The mad fruit panic was only beaten by the sandwich feeding frenzy that would happen after fancy visitors hadn't finished off their free buffet and an email would go out. There would be these sly looks around the office from people to see who else had spotted the email, then people would sloooowly get out of their chairs, perhaps performing a stretching routine so as to make the fake toilet trip more believable... then they'd slooooowly walk out keeping a shifty eye on anyone else... then someone would scream out "FREE FOOD!", the cover would be blown and plan B would go into action where pushing, shoving and kicking your way to the 'booty' would be fair game. The funny thing would be that the food had been sat around for at least an hour and the bread would be all crusty and hard anyway... so it's not like it's really worth the effort.
Anyway, there's no feeding frenzies or fruit panics at my new place due to their being free food ALL the time. I missed breakfast the other day and so just went to the kitchen and knocked up a salmon and cheese sandwich accompanied by twin babybels and a handful of carrot 'fingers'.
There's something about spending 20 minutes making the ultimate sandwich during work hours with word food that just feels a bit 'wrong' to me... but it didn't stop me doing it the next day. I feel so lucky to be at a place that treats it's staff so incredibly well though. There's all kinds of crazy crap in there: cereal, pepsi, tea/coffee, biscuits, yada yada. Also, on Friday i went to my first monthly birthday thing where they go out and buy this massive wad of cakes and beer and stuff and everyone sits around chatting on the last friday afternoon of the month. There's the big speech before then which included a 'welcome' to the new guys and we all got a big round of applause one at a time... which was slightly unnerving... although for some reason I felt the need to bow like a comical matador as if I'd done something special during mine.
I've been playing even more table tennis recently too. Got beaten for the first time. I get the feeling me that my new table tennis arch nemesis have begun a war that will battle through the ages... or at least until I get bored of thwacking plastic balls at wooden tables. The problem I have with it at the moment is that I'm playing for three hours after work and then have to walk home for another two (or so) hours whilst I mutter my spanish learning tapes under my breath. So by the time I get home from work I'm totally shattered, covered in sweat and it's kicking on for ten or eleven. Which also reminds me of the fact that I keep getting stung by the ceerrrazzzy shop closing times. I actually did an "ARGHHHHH!" at the sky outside my local 'Eroski' the other day, Eroski being Mallorca's half-hearted answer to Tescos.
One day I walked home and went to check out what the police were doing (I mentioned the A-Team van hanging around previously). Turns out it's some sort of police show or something, I'm not really sure what the purpose of showing police techniques off to tourists is, but there you go. Anyway, I had to laugh at one of the stands that featured a manequinn dressed as a police man weilding a large bat... hardly gives out a 'to protect and serve' message to all the lazy-eyed tourists walking around.
Later on I walked through the nice park and caught the fancy light and water extravagansa they put on every night (I think). It's actually pretty effective and you can walk right into it if you want to risk catching unknown numbers of diseases from the water. This is the place that blasts out intense classical music morning noon and night on a far too short loop. At first it's nice... then you start to feel uncomfortable.Still haven't got my flat sorted... although I do now have the required money for the transaction... oh, actually, thinking about it... no I don't. Maybe i'll go to a cashpoint later today and take out my allotted 300 euros again. Hopefully I can FINALLY sort it all out tomorrow. But getting some money was an adventure. I got 500 euros up front from work as a cheque that I had to take to the bank at lunch... a 40 hour walk in the midday sun along a highway, there and back. I'd been repeatedly warned at how arsey the bank would be, but luckily it all went out without a hitch. Strangely, every customer in the bank was English, all of which refused to speak ANY Spanish (how difficult is it to at least say 'Hola'), which I found intensely rude. So as a sort of protest I tut'ed at someone slightly too loudly... that'll teach him. I'm getting to the point where I can do 'things' now with very basic spanish... as long as people don't revert to English then I figure I'm making progress. As it is, people look at me with confusion but I always get success so at least I'm getting my point across... somehow.
Yesterday (Saturday) I went for a BIG walk around town. I got up too late again for my pipedream Valldemosa excursion. Came home and had a SIESTA for the first time. Then I headed out to this electronica music festival type thing. I didn't know anything about it, but it turns out to be right at the foot of the big cathedral where there's this square with a stage set up.I was expecting the horrendous music I hear blasting from people's cars that I moaned about before... but it turned out to be a 'experimental' music shindig.. some of which was actually pretty cool. I was with a group of about 8 people, all Spanish, I only knew two of them but it turned out to be a nice evening. I was desperately trying my best with the language and also communicate via the use of comedy hand and body gestures. As far as I'm aware I didn't call anyone's mother a 'whore' or any other language barrier mishaps.
The festival type thing reminded me of how boring most electronica is to watch at a gig. There's something really unexciting about a bunch of nerds sat behind laptop screens staring away as if they're being force fed propaganda. I was keeping an eye out for anyone that just looked like they were playing Doom, jumping up and shouting "YES! LEVEL SEVEN!". In addition to the boring factor, it became more and more obvious that the majority of the music was just coming from the laptop guys and any 'performers' were just playing instruments badly over the top of it, which made you think "why didn't they just play a CD?".
We left the music before midnight cos people were getting bored of all the long droney noises and headed out to town where I encountered my very first tapas. I was repeatidly told that it was a crappy place, by all acounts the place we ended up in was the equivalent of a nasty post-club kebab. It wasn't too bad though, although if I'm honest I'm more of a Thai/Chinese/Indian food guy, but I'm sure I'll have some amazing stuff out here in the future.
We then headed out to a bar called soho which looked like any grandparents house circa 1950's, complete with old radiation emitting tv's and that horrible phsychodelic wallpaper that died out the same time as disco. We were all a bit dopey though so I grabbed a lift back after that which saved me the 2 hour drunk-walk. There's a photo of me sat in one of the horrible wicker chairs that broke on me when I touched the damn thing.I've found myself complaining a couple of times about how bloody cold it is at night. Then I got told that it's like 11 degrees back home and super-heavy rain. This weekend it's been in the low thirties with mostly clear blue skies... and I'm moaning! It appears that you quickly get used to good weather. It's nice to not have the horrible "it's sunny, i must get sunburnt" philosophy driving everything though. I feel that if miss today's sun it's absolutely no big deal at all.
Anyway, things are feeling much more positive now. I think I was just exhausted from the weekend before and that always brings out the negativity in a situation. Hopefully I can have a great week.
R
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