Flying Visit to Madrid

10.10.16 — Madrid

In between the rising pressures and final year lectures of university, I managed to somehow find a three-day lapse, and then through some divine intervention a couple of cheap Ryanair flights to go with it – and so booked a spontaneous 48 hour trip to Madrid a couple of weeks back!

The trip began with a grueling 2:30 wake-up, followed by a groggy drive down a barely nevagble M60 to Manchester Airport, upon which every single exit specified by Google Maps (which had also rather helpfully decided to give all voice commands in Spanish) was closed for roadworks. My frazzled brain somehow parsed the Spanish and I made it to the airport, whereupon I proceeded to get myself completely lost trying to find my car park.

Once I had realized that I’d booked my car out for 2am rather than 2pm, I made my apologies in the car park reception and waddled over to the terminal building, where inside I then proceeded to panic as I couldn’t find my passport and boarding card – of all the things to misplace. They were indeed eventually found and I made my way through security, on to the plane and southward over the plains of España.

Once I touched down I began my familiar wander through the airport, onto the trusty Metro and into the belly of the city, where I stopped for a bite to eat before heading straight for the Erretres studio before I had even found my place for the night! I wandered in and said hello to everyone, before eventually settling down and having a laugh with the guys I used to work with plus their new designer. We decided then to head out for lunch together the next day, and eventually I had to head off out to find my apartment for the two nights.

After a much-needed nap I then headed out to meet up with Thuy, with whom I used to work with in my earlier days at Erretres, and we headed off into the city to grab some steamed buns and tinto de verano – and we wound up spending hours and hours chatting and catching up! Before we knew where we were we found ourselves in a cocktail bar, and then we wound up in a classic Madrid institution, San Ginés, where we finished our night with a plate of churros and chocolate.

Late night churros are always a good idea

The next day I woke up and spent a while meandering around the city, where I visited the Jardines del Recuerdo, a large cemetery and public gardens in the east of the city. It was peaceful and solemn and felt a million miles from the hectic university life back in Leeds! I was soon rushing off again though, as it was time to grab the Metro to meet the Erretres team back at our old favorite Thursday afternoon haunt, the Café del Rey.

Lunch with the team was as lovely as ever, and as everything was all over too soon as they had to get back to work and I had some more strolling around I wanted to do. I headed from the studio back up to the Debod Temple, down through the Plaza de España and approached the Royal Palace through Sabatini Gardens, snapping photos and basking in the sunny ambience as I went.

As the evening drew on I met up with Alejandro for a burger dinner at my favorite burger bar, Bacoa, after which we headed up to a bar I hadn’t visited before which sits atop the huge El Corte Inglés department store right in the center of the city. Up there I grabbed myself a huge gin and tonic and admired the view, which looked right down Madrid’s Main Street Gran Vía, past the infamous Schweppes neon that sits on its corner.

The night was still young, however, and clutching a bag full of jamón and wine I headed to one of the flats I used to stay in to meet up with my old flatmaes and the new arrivals there. We wound up cooking pizza (which went unbelievably disastrously wrong), having a glass of wine and chatting well into the wee hours of the morning – it was a lovely chance to catch up and have a laugh as we always did!

Four hours later though I had to wake up and head to the airport, and so my late night had me cursing myself on the flight back home. Once I landed the trip back to Leeds was much smoother than my outward journey, and I arrived back at my place to be greeted by an empty and peaceful house and a bed to collapse on. A whirlwind visit it definitely was, but every moment was a joy, and I shall undoubtably be back soon for another few days of vagueando…*

* Being super lazy

Final Year Looms

26.09.16 — Leeds

So it’s now been nearly two months since I touched down back on British soil, and since then I’ve moved back into a new house in Leeds, which is now finally full with everyone ready for the start of university this week! You know you’re living in a house full of designers when a day is spent with post it notes re-designing the layout for storage in the kitchen…

Redesigning the world cupboard by cupboard

During fresher’s week and alongside all the obligatory evenings spent drinking cocktails and dancing away, I also made a little tour of Yorkshire with a trip to visit my sister as she settles into the University of Sheffield and to my grandparents’ in Bradford – where my Grandma had received a card from the Queen herself congratulating her on her diamond (60 year) wedding anniversary!

Just yesterday I hopped on the bus to IKEA where I met my parents, from where we hopped on the motorway and navigated the unforgiving hills and roundabouts of Sheffield to find my sister in her new student pad! Having missed her moving in, I wanted to go and have a snoop around and see how she was enjoying her first taste of freedom.

Ellie’s university halls are much prettier than mine ever were, set in beautiful green grounds and with tennis courts and Sheffield’s Botanical Gardens just next door! Naturally we wanted to go and check these out, so after repeated and increasingly frustrated explanations of what was classed as light and dark for the washing machine, we headed across the road to explore.

The gorgeous gardens paired with the lovely sun of the day made for a lovely calming wander around the Botanical Gardens, where we had a chance to catch up out of the craziness of student halls. Ellie has settled really well down in the south of Yorkshire, and it was lovely to be visiting a university and being led around rather than acting as the tour guide for a change – and we all went out for a meal afterwords which was also lovely.

I also spent a day manning the Undergraduate Research & Leadership Scholarship stall at the freshers fair, which was a lovely chance to speak to some of the new Loiners joining us, and share stories and anecdotes from some of our UGRL antics!

As my third (technically fourth) year of university begins this week, I have braced myself for the oncoming workload, and so I am not sure when my next blog post will be – but I have a strong inkling that the two-day spontaneous trip to Madrid that I have booked myself for next week may yield some stories and photos worth sharing!

Eating My Way Through England

27.08.16 — Leeds

As you will now be aware I am back in the dull grey wetness of good old England, and so to cheer myself up somewhat I have taken to doing what I do best – eating and baking. Having collected all my stuff, jammed the car up with cardboard boxes full of dormant utensils and pillows, and drove my parents mad for a week, I have now landed back in Leeds in my lovely new house.

Between unpacking and eating takeaway upon takeaway I headed out on plenty a shopping tip, including a dash to Aldi where I got myself baking supplies (after having only borrowed my housemates’ during the whole of my second year of university), a new plant, and way too much other stuff to carry in one trip. Stubborn and determined not to pay for a taxi, however, I piled it all up and wound up stopping five times en route to my house… Yikes.

Whilst I have a couple of weeks of relatively free time, I decided to get back into cooking and try out some of the recipes I picked up whilst in Madrid, which have included tortilla española (a Spanish omelette made with egg and potato and, in my case, onion), gambas píl píl (prawns in garlic and chilli) and even an attempt of a salad in a tortilla bowl which was made using the tortilla pans you can see above.

I did, of course, have to put my new gear to good use and get back into my passion for baking – all in perfect time for the start of the most important event on the British calendar – The Great British Bake Off. Rhea invited me out to a picnic with some of her friends so I took the opportunity to destroy the freshly cleaned kitchen in order to make a lemon sponge cake in record time, and six lemons and two whole packs of butter later it was ready to be shared around…

In between all this food I have also been working on projects for Burnley Youth Theatre again, chatting with my housemates and having catch-ups with Danni, and generally settling in with posters and lights galore – photos of those to come soon. I have also recently celebrated both my sister and my dad’s birthdays, both incurring trips back home for some lovely food (here we go with the food again) and laughs with the family.

For now though I am back in Leeds, finishing off the remains of the lemon cake and drinking what may as well be liquid sugar, all in preparation for a 3am website update. Hopefully nobody will see any of that happening – it will be very ugly and I will be wondering why you’re awake and browsing my site at such an hour…

Back to the Motherland

08.08.16 — Madrid

We start this post with the kind of sad news that my time working with Erretres in Madrid has come to an end, and that in order to escape the unforgiving heat of the burning Spanish sun, it’s also time for me to go running through the airport as fast as I can with my passport and boarding card flailing as I go – not that that actually happened, of course…

So it’s true that my escapades in the airport meant that the journey home wasn’t quite as smooth as I had planned, but before that there was the task of giving the team at the studio a Great British Send Off. As the flat I had been living in had no oven, and the studio no cooking facilities save for a microwave, I had to cunningly procure a menu of easily prepared and stored British classics that hopefully would be new to the guys at Erretres. This ended up looking as follows:

Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese or tuna mayo
Tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches
Coronation chicken sandwiches
Jammie Dodgers and some Fox’s Biscuits
Cocktail sticks with cheese and pickled onions
Cheese and onion flavour Walkers crisps

Adorned with some little Union Jacks that I made and London Underground signs reading adios and hasta lluego (see you), the Coronation Chicken Sandwiches were a surprising favourite – and I was particularly proud as I had had to go running around the city looking for the ingredients to make it myself – you try finding mango chutney in the middle of Spain!

Saying goodbye to everyone wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, as I know that I’ll be back to visit the city very very soon, and I know that I’ll always be welcome to drop by and pay a visit to everyone as and when I do. The blow was also softened by a parting gift from Luis, a dashing little piece for me to wear whilst baking…

Once the crisps had all gone and my cheese and onion hedgehog was a pile of tin foil and cocktail sticks, it was finally time to head back to my flat one last time. Once there, I failed miserably at packing, leaving most of it to the morning, and when I left myself a mere one hour to get packed and ready and to the Metro station, it did indeed go as disastrously as one might imagine.

The last journey from my beloved Príncipe Pío

I did manage to get onto my flight, however, and then by midday just over a week ago I was back in the cold, wet arms of Manchester Airport. I was cheered up by my sister and dad greeting me with both the pork pies I had requested and a surprise huge personalised cookie that Ellie had picked up from the Trafford Centre. Loved it!

Since arriving home I’ve kept myself as busy as ever, heading back to Burnley Youth Theatre to start doing bits and bats to prepare them for my departure for university again, and to my new house over in Leeds where I had a lovely catch up with Beth and Rhea and managed to move some of my stuff in – and try some of the latest delicious Indian street food in Trinity Kitchen…

I also took an hour out just yesterday to head down to my local church for the village’s Crafts Fair which happens once a year, and hosts some of the best cakes and scones in the world. It was lovely to snoop around and have a relaxing cup of tea – what better way to begin my re-imerssion in British culture?

Izzy in Madrid

29.07.16 — Madrid

Just as my time here in the beautiful city of Madrid comes to an end it was time for one last visit, and so after a tiny disaster with a pair of British and Danish phone numbers in the middle of Spain, I was reunited with Izzy!

First up we paid the studio a visit, and then it was time to head to my flat so Iz could dump her stuff, after having flown in from visiting Luisa in Berlin – we’ve become a right globetrotting bunch recently! Once cooled off in the air conditioning, we headed back into the heat of the town and some tinto de verano, tapas, and then an early night.

The next day I had to head back to work and so Iz headed out on a couple of tours of the city, after which we headed straight home so she could cool off after a day on her feet in 37° heat. Later on we headed out into my new local area and found a lovely square of bars, where we grabbed the cocktails you can see above. Once again we spent the whole evening lounging around and catching up – really embracing the Spanish speed of life!

During the weekend we explored the city a little more, stopping as often as possible to tapear (have tapas) and munch on the local food. We ended up visiting a few shops such as my favorite little bookshop Panta Rhei, where I saw that the latest edition of the Matador magazine, Matador Olímpico, that I worked on was on display!

On Saturday morning we headed to a little colorful bar in my new neighborhood of Malasaña, where we discovered the amazing brunch menu and the hidden beach that they had downstairs. Naturally we both grabbed a slap-up meal to keep us on our toes throughout the day, and then went out exploring once more…

To explore a little of Madrid’s design scene, we hopped on the Metro down to the Matadero, and paid the design centre and a new art exhibition a visit. Before a snoop around the Type Director’s Club exhibition, we paused for a while in the (selfi) exhibition, an eerily dark room which was once the cold store room of the slaughterhouse – and naturally took a selfie in a spotlight placed before a huge mirror.

After another lovely evening having a few beers and some seafood near my flat, it was somehow Sunday and Izzy’s final day in the city. We headed into the city and had a relaxed stroll around before the real heat hit, and then wound up in La Central, a lovely book and coffee shop, where we stopped for a while and had one of the biggest and most delicious brunches I have ever had!

All too soon though it was time to head back to the airport with Iz, but before we headed off there was time for one last stop to grab a bunch of churros with chocolate – a Madrid staple if ever there was one!

With Iz gone and my flat sorted into four piles of stuff (take home, bin, leave in flat, and leave at work), I write this on my last day of working here in the marvelous Erretres Studio. It feels like only yesterday that I got the news, and then got all excited and packing up to move out here, and the half a year I have spent gallivanting around the Spanish capital have been second to none. Flying back to Manchester tomorrow will be very much bittersweet – I am heartbroken to be leaving this beautiful city and amazing set of people behind, but I’m also looking forward to seeing everyone back at home, uni, and work again.

I will be back next week to bring updates of the adjustment back to English life – goodbye 4pm siesta – and so until then I bid you all and this beautiful place a hearty hasta luego…