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.