Another report from this crazy country
Dearest Cecilians
It seems like such a long time since my last message. The crazed influence
of Las Fallas which set the city alight (literally) has receded somewhat
since then, but life continues to be both rampant and random (the two words
adopted as slogans for this Erasmus year).
What is there to tell you? There was the crazy conference we were forced to
give because Paula pulled Fernando #1 in the cinema queue... he asked her if
she would mind coming to spend a while with him and some of his friends
speaking in English so they could practice. She agreed and brought some more
of us along with her. The six of us (Paula, Collette, Sally, Steph, Marina
and I, all British) ended up in a Spanish halls of residence sitting on a
stage and fielding a question/answer session with the population of said
halls, in purposefully basic English. It was a very odd experience,
particularly as we were paid with dodgy dinner.
Then we have the paellas at our university. Paellas are a tradition at all
the universities in Valencia - each faculty at all the universities hosts
their own paellas. What happens is that everyone pays a nominal fee (this
payment is optional) and turns up and builds little fires all over some
piece of wasteground or other that happens to be near the university. On all
these fires paellas are cooked (traditional Spanish rice dish, which can
feature many things added to it but the usual Valencian fare is a choice
between prawns and shellfish (yech) or chicken and rabbit (very tasty) ).
During and after the cooking, a mobile music-playing entity is set up and a
daytime outdoor disco ensues, usually involving dancing around the
still-blazing fires whilst extremely drunk, in the blazing sun. This is
madness, naturally, but it has been discovered (mainly by Paula who has been
to all of the paellas available, compared to my feeble one) that all of the
"fit men" (another technical Erasmus term) in Valencia actually stay in for
most of the year and only appear for the paellas. This is good news. At
least, during the paellas.
There has been a Chamber Choir formed from some of the older members of the
university choir. Apparently the object of this is to sing at weddings and
be paid for doing so - there is a wedding on the 15th of May or something
like that at which we are to perform, as well as the wedding of two of the
members of the choir at the end of June.
In other choir-related news, I have entered legendary status as "the tenor"
and we now have two types of tenor section rehearsals - "all the tenors" and
"all the tenors except John Paul, because we need to make sure that the rest
of you know it too just in case he gets sick". Also, we (allegedly)
performed two "concerts" in the university in the between-classes break a
couple of weeks ago - the first one was horrific, I have never heard such
flat singing in my life, the second slightly less so, but both seemed to go
down well.
Most importantly, at dinner the other day after rehearsal we played two
games - "how many people in the choir have you pulled?" and "let's bitch
about the people who aren't here at the moment". It felt just like being
with the Cecilians; I was quite moved.
My parents came to visit last week and were here until Easter Sunday, which
was quite exciting. I finally got round to doing all the touristy things in
Valencia, including going to the museum in the cathedral which houses the
Holy Grail. Apparently there are about 5 churches around the world which
claim to possess a chalice which is the Holy Grail, but the Valencian one is
the only one that the Pope has touched and had his picture taken with.
What else? Paula's friends Joanne and Joanne have been visiting the past
week also. Myself and one of the Joannes... got on very well indeed, much to
the shock and consternation of Collette and Paula. Note to self: there is
quite a lot to be said for random snogging after all.
It is also worth mentioning that three Sundays ago Valencia was witness to
John Paul in Angry mode. This was quite a feat, and quite exciting as I
haven't been properly pissed off since 1997. December, about the 12th or
13th. Disappointingly there was no real cause for my rage so I ended up
yelling at the tap (which had chosen not to work) and doing lots of washing.
No Cecilian has ever seen me in a really bad mood, and believe me it is NOT
a pretty sight. It is also not a very common sight, so I wouldn't worry
about it too much.
More exciting news is that last year we were told by Glasgow University (or
the University of Glasgow, which I should call it as I made Ewan change it
on the webpage) that on top of the (fairly small) Erasmus grant that we
received at the start of the year, it was possible that we might get some
extra money at some point in March or April, but not to count on it. We were
told, however, that Glasgow students usually do get some extra money, and
were informed by Pauline Mills (who some of you know) that when she did
Erasmus she got an extra couple of hundred pounds, which surely wouldn't
have gone amiss. Imagine my excitement on routinely checking my bank balance
and discovering an extra £489 one day!! In honour of this Collette and I
went on a shopping spree today, which was in fact the culmination of several
such sprees by me. The most interesting purchase (for you lot) that I have
made so far was to finally discover a decent cast recording of Hello,
Dolly! - I have been listening to it fairly constantly and am quite
enamoured with its ultimate feelgoodness. (Also worth a mention is
Promises, Promises, the only Broadway musical ever written by Burt
Bacharach, and which features I'll Never Fall In Love Again. I was
surprised to find that it actually only has 5 verses - I have heard Nicola
sing it countless times and I don't think she has ever sung the same set of
words twice, but that is merely testament to her skills as a songstress. To
be fair, Burt and Hal David ain't bad either).
I don't think I have any more news so I had better sign off here.
love etc
JP
PS I can't believe I forgot to mention The Event Of The Month, which was
Collette, Paula and I's trip to see... TOM JONES IN CONCERT. This was
actually the most exciting live music event ever. Tom is a consumate
professional - no support act nonsense, at the appointed hour the lights
turned on, the band belted out a riff or two and Tom walked out and started
to sing. Boy, did he sing. Non-stop for several hours. It was great! We
should ask him to be the guest speaker at the dinner dance sometime. How
many other people in their 60s can send you home convinced that you are
indeed a Sex Bomb?
