Landing in Vigo

Saying goodbye to my mum at the airport was pretty tough :( but the sorrow was soon replaced by crazy panic as I went through the security barriers and realised I hadn't contacted the bank to say I was going abroad. I'd only been away from home for 10 minutes and already I was frantically and recklessly texting all my bank details to mum. Independence is overrated. 

Madrid Jueves airport is pretty strange. After landing half an hour late, passengers were encouraged by cabin crew to adopt a running trot out of the plane and towards waiting buses which shuttled us to the various terminals. After having my hand luggage scanned again I waited with one other person, a middle aged platinum blonde Spanish lady in wet-look everything and reptile cowboy boots, for a bus to another terminal. The only place to get food was a sit-down steak house which was neither within my budget or time frame so after boarding the plane I ordered a toastie which didn't arrive until we began our descent into Vigo. I insisted on practicing my broken Spanish on my fellow passenger Marta and I think the site of her sea side homeland was probably a relief. 

My first couch surfing host, Pedro, met me at arrivals and welcomed me in English with a definite london accent. I was very taken aback and walked in silence next to him for a while, weighing up the likely hood that he was English with a name like Pedro and acid wash jeans. I confronted him as to what his nationality was and he was pretty bemused - he said he liked to watch Inbetweeners and Little Britain, which seemed like a good enough answer so I got in his car and went to the beach. There we met his girlfriend Hilary and a couple of his friends, and we walked along the beach which was so beautiful with this wood of trees which looked like pines running right up to the water. Pedro told me it was known as the 'horror woods' as it was a popular site for cottaging..... 

Pedro helped me get a Spanish Vodafone sim, I couldn't help but think how I would have managed this without him. Afterwards we went to Hilary's flat to help her set up for a friends surprise birthday party. The flat was proper awesome - the land lady had pasted loads of DVD covers around the dining area as a sort of border, she clearly had a penchant for Woody Allen, and the walls were a really friendly lime green. Me and this girl Dora peeled potatoes for the Spanish omelettes Pedro was making and listened to Mumford and Sons, it was pretty surreal. Dora was from Taiwan and had been in Vigo as a student studying Spanish but more recently had been travelling around Europe, with her parents money she was quick to confess. She was so cute and had hair like Jackie O. by the time it got to midnight I was proper shattered and had a headache so Dora gave me this packet of yellow Tai painkillers for me to take and I slinked off to the sofa to have tiger sized cat nap. At two in the morning the party dispersed to various clubs but I was gone to the land of nod, whatever was in those pills was very nice. Hilary and Pedro scooped me into his Skoda at 5am and went back to his flat where I enjoyed that proper dreamy second slumber that you only get after all your worries have been put to rest. Good first day.