Peacocks, black swans, ducklings, results and new Spanish friends

The girls finish school tomorrow so I now only have one free morning left! This morning I went to the Jardines del Moro (royal gardens behind the royal palace) as Mónica madre recommended. I got the metro to Principe Pio and managed to leave from the wrong exit and wander around a little before going back into the station and leaving from the right one. Mónica had told me to go left out of the station but I soon found out it was more of a straight-on left than directly left as I found myself at the wrong gate to the gardens (there is only one gate through which visitors are allowed to enter and leave). I got there in the end though and it was definitely worth it. As you enter the main gate you get a view of the palace on the other side of green lawns and a fountain.

 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!

Making friends!

After a week here, I only really had one problem. The family are lovely, the weather's been good and my job's pretty simple but I had started to feel a bit lonely. I hadn't really met anyone my own age, just children and parents, so needed to go out and make some friends. I'd heard about these intercambio de idiomas (language exchange) nights in bars so decided to try some out. The one I chose to go to was at J & J Books and Coffee near Noviciado metro station. There are intercambio nights there on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays starting at 8pm. Through my online research, I found that many of these other intercambio nights started later during the week, 9:30/10pm, which didn't suit me as well as I didn't want to go out so late at night.

I went for the first time on Wednesday and found my way there without any problems.  When I arrived, there were two guys standing outside speaking English so I knew I'd found the right place! Everyone there was very friendly and happy to talk. The way the intercambio works is that you stand around  with a couple of drinks in small groups of English and Spanish speakers and have a chat in both languages so that people can practise the one that they are learning at the same time as meeting new people and socialising. By the end of the night, I'd spoken to a mixture of Spanish, American and English people and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Unfortunately, I ended up speaking far more English than Spanish but I couldn't wait to return the next night to meet some more people!

Last night I returned to the bar where there was a slightly different crowd than the previous night. There were a couple of faces from the night before but the majority were new people to me. This time I spoke quite a bit more Spanish as I got chatting to a Colombian guy who seemed happy to talk in Spanish rather than English. The rest of our little group comprised of two German guys practising Spanish and the guy I'd met on the plane, the first time I'd seen him since arriving in Madrid! After the two evenings, I've gained a few phone numbers so maybe those will develop into friendships, although I will definitely continue going along to intercambio nights regardless. 

I would highly recommend them to anyone learning Spanish who happens to be in Madrid (they probably have them in other cities too). Even if you can't speak Spanish, it's a good place to meet other English speakers and help Spanish people out with learning English.