Living Artistically

I love Barcelona. It inspires me to be creative. The people inspire me to dress artistically, think in Spanish, to take neat pictures...

My mom always says that one must live artistically. I love when she says that. There are some days that I feel like I'm living just to survive and some days, perhaps, are more artistic living. I like to combine the two. Artistic living meets survival tactics when living in Barcelona, Spain as a foreigner in a foreign land, or the extranjera del extranjero.

How the Artist Survives
1. Starving artists have a tough life. Who likes to be ravenous all the time? It sucks. Well, in Barcelona you're a ravenous American tourist for about the first week or so, maybe week and a half, until your stomach shrinks...And then you're just hungry after that. Consider it your first step toward living like a European. Europeans are hungry because food is so damn expensive and then what you do pay for is about the size of your fist.

So... the artistic life-enthusiast goes to the market down the street and buys fruits, veggies, and the extra-virgin olive oil in which to cook them. (Splurge on the olive oil in the glass bottle because the veggies are inexpensive). Also, buy the garlic press from the hardware/kitchen store on Carrer L'Olla for 5 euros. Saute veggies. Hardboil an egg, eat a pice of wheat bread, and some yogurt for dessert.

2. Gym a bit expensive for your budget right now? Walk everywhere. And sprint up the 3 flights of stairs, groceries in each hand, to the attic apartment that you share with your 55 year old señora and her cat. Then sign up for the gym after you realize you miss lifting weights with sweaty men around you, regardless of what language they speak.

3. Entertainment. Listen in on Spanish coversations and look up the words you don´t know later. Repeat for Catalán conversations.

Take your Canon Rebel with you on the metro. Or just stare at the people on the metro by looking at their relection in the window across fom you. Entertaining, guaranteed.

Read the political graffiti. It's everywhere and it's free literature that communicates more than most things that are in print these days.

"Turn off the television and read a poem."

4. Music. The señora provides music every day. Take advantage of it and sing along with her as she sings to the cat in Catalán, "La meva Cuca está bé!"

Sit on the terrace and listen to the Carrer Verdi sountrack featuring passersby, motos, birds, dogs, kids playing, the occasional rainfall, Cuca meowing/yelling, the neighbor playing the piano.

5. Sick of the crowds and smoke in Barcelona? Go to Sitges, the quaint beach town along the Costa Brava about 30 min away by train. Go with friends. Take photos of each other posing on the rocks and make other people take photos of you all together. Sit in a coffee shop and talk girl talk until the storm outside passes.

6. Feeling homesick because you can't talk to your family on the inernet? Write in your journal (not blog because you don't have internet access, remember?) and channel your feelings into creativity. Create something tangible from an abstract nothing. Don't go out and spend money because that runs out and the elation is only transient. Create something that lasts and that you can share.

7. (Really #6 continued) Change the ordinary. Make your bed differently, rearrange the items on your desk. Re-invent your wardrobe-- new combinations, or just organize it.

Take the same photo 10 different times, tweaking the frame ever so slightly.

There is art in every day life and only when you're able to recognize it in the ordinary are you living artistically. Thanks Mom, for helping me realize that.