Lots of shit!

It has to be said, I haven’t experienced much Spanish culture recently! One weekend was spent indulging in some good old-fashioned sunbathing, and this one was spent watching the Six Nations matches and enjoying the festive St Patrick’s Day atmosphere of The Celt – my local Irish bar – complete with Guinness to drink, steak and Guinness stew to eat, and a furry Guinness hat on my head. It was good fun! I was also made to eat humble pie: I had said a few days before the England-Ireland match that I thought that Ireland would win. This claim had seen me (playfully) locked out of the house by the more patriotic of my housemates, and then well and truly proved wrong as England walked all over their opponents.

I have, however, learned a lot of Spanish, so I thought I’d share the best bit with you:

In English, we say “break a leg!” to actors to wish them luck. In Spanish it’s customary to wish somebody “lots of shit!”, or “mucha mierda!”. A strange saying, I think you’ll agree. Apparently it comes from the time when audiences drew up outside theatres on horseback or in horse-drawn carriages. If there was a good show on, word would get out and soon there would be lots of horses stamping their hooves outside the theatre. And where there were horses, there was sure to be horse poo. And so the quantity of shit outside a theatre came to be directly related to the quality of a performance.

This got me on to wondering if the Spanish crossed their fingers for good luck. In Germany they press their thumbs. As it turns out, the Spanish do cross their fingers. But they also have a custom which involves pressing their thumbs into their fists in the manner of the Germans. Amongst the superstitious it is common to press one’s thumb behind one’s back at the birth of a baby to protect it against curses, or, as the Spanish put it, the evil eye.

And I have news, at last. So long as nothing goes drastically wrong over the next four weeks, by the end of April I will have left Spain for the sunny climes of… wait for it… Wigan! I have a telephone interview lined up for this week, and a visit booked for the end of next week. Quite what my role will be I’m not yet sure, but I do know that it will be much more people-based and active than my current placement, which makes me happy. And I’m excited at the prospect of living between Manchester and Liverpool and being able to explore those two cities, and the Cumbrian countryside to the north, too.

So, not long left to go here. For the first time, I can think of things and people that I will miss when I leave. It’s taken long enough, but for now I’m happy!

Hasta Luego!