QUARTER-LIFE CRISIS

It’s that time of year again, and sadly I’m not talking about Christmas. I am obviously talking about ‘graduate placement application’ season, the time of year that I literally moved countries to avoid. Yet the beast has reared its ugly head once more and resistance is futile. My CV no longer resembles a coherent document. I could recite a 500-word essay on why I have the skills to be the perfect bin man. Even I am getting tired of milking my year abroad for all its worth in every answer I write. I am having what I can only imagine, is a quarter-life crisis.

So naturally, once all my applications have been submitted at the end of January, I’m going to do what any mentally stable person would do in my position: don a rucksack and travel around Europe on my own. In the space of 22 days, I will be visiting Brussels, Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, Munich, Venice, Rome, Milan and Toulouse (with one or two Marina gigs along the way, of course), ending up in Madrid just in time for the second semester to start. Yes, I’ve officially lost it. But I only have to log onto Facebook and check up on my law friends back at Leeds to see I’m not the only one. At least I’m experiencing my mental breakdown in Madrid and not in the Edward Boyle library.

Anyway, if this really is a quarter-life crisis, then it has been pretty great so far. Life has been quite hectic since I last posted over a month ago. For Halloween, we went to Kapital, a seven-story club that is full of enough horrors on a normal night, never mind Halloween, for Katy’s 21^st birthday. The theme was zombie celebrities, and my thick head of brown hair meant that Harry Potter was really my only option. It was great to see zombie Katy Perry, zombie The Joker and zombie Marilyn Monroe all waiting for a metro together, and inside the club I received a lot of drunken cries from Spaniards screaming ‘HARRY POTTER HA MUERTO?!’ (‘Harry Potter has died?!’) Sadly, however, at the grand old age of 20, I think I am just too old for ‘clubbing’ these days. These days I would much rather be in bed reading Harry Potter than paying 15€ just to enter a rubbish club and pretend to be him.

A few weekends later, we received a visit from Sal Pals Anna and Alex, now studying in Murcia, and their friends Rachel and Emily. On the Saturday night, we met the girls at our flat and headed to Ochoymedio. Finally, a club in Madrid that isn’t generally awful in every way. Walking in, I was greeted with the dulcet tones of Lana del Rey, Arctic Monkeys and Crystal Fighters, and it almost made up for all the terrible nights in clubs like Kapital. Almost. On the Sunday morning, feeling surprisingly fresh, we all went to the Parque de Retiro, my favourite place in Madrid, and hired boats on the lake. I had such a funny weekend with the girls and I can’t wait to go and visit them in Murciaside.

Last weekend, I once again played the role of tour guide when my Dad and Nan came to visit as an early birthday present for my Nan. Bizarrely, on my way to meet them, I bumped into my Spanish teacher Marisol from university last year in the middle of Madrid’s absolutely massive airport. I felt like a proud parent showing my Dad and Nan around my favourite parts of my new city, and we managed to squeeze plenty of tourist highlights into the weekend, including the Almudena Cathedral, the Royal Palace and the incredible Rastro market. It was fantastic to see them both (as well as the five huge bars of chocolate and seven different types of curry powder they brought with them), and I particularly enjoyed sampling the beer and free tapas in the Irish pub below my flat with my Dad until the early hours of the morning. I was sad to see them go but it’s less than a month until I am home for Christmas – probably wanting to jump on the first flight back to Madrid.

The university workload isn’t getting any lighter, but at least now I have a grasp of what I need to do and I definitely don’t feel as lost as I did a few weeks ago. I feel my Spanish is slowly but surely improving too. Particularly last weekend while my Dad and Nan were over, I found myself in the middle of full-blown conversations with Starbucks baristas, taxi drivers and waiters, who mentioned that they were impressed by my Spanish. Even my Civil law professor, who hates literally everyone, came up to me earlier today during a break to tell me that my Spanish was improving, after I was forced to read out loud three whole lines from the Civil Code. I think my problem is more a case of confidence than ability, so these little victories are making me feel much better about things. Maybe by the end of my year abroad, I’ll remember how to say the letter ‘Y’ so I can finally spell out my surname.

I leave you with this: Españasmus. Vodafone’s portrayal of what life is like for us Erasmus kids in Spain could not be more accurate.