"Smile With Your Eyes"

Here's a story of one of the more interesting and unusual experience I've had since I've been in Barcelona. One of my students, who I've mentioned before, is a photographer. He said that he would like to practice taking pictures (yes, outdoors, fully dressed) and asked me if I would take pictures with him. I agreed, although after taking some quick preliminary pictures after one lesson, he proudly showed me during the next how he photoshopped away the smile lines near my eyes. I'm 22! But I thought: professional pictures in pretty places and an excuse to buy a new dress. ¿Por que no? So, about a week and a half ago, we went to Park Guell to take pictures. There I found myself trekking around Gaudi's Park in heels, getting curious stares from the normal people who wear coats and boots to go to a park in November.

I didn't know what to expect, but turned out to be a really fun day (even though the bubble man wasn't there this time). There was a field trip there that afternoon, so there were a bunch of Spanish kiddies running around. A few of them came up to me, with their friends giggling in the background to ask, "Es un modelo?" to which I replied "Solo por hoy" (only for today). I'm sure at least half of the pictures have some kid in the background peering out from behind a pillar or tree.

Trying to communicate with Fredi, whose English isn't quite there yet, was a challenge. I'm sure we were quite a sight: me switching from picture-taking mode to teacher mode, posing for pictures and correcting his grammar in between shots, and us talking in a combination of the two languages while setting up for a photo shoot in this public park. The funniest thing, though, was when we made our way down to the main entrance, where this guy, the dragon fountain, lives:



There were already a lot of people there taking pictures, mostly foreign tourists, so we waited our turn and planned the method of attack. What I didn't expect what that, when I ran up there to pose for a few pictures for Fredi, the other people gathered around would seize the photo opportunity as well. I was trying so hard not to laugh or run away as I smiled for a few dozen strangers' pictures, hoping they wouldn't be disappointed when they realized I was just a girl with a dress.

Like any good model-for-an-afternoon, I immediately went to get something to eat afterwards, because all that standing and giving my best happy/pouty/enticing looks just made me hungry. This is all sort-of relevant to today, since we just went to take pictures again, this time in Villa Olimpica where the 1992 summer Olympics were held. It was, without a doubt, the windiest day since I've been here in Spain, and I got similar ("somebody give that girl a jacket!") looks, especially when we wandered down to the sea and I had my bare feet in the freezing Mediterranean water.

So the moral of the story is, if you're a private student trying to learn a new language, the best way to get free practice time is to flatter your teacher by asking if you could take pictures of him/her. Here are a few of the ones Fredi's sent me already. They're all from the same area of the park because I guess that's where he started working on them. God only knows what he's airbrushing this time.

Success!

This afternoon I went Christmas shopping, along with the rest of the world. That means, my avid readers, that there's a chance I bought you something shiny today. Only time will tell.

Anyway, it was pretty productive day. I bought some Christmas presents, got dinner, and then signed up for a movie card at a movie store down the street that has Spanish movies with English subtitles, Spanish movies with Spanish subtitles, English movies with Spanish subtitles, English movies with French subtitles... you get the point. I'm only writing about it because 1) I'm excited to have access to hundreds of Spanish movies, because I think I can learn a lot that way and 2) You would not believe what I had to go through to get this membership. First, they needed proof that I wasn't going to start running a transcontinental stolen movie ring, which meant that I had to present a photocopy of my passport, an official document with my address on it, and evidence that I work here in the city. Even when I gave the guy a copy of an envelope sent to my address from the US, he still was asking for an electric or phone bill before his manager came up and told him it was OK. Next, he brought me down to the basement, had me fill out paperwork, and gave me a very important secret number which I was instructed to not lose under any circumstances. Finally, I had to go back upstairs to pay, where I was told all movies are due back the next day unless you call and ask to keep them longer. But, I made it out alive, and now am the proud owner of Season One of The L Word in Spanish. At least until tomorrow before 9:30 pm.

That's all for now. I'm going to watch some of my DVD until my friend gets off work, then we're going to a fiesta. That means party. I'll be home in 13 days!

A few pictures from this evening:



Evidence that I'm not as quick with the camera as I'd like to be. I saw 4 or 5 people running down my street, each with a huge group of balloons like this. Next time I'll be ready.




One of the Rambla street performers, the lovechild a talking tree from Lord of the Rings and a Victoria's Secret model wearing those giant wings on her back.

Feliz Navidad

The Christmas lights are up all around the city, and they're so pretty I don't want them to be taken down at least until February. I hope they're at least still up when Stevie and Scott come back with me after my trip home. Like I mentioned before, Barcelona (and all of Catalunya) has two official languages: Castilian (Spanish) and Catalán. So, we have lights all over the city wishing everyone Felices Fiestas and Bones Festes (both mean Happy Holidays). Hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday season. I'll be back in the US starting the 21st!

People pay me to speak English.

Although it can get tiring traveling around the city from one class to the next, my students never fail to find ways to entertain me. It's very cliche, I know, but sometimes I feel like I learn just as much from them as they do from me.

For example, on Monday and Wednesday evenings, I take a bus to the edge of the map to teach a small group of businessmen. This is the same group where one student accidentally "outed" another in the middle of class. Awkward. Anyway, we recently had a new addition to the group, a young guy from Madrid who speaks amazingly. So, the new guy, who we'll call Antonio (because that's his name), asked me about popularity in the US. He had been to New York and seen plenty of movies where the main goal was to be as popular as possible by playing football or at least dating someone who does. I told them about a typical American high school hierarchy, and as I was explaining it, I was thinking how much I couldn't believe it's actually true. How is it that, for decades in the US, your acceptance among your peers has been based on how many goals you score or where you buy your clothes? At Concord, most of the football players and cheerleaders were well-known, everyone sat with their own "group" at lunch, we had the stereotypical mean girls who spread rumors about each other and everyone else, and we paraded the elected Homecoming King and Queen around on floats like they were true royalty. At Brandywine, they even had an end-of-the year superlative to decide who was the "Most Desirable". Come on, really? There are a lot of stereotypes about Americans that are off (we're all Bush-loving, Big Mac eating reality TV show contestants), but this one is actually pretty true, at least in my experience.

The point is, I never realized that the quest for popularity wasn't a universal, international phenomenon. My student told me that, in his high school, people would rather hang out with their own friends and stay relatively anonymous than to try to draw attention to themselves by being the star of a team, por ejemplo. Everyone knows who they know, there aren't cliques, and all this energy isn't wasted on trying to be or be respected by the chosen few. It made me wonder how people would be different in the US if they didn't have to spend 4 years (or more) trying to conform or facing the consequences of rebelling.

On a lighter note, it's been girls' week this week in my favorite class since the one guy is in India on vacation. We shared travel pictures, from Rosa's mind-opening trip to Africa to Magda's adventure in New Zealand, and it was great to get them to open up and speak in English without having to concentrate so hard. During the next lesson, I was teaching them about false cognates (words that look and sound the same in 2 languages but have different meanings), and they kept laughing to each other. After a few minutes, they shared with me that the word "cognate" sounds like the slang word for a certain part of a female's anatomy, so these 50something women were there giggling like little schoolgirls. Good times.

It's time for me to take a nap, teach one more class, then start my 4-day weekend. I'm very grateful for the multitude of Spanish holidays. I leave you with several pictures of BCN graffiti, one of my new fascinations. It's interesting that a lot of it is written in English...

Big Changes

I changed the name of my journal (not "blog"... never "blog"). The old title, "El mundo es un pañuelo," literally means, "The world is a scarf/tissue," but it's actually the Spanish version of "It's a small world". While I was at a party a few weeks ago, I saw this phrase written on the wall, and I thought it was even more fitting. It means something like, "A trip begins within ourselves". And that's your Spanish lesson for today.

foto: for no particular reason, me and my friend Eric last weekend at a Bar called La Oveja Negra (The Black Sheep)

London, parte dos

(The formatting of this got really messed up when I published it, so come back later after I fix it, and it will make more sense!)

Here's the rest of my London post since it's a doozy...

After we left the Tate, we crossed Millennium Bridge and walked along the river, stopping at a few places:



St. Paul's Cathedral












































London Bridge is... not all that impressive:



We walked until we got to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.



Tower Bridge:




Tower of London (view from the bridge):



Picadilly Square:



They had Christmas lights everywhere























For dinner Saturday night, we ate at a sushi
restaurant where you could order from the
menu or grab anything that looked good as
it passed by. Then, we watched Love, Actually
in KC's room, and she pointed out all the places
that we'd seen in London so far.






On Sunday, we hit most of the major sightseeing attractions before my flight in the evening:


In front of Big Ben:






































Parliment, which contrary to popular belief, was not actually blown up for the movie V for Vendetta:



The Eye of London:



St. James's Park, which we walked through to get to...



Westminster Abbey (where there was an ongoing anti-war protest) ...



...and Buckingham Palace









We walked back through the park, where we found this massive pelican!



























































The last thing we did was go to a punk-ish street fair. I was pretty poor at this point so I didn't get anything, but it was still fun to look around.





On the way back, we passed KC's favorite place in the city, Trafalger Square...



...and Good Enough College. The best part is that it's named for a guy, Mr. Good Enough. I wonder if he knows Mr. Right! Ha!



Afterwards, KC accompanied me to the train station where I left for the airport. No problems on the way home, except that I got stuck on the plane next to some chatty, brainless guy who said things to me like, "Don't you think you're a little too young to be a teacher?" I "fell asleep" pretty quickly as soon as the plane took off, and arrived back in Barcelona a few hours later. All in all, a great weekend, and I can't wait to go back when it's warmer!