The Mr X factor 7: February 22, 2006

Christmas holiday in Spain + Jan/Feb happenings

Hi all & happy new year! My Xmas trip to Spain now seems quite a while ago and it has been back to work lately. But the Spain trip was fantastic! I flew out on Dec 22nd, very excited and relieved to get a decent holiday for 12 days. After a night in a v gd backpackers in Granada I caught the bus around the Sierra Nevada mtn range, to meet up with the others (4 of them fellow Kiwis away from home, in the non-touristy town of Orgiva, in southern Spain.

We hired a 'cortija' - the Spanish equivalent of a villa, I guess. It was cosily small for 6 of us with a fire for the cooler nights, and shutter windows for blocking out ALL light, for their famous siestas. And sleep was what dominated the first few days of the trip as most of us zonked out after the end of a tiring year. With the shutters and quietness you just don't find in London, we would wake up in pitch black, thinking it was 10am, only to find it was past 12nn! Breakfast was regularly at about 12nn, lunch after 4pm and dnr sometime after 10pm!

When we were awake, we read lots of books, had some good catch up chats with each other, played some great board games - I highly recommend Stonewall & Alhambra!, went for some walks and ate lots of lovely croissants, or 'pan au chocolats', as well as plenty of Spanish 'tapas' meals. Mmmm - beautiful!

We got an abundant amount of sunshine too - it was like NZ - bright, blue sky sunny days, gd vitamin-D intake for us - having had a couple of months of grey UK skies. It was awesome and we watched some pretty lovely Spanish sunsets too. Temperatures got up to about 15 degrees where we were, and when we left our cortija and went down to the coast, sometimes up to 18 degrees.

After Christmas day celebrations (we had an outdoor tapas lunch, followed by a afternoon drive, & roast meal late on Christmas night), a few days of really slowing down and chilling out, we began our day tripping around southern Spain - trips further up into the mountain towns of the Sierra Nevadas (Pampierna & Bubion) where we saw quaint, marble white houses almost sliding off the hillside, awesome sunset and some crazy Spanish driving on v. windy roads. On another day we went down to the coast and towards Malaga, and up a steep inland hill about 600m high, to a hilltop town of Comares, with wonderful views, previously fortified by the Moors, and defendable like a hill-top Maori pa.

We also did a day trip to Almeria, the south-eastern corner of Andalucia, where the only desert in Europe is (being - Mr Geography teacher is back! - sheltered from predominant Westerly winds, and being an area that the Spanish de-forested centuries ago for the Spanish Armada). This was a great trip, mainly due to our visit to an old film set, where Spaghetti Westerns such as 'The Good the Bad & the Ugly' were filmed. Now they operate as tourist attractions. One of these we visited, 'Fort Texas - Hollywood Bravo studios' was the name. I was instantly excited as we drove up to the entrance, then staked out the joint, as we walked down the main street to the saloon. Soon the shoot-em up show began (including mock fights, hangings and a bandit being towed behind a horse by a rope, as well as a plot, spoken in Spanish), with 40 year old men playing cowboys and indi... well pretty much cowboys!, complete with Marlboro cigarettes & cap guns which made all the babies on the saloon porch cry when they went off.

Another highlight was visiting the Alhambra - a massive castle/palace/estate from Spain's mainly Muslim past. Everything was beautifully designed and built, with lots of symmetrical lines, beautiful trees & landscaped gardens - (Paul Roper you must go there!). It meant a big day walking around and taking it all in, as well as taking heaps of photos of every angle that made for a good shot - I took 36 on thatday and 110 for the whole trip - all on a film camera. After that we had a relaxing afternoon hanging around the city of Granada, with a lovely meal to celebrate Rebekah D's 30th birthday.

So after a few day trips, more food, sleep, yarns and board games, our trip ended and I flew home to England on the plane - with everyone groaning in unison about the cold, rain & fog as we touched down at Stansted on 3 Jan. No more major trips since then, although I have been up to the CPS's Liverpool office for work, which was fun - Liverpool really reminded me of Wellington, with its tall waterfront buildings, breezy wind and harbour-like width of the Mersey River.

I also caught up with a family relation in Essex in late January, which resulted in a rather astounding finding. Sister Nicola and I went out on the train to visit my Dad's cousin Geoff, whom we first met in 1997, when he came to NZ. After a lovely day with a roast meal and walking of their dogs in the countryside, we hauled out some family-tree documents. After trawling through about 11 pages tracing back to 1611, Geoff alerted us to one 'Winston Churchill' on our family-tree - which was quite mind-blowing - so I now know I have links to aristocracy! - quite exciting- might show up at Blenheim Palace with my tree and ask for a room some day!

Already my 'connections' have paid handsome dividends (or so I like to think). Earlier this month I organised & attended a conference for work at the Hotel Russell in London - very flash, interior made of marble, chandeliers everywhere - all very grandiose! We were there 2 days, and when I checked in, I was informed that they had upgraded me to the Penthouse suite - on the top floor overlooking Russell Square, having 3 rooms to it, including a massive widescreen TV at the end of my bed, complimentary wine, torrential downpour-like shower (with sidejets too!), and the envy of my much more senior colleagues! Was it the Churchill factor, or just because my name was on the conference bill?

Also, I could easily declare my OE fulfilled & over now, as I have appeared in TNT's (Antipodean tourist magazine) 'Spotted' page! Can't say I've been desperately trying to get into 'Spotted', however in early December I went with Danny Hayes & some other mates to the Swan pub in Stockwell - which was having its 25th birthday celebrations. As we were jiving away to some groovy Irish music + rock covers, we got snapped, and within 2 weeks we were in the mag. Very cool - many people live here for years but don't get in it!

Various other things:

For Waitangi day celebrations over here, I went to Parliament Square on Saturday Feb 4th to watch about 3000 Kiwis on the Circle line pub crawl congregate to do/watch the Haka. This is a yearly custom of showing NZ drinking ability at every stop on the Circle line, as well as a moving display of national spirit, with the Haka performed, at the place where the decision to colonise NZ was made, 167 or so years ago. It was quite special, as was Cuffy's Elvis outfit! Various chants went up, including possibly the last 'Ooh-aah-Umaga' chant ever in the UK, and the national anthem was sung in both languages (English first in case you are wondering!).

Two weekends ago I went out to Hertford to Rachel D's 30th birthday, where there were 4 of us from our 1993 7th form year at Tawa College, as well as various other Kiwis in the UK and locals from Herts where Rach & Mike live.

Had my best Valentine's day in years last week - with Reese Witherspoon at the movies - except she was on the screen - a few mates went and watched the new Johnny Cash biographic movie 'Walk the Line' - really, really good - also reminded me of playing Johnny loud & proud with Glasgow St flatmates in 2003/4 - gotta get that CD!

This last weekend I have been getting into my sport watching in the pubs, for the first time in a while. There is so much football on TV over here, that it is easy to give it a miss and think you will catch it next weekend. But now that it is getting towards the end of the season, the big matches are happening, and there is nothing like FA Cup knock-out excitement. So it started with the FA Cup 5th round on Saturday, watching Liverpool beating Man Utd was great (always is!). More painful was watching my team, Aston Villa get completely outplayed in the first half, then take the lead, only to draw with Man City after City scored with the last kick of the game (95th minute!) to force a replay. Bring it on again! I also caught the Hurricanes v Western Force with a new mate from Perth, and a few other Wgtn people over here. Very comforting being away a long way from home and being able to feel at home by watching Super 12+2 rugby. A decent roar went up when Grant Nesbitt's commentary came on!

And that's about it. Next trip is planned for Easter - I am going on a 5-day coach tour around Normandy with Angela + her mate, and whoever else signs up for it - really looking forward to it. The sacred D-day beaches will obviously be the major highlight for me, given my love of geography & history, but there looks to be heaps of other stuff too, which will be very inspiring - Rouen - Joan of Arc territory, Mont St Michel, Bayeux tapestry (but surely nowhere as impressive as my Scout blanket with all the new patches I have to sew on!), so that trip will be great. Until then its work, London life, hanging with friends, working on my photo album (still putting August's photos in!), and a weekend visit to one or two family friends, who live on the outskirts ofLondon.

Finally, the buzz of being over here & living it, has finally waned. Since I've been here, there has been this intense excitement that I had every day, even catching a tube to work, of the excitement of the being in this most vibrant of places, on the other side of the world, doing my OE. Having started 2006, it's gone, perhaps the effect of a new year and having been here a while now. I'm not too disappointed, the buzz still comes every once in a while - it's just that it lasted so unexpectedly long, that I began to think it would continue indefinitely. Then, elusively, it left!

I haven't. And what has arrived from NZ, from mates who flew home for a wedding, is a fresh 9-pack of Cookie times. Mmmm!! Adios!

Dave :)