Coming over all nostalgic
I still take a Spanish class. In fact, because of the Spanish class, I have just started to work in the same academy as an English teacher. This week our homework was to write an essay using lots of past tenses. I chose to write about my first ever trip to Spain, to Barcelona, back at the beginning of the eighties. Writing that essay I was reminded of the places we stayed and the things we did. I remembered the hostel, just off the Rambla in Barcelona that cost 500 pesetas, maybe a couple of quid, per night. There was only cold water in the room and the beds were like cots - they squeaked, they were simple but the sheets were shiny white. To have a hot shower I had to ask for a key and pay a small supplement. The Spain I encountered was a step back in time. The shops were shops where you had to ask for things from the person behind the counter. In the restaurants lots of the food was the sort of cheap, peasant food made from knuckles and offal. If you bought something safer, lik...