Catastrophes at number 7B

This is the view of Seville from my window! No Filter (lol jk)

It's not yet been a week since we arrived in Seville, but we've been on an emotional roller-coaster as we adjust to life in our new flat.

When we arrived, late on Friday afternoon, the scene was one of extreme jubilance. We are living on the seventh floor! That's five floors closer to heaven than I've ever been! Even better than that, our building is situated so that when we wonder onto the balcony - and when I look out my bedroom window - we see a view of the whole of Seville, from here in the Macarena right to La Giralda in the city centre, and it's just resplendent in the sunshine.We giggled and scuttled to and fro. We have a key to our roof terrace and up we went, marvelling at being out in the sunshine on a ROOF! In SEVILLE! IN SPAIN!

On the second day, everything came crashing back down to earth. Firstly, there's this fun aspect of Spain where loads of flats aren't connected to gas pipes - instead you have a massive metal canister of gas that you have to fill up/replace when it runs out. This (apparently) is done by little vans who drive around hitting metal sticks together and shouting "GAS! GAS!", then you have to hang out your window and wave and shout "OI! COME TO FLOOR SEVEN I NEED GAS!". When we arrived our gas cannister was almost empty, and there was none of these little gas men bumbling around, so we were a gas-free zone. So cold showers and no cooking. Then, our internet stopped working, which makes me anxious because and sad, and also made it a bit complicated to try to contact anybody else in our group. Contemplating our misery, I attempted to wash some manky old towels that we'd found in the bathroom, and all the electricity cut short and went out. No electricity ... no gas ... no internet... it was like living in the middle ages. Even in Cuba I had hot water!!!!!!!! I mean can you imagine our level of suffering? The pain? The inconvenience? The injustice!?

We had a little look at the fuse box, and there were a lot of switches and nothing was helping, so I toddled over the corridor and knocked on our neighbour's door to see if they had any helpful insights. You can say what you want about people from Seville, but they are friendly. A little old lady came out in her dressing gown, and immediately summoned a small hoard of helpers from our floor who spent the next half hour pottering around and poking things.

Its now Thursday, and EVERYTHING is working!!! We've got electricity - we've got internet connection - and I'm gassier than I've ever been before! Hurray! Even better than that, despite being January, Seville has that special feeling in the air of SPRING! I think its the combination of the sunshine, cold air and a slight breeze. It feels fresh and just like Sundays in April. So we feel all jammy and pleased with ourselves again.

Coming soon: the big Ikea idea.

A view from Las Setas/El Parasol, that we took whilst distracting ourselves from misery at home...

ALLLLLLL my love xxx

I'm doing Leornardo in Seville

HOLA CHIC@S!!

Figaro's Balcony, next to the park where they're filming Games of Throne is Sevilla

After a year of twiddling my thumbs and complaining about the rain in Manchester/Wolverhampton I've made a break for it. Now I'm in Sevillaaaa so I thought I'd write about it. Do you like my new blog banner? Well you're not the only one, only this afternoon I was complimented on my handiwork by and actual, professional GrApHic DeSignEr!!!  He thought it was made on Photoshop. #justsaying

I'm excited to be in Seville as after university I basically moved straight back home. This obviously has advantages like a dishwasher, a really relaxed attitude to central heating and my parents own an almost obscene amount of cutlery. But after a couple of months at home, me and the cat were skating on thin ice. He's a skinny little animal now, ageing ungracefully and breaking all house rules in an almost obnoxious manner. I do like him really but he has a CATTITUDE problem and its a nightmare.

Anyway, I'm now like 1500 miles away from all that so I can take a deep breath and move on! I'm here doing a cheeky internship. It was a bit awkward before I left because people kept asking me what the internship was, but I didn't actually know what it was so I had to say 'I don't really know', and then they furrowed their brows with concern. The truth is we arrived on Sunday night and didn't find out the full details until yesterday afternoon. HOWEVER, I can now declareee that apparently I'll be working for a company that does something like manage educational cultural events and tours. Its all a bit confusing because I was told all the info in Spanish. Anyway I don't start til next week so I guess I'll know more then. The best thing about finding out where we were working is that the woman pronounced the 'p' in receipts, and she said receipts a LOT.

View from my window. Nice, innit?

There's six of us here from the UK but we're all living separately. We've been meeting in the days though and exploring the city, as well as sharing stories about our accommodation. Regular fans will remember my interesting places I've stayed when I've tried to escape Wolverhampton before (Little Old Landlady's 80's micro-flat in Austria, glass and metal war bunker in Cuba....). Well, things have taken a turn for the GREAT. I'm living in the historic centre of Seville in a totally traditional Spanish building, in a top floor room that looks out onto the tiled courtyard. From what I can tell, my (SINGLE) bed is made of ROCKS. It is firmer than J Lo's abs. But you know what, its all about the vista, and the VISTA is BUENA. My street is so narrow there are no cars, its all cobbled stone and iron gated doors. Without exaggerating, I think I've got lost maybe 1 million times so far? I've all unpacked now so the next step is to find a good supermarket nearby, as we've been eating out since we got here at all these tapas bars and stuff...basically the point I'm making is that I'm living the Sevillian dream!

Right I'm gonna toddle off now to buy a Spanish phone and eat some tapas. cya innit xxx