sundays and the bar with the well.

This sunday it was good food, the dessert being peanut butter ice-cream and despite being on clean up, i managed to find some of the much talked about spainsh sun to follow. But by evening the ever chasing thought of work to do had got to me, never having a spare minute and every spare second sticking my head in a spanish dictionary or verb sheet in preperation for wednesday i finally hit my breaking point. I hadnt taken much time alone and had spent saturday round madrid with the girls, its was great wading through the mullet-ville of madrids main park, spotting the gorgeous spanish men amongst the tarro and palm readers and harry crishners that greeted you as you headed for a clear patch of sun bathed grass to do some work.

we finally admitted defeat and left for a local jazz bar i had spotted while wondering through those picturesque streets last week. as we sat and worked through the weeks lectures and jouranl reports i tried to get my head around four spanish tenses alternating between coffee and hot toddies for my ever increasing sore throat.

But tonight had been the sunday night escape to Alcalar with Hannah to laugh and take a break. We stopped for pizza at this little argentinian bar first, it was fast becoming our regualr stop, it was nothing special, it was dirty and noisy the football always blearing out. But that didnt matter the pizza was the best in madird and it was cheap we were never entirely sure how much it cost but only knew that the staff were bad at maths as everytime they charged us wrong so leaving the change tray full as we left.

we went to the secret bar, a bar with a courtyard and a well, inside its interior old and unique with dark red walls supporting old chandeliers and chared wood shelving. its bailyes coffees the finest i had ever found, and the tubby barman didnt wrinkle his nose at our bad spaish but always ablidged with a smile. This was a secret we told no-one on the course about as we laughed and exchanged secrets and revelled in someone else who seemd real with an imperfect and generally inappropriate sense of humour. I loved sunday nights in Alcala.