It was a weekday morning so there were not many people around. The gardeners were busy at work and there were sprinklers watering the plants everywhere. I had to run at times to avoid getting wet! I'm sure in the UK gardens don't need these as we get enough rain. Some of the grass still looked dry despite the sprinklers.
Back to the title of this post. There were so many birds in the gardens! I was just reading the information about the gardens when a group of four peacocks casually walked towards me - an adult male, an adult female and two peachicks (thanks Google for that one!). I continued walking around for a bit and came across a pond with lots of ducks and, more interesting, two black swans. I don't think I'd ever seen a black swan before! I'm not even sure I new they existed before the film. Walking around the gardens a bit more, I saw a bunch of ducklings with their mother. I hadn't planned on bird-watching this morning but it seems that that became my morning activity!
I had planned to post this much earlier but got distracted by results which came out early today. I got an average of 65% for the year, a 2:1, so was pretty happy although slightly annoyed that I didn't get a first like last year when it didn't count! My worst mark was in Spanish (57%) so it's probably a good idea that I'm here practising now.
I then went out to meet some Spanish friends who I met at intercambio last week. The idea was to go to an Irish pub for another intercambio but the reality was that I don't think you could really call it an intercambio at all. It was much more formal than the other gatherings I'd been to. Everyone was sitting at tables in a circle facing the founder, an Irish man who founded the group 30 years ago. Although they called it an intercambio, a better name would be "English debating society" as everyone there, apart from the leader, was Spanish wanting to practise English. There were about 30 people and the way it worked was for each person to introduce themselves - name, what they do, their hobbies etc. - before the Irish guy announced a topic for debate and everyone had 30 seconds to voice their opinion on the subject. There seemed to be a number of rules for the group:
1. Don't be late, be there at 8.30pm sharp - he was annoyed with us for turning up late but we'd been sitting at the other end of the pub, oblivious to the fact that they were in a separate room, before asking the barman if there really was an intercambio tonight.
2. Only one person can talk at a time - for Spanish people this is very difficult. In most Spanish conversations you need to fight to be heard, everyone talks over each other. It was particularly strange as we were debating and you could only express your views within your 30 second slot meaning that no one really got very long to speak.
3. You are not allowed to talk about politics, religion or sex - at first when he said this, I thought "fair enough, they're controversial topics", but the first topic for debate was "should the government give students a one-way ticket abroad". Correct me if I'm wrong, but surely the government is to do with politics?
We got to a break and the four of us told him that we were off to pay for our drinks and food at the bar before slipping out of the pub completely, really not what we were expecting! Instead, we went to another place where we could have our own intercambio, talking in both languages, talking about topics we were interested in and having more than 30 seconds at a time to talk! It ended up being a really nice evening and we've agreed to meet again soon sometime in the near future. Yay, I have Spanish friends!
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