LA VUELTA

Welcome back!
¡Bienvenidos!
¡BENVINGUTS!

Have you been to Barcelona before? If you answered 'NO' to this question, immediately begin searching for a flight to come visit. My obsession for Barna will not let you leave here second guessing that there is a greater city in the world. THIS city is the cheese! la leche!

Today marks the 19th day back in my city, la de mi corazón, and I am settled (very) comfortably in an apartment in the gayborhood, living with a bunch of loco Colombians (with a really cute 2 year old named Gerard) who eat liver, steak, potatoes and rice for every meal-every day, a decked out gypsy den and my über hippie roommate, a rooftop patio with views of the ocean, Plaza España, Montjuïc/Olympic stadium, Park Güell (Gaudi's housing development), Tibidabo (a tall mountain where the devil offered Jesus all the land if he fell down and began worshiping him) and of course the infamous penis building that lights up with a rainbow of colors at...night? Holidays?

Anyways, if you've noticed with my extremely obnoxious run-on sentence, I haven't been back to work for too many days. Classes started last week but I only went in to do paperwork and meet one of the classes (a bunch of 17/18 year olds, no surprise but they all look older than me) so more or less I'll be starting for real this week. But not today! Nor tomorrow! If I haven't talked your head off about how amazing Spain is and you don't already know the way schedules and things work in a country (this one in particular) founded and based on Catholicism (and actually, recently free from an awful dictatorship, they've only had 4 presidents in the new Democracy!) then let me just very quickly explain: SPANIARDS NEVER WORK! The bare minimum, of course, hay que sobrevivir. However, (not sure if you can begin a sentence with a conjunctive adverb) it is more common to have a long 3/4/5 day weekend then a regular 2 day weekend. For every city, every pueblo, every region, province, barrio... there exists a patron saint, something "sacred" to "honor"... I'm sure those of the more conservative and traditional, older generations still do so in a very Catholic manner. For the rest of us, it means, no school, no work, fiesta, fiesta, fiesta. The best part is.. most of these holidays fall on a Tuesday or Thursday, in which case, the day before or after (the Monday or Friday) also become part of the holiday (puente). Lucky for me, my work is education and we definitely receive most of the free days. (THIS IS ALL ON TOP OF THE FEW HOURS IN THE AFTERNOON SET ASIDE FOR SIESTA).

So, more to tell on the school front later. Though I must say, my colleagues are all really amazing, speak amazing English and are really enthusiastic for my role as American Cultural Ambassador to Catalonia (hahaha, yes, super legit!). Everyone outside of the department of English has also been really welcoming and the best part is, they all speak Catalan to me which I understand more or less, but I couldn't speak it to save my life, which is why.... I enrolled in a 6 hour a week Catalan class (¡GRATIS!) So excited to get my brain wheels moving again (in a classroom setting I mean, where I am the student), can't believe I'll be starting my 2nd romance language! Perhaps this will be a nice preparation for Portuguese, French or.........

Lastly, I just missed the summer season here, got maybe 3 or 4 days of it but I arrived the official day of fall and Barcelona was definitely ready for it. It's been muggy and cloudy the past couple weeks (some may think that it would be uninviting for tourists, but Barna is constantly flooded with visitors, which is why ya'll shouldn't shy away, everyone speaks English! And Spanish too! And Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, German, Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, French...) with a few exceptions.. and as much as I want to fight it, I realize (because of my mom) that fall and winter aren't SO bad, especially being here, the mecca of Euro fashion.. BOOTS BOOTS BOOTS BOOTS BOOTS. Plus, it means I can comfortably eat soup for dinner every night =)

It's been a productive holiday weekend, with most of the legalities and visa stuff behind me, I have a membership to the public bike share system (Bicing), am struggling to keep our herb garden alive without too much sun, hosted my friend Alex for a day, continue to deck out our den with street treasures (more on that later) and we are temporarily winning the war against the cucarachas in these cursed old world constructed and very worn apartment bulidings...

With that, I leave you with a story titled, 'Reasons Why I Love Languages'.

On Saturday, Jean (aforementioned über hippie roommate.. we actually met here in Barcelona 3 years ago when we were studying abroad. He's from Los Angeles and graduated from UCSB. He won't be a stranger to this blog or this year) and I went to the grocery story to get a few things and we decided while we were there, it was probably best we purchased a bottle of cheap-ish whiskey should we have the hankering for a cocktail in the near future. The brand we decided on was DYC. Whiskey DYC. The liquor here is usually locked in a cabinet so we told the cashier, we'd like a bottle of whiskey please, the D-Y-C whiskey, spelling out the letters for her. Her response? For affirmation, she asks us: "Whiskey DYC?" (prounounced dick) Being the only English speakers in the supermarket, Jean and I start giggling because she has no idea what she just said. Now everyone is all curious as to what just happened in our exchange of words, so we go on to explain to not only the cashier, a Spanish woman in her early 40s but to 5-7 other Spaniards in line, the meaning of "Whiskey dick" in English. The end.

I've taken 1 photo since I've been here (Jean, friend Gabriel, some Spaniard who invited us to his wedding and I wearing animal hats) so for now, I leave you with a link to roommate Jean's photo album HERE