Universidad? Que significa?*

A lot of people say to me, “Is all you do eat sandwiches?”.

When I say ‘a lot of people’, I mean my mother. Who worries that university is for studying! I mean, please - get with it, gran-ma! It is for wooing boys, and cheap cinema tickets.

That said, I have grown fond of the university brethren. There’s Blonde Janine in the international relations office, who has cream-cheese cheeks and speaks like a slow songbird. There’s the librarian with thumb rings. And “Call me Natalie”, who teaches us about Quebecois slang, and has hair horns, and dresses entirely, entirely in stonewash denim.

Then there’s Gabriel, who has suspiciously black hair and no official position in the university, but wanders around preying on lonely German Erasmus students. Once he caught me, and forced me to take his number.

On the scrap of paper he wrote “Voy a enseñarte Granada! Y traigo un niño!” [I’m going to show you round Granada! And I shall bring a young boy!] I'm not sure what he meant by this, but I wish the child well.

You may read this and think: Why are all these people teachers/administration assistants/sinister? Do you not have any friends your own age?

The answer is yes! There was a time when I wasn’t sure I was going to pull it off. The typical student here is a bit odd. Apparently, they are known in Spanish as “the camping type”. This is not because they wear sensible walking boots, it is because they are dirty and pour beer on their breakfast cereal. And the hair, the hair! Sometimes they have a bog-standard fringe from the front. But they turn around and wham – that’s 8 kilos of caveman dreadlock smack down their back. Also, they all have 3 dogs each, and don’t wear shoes. Not even flip-flops, which are inexpensive and aren’t at all difficult to put on.

In any case, through this mist of drug smoke and cheek piercings and stripey shorts, I found friends. Curly-haired French girls who barbecue honey-soaked aubergine; English comrades who want to speak Spanish without calling me “a smug twat” through kebab-wet lips for doing so; a mountain of Italians, a Pole here, a Turk there. It genuinely is like a microcosm of Europe. In fact, it is a bit like the European parliament, except that everyone is kissing eachother and speaking in a Long Island Ice Tea tangle of tenses. But I do like it. There is an innocence here; we gather round lyrics on laptops and sing George Michael; we do French cheese tasting evenings and show pictures of chubby uncles and old loves. It’s not Paris shiny, but it has different charm.

Yesterdazzle, after accidentally running up a mountain which blended my lungs into Gazpacho, a couple of us tried out the university eatery. It was boom, yo. An old lady gives you a ticket and a GLASS OF WINE! Wine! It tastes like church, but wine (!) from the official student canteen at lunch! Bladdy hell, no wonder everyone is kissing eachother. Anyway, then you get, por ejemplo, an entire ham and mushroom pizza, 2 little chicken breasts, vegetable tempura, a big brown baguette and a bowl of strawberries… all of this, all of it, you don’t have to choose, you get it all, for 3 euros! What can you get in Elvet Suicide (Durham) for this money? A “smoothie|” made from a duff apple and a horrible badge from the Christians.

Tomorrow we are going walking in the Alpujarras. I am a little bit scared because I am without Kendal mint cake. But mostly because the last time we went walking round these parts, a little man in a purple Fiat Brava followed us. And the path was strewed with fresh bullets. This is not even a lie.

On the plus side, we found a mustard-coloured sofa, which Paul sat on.



*The title refers to a question asked by someone 8 months into a Spanish course at Durham University. We were all saying the sentence "Soy estudiante en la universidad", and this Brainbox piped up with "Universidad? Que significa?". I mean, really. No wonder that when they taught us to tell the time, they literally taught us from scratch, as if we couldn't do it in English.