VICTOR'S LEAVING PARTY

There’s a pub called “The Court hotel” in Naas that there’s karaoke every Wednesday night.  It’s a good place for drinking and dancing. It’s very big with two floors, nice people and very well-known because a lot of people go there on the weekend. The karaoke starts at 10.30pm until 1.30 pm and after that there’s dance music until 2.30 pm when it  closes. The karaoke is supported by a speaker and he sings the first songs. We celebrated Victor’s leaving party. Victor is a guy from Barcelona. He studied at the same school as me although he only was here for 4 weeks. He’s a very nice guy although he’s sometimes a little bit absent-minded. We’ll miss him. There were six of us. Natty, Claudia, Silvia, Cristina, who works as an intern teacher in some primary school, and Maria, who works as an au-pair. Both of them I hadn’t met either of them before. They are from Spain and so am I. We arrived at 10.00 pm and we had drunk a few paints before we started to sing. There’s a book with the songs and you can choose one of them. It’s very difficult to choose only one because there’re a lot. Fortunately I had decided what song I would sing. The girls chose to sing “wannabe” by Spice Girls. They did very well although the song was quite difficult because the song is very quick. The second performance was given by Victor and I. Both of us sang the song “Imagine” by John Lennon. I like this song but it isn’t a good song for karaoke because it’s very slow but Victor had decided on the song and we sang it. I acted in the third position. I’d decided to sing “I’ll be there for you” by The Rembrants. I like this song because it’s the theme of the serie Friends. I knew the lyrics and for that reason it was easy for me. Everybody gave me congratulations at the end of the song. I think I gave a good performance and the last person who sang was the japanese girl, Natty. I’d made some rules before singing to the karaoke. Rules number 1- the songs have to be very well known 2- nobody should say what song they are going to sing 3- the song has to be in English and the last but not least was that it’s forbidden to take any videos o photos.

Natty broke one of the rules because she sang in Japanese. She did very well but nobody understood what she was saying. To sump up, the night was very funny. Everyone enjoyed it and Victor will have very good memories of that night. At least I hope so. 

All the best,

The Court hotel

Victor and I singing

NAAS AFC

Last weekend I sent an email to Naas AFC. One of the football clubs in Naas. I told them that I worked as a football coach in Spain and I had played in third division for several years. Also I told them that I had a pro licence. They replied to me days later and the head coach wrote his phone number and he told me to call him. The next day I called him and we were talking and he said to me that on Sunday morning there is a football academy between Naas and Newbridge and I could go there. I don’t have a car but he picked me up at Tesco. The pitches are 10 kilometres from Naas. We arrived at 9.30 am and the work out started at 9.45 until 11.45. The level of the group is under eleven years old. The coach is Cooper and I was his assistant coach. The weather wasn’t too bad because it wasn’t raining but it was a freezing day. My feet were wet and I could scarcely move. The coach did a great job although the drills were a little bit dynamic but the explanations were good. I observed all the work out and I sometimes tried to say something but I didn’t have enough words to explain properly. The next group was at 12.00 to 14.00 pm in this group the coach let me to do a drill. He did a lot of exercises about possession and when he finished he told me it was my turn and I had to do any exercise about possession. I did one with 3 teams. Purpose: two of them have to try keeping the ball and the third team has to get the ball back, when the team recovers the ball, they have to keep the ball with the other team which didn’t lose the ball. My explanation wasn’t good enough but the players had done it before in their clubs so it was easy to understand it. That morning I learnt a lot of vocabulary about football and I hope to improve everyday. The next day will be on Monday. I promise to tell you more details about my experience as a football coach. At this moment I’m trying to listen and see the work out but when I have more confidence I’ll try to do my own work out.

Regards,

On Sunday mornings

Football pitches

Kildare Academy

THE DINNER

Natty's house

On Thursday night I had my first party at Natty’s house. I enjoyed it a lot. There were six of us. Claudia, Silvia (I didn’t know her although she’s studying at Avanti in the evening), Victor and two japanese girls: Natty, who is in my class and Aya, who is studying at Avanti as well. We gathered at 6:30 in Aldi’s car park. Aldi is a supermarket located close to Natty’s house. I had arrived first so I waited for the rest of the people. A few minutes later Silvia and Claudia arrived. We had to call to Natty because she was late. In the end she arrived with her friend. All together we were to her house. It was very beautiful and very cosy. We had the opportunity to meet the hostmum. She’s a lovely person. She’s an English and music teacher and she spoke to me about her previous guest meanwhile the girls were cooking the dinner. The spanish girls prepared a delicious spanish omelette without salt because they forget it. The japanese girls made an amazing oriental food. I can’t tell you the name of the food because I don’t remember it. Victor and I set the table and opened the red wine bottles as gentlemen does. We had dinner late around 10 pm because we didn’t have enough oil and eggs and we had to go back to Aldi to buy more. The girls made an omelette with eleven eggs. Oh my God!! I’ve never seen such a big omelette as that in my life.

During the dinner we were eating and drinking. It was a great dinner. We laughed a lot. The dinner was excelent with marvellous dishes and the company couldn’t  be better. We decided to repeat it again. Probably the next day would be when we have to say goodbye to Victor. The distance from Natty’s house to my house is a little bit far but fortunately Aya lives close to my house and her hostmum picked us up and she gave me a lift. It was late and I tried to sleep but it was impossible because I remembered the dinner and I couldn’t stop laughing.

Cheers!!

Making the omelette

For clowns

THE GYM

On Wednesday afternoon Eileen (my irish mother) asked me if I’d like to go to the gym with her. “Why not”, I answered. She always goes there. She’s a sporty woman. The gym is located near to Monread Park and it’s one of the best gyms in Naas. Matthiew (Eileen’s son) said to me that there are 4 gyms in Naas. The gym is like Talamillo gym in Burgos. It has a 25 meters swimming pool, different rooms for doing colective classes like body pump, streching, pilates, bodyball, zumba, step and so on. Also there is a big room with all kind of machines for running, weights and cycling. We went to the gym with Matthiew. He wanted to do spin so I decided to do it with him too.

I think that everybody knows what spin means, don’t they? Spin is a static cycling that is done to music and the monitor tells you what to do all the time. I’ve done spin a few times in my life but I like it.

This time was different because the monitor was Irish and I understood nothing only a few words like faster, stand up, sit down and no more. One time she looked at me and she shouted out: “heavy, heavy” but I didn’t understand her. I did a gesture with my hands and after that she didn’t tell me anything. It was a funny class although I couldn’t figure out anything. The next day Eileen asked me if I was ok but I had to tell her the truth. I said to her I had a pain in my bottom because the saddle was very hard but I enjoyed it a lot. I promised to go back. That’s all for today, guys.

Kisses to everybody except to one.

WEEKEND

What do you do when you don’t know anybody on the weekend? A few things. On Saturday morning I went to the library and in the afternoon I wanted to see “The clásico” on the net because I have a goltv and I can see all the matches on the internet but that day I don’t know what happened that I couldn’t see the match. The signal didn’t work every two minutes so I went to the pub to see the match. I was in Grace’s pub like the last day. It was a very poor match. Messi was missing but at least Barcelona won the match 2-1. “The great boy” Alexis scored a great goal and Ancelotti made a big mistake in his line up like the latest matches that Real Madrid played against Barcelona. During the match, an old man sat beside me. He was talking to me all through the match but I didn’t understand him and I only nodded my head and said “yes, yes”.

At night I was in my room watching the film “The hangover”. I imagine that everybody has watched it because it’s a very funny film. I laughted a lot although I had watched it when I was in Spain.

On Sunday I didn’t do anything special. I went to the church and I spent the day at home. The next day was a bank holiday in Ireland so I did the same than Sunday. Nothing, just chill out.

I’ve done a deal with my Irish mum. She has a hairdresser in her garage and one day she told me that she might cut my hair so being fair with her I told her if she cuts my hair I’ll mow the lawn. They have a big lawn. I’ve never mowed a lawn in my life but I don’t think that it’s very difficult so we agreed and we decided to exchange our skills.

Regards,

THE SECOND WEEK

Typical irish door

The times is going very quickly. On Wednesday I went to the library. I wanted to have a library card for taking out books and some films. I did it and later I studied for a long time. There was a girl who asked me if I were spanish and I told her I was and she replied me that she was a spanish too. She’s from Pontevedra and she has a very typical gallego accent (like Pichaldo when he lived in Galicia). She’s Mónica and she’s nice girl. After we finished our studies we went walking beside the canal. I haven’t been there before. It’s a very good place for walking. I liked it. Finally we exchanged our numbers phones. After that I went to my house.

The next day I continued exploring the town. I went to the Tesco extra again. On Friday morning I went to the academy but I was watching a film in the library because I don’t have class on Friday. My classes are from Monday to Thursday. In the evening I went to Grace’s pub. I like seeing live performances. I don’t remember the name of the musical group but they were amazing. They played well known songs like Sweet home Alabama, Whisky in the jar, High by Lighthouse Family, Feel by Robbie Williams and so on. That was really good. I enjoyed it a lot. Meanwhile I drank a pint of beer. There weren’t a lot of people in the pub because the great day for going out was on Sunday. On Monday it was a bank holiday in Ireland.

Peace and love

 

Look at I found

The canal

MY FIRST DAYS

On Sunday morning as I told you I went to mass and in the afternoon I was at home. The next day was my first day of class. I was a little bit nervous. The classes last 4 hours from 9 to 1 pm. The first person I saw was Natty. She’s from Japan and as with all oriental people she’s very cool. She lives with an Irish family too. We’re between 10-12 people it depends on because a lot of people work as au pair and they usually work in the morning so for that reason isn’t not always the same people in the classroom. We’re from different nationalities although we’re more spanish people. The teacher is Cathal and he’s from Newbridge.

In the afternoon I’m explored the town. I went to the Odeon cinema asking about the prices and timetables and also I was in Tesco extra on Monday. Tesco is a big supermarket that in the past opened 24 hours but now it opens until midnight. It’s 40 minutes by foot from my house.

On Tuesday I went running. Naas is a good place for running because there are a lot of parks and good places for doing exercises. The only big problem is the bad weather. That day the Murphy’s law occured to me. It didn’t rain in the afternoon but I went for running it started to raining. What a fuck bad luck!!

Yours sincerely,

Michael

Some of my classmates

The black way

The big Tesco

The council Town