James Griffiths

Since I've been getting more and more sick of the lack of customisation available on Vox, I've moved my blog (and all archived posts) over to my blogger account - http://jtgriffiths.blogspot.com/

Rob's attitude when I told him I was going to sit in the airport all evening until it was time to check-in for my flight was 'fuck that, come hang out at mine'. He had to edit an internet show him and some friends are making (he's an ex-theatre director and actor) - it's pretty good - so he wasn't going to be in the apartment most of the night, but it was still way better than sitting in an airport.

When Rob's friend Mike turned up at the apartment to say hi, he had a similar reaction to me sitting by myself all night and told me to come out with him. Mike (late-middle aged, ex-Navy, living in Spain Texan) helps organise an English-Spanish language evening in Madrid (he's a veteran of Vaughan Town, with over 50 programs under his belt) and dragged me along to the drinking and socialising part of it.

I spent the evening chatting to a pair of American girls that both worked as language teachers for Vaughan, about the Welsh language (one of them had a degree in linguistics), in great, confusing detail (on their insistence, I was the one confused, trying to remember linguistic rules and various idioms and sayings for them), one of them actually videoed me saying Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch on her camera.

Mike and I headed back to Rob's at 12 for me to grab my bag and say goodbye and I jumped back on the Metro to go to the airport. I managed to get out of paying the surcharge for the airport metro line by a combination of acting the stupid tourist (which always helps) and the fact that their ticket machines weren't accepting credit cards and I didn't have any cash.

Airports, as I doubt I need to inform anyone, are not nice places to sleep. Airport floors especially, are not comfortable. Neither particularly are Ryanair planes. It's interesting to note however, that though I be completely aware at the time that the reason I'm so pissed off is because I'm suffering from lack of sleep, this doesn't stop me wanting to kill everyone around me.

Back in Liverpool and everything feels the same. Managed to catch the Liverpool-Chester train with a minute to spare, missed the Chester-Bangor one but boy am I used to hanging around in that particular station.

I would have liked to have blogged live from Vaughan Town, however, the hotel didn't have any internet access other than WiFi, so I'm going to write an account of the whole week instead of day by day, probably a blessing for everyone but me.

After my failure to make it to the tapas evening, my initial nervousness had grown considerably - part of me was fully expecting to find an empty square without a bus in site.

This was not the case however, and I quickly found the correct group and bus. Turns out I wasn't the only one stressed out by not finding the tapas evening, Eva (the program director) was considerably relieved to see me, obviously worried I might not be in Madrid at all.

I chatted to Bob and Michelle (an American couple in their sixties that met online four years ago) and Dave and Kathy (a couple from Ontario) for a while before going to get a much needed coffee (or caffeine in any form really).

Before getting on the bus I made a more proactive effort to meet the people I was going to be spending a week with (I'd struck up conversation with the two couples by standing around until one of them said hello, I'm bursting with self-confidence me), and chatted for a bit with Phil (early 30s, from London) and Jane and Hillary (pair of teachers also from London). 

Went to sit next to Phil on the bus, planning to take it easy before the week started proper, but apparently it already had, and we were organized into Spanish-Anglo pairs, with some lucky Anglos (including Phil) left out since not all the Spaniards were traveling to the week by bus.

Now, its not that I didn't form as much of a bond with the Spaniards as I did the Anglos, its just that I'm crap with geography, and places I've never been to don't stick in my head, so don't ask me to tell you were all the Spaniards were from. Enough to say that the majority were from Madrid.

Vidal, who I sat next to on the bus, was from there. We passed the first half an hour doing the oh so interesting introductory conversation that I would get down pat in the next two days (and then thankfully abandon); 'oh so you've got a job' / 'I'm a student' / 'from Wales' / 'you're from Madrid?' / 'what made you come on the program' ; what fun!

Eventually we got onto more interesting stuff, though skiing is the only conversation topic that comes to mind now. This was all fairly daunting, as I noticed we weren't the only pair sitting in silence for long stretches of time.

After getting to the hotel we were ushered into the Meeting Room by Rob (29 year old Yorkshire man) the program Master of Ceremonies. Here we were told the rules of the week (mainly no Spanish, no mobiles and be on time) and introduced to the schedule:

08.15 - Wake up phone call
09.00 - Breakfast
10.00 - 1 to 1
11.00 - 1 to 1
12.00 - 1 to 1
13.00 - 1 to 1
14.00 - Lunch
15.00 - Coffee/tea
15.30 - Siesta / free time
16.45 - Wake up phone call
17.00 - Group activity
18.00 - 1 to 1
19.00 - 1 to 1
20.00 - Meeting room
21.00 - Dinner
22.00 - Coffee/tea/alcohol

As is probably apparent, this was incredibly daunting at first look, and proved to be on the first day; Sunday and Monday being the hardest days by far.

On Tuesday I had something of an epiphany and realised I was enjoying myself considerably. This mainly had to do with the fact that I'd started drinking in the evening and loosening up around the Spaniards (who I noticed, had a considerably easier time speaking English when drinking than otherwise, proving once and for all that their problems were to do with confidence, not language competency).

Because we were 'such a good group' apparently, we were allowed on Tuesday to play board games and the like in our afternoon 1 to 1 sessions, forming groups of 4-6 people. This was not normally (according to Eva) allowed until Thursday, but, like I said, we were 'such a good group'.

I was skeptical about this, figuring it was as true as when schoolteachers tell you you're the 'worst year' they've ever taught. But talking to Rob and Eva, who I got to know pretty well by the end of the week, this seemed to be genuinely true, though I remain at a loss to how it would be otherwise - the Anglos were enthusiastic and friendly, but why come on this program if you're not, the Spaniards keen and rule-abiding, but they were either paying to be on the course, or being paid to be on it, so this made sense too. Apparently things go wrong however, some people are just dickheads I guess.

Highlights of the week included:

Jam night. Rob informed us that he'd be playing guitar in the meeting room for us that night (attendance completely optional) and had roped in Alberto to help him out. I figured this would be crap, knowing a fair amount of people who can 'play guitar' and only really know one, maybe two songs properly. I was genuinely impressed that Rob ran through about twelve songs off by heart before getting out a song book to remind himself of chords/lyrics, but by then he'd also had at least three glasses of rum, so fair play. Finished off the night sitting inside chatting with several of the Spaniards and Lynne (middle aged Glaswegian) about the intricacies of the Wales/Scotland/Anglo relationship, and being taught about Catalonia. From what I understand (there were no Catalonians present, so the information was very one-sided) Catalonia is awesome, and does a fantastic job off pissing off the rest of Spain, just like Wales and Scotland do to English people.

The food. Nearly perfect all week with only a few misses. Meals were chosen (lunch and dinner, breakfast was a continental buffet) the day before, from a choice of two starters and three main courses for each meal. It's amazing how quick you become used to eating a three course lunch and dinner each day, and how little weight you put on, especially considering that apart from one days swim in the pool, we were doing next to no exercise. A decent bottle of red wine was provided with every meal (not including breakfast obviously) and I managed to further my taste for wine during the week, to the point where I can now fully enjoy a glass (it was free, go figure).

Queimada evening. We were treated to a weird ceremony from Galithea (in Northern Spain, where they still speak a form of Celtic similar to Welsh) in which a drink is made from vast quantities of grain-liquor, coffee beans, orange peel and sugar, while a spell is read. In our case the spell was read in English, Spanish, and because we had a genuine Galithean in the group, in its original language. The drink was burned whilst the spells were read, and though you'd expect this to burn off all the alcohol, a fair amount remained. It tasted like shit, and smelled almost exactly like vomit, but the overall evening was nice.

Karaoke night. The last night was party night, were everyone drank (amazingly many of the Anglos did not drink - other than a glass of wine at dinner perhaps - for the rest of the week, despite being on holiday far more than the Spaniards) and sang karaoke and enjoyed themselves. The only downside of the evening was caused by the hotel's rule (agreed to by Vaughan Systems office staff and much hated by the company's MCs and directors) that everyone had to be out of the Meeting Room at 1am when the bar shut (which was in the main building), despite the staff being awake to man reception anyway and the fact that the hotel would have made a killing on the bar considering that everyone wanted to carry on drinking (there were only about four other people in the hotel for God's sake, but Vaughan Town were not really given the respect they deserved considering the amount of revenue they brought the hotel). Even so, I chatted to Rob a lot, and luckily for me, he invited me to hang out at his before going to the airport the next night (I had a 4am check-in and had to be at the airport before 2am when the Metro shut, I had planned to sit in the airport all evening rather than pay for an hostel or drag my bag around town).

Low points:

The weather. After a fantastically sunny and hot weekend in Madrid, Sunday in Gredos was also nice. This, however, was not to last, and the rest of the week it rained almost constantly, culminating in, I swear, snow on Friday morning. This created a bit of cabin fever given that we couldn't really leave the hotel, alleviated by the fact that some of the Spaniards had their cars and if you drew them in your 1 to 1 you could both head into the nearby village for a coffee or a drink.

The swimming pool. Much anticipated on my account, it turned out to be as warm as bathwater, making it incredibly uncomfortable to swim in. I had a dip in the hot tub afterwards and there wasn't a remote difference in temperature.

The puddings. After an amazingly superb cheesecake and tiramasu on the first two days, expectations were high. They were ruined by subsequent servings of cold custard (just custard) and cold rice pudding made with regular rice not pudding rice, both further ruined by cinnamon. These were the exceptions to the norm though, and really, I'm just being picky.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Farrukh Mahmood <farrukh1980@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Apr 17, 2008 at 4:01 PM
Subject: wedding invitation --- Better Resolution of wedding card images
To: Aneeq Mahmood <its.aneeq@gmail.com>

at what time exactly will you be arriving pakistan ???
Thank you,

Farrukh Mahmood.
Ph: +92-301-846 6451

Didn't start out too well.

Had planned to go to the tapas evening on Saturday, was actually really looking forward to the tapas evening as had been bored listless all day (even at the Zoo). However, when it came to leave, I couldn't find my map (eventually I discovered it in the hood of my bag, instead of in my documents folder along with everything else), so I checked it online and wrote down the metro stops and streets I needed.

Being a country boy (even one with extensive metro/underground experience), I assumed that all exits from the station would end up in pretty much the same place, maybe on opposite sides of the road. Not so for Ruben Dario.

Two of the exits come out on the road I'd marked on my map and it would be a simple 5 minute walk to the meeting place (as I did the next morning).

The third exit came out on another street entirely, but this being the amazingly-scarcely signposted Madrid, I didn't realize this for a good half an hour, after walking the length of the (very long) street in both directions.

Eventually found the right street and subsequently the meeting place - twenty minutes late. Since I hadn't been reading the newsletters (hadn't realised you needed to), I had no idea which of several restaurants the Vaughan group was in, I wondered about for a bit hoping for someone to ask 'by any chance, are you James?', but no luck. I stormed off back to the hostel in a huff.

Hot.

Hot, hot, hot.

Haven´t been in anything but shorts since I arrived, went out at about 6 on the first day (after spending most of it in bed sleeping off my hangover) and amazingly could feel my skin burning. Lathered myself in suncream today and haven´t burned, hopefully won´t have put off the sun completely though.

The Spanish don´t seem to notice the heat though (and I´ve had this feeling confirmed by several other Brits) - I´ll be in shorts and polo shirt sweating gloriously and people walking past me will be wearing winter coats and showing no evidence of uncomfortability, I hope to never experience what they consider as hot.

Was planning to go to Bodies today, since it´s showing here, but it´s 17.50 E to get in and there was no guarantee that it´d be totally bilingual, so I decided to catch it sometime in the UK.

Went to the two national galleries (the Pardo and the Sophia, classical and 20th century modern respectively) which were both nice and pretty impressive, though the Pardo is almost too big (you find yourself skimming rooms and later going round half of them again before realising you´ve already been in there) and the Sophia had way to much cubist/Picasso-influenced stuff, especially considering that there was a separate huge temporary Picasso exhibit there.

The galleries charms were overshadowed however by how nice it was to sunbathe in the gardens each of them has, fell asleep outside the Pardo, thank God I had put suncream on.

Going to the Zoo tomorrow, then Tapas dinner, then start Vaughan Town on Sunday. Weather predictions aren´t good for next week, but the weekend looks to be consistently hot so yey.

Hangovers and flying don´t mix.

Watched the football in Liverpool (Arsenal 1 - 1 Liverpool) and won 7 pounds when I was forced to place a bet by Huw, by betting on Aberdayo to get first goal.

Went out to Medication (I think) afterwards, because Ali, Rob and Justin were all in Liverpool as well. Realised around 2am-ish that I should probably try and get some sleep since I had to get up at 5 to catch a bus to the airport.

Since my phone (Dad´s phone) had decided to not make any noise when the alarm goes off (just flashes, which is really useful when it´s in the pocket of your jeans, as you can imagine), I turned it off and on this morning (after realising it hadn´t woken me up) and that seems to have fixed it.

Meant to get up at 5, have time to drink some water and grab a shower to counter the hangover. Woke up at 6.30 when the alcohol left my system, checked my phone for the time and justifiably freaked out. Pulled on clothes and power-walked (was NOT in a state to run) to the bus station.

Got into the airport an hour before the flight, no big deal, crisis averted.

However.

After feeling absolutely awful in the airport, I downed a litre of orange juice in a vain attempt to feel healthier and then another half litre of water, felt a little better, got on the plane and managed to sleep for a bit.

Woke up mid-flight and was spectacularly, explosively sick. I had just taken my jacket off, so I managed to get it on the maximum number of clothes, only missing, I think, my hat and my socks.

You might think this was a pretty stupid thing to do, it was, but not entirely my fault, considering that firstly, I hadn´t been feeling ill - I had a mighty headache, but didn´t think I was anywhere near throwing up, I have never thrown up because of a hangover before - secondly, I was in the window seat, which, considering I only had about five seconds warning before my stomach decided to empty itself, meant I would have simply thrown up over the people next to me had I tried to get up. Thirdly, and most importantly, Ryanair, unlike any other plane I´ve been on, don´t supply sick bags (they gave me some afterwards which was a fucked up joke by anyone´s standards), so I had no option but to try and hold it in, swallow it back, but when my stomach wants to empty itself, it does, spectacularly.

So, walking through customs and waiting for my bag in sick stained clothes was fun, as you can imagine. I´ve never been so glad to see my rucksack in my life.

Thank God Madrid is gorgeous and sunny and hot and lovely, which made up for my flight somewhat.

On a side note, the steward on the plane was so sympathetic that I declined to mention that I was ill due to a hangover, happy to let him assume I had air sickness.

I copy/pasted all of my blog posts from my holiday into Word, give or take a couple hundred words for the header/footer of each post, I wrote over 10,000 words on holiday, about 22 pages.

Not that I have any reason for a personal website at the moment, it is interesting that both jgriffiths.com and jamesgriffiths.com are owned by illustrators / designers. 

I am now at home.

I've got vague plans to do something with what I've written, but these may or not ever be fulfilled.

I'll probably post sporadically (very sporadically), but only when there's anything really worth writing - since I'm not traveling atm, this will probably become a lot more bloggy and less diary-like.

Towards that extent, I cannot recommend enough Cory Doctorow's collection of short stories - Overclocked - a fantastic collection of sci-fi shorts focusing on technology, gaming and copyright.