Easter Break 2

Here comes the long awaited second part of my Easter break. After being home for one week, my next destination was Madrid. There, I visited my friend Sophie, who is also doing her semester abroad. Personally, when I think of Spain, I immediately think of sunshine and good vibes. Sophie's reports about the weather have made me envious for the past 3 months. I was glad to finally see some sunshine and escape from the rain. However, life is not always what we wish for, and the weather was a bit different. The reality was 12 degrees and rain.

Who would have thought that it could be colder in Madrid than in Manchester. While Sophie and I struggled in the rain, it was 25 degrees and sunny in Manchester.

In Madrid, we walked a lot and visited many smaller shops. However, the rain made the whole city a bit sadder than it usually is. The best summary of my weekend is actually: eat, sleep, eat, walk, eat, walk, eat, sleep.

The Spaniards know what good food is, so we had eaten at many beautiful places in Madrid.

On Sunday morning at 7 o'clock, my return flight with my favorite airline was scheduled. That meant getting up at 4 o'clock. I realized quite late that I would be coming back on Easter Sunday and had not thought about the fact that all the shops in my area would be closed. Since I hadn't been home for two weeks, I didn't really have any food either. After all the eating in Madrid, I had to go through a little fasting period.

My next destination was Rennes/Nantes in France. I visited my friend Peter and his host family from school. You always hear these stereotypes that the French don't speak English. I didn't really want to believe it at first because I couldn't imagine that people of my age couldn't speak fluent English, but unfortunately I have to say that the people I met didn't really speak English. And on top of that, I don't speak a word of French, which made communication a bit more difficult in general. Somehow, I managed to understand a few words. As I always suspected, there has been a hidden Latin genius inside me since school days, which is probably why I was able to derive a few words.

In Rennes, we only explored the city center. With Peter and his host mother, we took a trip to Saint Malo, which is a really beautiful area. The weather was surprisingly good, so we walked a lot around and in the city.

Peter's host parents were very nice and they tried their best to communicate with me in English, which didn't go very well. Generally, only French was spoken and I simply answered everything with yes, no or thank you. Somehow, it worked.

On Sunday, April 28th, we flew back to Manchester. However, I would have preferred to stay there in Madrid or at home because I had little desire to be with my roommates. Just to get some sympathy, I will briefly describe the situation in the kitchen, which I entered for the first time after 3 weeks. First of all, I have to say that in general, you can only walk around the house with shoes on, otherwise you would probably catch diseases or step on old food leftovers.

As a normal person, I would claim that if you know that you will not be home for three weeks, you either wash your dishes or put them in the dishwasher and start it. Apparently, some people don't think that far and just leave it somewhere. What is probably unclear is that if you just leave dishes with food leftovers, they will eventually start to mold. And if the dirty dishwasher hasn't been turned on for three weeks, the same thing happens. The result is a rather unpleasant smell and no clean dishes. So, the situation in the kitchen was not so nice when I came back.

Fortunately, there are many restaurants in Manchester, so I didn't have to spend any time in the kitchen. To be honest, I don't really want to know how much money I've spent on restaurants just so I don't have to eat in my own kitchen. But the countdown is on and in four weeks the lease will finally end. I think I will write a separate post dedicated to my roommates, where I describe the top 10 most disgusting things I have experienced here in the house.

It is definitely worth reading this post!