Confessions of A Working Girl

This time I was actually out for about 4 and a half hours, and I did drink alcohol, but let me start at the beginning.

I had texted the girl I’d met at intercambios, “Marissa” and asked what she was doing this weekend, since most of the people I hang out with went to Morocco for the week. I figured meeting up would be a good idea in order to practice my Spanish, and for her to practice her English. She called back a few hours later and, after a few minutes of trying to understand each other, asked what I was doing Thursday night. The answer was nothing. So she said that her English school was having “a fiesta” e.g. a party, on Thursday night, and did I want to come?

I have been told several times that going out with Spanish people was actually a better idea than going outwith other Americans. Plus, I had asked her first what she was doing during the weekend, so I said sure. The only problem was that I didn’t know where her English school was. Luckily, the boy that I’d also met at intercambios, “Matt” a friend of Marissa’s, lives on the same street that I currently do, and he also goes to that English school, so Marissa said that he would walk with me to the school.

That conversation took place on Wednesday. Thursday (yesterday) I had two classes.  The second class was from 6-8. During the class, the teacher mentioned a Spanish networking site that you can get into by invitation only. So, after class, I had a stupid question: “If you can only get on by invitation only, how did the first person get on? Since there was no one to invite them…” I was mostly being goofy, since logically I know that the first person on the site must have been one of the creators of the site. But overlooking that fact, I thought that it was an interesting question. One of those circle questions almost, like chicken or egg.

Anyway, I don’t think the teacher, “Mr. Garcia” quite got it, and this led into a discussion about marketing strategies. (This is one of my English classes–International Marketing) Somehow that led into a conversation about musicals. Mr. Garcia said that he went to London to see a performance of Chicago once. That’s one of his favorite musicals. His other favorite musical is Cats. (and dad, I can practically see you rolling your eyes when you read that). I told him about Sondheim a little, and about Wicked, since that was the only show that I’ve seen live. From there we went on to talk about music in general, (he plays guitar whereas I play violin). From there, I asked if there were music stores nearby. He wasn’t quite sure, but that led to him saying that I really should walk around Salamanca and explore. It was only when he said that he had to go that I realized that we’d been standing there talking for about 20 or 25 minutes!

Anyway, for the fiesta, I met Matt at the corner of the street at 11:15. We walked for a little while, and took so many turns that I was quickly lost. We waited in front of the school for Marissa. She and a friend of hers arrived soon, and then we went to the party. The party took place in the office of this business school. Some people were standing outside, some were inside. We stayed outside for a little while, and I met a few new people. (I’ll post the photo on Facebook not all of the people I met are in it, but Matt and Marissa are, as well as two others…I didn’t want to post it here since they’re in the picture and I don’t know if they want it scattered all over the web.)

I only had a coca-cola since the others were drinking beer, and I don’t like beer. There was one boy who was also only drinking coca-cola since he said that he had to drive home and then work the next day. Conversing wasn’t too hard, since all of these people had been studying English. We usually ended up speaking in sort of a mixture of both. I’m not sure how long it was, but after a while we moved inside. Towards the end of the fiesta, I ended up with coke and rum, which I had always said that I didn’t like, but this time it didn’t taste too bad. Although that could be because I had watched Matt prepare the drink, and it was pretty much half rum, half coke and a teeny piece of ice.

Around 2 am they started cleaning up the party, so we left. The boy who had work really left. The rest of us stood talking for a little, then Matt and Marissa followed a group of people who were headed towards a bar. I followed them, since I had no clue how to get back if I left then, and also because I wanted to see the bar they picked versus the one that Richard and his friends had chosen.

We lost the people in front of us, and then it was Matt, Marissa, me, an obviously drunk English teacher, and two others that were walking, trying to figure out where we were going. I talked to one of the others for a few minutes–he had studied Japanese! But he left early, deciding not to go to the bar with us.

We walked for a little while. Strangely, half of the people on the streets were dressed in costume. It made no sense to me that people were celebrating Halloween early, especially considering that they don’t really celebrate Halloween here.

Anyway, the bar we ended up in was small and crowded. But the noise was mostly from people talking rather than the music. I liked it much better than I had liked the bar I went to with Richard’s group. Here, I actually purchased alcohol. It was 5 euro for a glass of rum and coke. (That much…what was I thinking? ^^) I didn’t recognize most of the other types of alcohol, though they did have Jameson’s and Bailey’s. It was a pretty large glass though, and thanks to that, I think I discovered the feeling called “tipsy”.

I mean, I was thinking normally, and knew that even if I had a car I wouldn’t drive it, but at the same time, something was a little odd. Since it was past 3 am at that point, I can’t say for certain if I was tipsy off of the alcohol, or lack of sleep. Or both. Marissa took charge of the very drunk English teacher, and was going to escort him home.

Matt escorted me back. (His sister has a rat terrier puppy) He even walked me right up to the door of the apartment! The second I stepped in the apartment I checked my watch, and it was 3:45 am. I was surprised. Other than a little time at the bar, the night had passed very quickly, and…I had fun. Once I got over being nervous and didn’t worry so much about messing up my Spanish, that is.

My only problem after that was that it was very hard to get to sleep and I think I was half awake the whole night. I got up around 11, ’cause if I slept any later than tonight I would have problems. I’ll wait a little in case they’re still sleeping, and then I think I’m going to text Matt and Marissa and see if they want to walk around Salamanca with me tomorrow.