My Wanderings

It's September 11.
In America, they mourn.
In Catalunya, they celebrate.

It's the dia de "independencia" here in Catalunya. In Catalán it´s called Diada de l'Onze de Setembre. I put independence in quotations only because, technically, Catalunya is not independent of Spain. It is, however, a comunidad autónoma. That is, it has the right to it's own flag and to govern itself while still being under the jurisdiction of España.

I had no class today, so I went wandering. I started out at Arc de Triomf, which marks the entrance to the Ciutadella Park. The park is so large and beautiful. There are fountains, and children, and grass, and winding trees everywhere. After leaving the park I meandered into the Barrio Gótico and Borne until I eventually made my way to Plaza Cataluña.

I loved this little one's Catalunya pride as she spun around with the flag attached to her back.

Bird droppings on the bench in the Plaza Catalunya. "Relationshit"

I love everything about this man from his style to his poise. He exudes such a cool character, reminiscent of my old high school English teacher, Mr. Pirtle. This photo was taken on a very busy street in Barrio Gótico. Yet despite the noise and passersby, this man just sat to the side peacefully, writing, lost in his own thoughts.

It's Toto, Spanish style.

Red flowers are my favorite. And here they are, covering the graffiti.

Apartment Hunting

So I have three weeks to find an apartment in Barcelona.
Yes, three weeks.

It has already been a week and a half and I have nothing. Though, the apartment I visited yesterday was definitely noteworthy, but not in a good way. It was located near Monjuic Park by la Plaza de España and the first thing that the blonde woman showing me the apartment says to me when I walk in is, "Perdón, pero la habitación está muy sucia ahora." As if she didn't know I was coming to visit. You'd think she'd bother to clean it a little...

I walked into a dank room with a small window that looked as though it's been covered in plastic wrap. The woman gestured toward a wood door that is detached from its hinges, leaning against the closet that it's supposed to cover. "The door will be fixed," the woman guarantees me. "Yo sé que la habitación parece diferente que las fotos del internet, pero las fue tomada cuando yo viví aquí con mi novio." Right.

I then glanced down at her stomach to see she was "embarasada." There is no way I'm living with a pregnant woman. Pregnant women turn into babies, and babies equal crying. No. Thank. You.

"Who else lives here?" I asked.
"Oh well I live in this room con mi novio." Hmm, I wonder what they do in their free time. "And two other chicas live here, and a man from Inglaterra too. The man, he sleeps all day and works all night. I never see him."

"So do you want to give me fianza?"
Is she serious? She really thinks after the broken door, messy room, and broken desk that I noticed on the way out, that I really want to live there. That's funny.

Today went better though. I found a place in the Borne neighborhood of Barcelona where the Barcelona government buildings are located. I don't think I'm going to take the place because it's a bit expensive and the lady there smokes which I'm not so keen on. Plus, she wouldn't allow me to have any guests, should someone from the U.S. want to visit me. But the Borne neighborhood is SO cool. There are tiny little streets everywhere with hip coffee shops and neat boutiques. It feels so avant-garde and cozy. I HAVE to live there, I've decided. Even if I only have a week and a half to find a place in Borne. It will be done. Even if I have to live in another place for a month or so until I find a place in Borne. It will be done.

It must.

Te Quiero, Barcelona

So, I've been in Barcelona a week now and this is my first post. I am so busy here between running around the city, trying to find an apartment and doing all my schoolwork. Today I actually got to be a tourist though and saw La Pedrera, La Sagrada Familia, and Guell Park all by architect Antoní Gaudí. He used normal objects from nature to influence his architecture. The guy had to be a little trippy though, coming up with all the crazy stuff he did. After visiting Gaudi´s designs, we continued on to see more of the modern art in Barcelona. We also visted the Fundació de Miró. I love Joan Miró. Primary colors and simple drawings. Or are they?

Here's a photo of someone I don't know. Ha, I know. It was just so perfect that I couldn't resist taking it.

Also, I haven't been eating all that much for lunch these days. Right now I'm staying in a dorm and they don't serve us lunch. I end up pilfering the bread served at breakfast and, if I'm lucky, a piece of fruit for lunch. It's very expensive here. Is it bad that I'd rather save money on food so I can by a metro ticket to the beach after class?

Adieu, United States

Today is my last day in the United States. I leave for Barcelona tomorrow afternoon from Chicago O'Hare and I'm driving up from my house with my parents early in the morning to get to Chicago.

It has been a good day. I woke up early and went for a run, something which I hardly ever have the motivation to do early in the morning. I love running but generally it's not the first thing I crave when I awake each morning. But perhaps today someone knew that it was my last day in America for a year and decided to make the weather my favorite kind. The clouds were grey and ominous as they took over the sky, rolling in over the now six-feet-tall corn husks. It was a bit drizzly and only sixty-eight degrees, offering a light breeze solely to those awake early enough to take advantage of it. Running through Lake of the Woods was so peaceful. The only things I could hear were the trees blowing in the wind and my own feet hitting the pavement. I decided to turn off my iPod music. Sometimes I enjoy the silence.

I came back to my house and made my typical oatmeal and fruit breakfast with coffee. My bud Emma then came over and we had one of our glorious conversations over some more coffee. I love talking with her because we comment on all the unsaid aspects of life upon which we totally agree--about weird dreams we have, experiences we want to have, and adventures that we can only hope to have, about how you have to work at being happy, about who we are and who we want to be, about dogs and books, and anything that our stream of consciousness allows. They're not always deep conversations, but they are always interesting.

Anywho, I have some last, last-minute packing to do. Then I am going to spend some time with my kitty and watch The Mentalist with my parents tonight.

My next post will be from Spain. Ciao!

Questions and Answers

I was tagged from Sarah's blog to fill out one of these things.

"If you were going to allow us to spend a night at your home, we'd like to know the following:
1. What books are on your favorite shelf?

Yeah okay, so I have two books by Hemingway. So WHAT? I love his style. You either love or hate his style. There is no in-between with Papa Hem. However, if you are one of those that hates his style you probably just don't get it. Not that you're stupid or anything. You are simply overlooking its subtly. Papa Hem believed that there should be no wasted words. He painstakingly selected each of his words, weilding them into razor-sharp sentences with an aficionado's clarity. Thus, The Sun Also Rises is about much more than bullfighting and its Spanish setting (though the narrative space provided much of the appeal for me) and A Moveable Feast is not a plot-driven novel, but driven by what the reader is able to pull out of the narrative as meaningful. I love Hemingway's depections of the narrative space in his novels. I was already in Spain when I read The Sun Also Rises and experienced France in A Moveable Feast.

Bless Me, Ultima is the story of a young Mexican boy's coming of age as he struggles whether to associate himself with the Catholic origins of his mother or the pagan roots of his father. It has amazing writing and, of course, your narrative space enthusiast was thrilled by the New Mexico setting. Probably the best part of this book, however, is that it provides such amazing closure. Though open endings are nice, the closure in Bless Me, Ultima has the fuzzy factor; that is, you feel all warm and satisfied inside as you shut the back cover.

JANE EYRE IS FREAKING BOMB. There is fuzzy factor to the max. It's a nice long period piece that sucks you in and makes you wish that you, too, could be as eloquent as the governess Jane Eyre. Such a clever woman, that Jane!

2. What DVDs are on your favorite shelf?

Sabrina and Gigi I grew up watching with my mom. They were the movies that I fell asleep to every night and from which I still can recite every line, including accents. I love Penelope and Almovodar is a pretty neat director, thus, my choice of Volver. Frida I watched in high school. The movie is the biography of artist Frida Kahlo and it has great cinematography. Also, if you're at all interested in the Mexican Revolution, the bouts with Communism in Mexico, or Mexican art, Frida shows how all those things tie together to create the discourse for an avant-garde generation of people and the misguided artists of that generation, such as Frida herself. Frida had such a fascinating life overall.

3. What are your favorite cookbooks?

Definitely this one by Giada di Laurentiis. She now has released many cookbooks, but this was her first and we bought it just after it came out a few years ago. My favorite recipe in it is a pasta with broccoli rabe, orecciette pasta, spicy italian sausage, and tomatoes with an olive oil and garlic sauce. My family has cooked the recipe so many times and we have modified it to our liking. Once for my birthday my parents made enough of this pasta to serve all of my fifteen guests at my party. Everyone enjoyed it.

4. Select 1-3 recipes you will cook for your special guests.
No. Since they're such special guests to me, I'd just ask them what they wanted and then go from there.

5. What will we be drinking that's available?
Water, ginger ale, iced tea, and coffee are a few of my favorites. Also, I love wine. I have developed a taste for it growing up because my step dad LOVES it. We have a wine cellar in our basement, visit wineries around the country, and have wine shipped to the house regularly. A few years ago when my family took a vacation to Sonoma in California, we visited this winery called Imagery, among many other wineries. They have the neatest wine labels that always feature the Parthenon, whether subtely or blatantly.

But yeah, there would definitely be wine at my party. Riesling is my favorite. It's nice and sweet.

My Favorites

Inspired by Jane's favorites on her fashion blog (11 Aug 2009 entry), I decided to take a few of my own pictures of my favorite things.

Everyone's "self" is a representation that they constantly work to maintain (i.e. the way they choose to dress, their vocabulary, the activities in which they participate). Is there really such a thing as a "true inner self"? I'm not sure there is. It seems only a fabricated veneer to me. Thus, I love to play with my own representation via fashion, words, writing, etc. So what if I carry around in my purse a stuffed black cat wearing a dress? Does that change how someone might characterize me? It's interesting to think so, and of course it alters an outsider's perception of myself. When I was on the plane back from California last month I saw a woman who was older than me, but still in her twenties, wearing a pink jacket with bunny ears attached to the hood. She was also holding a pink stuffed bunny to match. That's not something one sees every day, and it definitely made me stop and look at her for a second because there was obviously some theme going on there. I love noticing quirks like that. I call it the "inner-geek" -- everyone has their own.

This picture describes my writing process. Caffeine somehow stimulates me to write, thus my iced tea. I swear, iced tea single-handedly got me through the entire college application process a few years back. Also, when I'm staring at the blinking curser on Microsoft Word, trying to think of what to write for a paper, I obsessively floss my teeth. Yes, every single time. There is no wasted time with me. I keep tucked under the strap of my journal a polaroid of my parents and me when I was a baby. It inspires me. Also, there are small scratches on the photo which give it even more character. My Birks are in the photo only because I love photographing objects on different levels and at different distances. I admire people who can do this really well because it gives a flat picture dimension, even without a camera that renders depth of field.

A friend of my mom's saved all those stamps for me because she knew I liked them. They are all from Switzerland. I cut them from the envelopes and display them on my desk like mini artwork. As for the other things in the photo, I love jewelry and teasing my kitties with the koosh ball. Also, you can see the yellow skip card from a mini travel Uno deck I have. The cards are so small and cute.

I have revived my beloved Canon Rebel. My poor baby was languishing on the top shelf of my closet with nobody to hold him for the longest time. Lately I have been using my Sony point-and-shoot, and although light and convenient, Sony is nothing is like my Rebel. Both, however, will make the trek with me across the pond to the motherland. This photo is a favorite because, in case you haven't noticed, I love using mirrors in photos. Also, the Reading Room in my house is the bomb diggity. I love the shelves of plants in front of the window.

Sueño de la noche

"Think Happy Thoughts, and You'll Fly," originally uploaded by Chrissie White.

Las rosas solitarias de Avondaire
cantan como alguien todavía se da cuenta.
Solamente viven para el sueño de vivir
así las sigas y te dirigirán allí.

"Night Dream" by Kurt Elling, translated into Spanish by yours truly.