Crumble, Comida y Chupitos.

As this was my 3rd week of work, by now I was well and truly into the swing of my main project at work. The description is most likely going to be a little dull, so feel free to skip to the next paragraph. I was essentially chasing up all unpaid premiums, sometimes dating back as far as 2011. I had 3 different templates to use, depending on if the client was through a broker, direct, or through Zurich in another country. I had to check through all the documentation of each policy, to make sure that I didn´t chase something we weren’t actually owed, and some of the policies were very complex so this could take a while. Once I’d got the hang of it and made a proper system for keeping track of everything, including payment reminders and involving other branches of Zurich when necessary if they weren’t coughing up, it ultimately came down to quite a lot of just copying and pasting policy details to put together the e-mails. I was happy to have a task with some responsibility, especially as it involved lots and lots of correspondence in Spanish, although admittedly I did shy away from phone calls at the beginning, much preferring to send e-mails, as answering the phone in another language to an actual important client is very scary, particularly when you aren´t used to it!

On Monday morning, there was a ‘solidarity’ breakfast at work. People were either encouraged to bring something in to share, or to pay a small contribution to join in, with the proceeds going to charity. As my culinary skills are somewhat limited (to say the least!), I opted for something quintessentially British, that also happens to be very easy to make, the classic apple crumble. I made a big one and saved half for my housemates and took half to work. It seemed to go down well and was finished off, but a lot of people did ask me what it actually was. Hopefully that’s just because they’ve never come across it before rather than because it didn’t resemble a crumble…

Educating the Mexicans in the way of the British crumble

That evening, Raul said he had a ‘surprise’ planned and that I had to be free at 9pm. It turned out that the Irish pub around the corner, Michael Collins (directly opposite the Sagrada Familia… just saying!), had a traditional music night every Monday with a live band. We managed to bag ourselves some free Guinness hats as well, that were left over from St Patrick’s Day yesterday. Apparently some people even go around taking these hats out of the bins and start selling them for 5 pounds a pop! I actually do really like Irish music, but this group were playing quite slow songs, and as my grandad always always had Irish music playing in his house, it started to bring back lots of memories, making me quite sad, so I was fine to go home after just a couple of drinks.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. Friday came around quickly, and we had a very short day at work as we were packing everything up. Having put ‘close to work’ as one of my top priorities during the house hunt, needless to say it came as quite a shock when I was told in my 2nd week of work that this office was going to be renovated over the next 3 months, and we would only return for my last 2 weeks in Spain. You can’t plan everything I suppose, and the new office, although not walking distance, is at least direct on the metro and also only a 10 minute walk from the beach! We were done by midday and allowed to go home as literally everything had been packed up and there was nothing left to do.

I spent the afternoon sleeping and packing, ready to spend next week at home. I then got ready for the evening and went into the centre to meet IZZY and her parents, who were in Barcelona for the weekend! We went out for dinner and had amazing tapas. Amazing amazing amazing. It was the first time I’ve tried proper tapas in Spain, and there just are no words. The patatas bravas, in particular, were incredible. Her parents were really kind and treated me to dinner, which I completely wasn’t expecting. After a litre of sangria with dinner we were feeling quite tipsy, and so said good night to her parents and went into the gothic area to meet my housemates. We went to quite a few bars, and spent a long long time in the shots bar that I’d first gone to last weekend. They even had a shot called Isabel, which of course we had to try, plus one called ‘Harry Potter’ which I wouldn’t recommend…. far too sticky. We then went to a couple of clubs and at 4am I decided to call it a night as my alarm was set for 8am the next morning and I did not want to miss my flight.

Pointing to the 'Isabel'

It was so lovely to see a familiar face out here, and I had a great night showing her the Barcelona nightlife. I was, however, very groggy at the airport the next morning, and came out with a surprisingly manly voice when my mum and aunt picked me up from the airport.

Once landed in England I was ultimately very glad to be home, and looking forward to spending time with my family, as that was what I’d wanted to do more than anything for the past 2 weeks.