer (hopefully) a lot louder tomorrow because a group of us are going to watch the match in town.

Last night we went out for a few drinks and the waiters in our local gave us two bottles of champagne to celebrate Clare's birthday and Lewis and Katie's final night at the BLC. And after all that drinking I think I will be on a detox next week.

Oh and I mustn't forget to say Happy Bloggerversary to me, I have been randomly scribbling things on this blog for over a year now, I know most people don't read my ramblings but at least one day I will be able to look back and see what I was doing at this time in my life.

Dumb Waiter .... and I don't mean the lift thing.

After my last class this afternoon I decided to go to a café nearby for a glass of coke and a little snack. I clearly picked the wrong bar, it was like entering a bloody morgue, the waiting staff were clearly not happy to be there.

The first waiter just plain ignored my request for a café con leche so I tried my luck with the waitress and ordered a coke. I sat down and tried to relax with my ice-cold beverage when the fun really began. Not only does the bar have the atmosphere of a funeral it also seems to employ the most ignorant people imaginable.

One waiter decided to ask the Moroccan pensioner at my side if he was going to watch his country playing Spain tonight, to which of course he replied no since Tunisia is not his country. The barman then asked what the difference was because he thought they were the same, I mean they share a border right? Er, no, not last time I checked unless Algeria has disappeared! So the Moroccan answered that the waiter was Spanish and not Portuguese or French just because they shared borders with Spain. Then the dumb waiter replied that no he wasn't Spanish but in fact he was European. By this point I think I was rolling my eyes around and huffing and puffing, but it only got worse.

The dumb waiter said that if we were living in Spain what did we call Galicia and Euskadi???? He then said what about the other 26 Autonomous Communities?? I started running through them in my head and I made 16 + Melilla and Ceuta so I forgot one, Aragon. There are 18, not 28! So then I thought perhaps he meant the Provinces but of course 28 is a long way off the actual number of 50. I couldn't help myself and I just started giggling in my chair.

Geography is clearly not that waiter's strong point. Ruining my enjoyment of a quiet drink on a sunny afternoon clearly is.

Food Glorious Food

Marisa, who I did the CELTA course with in November 2003, is moving back to Florida after 7 years in Madrid. I met up with her and her dad this afternoon for the first time in about a year so we could catch up before she moves to the other side of the world. After a she did my Tarot cards we went to a tapas and wine bar in the centre of Madrid called Según Emma (see pic) and then we went for ice-cream in the new and trendy Giangrossi in Calle Cava Baja.

The food is so good at Según Emma's (a little treasure tucked away next to the Mercado de San Miguel which I only learnt about thanks to my restaurant conoisseur friend, Nedra.) We had potatoes with Palmero sauce (green peppers, garlic, almonds and olive oil), my favourite Goat's Cheese and caramalised onion tosta and some fantastic pork fillet in wine. I even tried the Salmorejo ( a type of Andalucian cool tomato soup) which is rumoured to be particularly good there and the waiter told me that usually it didn't go down well with Anglosaxons but I quite liked it. All this was swilled down with a bottle of beautiful Ribera del Duero.

The ice-cream was out of this world. I had my usual favourite Mint Choc Chip but the chunks of chocolate were humongous. It was the perfect dessert! A lovely evening and one I hope to repeat when my family visit in September.

England v T&T

The England boys had me worried for a while but they managed to pull themselves together at the end of the second half, just in time, for a 2-0 result and another 3 points securing their place in the Round of 16. Respect to Trinidad & Tobago though (another of my teams in the draw) for being such fighters!

Along with England, my Ecuatorians are through and it looks like Sweden could be joining them, so fingers crossed. Although in the next round I'm going to playing against myself all over again!

Roland Garros Final

Just finished watching over three hours of a mighty match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer and I feel absolutely exhausted so God knows how they must feel! I was rooting for Roger because I wanted him to make the history books as having won all the major tournaments but he missed out again on Roland Garros, the only title he hasn't held. Nadal won for the second consecutive year and it seems that World Number 1 Federer just cannot beat the Mallorcan youngster on clay courts.

Never mind Federer, perhaps Wimbledon can be yours for the fourth year in a row!

The Tennis also provided some star spotting moments with Pedro Almodovar, Jean Reno and more interestingly Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn (are they lovers are they not?) sitting in shades and sunhats in the crowd.

I love Youtube

You can get almost everything on Youtube, it is my new favourite toy! I don't quite understand how it works since I posted a six feet under vid on my blog before and now it isn't available, but hey it was good while it lasted.

I was looking at other vids and I came across this video of Damien Rice singing the Blower's Daughter intercut with clips from Closer (which is one hell of a movie which I have on DVD and must have seen about 4 times so far). If you haven't seen the film, I really recommend it, it is a true to life look at relationships. It's a film about what love really is at times, painful, raw and harsh. It's about how vulnerable we are as humans in love. Clive Owen is excellent, this is the film that made me sit up and notice him as an actor.

Damien's song is great for the film, haunting and painful too, everytime I hear it it pulls on a nerve inside me and I find I have to choke back the tears. I remember being in the teachers' room once and one of the teachers put it on the CD player and I had to really concentrate on not bursting into tears at the table. A truly beautiful song.

And we're off

So the football has started and so far two of my teams have won their matches and two of them have drawn so I am a happy bunny. I was particular impressed by Trinidad and Tobago's effort against Sweden, managing to draw 0-0 with only 10 men, a very exciting match indeed! England beat Paraguay after the Paraguayans scored an own goal from a Beckham cross, it was a pretty dull match and it was a shame that the England lads didn't manage to actually score a goal! According to some player comments on the the FIFA website they are blaming the midday heat in Germany for their less than perfect performance. Ecuador also surprised me yesterday by beating the Poles 2-0. As far as my money is concerned we are off to a good start!