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.