On Kids, Homework, France, and Rome

Okay, so it's Tuesday morning and I have stuff to do. Weird, right? I have stuff to do! ....even if a lot of it is homework

• Finish reading Nada
• Study linguistics (bleh, I hated this when I took it in English too)
• Go to the bank to carry out official residence card business and then the police station to get my official documentation from the Spanish government (yes! I'm going to be a real person here too!)
• Intercambio at 10 with Vito, the italian dude that's not very talkative. It takes him awhile to warm up, which means that I have to talk for about 10 minutes straight before he says more than a few sentences at once. Great. There's nothing better than trying to elicit conversation from a rock. At least I'll get to have coffee in my favorite plaza in Gracia. I love Plaza Virreina!
• Clean room so the Skinhead Montse doesn't continue to come busting in without warning to check if the floor is clean.
• Start packing so that I can bail on the old bat.

Believe it or not, I'm actually starting to get a life here in Barcelona and it's starting to feel like home. It takes work, creating a home wherever you go.

Tomorrow I have my first meeting with the kids that I'm going to teach English. Yes. I have a small job. One of my friends who studied in this Barcelona program last year gave me the contact to this really sweet woman who wants her two elementary school kids to learn English. I'll get 10 euros an hour, maybe 2 hours a week? Not sure about the amount of time per week, but nobody is going to give me 10 euros or 15 dollars. As far as I'm concerned, 20 euros can contribute to my next flight to Berlin or a nice bottle of wine.

Anywho, I am nervous! I'm sure it will be fine, because I mean, I can talk to kids right? I'll just think about what I liked in third grade and talk to them about it. Right. Okay. What did I like when I was in 3rd grade? Dogs. They don't have a dog, now what? Ohhhh, I'll think of something.

I booked a trip to Paris for Christmas. I'm going to be alone on Christmas anyway, so why not spend it in Paris? I'm taking AirFrance, which I'm super excited to fly because it's a commerical jet that will land at the main airport in Paris. The discount airline that I usually fly would most-likely land me in the backwaters of France where the only thing that smells worse than the sewers is the people, and I would have to take 3000 metros just to get to the center of the city. That's the life of a poor student traveler, and honestly I wouldn't trade it, but since it's Christmas, I am flying a commerical jet.

In the beginning of December I'm going to Sevilla with one of the guys from the program; I found a 20 euro ticket round trip. We have a four day weekend. Thus, the south of Spain. Tapas, wine, flamenco, Spanish guitar, my Canon Rebel and I are going to have a great experience together, I'm sure. A lot of my friends are going to Rome, but having studied there for a month I decided to spend money on travelling somewhere I haven't yet been. Though, admittedly, I can only recall fond memories of Rome. The streets there are such a labyrinth that you lose yourself (even with a map) for 3 hours only to discover that you've just walked in a 10 kilometer loop and you're back where you started. Typical.

More about Madrid soon... It's time to meet Vito for some coffee and Spanish practice.

A Taste of Madrid

...in park Retiro

Barcelona Rain

There is something about rain that makes me want to cuddle under the covers and delve into a good book, light candles, or sit down and write something of my own. It is pouring here right now and Montse is not home. These are the key ingredients to a peaceful existence at 49 Carrer Verdi.

Yet, I am definitely moving. It's a for sure thing because I found another apartment in Eixample, much closer to school and with better people. Montse does not know this yet, nor do I think I am going to tell her. I did not leave her a deposit so I can literally leave whenever I want. One of my friends here said he escaped his first place in the middle of the night after the people had already gone to bed. He left them a note of farewell. I think I am going to do the same for the old bat. If I tell her ahead of time, I'll receive her guilt and she will tell me about how she is always alone. It is a sad story, I know, but Montse, you don't own me.

Montse is not always so easy to live with. Her manic cleaning and need for control is "una pesada," (freaking annoying, in plain terms). She always has to clean, and if everything is not clean at all times she bothers me about it. You see, Montse does not have a boyfriend to fill her time nor any real hobbies for that matter. Instead, her hobby is cleaning her apartment and her boyfriend is her diary. But, I don't know what she could possibly be writing about in the damn book because, aside from taking care of babies and battleaxes during the day, she just comes home at night to watch the news and American movies dubbed in Catalán. But that's only what I see of her life...

I know that Montse does have a second life, the part of her life that she keeps away from me. Perhaps, that life only surfaces on her diary's pages and in the Costa Brava where her other apartment is located. The other night she talked on the phone for over an hour to a man named Jordi. Who is this Jordi character, I wonder, because he had Montse tickled pink, talking in castellano (NOT catalán), and bragging about Cuca as though the cat had just graduated from medical school and was on the verge of discovering the cure to cancer. Turns out that Jordi and Montse have never met in person. They have an internet rendezvous that has now been moved to telephone, a more intimate relationship (clearly). So now I know that Montse spends her time at the internet cafes sending pictures to single Barcelona men, in hopes of getting a second glance.

Sorry that is post is more about Montse than it is about Barcelona rain, but she is such an enigma. To me Montse is annoying, rascist, obsessive, Catalán, and overall crazy, (among other good qualities) but there is, of course, more than that. One weekend when she returned from the Costa Brava she was sporting a black eye and bruises on both shoulders. She told me that her neighbor that lived below her beat her up. What?! What kind of man beats up a woman, and then, what was his motive? That's just another taste of Montse's secret life for you.

Did I mention that she left me post-it notes around the apartment reminding me of what I can and cannot do? I cannot escape this woman. When her high voice isn't there, her masking tape post-it notes are in its place.

"Cuando se cocina encender el aire de la campalla."

When you cook turn on the air from the extractor.

"La cafetera limpia."

The clean coffee maker.

(Notice she avoids using command form, but just puts phrases. Passive aggressive punk.)

"Cuando se vaya el 'water,' limpia con la escobilla blanca."

When the water leaves, clean with the white broom.

(In other words, clean the shit tracks from the toilet.)

"No pisar fuera papel."

Don't step outside paper.

(This is my light switch to my room.)

That last photo comes with a story. Montse put down new wood floor and she doesn't have "ganas" to mop it everyday. Her solution is to put down bubblewrap on the floor so that my shoes don't mark the floor and, thus, she does not have to mop. Perfect, every time I took a step, the bubble wrap popped under my feet. When I walkd across the apartment to the bathroom for a 2am refresher, that damn bubble wrap gave me away, giving out under my weight. Luckily, Montse has now removed the bubble wrap from the floor but she requests that I don't wear shoes on the wood floor whatsoever. Right. Got it. Sweet. Awesome.

Screw that, I'm moving.

Barcelona Bars, Montse, Apartments, and Life Sans a Jacket

It's 10:45, Saturday morning. Montse is cleaning and her normal Catalán music is wailing in the background. Outside my door I hear her banging around, knocking things over. [CRASH] "Ay madre mía, joder." Joder is the F bomb in Spanish and it's Montse's favorite word. "I only use it seldomly," Montse justifies to me in Catañol (the term used to describe mixed use of Catalán and Spanish). Right. Montse abstains from using "joder" just as much as she abstains from eating fatty food (remember her eggs, potatoes, and steak lunch I described earlier?). In reality, swearwords gush out of her mouth like vomit. Swearwords and food seem to form the essence of Montse's existence and, perhaps, are the results of an oral fixation that she's had since birth.

After hearing the crash, I look through my window to see that Montse is outside cleaning the terrace in her underwear and has knocked over the laundry drying stand. The wet laundry now resides on the ground in scattered piles and Cuca is meowing furiously. Maybe it's time to start looking for another place to live.

Last night I had an intercambio with Rob. Intercambios are where you meet with someone who wants to learn English and you trade off speaking both Spanish and English so that each of you can learn the other language. It is a fun way to meet people and you can "pasear" through the city, go to bars, have dinner, and do whatever you like while talking about whatever you want. Anywho, Rob and I had dinner at some Middle Eastern place in Raval outside on the terrace. The food was surprsingly tastey and a good value. I had Falafel wrapped in a tortilla, one of my personal favorites. After dinner he showed me a street in Barrio Gótico with some really chic bars. We sat inside one of them for an hour or so and talked. He had beer, and I had red wine, of course. Then we moved to the next bar, a bohemian style joint also in Barrio Gótico. The bar had really colorful walls with various paintings for sale by the same artist. Part of me wants to go back there and ask how much the paintings were going for. I had to jet out of there around 2am because that's when the metro stops running. There was no way that I wanted to walk 45 minutes back to Gracia without a jacket in the midst of the madrugada.

Other than that, there is not much to talk about. I am starting to get more homework now and I have to finish reading my novel, Nada, by Carmen Laforet. I only have about 100 more pages. It's stomachable. Next weekend I am going to Madrid with Adam! Yay! Very much looking forward to that, but I need to buy a jacket or something because I hear it has already reached freezing temperatures there. How... Illinois. I also planned a trip to go to Sevilla in December with a few people from the program, so that should be nice. Right now I have to go buy groceries, possibly buy a a jacket (Fall has finally decided to come to Barcelona and it is a bit nippy here too), and I have to restart the apartment hunt. I won't move until I find the right place which will be with younger people.

There is never a dull moment being a vagabond in Barcelona.

Some Notes...

...On Spain

• 40 years of Franco and hard Fascism
• Franco is physically gone, but the country still bears his fingerprints, and his existence is very much felt here. (see below photo)

This is a plaza in Barrio Gótico which retains relics from la Guerra Civil, the war that divided Spain in two parts - For Franco and Against Franco. The damage on the walls is from cannons and people of a certain age are still reticent to speak of the war. It was something not talked about, completely forbidden. The people of the Franco era had "freedom," so long as they upheld what the government told them to believe.

• Spain is now a "democratic monarchy" which is code for Obama-loving socialists
• Meet José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

• President of Spain.
• Member of PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español - Spanish Socialist Workers Party).
• Looks like Chris Noth from Sex and the City. (see below photo)

...On Catalunya

I have to separate them because they "just are different," as Montse would say.

• Home of Montse.
• ...and her platypus

Poor little guy, you should have seen the look of him after he came out of the washing machine. But whatever, sometimes you just need to bathe your platypus. I understand.

• Catalán is not jut a language, but THE language. The language "de puta madre." Yeah, that sounds bad, but that phrase means cool, off the heazy, if you will. This is the sign on the door to my apartment. Written in Catalán, made in Canada (it says so on the other side).

• Home of both Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí. We all know that Dalí was crazy (in a good way, of course) and Picasso was a bit of a womanizer. But Picasso redeemed himself by marrying Jacqueline and painting my, err her, portrait.

• Good food. I made the famous sausage and bell pepper pasta the other night. Mmm eating pasta with chorizo and red wine on the terrace is bliss.

• Current home of your favorite blogger!

A Body Sans Allegience

I don't have allegiance to anything or anyone here in Spain.

This may sound sad to some of you, like a body without a purpose, perhaps? Well no. I have purpose, and it's purely egotistical. How beautiful it is to be able to fulfill one's ego each day. I can do whatever I want, be whatever I want (do take into consideration, however, that I still have to pay credit card bills and am a subject to schedules of grocery stores, markets, and the bank because, after all, I exist in society).

I can play a different role every day, "matizando la existencia" (tweaking the existence).

I am not a tourist, but a vagabond. I can make any place home because without allegiance to anything, everything is the same. Without allegiance, you become more objective, more rational? Pragmatism makes your decisions for you while Allegiance is at home in the United States, in Illinois, freezing its ass off and playing with Boubacar.

This is not to say that I don't have any feeling. That would be completely untrue. Every place I go has a distinct aura, and that aura evokes feeling. I take in that feeling, listen to what it has to offer, and afterward we go our separate ways. Feelings are only house guests but allegiance is the bed that you sleep on.

I thought allegiance and feeling were connected, somehow subordinate of each other's existence. They're not. You can have one without the other, which is a beautiful thing.

Yet with everything, even freedom, there is a price. Todo se paga en la vida. To have complete freedom, you have to be alone.

"Solo solo somos libres." - garage door graffiti

Obama for Peace?

"But as we entered the New Milleneum it's feelings, not achievement, that count the most. This is because the world has become more feminized. So now we should all just hold each other, eat some Ben & Jerry's ice cream, watch Oprah and hope for change."
-Nick Nafta

Thanks for writing that statement, Uncle E., because now I don't have to.

"Peace" has a new definition these days. It now means occupying the White House, spending the country's money on frivolous things, and creating a discourse around loaded words like "hope," and "change." It is synonomous with Obama. I'm so grateful that now in the USA I don't have to do anything to merit acknowledgement. I can repeat my mantras of "hope" and "change" ad nauseum and win a prize for the way that I say them. Before bed each night I utter these mantras, believe in the fabricated discourse they carry, click my ruby red slippers three times, and remember that "there's no place like home." There is no place like the United States of America where having big ears and reading a teleprompter (badly) are more recognized than innovation and problem-solving.

I have internet!

I have internet!

I have internet!

Internet withdrawal symptoms may include restlessness, loneliness, feelings of depression or isolation.

It's sad how much the internet has become a necessity in my life. That month and a half that I didn't have it was rough. Towards the end, I was starting to get used to not having internet, but only begrudgingly so. Now my favorite drug is back in my life, and I'm already high. This means I can blog post when the urge strikes and I can pay my credit card bills without having to go to the internet cafe to do so (not to mention check email, register for classes, look up directions, book airline tickets, skype, facebook, do research, use the online spanish and catalán translators, google, etc.). I'm so glad that I'm through with the internet cafe phase of my life. I don't have to listen to stupid 12 year old boys yelling "mierda" every time they make a wrong move when they play their videogames.

Even if the internet isn't as good as WIFI and it disconnects whenever it feels like it (remember, it's Spanish internet, so typically it shuts off whenever it wants), it's better than nothing. Plus, who knows if I'll live with Montse all year? She can be a bit bossy and, at times, her restlessness makes me nervous.

In other news, I booked a ticket to Madrid for the end of this month! I'm going for 2 days. HELLO PRADO museum!! I'm so excited! More on that later (or after I get back, perhaps).

I miss fall weather in Illinois. The leaves are so beautiful when they coat the ground in all their brilliant colors. They don't change here like they do in Illinois. Thus, a few weekends ago I trekked all the way back to the Sarrià neighborhood where Colegi San Jordi is located (we lived there for three weeks upon arrival in Barcelona) to visit this park that I liked to run through. It's the only place that I have so far discovered in Barcelona where it feels like autumn.

Though I hear the weather has been a bit wretched lately in Illinois, I miss running on the trails, breathing in the scent of the woods, and listening to crispy leaves crunching beneath my feet. When I run in Barcelona I run on smaller roads around Gracia which swirl up the mountain. Thus, I can only run about 5 miles at a time because they are five miles of running straight up the mountain. Running a 70% incline for 10 minutes or so is no easy task, not to mention the fact that you're inevitably inhaling loads of smoke, car exhaust, and body odor with each breath you take.

Needless to say, it's still pretty warm here in Barcelona. I guess fall is supposed to be the rainy season here, but it hasn't really rained that much. Maybe November is more fall than October is? Anywho, regardless of what season it is, I'm sweating my ass off. I didn't realize how winter-ized my wardrobe was until I came to a place that is warm for more than 3 months out of the year. Not wanting to spend money on clothes that will inevitably clutter my free existence in Catalunya, I made a scarf into a dress and cuffed tall boots to make them shorter.... It was much cooler than wearing jeans (but the boots were still warm).

Yeah, that picture is not the best quality. Sorry about that. It was the only decent one that came out of a series of many, sadly enough. Thanks Mom, for sending the scarf.

A Post

What's my soundtrack right now? A symphony of coughs and hacks conducted by the chica gordita at the end of the row. If you haven't already guessed, I am in the library writing this as usual.

And the chick just farted. I'm not making this up. I looked at the girl next to me and we both started laughing. Some things to don't change no matter what country you're in; farts are always gross, and funny, if you're not the culprit. If you really need to fart make sure to lift your butt off the seat about a half an inch so that the mad rush of air that is about to gush out from your ass does not hit the chair with a wallop. Has this chick really not yet figured this out? Yeah, she probably doesn't have social skills either.

Anyway, I mentioned awhile back that I joined a gym. The gym's name is DiR and everything is in Catalán, of course. The machines are the exact same ones that we have the university gyms at Illinois and I felt so cool to be able to walk in and use them flawlessly. I enjoy working out at this Catalán gym, but I find myself paying more attention to the people around me than my own work out. Oh, the woes of being a people watcher. I think the gym has a running club... They only run for about 25 minutes, but that's better than not running at all. It's very tough to run in Barcelona because of the way the streets are constructed, but that's another entry entirely.

I started my Catalán class this week. It is from 7-9pm Monday through Thursday and we go through the material quite fast. It's a challenge because most of the students' native language is Spanish so they pick up Catalán easily and pronounce the words almost flawlessly. Nonetheless, I love it because there are so many different types of students in it. There are students from different parts of Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy. The teacher gives the class in two languages-- Spanish and English (sometimes she even gives the translations in Italian for the Italian student). It's incredible how many languages she speaks.

Yet, it's weird that the teacher speaks English for us since none of our other teachers do that. I am used to just having every thing in Spanish. Ironically so, it's harder for me when she gives the translation of Catalán words in English because when I'm in the class, I'm thinking in Spanish. It just makes more sense since Spanish and Catalán are so similar. I usually just end up listening to the Spanish translations instead of the English because the actual meaning of the word comes to me faster that way (otherwise I have to manually switch my brain from Spanish to English). For example, the teacher asked me a question in English, how to say "enfonsat" which is Catalán for "sunk," and I responded in Spanish with the word "hundir," (the Spanish verb for sink) even though the question was in English. My mind is just a mess of words.

I am starting to think differently here and it's weird that I can feel the difference. I'm not trying to be one of those people that claim "oh, I've been changed..." Gross. But it's just odd because even when I sit down to write my blog entries I have to think harder about what to write. As I become more acclamated to the culture here, I notice less differences from American culture. Clearly, Spain is a country of complications, or at least that's how I felt when I first arrived here. Now, instead of seeing everything as being complicated, I just see it and don't think anything of it. I don't know if this is because I've become accustomed to the complications or because I understand more about how things function in this place so I encounter less complications. Maybe it's a bit of both. But things are still complicated overall, but only because life is complicated.

Everyone always knocks American culture because we are fast-paced people that work long hours. In Spain, the people seem never to work, they wake up later, eat breakfast later, start the day later, and go to bed later. Thus, is the Spanish, or I should say Catalonian (because I'm not in Spain, but Catalanya), lifestyle any simpler than the American lifestyle? Perhaps not. In America I can go to the bank whenever I want, the grocery stores have steady schedules clearly noting opening and closing times, and I am more protected by legal contracts. It just seems to me that everything we do in America is at an earlier time than they do it here in Spain, and it's not necessarily harder in America like many people would like to believe.

Everything is just slower here. I mean, they are still listening to Katy Perry's "Hot and Cold" hit which was number one on the charts almost a year ago in the U.S. That should say something, if not comment on their taste in music... (but I like Katy Perry so that's okay).

They tell me that I should have internet by the end of this week.... We'll see, haha.

Cuca's Photoshoot

Okay, so...

I couldn't resist posting these photos of Cuca. She insisted that I take her photo. Why else would she have posed so well?

Doesn't she look so guilty of something here? Actually, she is. She is in my room, and Monste doesn't like it when she comes in my room. I don't mind, of course. But Monste wasn't here when this photo was taken. Cuca, such a naughty girl!

Cuca uses the aloe plant on the terrace to scratch her face.

Again, inside my room. That floor is the original floor of the apartment. Monste has lived in the apartment for 25 years, but has remodeled it several times. The floor is 100 years old. I think it's quite stylish. That step there leads to the terrace. I love my exterior room.

If you're wondering about why Cuca is so petite, it's because Montse does not feed her enough. Cuca meows really loud when she doesn't have food and Montse just sighs her typical Catalán response, "i que volls, la meva Cuca?" Uhhh... Seriously Montse? She wants FOOD, duh. When I told Montse that Cuca didn't have food, Montse just replied in Spanish "Yeah, I'll buy some tomorrow." WHAT?! But the cat needs food, NOW.

Monste is so intense about her "línea." But it seems that her cat is on more of a diet than she is. Montse tells me, "Pues, yo no como muchos postres porque tengo que cuidar la línea." In English,"Well, I don't eat a lot of desserts because I have to take care of my figure." Please. I saw you wolf down those potatoes and eggs (the Spanish tortilla) with two slabs of steak for lunch last Tuesday. I don't think that's going to help your "línea," Montse.

Oh Montse. And Cuca. And Barcelona. And Catalunya. Such crazy entities you all are.

Merce

So there is a wild celebration in Barcelona -- Merce. It took place 23-27 of Sept. Everything in the city shuts down (surprise). Stores close, banks aren't open (again, SURPRISE). I swear, these people never work. Any excuse to close the stores and banks there is, they use it. Merce is a saint that protects Barcelona, so Barceloneses celebrate it. Plus, it's another excuse to exhibit their Catalonian pride.

These giants were crammed into Plaza San Juame and there are people inside them to make them dance. Each barrio in Barcelona has it's own giant to represent it. They play music and make the giants dance with each other. Kind of hoaky, but cool nonetheless. The giants are really detailed.

The last night of Merce was the best because the girls and I, along with the rest of Barcelona and remote parts of the world that decided to visit for Merce, went to Park Montjuic in Plaza Espanya. The huge fountains in front of Montjuic where all lit up and synced to music and fireworks. It was, by far, the best fireworks show I have ever seen in my entire life, even better than some Fourth of July celebrations I've been to. The entire show, which lasted about an hour, was like the finale.

You can see the fountains here and the big castle-esque appearance of Montjuic. So beautiful.

Colors!

During the end of the show they asked that everyone light their sparklers and they played the Catalunya national anthem. It was so cute, and I felt a weird sort of patriotism for Catalunya. It was one of those community moments where you feel united with everyone there, as corny as it sounds.

Barcelona knows how to throw a party which is a good thing since customer service is not its strong suit. I can't even imagine how expensive that firework show must have been. You know you're a pragmatic American when you see the most amazing firework show of your life and afterward you wonder how much money it must have cost. You then think about all the inextricable taxes and fees you encounter as a foreigner, and assume that you, and your fellow American compadres, probably financed the entire damn show yourselves, somehow.

There is no rhyme or reason in Spain. It is such an arbitrary place. At least in the United States, we pretend not to be arbitrary. We tell everyone that our decisions have purpose and that is why we can make them with such conviction. Spaniards don't feel the need to justify their decisions, or even make them in the first place really. They just do things... because they can. And that's enough for them.