Un viaje comienza en nuestro interior

Tarjeta Verde

2009-07-04T17:45:00.004+02:00

My face here.

My problems are solved!

During several conversations about my legal status in Spain (which I rarely bring up myself), I have been offered the following advise: Why don't you just find someone to marry in exchange for residency?

Brilliant! Now all I need to do is find:

1) A man (or woman, since gay marriage is legal here) eager to be used for his or her EU membership, preferably open-minded, interesting, a good conversationalist, attractive, talented, creative, kind, funny, liberal, adventurous, and modest.

2) A desire to treat marriage as a means to an ends.

If anyone knows someone who fits into the former category, and/or has advice on how to adopt the mentality of the latter, please contact me or feel free to forward my number to interested parties. In the meantime, I'll be doing just fine here, starting the process of "empadramiento," which will register me as someone living in Barcelona and start the clock ticking on when I could receive residency. No bouquet toss or passed hors d'oeuvres necessary.

Return of the Mac

2009-04-25T14:43:00.009+02:00

After my computer decided to spontaneously fail on me one night and I had to send it to Steve Jobs for a little repair, I finally have it back in my hands with a brand new hard drive makeover. Though on one hand, Facebook is responsible for lowering GPAs of students everywhere (and in my opinion decreasing the quality of interpersonal relationships... who needs to ask someone how they're doing when they can just log on and see their every update?), it really saved me this time because I had all my favorite photos uploaded and thus had a "back-up" when my hard drive crashed and I lost everything. So, warning to everyone out there... backup your stuff. Not only to prevent losing your information, but to avoid having to hear everyone tell you after the fact "Oh, well you should have made a backup!!". This I realize now. Thanks.

So... as usual, I have taken a break from writing for a few months, and now it's time to play catch-up. A ver...

The last post I wrote was about going to America for Obamapalooza 2009. I drove down to DC Monday morning and started working in the afternoon at Al Gore's Green Party at the Portrait Gallery. The big man in charge told us that Halle Berry, the Clintons, Angelina Jolie, and "about 50 other A-listers" would be there, but in the end they must have had problems on the metro because none of the people he named showed up. It would have been better if he hadn't raised expectations, because in the end it was a really cool event to work... we basically served food to really happy rich people while Melissa Etheridge, John Legend, and Will.I.Am played on stage and everyone from random people like Paul Reisser to more relevant ones like Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore himself spoke in between sets. During the entire event, in addition to serving everyone tap water, the supervisors were watching over our shoulders to make sure we separated all the recyclables for Big Al, who was filming the event to show that it was environmentally-friendly.
The best moment for me was when me and my partner-in-crime of the night went upstairs to the VIP room to collect champagne glasses (a.k.a. stalk Al Gore) and ran into a woman desperate to get downstairs to the main room to see John Legend. There was a long line, and I guess being VIP only gets you so far. The other caterer whose name I can't remember now (we'll call him McCainiac because he made it known that he voted for McCain. Better luck next time!) and I escorted her and her husband downstairs, and when the security tried to stop them, we said "No, don't worry... they're with us." While the guards contemplated what that could possibly even mean, the couple slipped into the crowd and the grown woman was giggling like a little girl and thanking us. I had to help her... she's got good taste in music!

The next day I worked at the same location, but at a less exciting event - the Ford Motor Company party. The Director of Grand Cuisine, who rents us ProBar caterers from the unstoppable Robert Gold, informed us that we did a great job sorting all the plastic, paper, and glass last night, but that in the end there was a mistake with the bags and it all got thrown out anyway. Fail! He handed us our paper, and the menu was like this...

Thomas Jefferson Individual Truffle Macaroni and Cheese
John Adams Miniature Cream Puffs
Lydon Johnson Quesadilla Rolls
George Herbert Walker Bush Crab Stuffed Mushrooms (I think this was a not-so-subtle attempt to tell the Bushes to stuff it)

My personal favorite was when I had to ask people if they wanted a Richard Nixon Teriyaki Skewer. And yes, I saved the menu so I could share it with the world. I mean, is this how we're honoring our fore fathers these days, by putting their name in front of cheese and macaroni? For the next event I propose Barack Obama Pigs in a Blanket with Joe Biden Dipping Sauce.

Being in DC for the inauguration was incredible. People were basically giving each other high fives on the street, and vendors were everywhere selling Obama t-shirts, air fresheners, and belt buckles. On Monday night I had a sleepover with Mimi, with whom I drank mimosas on the sofa while watching Obama get sworn in.

Tuesday I had an adventure with Karen when the cab driver took us to the wrong address, insisted he was right, and then kicked us out of the cab in the middle of nowhere. Wednesday morning I got to meet up with Stevie and Suchin, who braved the cold to spend the day in the middle of the action, and were so kind as to meet me near Urban Outfitters. And being home in general was great - there are no words for how nice it is to visit with my family after being away for months - and I left with my batteries recharged.

A lot has happened in Barcelona since then... visits from Mimi and Renee, travels around Spain, apartment changes, new classes, new season. But I'll save that for another post, and I'll do my best to make sure I have it up before July. Thank you for reading!

Un beso,

Laura

English Only

2009-01-11T23:18:00.000+01:00

"It sure is hard to leave here but it's really not my home"

2009-01-09T21:23:00.002+01:00

After spending two incredible weeks in Sicily, I've decided it's time for more vacation. So, like Columbus before me, I'll be journeying from Spain to America for a little visit. I'll be there from 16th until the 25th, with at least 2 days in DC to serve my country by serving dinner at various inauguration parties. Don't tell Secret Service that I'm illegal immigrant k thanks.

Here's a preliminary to-do list:

Eat pancakes with syrup, a buffalo chicken sandwich, and drink a Blue Moon.
Admire the expansive cereal aisle at the grocery store.
Take advantage of the exchange rate by stocking up on cosmetics, shampoo, etc.
Overuse the microwave, dishwasher, and clothes dryer.
Listen to the radio to catch up on music that's new to me but old news to everyone else.
Take note of how the air changes the moment Bush passes the baton to Obama.

Any other ideas? What have I been missing?

See you soon!

Success!

2008-12-13T16:24:00.012+01:00

With only some minor miscalculations in the number of plates, forks, and, ahem, chairs... we pulled it off! Turkey, mashsed potatoes, gravy, special spinach, pumpkin soup (only half store-bought and a quarter splattered on the wall), bread, 8? bottles of wine, and two different kinds of dessert for twelve. Besides, I won't be able to get away with serving ice cream in coffee mugs when I'm a real adult, so why not enjoy it now?

picture, clockwise: KC, Roger, Jaume, Núria, Eric, Xavi, Oriol, Patrick, Sori, Antonio, Guillermo. And you can probably recognize me.

Draw me a tree

2008-12-13T15:36:00.011+01:00

During one particularly interesting class this week, in which I was concerned that my student's sleep deprivation was causing some strange behavior (read: kangaroo impression), he delivered one of my new favorite quotes:

"One time, someone asked me to draw a tree, so I spend three hours carefully drawing the trunk, the leaves, all the branches... and then they told me it was for a psychology test."

Keep that in mind next time you have three hours to kill and someone gives you vague, illustration-related instructions.

( In case you're curious, this is a test used especially with children to determine their attitudes and perceptions, but it can be used with adults too. Basically, you're asked to draw a tree (or in other cases a face or a house), and what you draw says a lot about what you're thinking and feeling at the time. Everything, from the season of the tree to whether it has holes, roots, flowers, animals, or a swing, says something about you. Here's a link to something similar if you want to play along a home:

http://drawing.feedbucket.com/start.php )

I will make you so much happy

2008-11-22T21:04:00.014+01:00

One of the easier things about learning Spanish is the pronunciation in general. There are some things that are very different from English, like the silent h, the harsh "j" sound, and of course rolling the rrrrrrs. A simple word like "rojo," (red), is difficult to pronounce correctly because you have to roll the first r and make the j sound in your throat. But 99% of the time Spanish words are pronounced like they're spelled phonetically. After you learn the rules, there are no surprises. Every syllable is pronounced, and the accents are handy to tell you if there are any changes in which syllable gets stressed. English, on the other hand, is a pain in the culo.

Because each syllable is pronounced in Spanish words, it's difficult for Spanish people to turn off the instinct to pronounce every syllable when speaking English. For this reason, one of the main difficulties that they have when learning English is with words ending in "ed". "Asked" becomes "as-ked", "watched" is "watch-ed," etc. The ones that have t or d before the "ed" are easy: invited, decided, and so on. But the rest are a constant source of annoyance. Another problem is the tendency to say "the people is," because "people" in Spanish is most commonly "la gente," which is singular. And still another is to says "fathers" instead of parents, "brothers" instead of "siblings," and "childrens" instead of "children". All of these come from directly translating from one language to another. The interesting thing is that each person, or each group of people, who learns English as a second language makes mistakes that are unique depending on what their native language is. I've never sat in on a Chinese ESL class, for example, but I imagine that their version of English is different than that of my students, especially at a basic level. I have even seem some examples of this when people are thinking in Catalan before speaking English. One common error is to say "dinner" when they really mean "lunch", because "lunch" in Catalan is "dina"....

...or else.

And this brings me to my second point, which I think I've mentioned before. When I took the TEFL course in Sevilla, once of the things they emphasized is that with this course, you're certified to teach anywhere in the world. And even better, their spectacular lesson plans would allow you to teach even in a country where you didn't speak the language. This might be true if you have the luxury of restricting yourself to teaching only advanced students who never ask you "how do you say ____ in English?". But in the real world, if you want to teach basic classes, if you want to avoid wasting time looking things up in the dictionary, if you want to understand (and help your students understand) why they make the mistakes they do, and if you want to help them form associations with words in their native language, at least some grasp of their native language is a huge benefit. And if nothing else, you can at least commiserate and stop them from beating themselves up so much when you tell them funny stories of your own mistakes. (I recently went into a Zara and asked where was the department for things for the home, pointing at a sign. After being told that there wasn't one at that store, I looked again and saw that it said Homme, as in "man" in Catalan. Oops). But even my extremely basic knowledge of Catalan comes in handy when I can explain that "fork" sounds like "forquilla" and "cousin" is similar to "cosí". I guess my point is that I've learned a lot of things during my time teaching, and one of them is to not listening to the marketing techniques of a company that's trying to get you to pay for their course.

But as difficult as English spelling and pronunciation can be, it's also a source of humor for those who don't take themselves so seriously. I wish I had a videocamera in my class the day I taught the group the words "tweezers," and they all repeated it for a minute straight. It sounded like a group of little birds at feeding time. Have you ever thought about how similar "message" and "massage" sound? And how embarrassing it would be if you're a receptionist and say "Your wife wanted me to give you this massage" by accident? The other day, I wrote the phrase "traffic jam" up on the board, and one woman, Rosa, said "oh, traffic ham" and everyone starting laughing and making jokes about traffic hams. I told them to just be sure to remember the real pronunciation, or they're going to insist to someone that their English teacher told them it was "jamón de trafico". And it makes me laugh everytime to hear people think out loud, or explain to another student, the spelling of an English word by pronouncing it like a Spanish word. I've heard "mistake" pronounced "mees-ta-kay" so many times, I've had to stop myself from using it as a real word when I'm speaking Spanish. Lettuce is "lay-too-say," naturally. And on Thursday, when I was teaching little Javier the frequency adverbs (always, often, never...) he was copying down the word "sometimes" and said slowly under his breath "so-meh-tee-mays". We both couldn't stop laughing.

If you're still reading, thank you. And if I have a point somewhere in all this, I guess it's that you have to go easy on yourself when you're learning a language, and go even easier on other people. It's difficult for ways that you never expect until you're in the middle of it. Even the simple act of ordering an ice cream cone in Spanish can turn into an R-rated mistake if you're not careful (as Eric, who works at an ice cream place) loves to tell me about.

I'm off to prepare for KC's arrival tonight! She's flying in from Ireland and staying until Friday. We're planning a Thanksgiving feast, so if anyone has any suggestions about recipes or ways to not screw up the turkey, they'd be much appreciated. If not, I can always trust Martha Stewart's recipe on how to fry a turkey on a jail cell radiator.

Besos y abrazos!

Simon Says "Enough Already"

2008-11-18T23:23:00.006+01:00

Although it's only November, my classes have already been changing a lot this year. One reason is because of the crisis - some people have had to cut back on the number of class hours, which leaves me in the position to find new students to fill in the gaps. And the second reason is because of the parents of the boys I've been teaching since last year. They've been talking up the classes to other parents at the boys' school, and because of their recommendations I've started classes with two other families.

The first is a family with two boys, Lucas (9) and Santi (6). I'm teaching Lucas all things related to cooking, because the kid loves to cook elaborate meals like paella and pizza from scratch. At nine years old. He gets visibly excited talking about garlic and different types of lettuce that I didn't even know existed. Santi is really adorable, but really difficult to teach. We look at a calendar and practice the days of the week and he says "Monday, Wednesday, seventeen!" and giggles. I ask him what his favorite food is and he says "koala". (The week before we talked about animals and I mentioned that koala was the same in English and Spanish. Apparently that's the only one he remembered. And no, they do not consume koala meat in Spain). He looks exactly like the Jerry McGuire kid, but with thick red glasses. Basically like this:

I would love to teach him how to say "My next door neighbor has three rabbits" and show his mom after the class, but I have a feeling the humor would be a little lost on her...

The newest kids class I have is with two girls (finally!) named Sara and Laura. Sara's 8 and Laura's 10. They're family friends of Javier and Guillermo, the "original" boys, and are the only two naturally blonde and blue eyed Spanish/Catalan children I've seen. Just like J and G, they have very different personalities. Laura is very reserved and studious. She can spell words like "stomachache" better than most Americans could. Sara is a wind-up toy, and a little sneaky. Yesterday we were playing a memory game where we had to turn over pairs of verbs and their matching pictures. As I was explaining the game with the cards all laid out, she kept conspicuously ducking under the table, and it took me a second to realize what she was doing: looking up under the glass table to see the pictures! She made a big show of having to think and decide about which cards she wanted to choose, and miraculously picked a pair the first time! We set a no dirty cheaters policy very soon after that. During class with Laura, Sara bounces around the room and peeks through the kitchen window, asking when we're going to play Simon Says. Which brings me to the title of the post.

In addition to the words "sit down" and the song "head, shoulders, knees, and toes," every child in an English class seems to know the game Simon Says from day 1. Not only that, they'll do whatever this "Simon" character tells them to do, and will immediately snap into Good Behavior Mode if the threat of a Simon Says-less class is dangled in front of them. It's a great learning tool (except when it's Javier's turn and asks me how to say put your finger in your nose), but it's a little distracting when 5 minutes into class Santi starts with "play Simon Says? play Simon Says?" with a mesmerized look in his eyes. And it's a little disconcerting during a time of crisis to know that my position could just as easily be filled with this guy:

As fun as it is teaching the kids, the adults have their moments, too. At the risk of trying to explain "you-had-to-be-there" situations, here's some recent things that made me laugh from my pre-intermediate business class. This is my only class where the students want to pretty much go straight through the book, but sometimes I try to enhance some exercises and make things more interesting by straying from the page. For example, when we were learning the names of household appliances, I had them explain the basic uses for each one, like "The broom cleans the floor". In the end, we had a list like "The refrigerator keeps my beer cold" and "The vacuum scares my son". I asked them about their least favorite chores and who did what in the house, and one woman, Anna, said with a straight face something like "My ex-husband and I did everything equal, 40/40". I thought for a second and said, "Do you mean 50/50?" a she said "Oh, yeah!". We all started laughing and decided that the other 20% of her house just stayed dirty. Then today I was teaching them how to give directions, and I played the role of the lost English-speaking tourist. After writing up all the relevant words and phrases like "go straight," "change lines," and even teaching them the nifty trick of using the "L" of your thumb and pointer finger to remember which hand is left, they decided that the best thing to do is tell the person to walk to the end of the street and ask someone else how to get there.

That's all for now. My camera stopped working, so I don't have any new pictures to share, but I'm hoping to get a new one soon! Hasta entonces!

Messages from my students

2008-11-05T21:25:00.004+01:00

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Congratulations!!!!!!
I'm very happy for the results of the present elections and I'm sure since now the world will be better.

---

Hi Laura,

congratulations

yes we can!

---

Congratulations LAURA !!!

Today is a fantastic and nice day and you must be proud

___

Hey Laura!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!

I think that you will have a good president.

I see you tomarrow

---

My best wishes for your country and for all of us! I hope that the influence
in the world will be more positive and that the new govern will continue
working for peace, freedom and real democracy.

---

PS For those who can access Google Earth, you should be able to see Obama's face painted in the sand on the beach of Barcelona. He's a rock star around these parts.

Juca Update

2008-10-09T00:35:00.007+02:00

I visited Juca again today in the hospital. Unfortunately, the biggest improvements that he's made since his accident are that he's now able to communicate better, he's in a private room with a TV, and just recently he starting being able to turn his head. About a week ago they tried to move him to a wheelchair, but he ended up having a bad reaction to being moved and had a fever for days after. His family is trying to get him well enough to return to Brasil because São Paulo has a very good unit for injuries of his kind, but it's hard to imagine him getting on a plane to make the journey home.

Despite everything, he has amazing attitude and conviction. Bruno, his cousin and best friend who has been by his side as a full time job since the accident, told me today about a relationship Juca has developed with one of the nurses. He asked her one day to be honest and tell him if she had ever seen anyone in his condition walk again. She was, and said that she hadn't. He told her to write his name down, because he was going to be the first.

He has to walk again.

Mucho Mucha, and other Musings

2008-10-07T00:29:00.009+02:00

My last few days have been very full. Normally I write about my adventures in other places, but I've neglected to write about the daily things that make me smile and make me grateful. This past weekend was a good example.

Last year, I was lucky enough to come across an advertisement for someone who was looking to practice both English and salsa. He needed a salsa partner and was willing to pay for lessons for both of us in exchange for help with English. I was the first to contact him, and after meeting up, we started the lessons at a dance school/ club called Antillas. We did 10 last Spring, and after a summer hiatus, we started again Friday evening . It's something that I've really enjoyed.. it's a great chance to meet new people, get some exercise, and learn something that I've always wanted to learn. It's interesting, too, because both times I've been the only American in the class. As I'm learning the steps, I'm also trying to focus on what the instructor is saying because the classes are taught in Spanish, naturally. At first, I think I was always a few seconds behind whenever she called out "gira a la derecha, gira a la izquierda," but now I've got it down, and my new teacher is even easier to understand when she speaks. Mario, my partner, and I went to our first "Basico B" lesson on Friday, and again Sunday night to a start of the season party. It was so much fun, with the instructors lining everyone up line-dance style and calling out movements while everyone danced together and we beginners tried to keep up. After watching some of the really advanced couples dance, I'm even more inspired to continue with the lessons. They make it look so effortless and fun.. I'm determined to improve to the point where I'm spinning around in heels without thinking about where my feet will land.

Saturday evening I met with Enrique and Isabel, a sweet married couple who I met through Michelle. He's a fair-complexioned intellectual-looking Catalan man, and she's a striking woman from the South of Spain who's often mistaken for Italian. We've been meeting every few weeks for language exchanges - they help me with my Spanish, and I help them with English. At first Enrique and I were meeting alone... his English is great and we can switch effortlessly from one to the other, which must be confusing for eavesdroppers. When Isabel is there it's a different dynamic, but just as interesting. She can say "My name is Isabel. I'm from Barcelona," and I'm teaching her some basic verbs and words related to the house and the weather. They just returned from a trip to America and were eager to tell me how nice people were there, from San Francisco to New York City. Whenever I leave after our intercambios, I always feel like I've gained more than just practice with language. I really value my relationships I've made with people outside the age range of most of my friends (they're in their mid 30s). I feel like you can learn a lot a gain a new perspective by talking to people older than you, and it's nice to feel like I've developed a community here besides the people I go out with on the weekends.

Every month, all the major museums in Barcelona are free on the first Sunday. Last month, Ashley, Patrick, and I tried to go, but slept in and found out the hard way that most of them close around 2:00. This month, my new friend Nuria and I agreed to meet at noon and head to Plaza España, where there are two major museums. The first one we went to, MNAC (National Museum of Art of Catalunya), is a work of art in itself:

There we saw a lot of old religious art, which never really inspires me, and got kicked out just as we were done looking at a photography exhibit from the Spanish Civil War. Next, we went to Caixa Forum, which stays open until 8:00. There the main exhibit was of artwork and jewelry by Mucha, whose work I fell in love with. He gained popularity after he designed posters for plays starring Sarah Bernhardt, the famous French actress, and later went on to paint many portraits of women and nature. He has a recurring theme of series of four: the four seasons, four parts of the day, four precious stones, etc. It made me strongly consider a career as a muse.

After the museum tour, we went to grab lunch and found ourselves in the middle of a Medieval Festival, which for some reason included donkeys and belly dancers. Then we met Nuria's boyfriend, Jaume, for a drink in the Raval area (which, according to Woody Allen in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, is filled with prostitutes smiling and waving), before I had to run off to my salsa party.

Even though I usually take advantage of the weekend to relax and unwind, I felt more energized Sundya after running around all day than I ever do after a day of lounging. I love the feeling of opening myself up to new opportunities, not planning too much, and just seeing what happens from there. It's difficult to stumble across something new and interesting when I'm wholed up in my apartment. I'm already planning fun things for next weekend - a trip to the top of Tibidabo, quizás? But first, I have a lot of teaching English to do. So buenas noches, bona nit, and buona sera (I'm learning Italian). Here's a few more Muchas for the road:

Menorca

2008-09-21T19:36:00.020+02:00

With the upcoming elections, I want to take a moment to point out one important issue that, disappointingly, the candidates have been conspicuously avoiding: increased vacation time. I'm not one to think that my short time in Europe, and my short time on this Earth in general, puts me in a position to preach about complex ways that European countries are different from America, but I think we can all remember elementary school when we learned that 4 > 1. This especially applies with summer vacation. Since the Spanish have a month of vacation time (in addition to adjusted work schedules to allow for beach time), it's the general rule in Spain that August is holiday month, and things pretty much shut down. Because no one wanted English lessons during their Sacred Vacation Time, this meant a lot of free time for me as well. And let me tell you, I'd give up having a dishwasher (and dryer, and microwave...) for life if it meant having more than a week or two of vacation every year. I've had people tell me, completely straight-faced, that there would be riots in the streets if the government tried to change the current system. They're in disbelief when I tell them that a lot of people in America have a week tops, and even more so when I explain the concept of sick days. Here, when you're sick, you just don't go to work. (But to be fair, they have been building the Sagrada Familia since 1882, so maybe there's something to be said about a few less siestas every year). Anyway, after Tomatina, Ashley and I took a short Monday - Thursday trip to Menorca as soon as the prices dropped September 1st.

The first day, we only had to walk out of the hotel to find ourselves on the beach. At one point I realized that I was paying the same amount to stay in the hotel on the beach as I did to stay in dreadful Hostel New York during the second half of my first month in Barcelona. But I probably would never have moved if my hostel had a pool with flamenco music and cheap pitchers of sangria.

How fun do these look?!

The second day, we took a bus from Calan Bosch, where we were staying, to Cala Blanca a little bit further north. This is where the bus driver dropped us off:

Menorca's coastline is dotted with "calas," which don't really have an easy translation into English. This is what a cala is:

Closer look:
There are dozens of these mini beach/coves all over the island, some more secluded than others. I went snorkeling with a snorkel I "borrowed" from the hotel. (By the way - in Spanish, you can say "gafas" for the mask, which is the same words for glasses and "tubo," for the tube. It's so intuitive and makes you wonder who came up with words like "snorkel" and "goggles" that you can only use in a really specific context. This is why I sometimes find myself apologizes to my students for the complexities of our language.)

Back at the hotel:

On the last, and decidedly best, day we had an unexpected, amazing time completely by accident. In order to kill time before we caught the bus to the other side of the island, we wandered towards the coast near Ciatudella, the main city on the west side...
There we came across the coastline, which was nothing like in Calan Bosch. It was rocky, with cliffs that dropped down into the sea, and it reminded me a little bit of the way Northeast of America.

We found a secret cave/ homeless person's dwelling, and ventured in.

Ashley found her Favorite Spot in the World, and we carefully climbed down and dangled our feet off the edge, waiting for just the right wave to come along...

Then we walked down to the water, and played chicken with the waves.

Soaked! Some boys fishing off the edge were looking at me like I was a crazy woman. They signaled to me that they had caught 4 fish so far, then I waved bye and it was Ashley's turn.

Wait for it...

Classic!

Instant Replay!

With the sun setting, it was time to leave.

We made our way back to the bus, then fell asleep during the 45 minute ride to Mahon.

Downtown Mahon:

Mahon is known for having the second largest natural port in the world, or some other impressive statistic like that. Here is it - it's really pretty at night:

We caught a late flight back to Barcelona, the kind of flight that takes off, and after what seems like 5 minutes, the pilot announces the landing. It's times like this that make me appreciate choosing to live in Barcelona versus another city in Spain and make me realize that I could never live away from the coast.

"My life if like a stroll on the beach... as near to the edge as I can go." - Thoreau

El Fight de Tomatoes

2008-09-15T14:56:00.014+02:00

When I found out the dates that Ashley wanted to come visit, I realized they coincided with La Tomatina, an annual, internationally-known tomato fight held in Buñol (near Valencia) every year. Luckily, it was on Ashley's List of Things To Do Before I Die, so when I suggested we go, she was all for it. I also invited my good friend Eric, who, if he had known what would happen at the end of the trip, probably would have stayed home and watched it on TV instead.

First things first, we prepared ourselves with goggles, waterproof cameras, and 2-euro tank tops painted for the occasion:

Given the choice of staying in the only hostel still available, with reviews like "there was a strange smell coming out of the ventilation," or taking the train to Valencia the night before and staying up until the morning, we chose the latter. Eric and I have a habit of hanging out with large groups of Brazilians wherever we go, and that night was no exception. We randomly met this group of people from Brasil, living in Madrid, and ended up spending the night with them. At 6 am or so, the majority of them returned to their hotel to change clothes, and promised to meet us there. Later on, we found out that they ended up falling asleep and missing the whole thing. Four of us made it to the train station, but we got split up even more when the rush of people were boarding the train. So unfortunately, I didn't get to nail Ashley or Eric with a handful of mashed up tomato. But I had a new friend (and bodyguard) in Fanderson, one of the Brazilians, and after a short nap on the street we headed towards the center.

Before the fight starts, there's entertainment in the form of "Ham Up a Greasy Pole," which is exactly what it sounds like. Brave (or drunk) party-goers try to scramble up this crisco-ed pole to try to grab the chunk of ham taunting them at the top, and the fight starts as soon as someone gets it down. Meanwhile, townspeople stand at their windows with hoses or with big tubs of water, throwing it onto the cheering rowd while overzealous boys throw their wet tshirts around like in a mosh pit.

This year, despite a valiant attempt by chickens and bare-assed men alike, no one was able to get a hold of the prize. Luckily, they decided to start the fight anyway, as to prevent a riot. Even though, that's kind of the point...

Bring on the trucks! After the horn sounds, trucks come down the street every few minutes for a hour, with people flattening themselves up against the walls to avoid being run over. The men and women inside get the crowd going crazy, then start throwing tomatoes over. The trucks stop and the back lifts up slowly, letting the avalanche of tomatoes pour out onto the street. They're scooped up and thrown around before they even get near the ground.

It didn't take long for me to have tomato in my ears, mouth, hair... and dripping down my arms. Everyone was picking tomatoes up off the ground, scraping it off the walls, wherever they could get it to chuck it at loved ones and strangers. By the time the horn sounds to signify the end of the fight, everyone is covered.

Somehow, my flipflops managed to survive.

Afterwards, we followed the parade of people alternating between picking tomato out of their hair and splashing in the tomato soupy mess that flowed down the streets. On the way to the outdoor showers, people hung out the window with hoses, and grateful tourists hosed off. Since you can't get back on the train to Valencia without a shirt, the boys who earlier thought it was fun to throw around their soaking wet t-shirts now were searching through the muck to put on anything they could find. Fanderson and I found our way back to the street where a nice lady had offered to hold our things in her apartment, and after we yelled to her window from the street, she threw down my tomato-free bag. Still unable to find Ashley or Eric, we headed back to Valenica and got some Paella, since that's where it originates.

Later on, I headed to the bus station, hoping to find Ashley and Eric there before we were all supposed to head back at 8 pm. Instead of finding them together, I found a horrified Ashley talking to a Romanian man who had stopped to help her. When I asked where Eric was, she told me that while they were sitting and talking at the bus station, the police singled him out and asked to see his passport. Ashley didn't have hers since it was in my bag, but that didn't matter because she's blonde and had an American driver's license. When they saw that Eric had overstayed his welcome by a few months, they hauled him off and shrugged off his pleas to help Ashley since she doesn't speak Spanish. After she told me, we were both in shock, and it was a very solemn ride home. We had no way of reaching him, and didn't hear from him until the next night while I was trying to call his work to tell them he couldn't come in. I was convinced he was on a plane back to Mexico and was planning on going to his apartment the next day to talk to his roommates and get his things together. Apparently, the way it works is if they find you've overstayed your visa, you have 6 months to get everything together before you have to leave, and that's only if they follow through with the paperwork (otherwise you're off the hook). So he'll be here at least until February. What saddened me almost as much as the thought of losing one of my best friends here is the blatant racism involved (they gave Ashley no problem even though she didn't even have her passport, and treated him like a criminal from the start because they could tell he wasn't Spanish).

But despite the dramatic end, we all had an incredible time during the fight. Eric's back, and the only lasting problem was that we couldn't eat tomatoes for a week. I'm glad to say I participated in the tradition, and Ashley has one more thing crossed off her list.

*The illustration is "Immigration Barriers" by my lovely and talented sister. More can be found at www.steviefrench.com
Shameless plug.

Pictures from Sicily

2008-09-14T01:41:00.004+02:00

Mt. Etna

Molto piacere. Sono ubriaca.

2008-08-14T16:58:00.009+02:00

I'm more than halfway through my stay in Sicily. I've eaten more bread, pasta, and olive oil consecutively than I have in my life, and have heard enough Mama mia's to keep me satisfied for a while. I've tanned every possible way there is to tan in the sun, from laying out on a rock island to relaxing on a boat this afternoon. I now know how to say important things like "cold water!" and "I like eggplant," in Italian, and I got plenty of practice counting to ten due to a paddleball game on the beach with Giulia's 5 year old cousin. I only made a fool out of myself once that I know of, when I was trying to say "Nice to meet you" to a girl we had just met and instead said "Molto obrigada," which is some nonsensical combination of Italian and Portuguese meaning "very thank you." I think I have too many random Catalan, Portugese, and Italian words in my mind waiting around until I commit to actually learning how to form a sentence.

On an island where there's an aversion to sunscreen and working more than 11 months a year, where the Mayor can't pay the city's electric bill yet fireworks light the sky every hour, and where and you can know how much time has passed by seeing how far the lava has crept down Mt. Etna, I've naturally noticed some cultural differences. For example, while we were driving one evening, Giulia's Dad asked me if I liked horse, and I replied, all wide-eyed and naive, "You mean, to ride?" Then I saw the man flipping over a piece of meat on the grill, and a picture of a stallion in front of a restaurant. Apparently her father is against the idea of it, but Giulia is all about it. I told them I didn't judge, but I couldn't eat it because we used to have a horse as a family pet. Although maybe the threat of being sent to Sicily would have made Seeker behave...

The other major difference is the casual Mafia presence here. Instead of paying a parking fee to leave your car for a few hours, there's a nice man who will watch your car for you and only ask for a euro or so on your way out. Of course, if you refuse to pay he might write down your license plate # and smash your window the next time, but is that really any worse than when a faulty parking meter eats your quarters?

Tonight we're going to a friend's party. I'm getting better each time at navigating social gatherings where I don't really speak the language. When we went to a pool party last week, I hung around Giulia until I identified who knew English or Spanish, then assigned myself the task of making Mojitos. We'll see how it goes tonight, but I may soon be able to file this in with my mainly useless talents, right next to being able to understand Spanish/Catalan people speaking English.

I hope all is well in America!

Ciao from Sicilia!

2008-08-09T12:39:00.003+02:00

I'm in Sicily now, the Italian island being dropkicked by Italy's boot. I arrived last night, and her mother had made an amazing Italian dinner. We sat out on the terrace with a view of Etna, the active volcano on this side of the island. You can actually see smoke coming out the top and lava flowing down. And if it wasn't perfect enough, fireworks started going off in the distance, and we had background music coming up from a club nearby.

We went out to a bar with Giulia's friend Alessandra, who doesn's speak English or Spanish (even though any communication issues are my fault, because I'm the one who came to Italy without knowing Italian). We've been having really stunted converstations (me pointing at some pictures, asking, "familia?" and she responds with "no, amici"), but Giulia's a very patient translator and by the end of the two weeks we've both vowed to improve our respective English and Italian.

What I know so far is... Ciao. Mi chiamo Laura. Sono Americana. Non parlo Italiano. Gratzie. Prego. Bellisima. Spinaci. Pomodoro. Buonanotte.

Very useful. What I also learned is that I'm the palest person on the island, to the point where at least 3 people have asked me whether or not I've been to the beaches yet in Barcelona. Yes. Yes I have.

We're headed to la playa now, with leftovers from last night's dinner stuffed into panini bread to make the most delicious-looking sandwiches I've ever seen. Later on, we're going to a pool party at Giulia's cousin's place.

I'm having so much fun already I would say that I don't want it to end, except that immediately after I return, Ashley will be in Barcelona! It's going to be a good month...

Juca

2008-08-07T12:16:00.006+02:00

One of the first people I met in Barcelona, and one of the nicest people I will ever meet, my good friend Juca, was in a bad accident recently. It left him unable to move from the neck down, and stuck in a crappy hospital bed with no privacy or entertainment. I've been to visit him twice, and he's always smiling and blowing kisses, even though he can't talk yet because he still needs help breathing. Please send all the positive thoughts you have towards Barcelona, or to his family in Brazil. I would give anything to be able to walk into Patagonia to hear him shout "Laurinha!" and sneak me free samples of ice cream, or to know that he could be back on his roller blades again. I normally think that everything happens for a reason, but I'm really struggling to find the reason for this.

El estado del techo

2008-08-07T00:33:00.003+02:00

I'm alone in my apartment this week while my roommates Roger and Xavi are on vacation in Portugal. Last night, I was minding my own business, watching the latest episode of "Weeds," when I heard a noise in the apartment. The walls are especially thin here, but I was sure it was coming from inside. So I grabbed a screwdriver to fend off my attacker, thinking of how I would stop him dead in his tracks with a glimpse of my weapon and a witty Charlie's Angels-type line like, "Don't screw with me, hombre." But instead of a ladrón, I saw the kitchen ceiling about to collapse, and BOOM, 3 seconds later I was screaming as all the drywall and lights fell to the floor. Right after I placed a frantic call to my roommate, the upstairs neighbors came down to make sure I wasn't buried in the rubble, and we had a nice little chat.

In the morning, the door woman and a repair man came to clear out all the debris and install a temporary light. No problem, except for a nice coating of asbestos on all our pots and pans.

Later today, I took more pictures with my photographer/student, who claims he's going to add a few to his portfolio to see if I can work with him if one of his clients needs someone in the fall. I felt very glamorous for a few hours, with the studio and screens and flashing lights. Then, I immediately came home to find that the bathroom ceiling, too, had collapsed. So, still in my photo shoot dress, I put on rubber gloves and began picking up big chunks of ceiling out of the toilet. Needless to say, the glamourous feeling didn't last long.

At any rate, I'm going to Sicily on Friday to visit Giulia for two weeks, so I can deal with any collapses, floods, fires, or ghosts for two more days.

And no, Mom, I'm not coming home. Not yet, anyway.

Cute things my students have said that I hate to have to correct (Episode 1)

2008-06-16T16:38:00.005+02:00

1) Sunshiney [suhn-shahy-nee] - adjective

Pertaining to the ratio of sun to clouds on a particular day.

ex: It's very sunshiney today. I think I might go to the beach.

2) Son-in-love [suhn-in-luhv] - noun

Son-in-law, with an amorous twist

ex: My daughter got married last weekend, so now I have a new son-in-love.

3) Happy good - [hap-ee good] - adjective

Used interchangeably with "Have a good" by the mother of the boys I teach, who says it proudly every Thursday evening while her sons giggle.

ex: Happy good weekend!

And finally, today one of my students said "Thank you for you" in response to me thanking them for coming to the 8 am class. There's a chance she might have meant "Same to you," but I'd like to think she wanted to thank me for being me. Yeah, let's go with that one.

*These pictures have nothing to do with the post. But it's a tshirt from Threadless called "International Translation," and the idea is that you can travel anywhere and point to your shirt to communicate if you don't know the word for "bathroom" in Romanian, for example. Clever.

Moving on up

2008-06-01T23:35:00.004+02:00

This post is going to be a short one, but I wanted to say that I'm all moved into my new (and final) apartment! It feels good to be settled, even if my room looks like this at the moment:

After some unpacking and a trip to IKEA (pronounced ee-kay-ah here), I'll post some "after" pictures. Bona nit!

Dinner party

2008-05-30T01:09:00.007+02:00

While I was in Sevilla. I bought a book called "Cocinar para los amigos," or "Cooking for friends." Six months later, I decided to use it. Giulia, Michelle, and Eric were happy to test it out:

Also, after a unit on food and restaurant vocabulary, I made sushi for one of my classes and had each of them bring in food and explain the recipe. Afterwards, Magda gave my the recipe for a Spanish tortilla (very different from a Mexican tortilla), and I made one with Patrick. I think it weighed 10 pounds:

My next lesson plan

2008-05-29T23:38:00.016+02:00

Today I had class with the two young brothers, Guillermo and Javier. Luckily, months ago their parents talked to a friend whose children were taking English lessons separately and asked me if I thought the boys should do the same and split up instead of having class together. I was all about the idea, since as soon as I would focus on helping one of them, the other would be squirming out of his chair onto the floor or trying to copy answers. So now I have 45 minutes with one and 45 with the other, twice a week.

At first I was going straight from the book with them, because I didn't have any experience teaching kids and they basically were starting from knowing how to count to 10 and say some colors. But I abandoned that idea as soon as I saw how much faster they learned from playing games. I could have them spend half an hour doing exercises about the different between "there is" and "there are" and they'd be bored and wouldn't retain anything, but after a few times playing "hide the phone" for 10 minutes, they knew how to ask "Is it under the table?" "Is it on the bookshelf?" without even having to think. We're currently throwing a ball around asking each other questions in the past tense, while the book is collecting dust with my useless TEFL materials on the highest shelf.

Anyway, I'm enjoying their class more and more each time. I'm able to be more creative and impulsive with them than I am with the adults, and I think it's pretty funny that immediately after graduating from University I took up a job that pays me to play Simon Says. It's actually pretty gratifying when the 7 year old kicks my ass at our past/present tense memory card game, or when he makes a steering motion when I'm teaching him the word "dry," because it sounds like drive (I think him knowing that "bat" sounds like "bad" has more to do with Batman than our lesson on animals, so I can't take credit there).

But it's still my first year teaching, and I have a lot to learn. My first life lesson about kids came after I started a reward system with them for good behavior and doing the homework. They can earn up to 3 stars a day, and after every 25 they get a "premio," a litle prize. It's thinly veiled bribery, I know. But they're doing their homework now, so give me a break! So, I scoured El Corte Ingles until I found something that I imagined I would love if I were an 8 year old boy - mini motorcycles with little matching helmets. I paid 8 euros for them, and then, por si acaso, brought along two things that my mom gave me in my stocking for Christmas - these plastic containers of a gak-like substance. (Remember Gak? )

I gave them the choice, thinking for sure that they would chose the motorcycles. But no. They went all crazy for the goopy stuff that I got for free, and made me think about how much fun we always had with the empty refrigerator box when we were younger. So now I frequent the dollar (euro?) store to buy something like squirt guns or paddle balls for 50 centidos.

But today I learned another lesson: to never bring permanent markers around these kids ever again. We've been learning a lot of verbs, and at one point I made them a big posterboard chart with the present, past, translation, and an example sentence. Today, I thought it would be a good idea to add some of the newer words to the chart and have them come up with sentences. What I didn't take into account was the permanent marker smell. You know how some people like the smell of gasoline? Well both of these boys apparently really like eau de Sharpie. So there I was trying to write out a nice chart, and Guille was literally sniffing the paper asking me repeatedly if I liked the smell too. I told him it was bad for him and thought it was a freak thing, but the during the next class Javi started doing the same! I was a little scared their mom would walk in while I was trying to convince him to stop inhaling deeply everything I wrote a word because the chemicals would go to his head. The last thing I need is to have to explain to the mom in Spanish why her precious boys have a vacant look in their eyes after the lesson. So, it's colored marker from now on, and for the next homework assignment, 100 written lines of "Sniffing markers can damage your brain."

Gay Paree

2008-05-04T01:34:00.034+02:00

After our TEFL course in Sevilla, Michelle, Patrick and I headed off for Barcelona while Clare went back to England and Tom ended up in Paris. I assumed he would be there for a year and I would have plenty of time to visit, but when I found out that he was leaving at the end of his course in February, I booked a cheap flight and quickly planned a weekend trip to France. After a 4-hour delay at the airport, I was there!

First, Tom met me at the bus station, and we went to meet his lovely girlfriend, Rola, and their friend Miki.

After having a drink, we walked by Notre Dame at night...

... and then went back again the following morning.

Man suiting up in a rabbit costume. Random.

Since my flight was delayed Friday and I left again Sunday afternoon, I only had one full day there. So, we went into full tourist mode and did as much as possible on Saturday. After Notre Dame, we went to the Arc de Triomphe and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. (thank god for the copy and paste function).

After a little stroll, we came to a plaza where artists had set up stands for selling their paintings.

In the plaza, a few men were drawing portraits. This stunning woman was sitting in a leopard print coat, sipping a glass of white wine while the artist drew her. The scene was a lot more elegant than anything I've witnessed in America, and I had to (discreetly) take a picture:

This kid is going places in life. Well done.

This guy had live goldfish swimming around in the jar that he balanced on his head while he juggled.
We stopped for drinks at a cool little place. All of the walls were covered with a thick layer of little papers - notes and drawings from customers who had come there over the years. Here's Tom and his sister, Charlotte, who was also visiting that weekend with her boyfriend.

The piano player in the restaurant. Here you can see all the messages and pictures people left.

For dinner, we went to a really nice place with a beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower. I had the most delicious salmon I've ever had, and we all watched the tower's light show each hour on the hour during the meal.

Later, naturally, we walked by the tower and took an excessive number of pictures.

Tom needed toilet paper for the apartment, so he stole a "loo roll" from the fancy restaurant.

And then Sunday I left. It was a short trip, but definitely worth it. Now I can say I've been to Paris twice, and this time I had a different experience since I was with people who speak the language fluently and really know the city. It was amazing to walk around the city both during the day and at night, and I'm glad I got to meet up with Tom before his program ended. He left for Argentina soon after, and, after spending so much time with him, Charlotte, and her boyfriend Rich, I came back to Barcelona with a tendency to say "lovely" and some answers to questions my students have about British English. For now, cheerio and au revoir!

Some pictures

2008-05-04T01:21:00.004+02:00

Mom and Renee's Visit

2008-05-01T12:23:00.014+02:00

I've had these pictures uploaded for a while, but I'm having trouble thinking of what to write to go along with them. In all seriousness, how do you describe starting a new life in another country, and then having the opportunity to show it to the people you love the most? I talked to Renee and my mom a lot about how things were going in Barcelona, but there was really nothing that could compare to being able to show them. I'm really grateful that they were here and could meet my friends and see the city for themselves. Here's the summary in pictures:

First, the nonsense ones, taken at Park Guell and the grocery store, respectively:

In America he's only "Mister" Clean, but in Spain he's "Don."

We got to see Michelle! After a failed attempt to go to "quiz night" at the Travel Bar, we got some food and then went to a bar on the same street as our very first home here, Hostel New York.

And mom posed with the hookah, no convincing necessary.

The view of the more industrial side of the city, from the top of Montuic near the castle.

Statuesque:
I never get tired of the palmeras.
In the teleferica, or cable car, going back down from Montuic.
I had to get a candid of mom because she always closes her eyes in pictures. I like this one a lot.
Fun with iphoto.
Renee playing in Park Guell:

View from the top!

Ya esta. And now, I get to see them again in two weeks!

Happy Sant Jordi! Updated

2008-04-23T10:21:00.009+02:00

In Catalunya, April 23 is Sant Jordi, the Catalan equivalent of Valentine's Day. The (slightly sexist) tradition is that women buy books for the men in their lives and men buy flowers for the women. Already, the vendors are set up all up and down the streets selling flowers and libros. I'd really prefer a book since they tend not to die the next day, but one of my students gave me a rose this morning and I have to admit it's pretty to look at. Besides, now I can go out this afternoon and buy a book for myself. Pictures to come...

*Update!*

This is Plaza Sant Jaume. I didn't get many pictures of the stands where they were selling books because, well, pictures of books just really aren't that interesting. But here's un ejemplo:

All the stands were decorated with the Catalan flag (the yellow and red banner).

This debatably crazy man was standing in the middle of the plaza screaming "bon dia" (the Catalan equivalent of buenos dias) at everyone who walked by. The sign says "Here Catalan has no future." He's the same one from the "I need a thousand hugs" picture a while back. I think that sign would have been more appropriate for the occasion.

Rainbow-colored roses!

Sometimes I read giant books.

By the end of the day, I made out nicely thanks to Patrick and a few students who obviously were thinking ahead to when I'll give them their grades at the end of the month. Plus, I bought myself a book in Spanish, which I'll be reading on the beach with a bilingual dictionary at my side. A few people described it to me as the best day in Barcelona. I don't know about that since I haven't been here for a whole year yet, but I can at least say that the Catalans know how to pick a good day for a holiday - a sunny day at the end of April beats February 14th any day.

2008-04-22T17:31:00.037+02:00

For an unforgettable Christmas present, Patrick arranged for the two of us to go to Portugal, and we ended up going to Lisbon in late February. After an extensive course in Portuguese (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OzV3R16bKI), we hopped on a plane on a Friday and got to Lisbon about an hour later. After ditching our bags at the hostel, we set out to explore a little bit.

After an extended siesta, we set out to find a good place to eat. On the way we found this mural that I fell in love with.

The people who stand outside the restaurants in Lisbon put the Barcelona guys to shame in terms of aggressiveness and persistence. Luckily, we dodged them, and walking a little farther up the road paid off. We found this tiny place that advertised itself as an art gallery slash restaurant, and the cook came out of the kitchen to explain the menu and give us her recommendations. It turned out to be one of the best meals I've ever had.

On Saturday we took a day trip to the Sintra castle, which apparently looks like this if you go on a day when it's not pouring rain.

But to try something a little different, we chose to go on a day that was more like this:

Back in the main part of town, we played around in the plaza that was like a big optical illusion. Again, props to Patrick for picking a muy guay hostel that overlooked this:

Later we walked up to the top of the hill to do a little bar-hopping and I took some pictures along the way. It seems like the custom in Lisbon is to go into a bar to get a drink in a plastic cup and then go back out onto the street to imbibe. It was like a giant, packed frat party.

It also seems like it's a Lisbon tradition to mark your territory with graffiti. I'm definitely a fan, and Lisbon had the best graffiti of any city I've been to so far.

"No one prohibits you except you"

Sunday before our flight, we wandered around with a German girl we met at the hostel. We climbed up the hill on the other side of the city and made it up to the top just before we had to catch a cab to the airport.

Carne = Crime

At last, we had to say "tchau" to Portugal. I was sad to leave, but now that I know at least 5 Portuguese words I'm sure I'll be back soon.

Karen's Visit

2008-04-18T02:05:00.042+02:00

Karen came to visit at the end of January, but for the sake of making it more relevant, let's just pretend it was more recently. The pictures of us shivering on the beach might make that difficult though...

Fun with the 10 second timer:

We cleaned up a little for dinner:

Monday in between my classes we trekked up Mont Juic (one of the two mountains on either side of the city) in order to get to Poble Espanyol and the Olympic Stadium (which will from this point forward be known as the Estadi). We had a little trouble along the way, namely the steep mountainside and getting caught in the brush:

Tuesday morning, we went to the market and Gaudi's Casa Battló before my first afternoon class.

Of course the one with my name on it can't be the stand with strawberries or rose petals... it has to be fish.

Casa Battló

One night when we were walking home we ran into these guys who had found a sign protesting for education in Ecuador. I think they were Slovakian. So, we protested for education in Ecuador and got a pretty good crown started before they grew bored and abandoned the cause.

We made it to Sagrada Familia, and even came close to stealing a piece for a souvenir:

For my birthday we met for lunch after my class, then later on met with Michelle to go to a Mexican restaurant in her neighborhood, Gracia:

Acting natural in the metro station:

And some random ones:

And then, after Carnaval (see below), she left me. Left me to fight for Ecuador's education alone, pausing only to watch episodes of R. Kelly's epic "Trapped in the Closet," my treasured birthday present. All good things must come to an end...

Crawling back...

2008-04-18T01:08:00.038+02:00

The funny thing about trying to maintain a journal is that the more things you do that would be interesting to write about, the less time you have to write about them. Not that I've been so busy that I have any real excuse for not writing for months at a time, but you get the picture...

I'm dedicated to getting on top of things again, so I'll be writing about what I'm doing these days while posting pictures from January until now, flashback-style. To come back with some flair, here are some pictures from Carnaval to start out with. Right after my birthday, a town nearby called Sitges had a big Carnaval celebration from Thursday to Tuesday, each night with its own theme. The ones with the lovely blonde Karen Salerni are from Friday night, and the rest are from Saturday night after she left me to go back to the states. Many more pictures from Karen's visit to come...

Earlier that day, we raided Party City and threw together sparkly hats, wigs, deliciously tacky accessories, and silver wings. Everyone kept asking what we were supposed to be, and we didn't really know... but who says there has to be a theme?

The ambiance was made even more fabulous high percentage of drag queens who came out in full force and full costume.

The first time I met Cristal and Lia, they were dressed up like guys and I had purple hair.

In the metro station, Too Legit to Quit.

By the time we got back to Barcelona, it was 8 am and the sun was up.

"no fotos"

Karen had a flight to catch a few hours later.....

....And then there was one.

~~~~~~

The next night, I took the train again to Sitges to meet up with Cristal, Lia, and Antonio at his apartment. While I was strategically applying silver stars to my face, I started talking with the three Italian guys who were sitting next to me. Before I knew it, they all wanted stars and designs painted on their faces, and set up a makeshift makeup studio on the party train in between stops.

I ended up going out as a purple angel with Lia, Antonio, and his brother Jaime.

Lia celebrated the ugliest costumes of the night by getting pictures with the best ones.

All in all, it was an absolute blast. I'm anxiously awaiting the next Carnaval, or at least the next opportunity to rock the purple wig. Stay tuned!

Back in Black

2008-03-03T23:48:00.073+01:00

I know my extended absence from the blogging world has been a daily disappointment for each of you who has my journal as your homepage, but I'm back now! The sigh of relief is audible across the Atlantic. I've resigned myself to the fact that it would be pointless to try to recount all the details of the last several months, since that would ensure that I don't do anything for the next two months. My solution is a photo montage of the adventures that have kept my fingers away from the keyboard for these long weeks. So (stretching)... here we go:

Stevie and Scott's Adventura Excelente:

Stepping out of the airport to see the palm trees!

Meeting Patrick's family:

Mojitos

Playing on the beach:

Barcelona: Good for tourists, bad for neighbors. Especially those who chose to live near a main tourist attraction. Bitter Betties.

Looking regal over Parc Guell

Stevie was looking especially blurry that evening.

New Year's:

Climbing Mt Tibidabo:

The "Forest of the Fairies" Bar

Random party with some Brazilians

Flamenco show:

Attempting to make sushi:

The aquarium:

Do Not Grab at the Singing Fish

Sad pinguino

Stevie and me at Monserrat (in mixed-up order):

Kings' Day Parade (to celebrate when the wise men made their fashionably late arrival):

The African king had the best entourage:

More to come!

I lied

2008-01-21T22:51:00.000+01:00

I couldn't sleep last night, and I had a new private student today, so I didn't have the time to take an extended siesta like I normally do on days when I have class in la madrugada (the early morning. and also the name of a Norwegian rock band, as I found out when I googled it to make sure I had the spelling right). So, I'll have to leave you another night refreshing the page incessantly, waiting to hear about the rest of my trip home. But as a consolation prize, here's the most worldly thing I can come up with on 5 hours of sleep:

My new student, a 17 year old girl who speaks Spanish, Catalan, Gallegan, some French, and intermediate-level English, told me today how I must be so proud to speak English when people from so many other countries around the world are trying to learn it. Here she was saying this to me, someone who hasn't consciously struggled with English since I was 2 (besides that pesky speech impediment), when she's 5 years younger and is kicking my ass in the language department. I personally can't be very proud of something that I never had to work at. This is just one example of the times when it's been thrown in my face how lucky I am to have been born in a English-speaking country. It's really not an easy language to master, yet so many people either have a strong desire to learn it or are forced to for business reasons. How do you explain the difference between "remember" and "remind"? How do you teach someone to pronounce "scientists" or "texts"? And why can't it be "He said me" instead of "He told me"? Not to go off on a rant, but I never even thought about how lucky I was to know English until I saw a different side of things. If you're reading this, I hope you feel lucky too.

P.S. Sophia and Lauren - is this the same for you?
P.P.S. The photo is what came up when I searched "learn English" for a picture to add, and it's kind of awesome, so I'm using it:

Random Thoughts

2008-01-20T23:10:00.000+01:00

Today was a great day. I slept in, then took the (free!) train to Sitges, a nearby town right on the beach, to meet up with my friend Antonio. We spoke Spanish part of the time and English part of the time, since we're both learning (even though he speaks better English than anyone else I've met here). Now, I'm going to sleep since I have to teach a class at 8 tomorrow. I'll try to finish writing about my trip home tomorrow - it's so hard to keep up when there's so much going on. Here's a picture of Sitges:

And here's a few photos of some of the mirrors I've been painting for fun. I'm thinking about trying to sell them by the beach after I finish some more and connect with my inner bohemian.

PS: I learned a new favorite word today: tiquismiquis, which means picky.

ej: Mi hermano es muy tiquismiquis - cuando el estaba aqui, solo queria comer sandwiches con mantaquilla de cacahuates y arroz.

America, Land of Dreams

2008-01-06T17:01:00.003+01:00

I've been absent from my journal for the last 2+ weeks because I've been on sweet, sweet vacation. Things have been happening faster than I can write about them. This will probably turn into "The Last Three Weeks" by the time I'm done. Anyway, here's my best attempt to recount my trip home to America, land of dreams, and then when my carpal tunnel subsides I'll write a post about Stevie and Scott's visit to Barcelona.

After work Thursday night (the 20th), Michelle came over and we had a sleepover of sorts, with not much actual sleeping. Luckily we had flights at the same time; unluckily they were both and at ungodly hour of the morning. We got up at 3:30 am, left my apartment around 4:30, and caught a cab with a fur coat wearing American girl who happened to be looking for a taxi to the airport at the same time. The 9-hour flight was pretty exhausting, but at least I got a seat between the window and someone who was just the right amount of chatty. I poorly lied my way through customs (Of course I didn't bring home any food or alcohol!), dodged the food-sniffing dogs who were after my spicy chorizo, and made my way to the luggage claim. At the Barcelona airport, they have a service where you can pay a few euros to have your luggage plastic wrapped all around to prevent theft and damage to your bags. I didn't read the fine print where they warn you that you'll look like a freak when you go to collect your luggage anywhere else in the world where this isn't offered, but at least my bag was easy-to-spot and well-preserved. I was met by the girls: my mom, Renee, Stepmom-once-removed Laura, and a poster-board bearing Kira. It was so good to see them, especially in my delirious jet lagged state. There's nothing better than returning home to find your family waiting for you. It's even better when your family comes with a hand-made Welcome Home Laura sign (thanks Kira!) and a giant coffee.

My desire to hang out with Renee that night kicked my desire to sleep to the curb, and I went to her friend Kathleen's fancy pants Christmas party in Newark, running on fumes. It was definitely worth it, since I got to see some old friends, and I ended up lasting a few hours until I dragged myself back to Renee's apartment across the street.

The rest of the weekend I got to catch up with some Delaware friends: I spent the night at Emily's house Saturday night and hung out with Bill, Craig, and Gladys in Newark the next. I even got a visit from (UMD) Emily, who was nice enough to drive up from Baltimore so we could get some quality time in before she had to start cramming for the GREs (high on the list of reasons why I fled the country). She also bravely and very patiently played photographer during the ill-fated and comical attempt to get a family photo of Stevie, Scott, Renee, and me for my mom's Christmas present. The only time we could all meet was right before a family pre-Christmas dinner. While my mom was in the kitchen, Stevie arranged the room across the dining room into a mini photo shoot, complete with a tripod and an improvised spotlight. In between our tuck-and-roll type maneuvers to hide every time Mom came by to set up the dining room, the camera battery died, then the lightbulb burned out, and we could hear Steve from the kitchen asking my mom, "Where are the kids?" But somehow we pulled it off just in time, and it came out looking as natural as a posed, color coordinated family photo can be. I still think it would have been better if we squeezed into the hideously loud sweaters we donned during our original family photo circa 1994 so we could have hung them up side by side. Maybe next year...

Monday was Christmas Eve, and I spent the first part of it in a diner with Gladys, Bill, and Leigh Marine (who's in the Marines! ha! That will never get old) eating some good American breakfast food served by a disgruntled waitress who was clearly not getting her time and a half. Afterwards, I ran a few errands, and met up with Renee to start the annual game in which we visit as many family members as possible before the Christmas spirit dies. First up, Laura, John, and Kira's place. They just put a new addition on their house, and we sat on the porch catching up, eating John's successful Food Network recipe onion dip, and watching Kira's little cousin be adorable. Dinner was delicious as always, and it was so nice to catch up with everyone and exchange gifts before all the Christmas madness officially began.

The next day was a blur. Renee, Steve, my mom, and I woke up at 8:15 to open presents. I got lots of goodies, like everything I need to make sushi (and eat it in style), the book Candy Girl by Diablo Cody (which I've already finished), some CDs and movies, and some big ones I had to leave in the states, like a sweet HSN-esque food processor. I brought Renee some things from Spain, like a Spanish cooking book and a hand painted fan, and she gave me the perfect New Year's sparkly top. Overall, it was a good year on both ends. I really enjoyed shopping for everyone this year since I felt like I could give some original presents. After cleaning up the paper and saving the bows to use again for the next 15 or so years, we headed up to the Bowmans' house in Wilmington.

There, we played the gift exchange game where one person opens an anonymous present, then the next person can choose to open a new gift or steal the previous one. And so on. We had everything from board games to extra strength magnets to kitchen appliances and ceramic hands you could mount on your wall. All of it together was like a time capsule to demonstrate the quirkiness of our family. I contributed Sangria and these traditional Spanish Christmas desserts called torrones, which Renee ended up with. After a very nice (if not borderline cheating) attempt by my mom to ask everyone to take mercy on me and my limited space for Christmas gifts in my suitcase, I ended up with some sweet DVDs, all that come with Spanish subtitles! Renee and I were the only non-married ones there, which worked out to our disadvantage in the game, but I think everyone ended up happy. After some delicious food and singing carols outside in the middle of the morning, the Schofield-French clan took off for Christmas celebration #3.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Renee and I made a trip to my dad's house to celebrate there, then met up with everyone else at our Stepdad's sister's house. The big news there was that our cousin Carly got engaged (!), and we got to meet her fiance and ogle the ring. Now that Katie, Shelly, and Carly are all engaged and/or married, people will be looking at Stevie and me to see who's next, but I think the biggest plan either of us has right now is to travel Europe together this summer. After a great but exhausting day, we drove back to Elkton to relax a bit.

But, the next day I got up, had a dentist's appointment in Wilmington (no cavities!), met up with KC for lunch at Charcoal Pitt since I really needed a burger, and then drove down to College Park. Strangely enough, the first person I saw wasn't one of my friends from college, but a psychology professor I worked with during three semesters, Dr Tyler. He's the sweetest old man with so much insight and life experience. we arranged a time to meet so we could catch up and I could ask him some advice about grad school. Plus, the book I helped him edit got published, and he wanted to give me a copy of it. I chatted with him and his wife for a bit, and he gave me some great tips about narrowing down a grad school program. When I looked at the book, I saw he had included a really nice message to me and Rhea, the other girl who helped out, saying that we made the book more interesting and intelligible. So, my name's in print! After leaving the Tylers', I drove to meet my friend's for dinner in DC. It's difficult to find good Mexican food in Spain, so Sarah, Erin, Karen, Mallika, and Marianella, and I met at a great Mexican place and I got the fajitas I'd been craving. It was amazing to catch up with everyone, and I felt really lucky that we could all get together, even for such a short time. I spent the night with Karen, keeping her up way too late on a work night watching ridiculous videos on the world wide web. The next morning, I met up with Ashley, who luckily got the day off work from serving German food to gay men. We spent most of the day at the mall catching up and buying unnecessary things like identical snakeskin black boots (except hers are in a human size). That evening I drove back up to Elkton, then got up the next day to journey to my Grandfather's living community to chill out with him and his lady friend. Despite the depressing ambiance of the place, they have a really good buffet, and it's always a confidence-booster to hear my Grandpa's girlfriend Marge insist that every guy in the place under the age of 63 "likes my looks," even if it's just the waiter refilling the water. On a side note, in BCN I bought a black leather bag with silver studs, despite my worry that it might be too punk rock for English classes. Well, that notion was crushed when a sweet elderly lady tapped me on the shoulder during lunch and told me she liked my bag because it was sparkly like me. I'm not even badass enough for a nursing home!

My flight was the same evening, but I didn't have to go it alone: Stevie and Scott came back with me! Leaving was really hard. I thought it was reasonable to go home for just a week, but it was more than a little tough to see my friends and family for such a short time before having to say goodbye. I felt like I had no time to relax and really catch up - just as I got over the jet lag and the Christmas paper had been thrown away, I was on a plane back to Spain. But I was really lucky to be able to go home for Christmas, and even luckier that I have people in my life that I miss so much when I'm away. I love you all - thanks for making my trip home so amazing!

"Smile With Your Eyes"

2007-12-09T18:50:00.000+01:00

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!

2007-12-08T21:33:00.001+01:00

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

2007-12-07T12:39:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-12-05T10:53:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-02T19:05:00.000+01:00

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

2007-12-01T17:09:00.001+01:00

(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!

London, parte uno

2007-11-27T23:05:00.000+01:00

For Thanksgiving weekend, I jumped on a plane directly after my last class on Thursday and met KC in London a few hours later. Apparently going to elementary school, middle school, high school, and college together wasn't enough; now we're both living in Europe at the same time. She's doing a graduate program in London, plus she lived there for a semester during study abroad. Not only was it great to see her and catch up, she made an excellent tour guide. It was a little strange to be in a city where everyone spoke English, and I kept saying "gracias" when someone would hold the door or "disculpe" when I had to squeeze by in the metro. I went a little crazy with the pictures, so here's some of the better ones...

The first day, we took a trip to see a couture exhibit, which displayed French and English fashions from the "Golden era" of the fifties. No pictures allowed, unfortunately. Next, we stopped by the Natural History museum.

Here's the outside of the building, with one of the many ice rinks we saw that weekend.

Here's one of the statues with very politically correct information on the Earth's origins, so as not to offend the Creationists (i.e. Is the Earth thousands of years old or millions... who knows?!) And they had this elevator that we took up into the middle of the Earth to go check out the earthquake simulation room.

Plus...dinosaurs!

Next, we headed over to Harrod's. KC described it as a place where you can buy everything from a dishwasher to a puppy, and it's so true. It was very extravagant and over-the-top, especially during Christmas season, and they thought of every detail, down to the Harrods brand doughnuts at Krispy Kreme.

Friday night out for KC's friend Ellie's birthday... look what we accomplished:

Kc, me, and the birthday girl:

On Saturday, we woke up (somewhat) early, and spend most of the day at the Tate Modern Art Gallery.

Some random pictures along the way... the skyline, and the crazy Brits driving on the wrong side of the road:

Kc and me under the giant spider that guards the entrance to the Tate:

This was one of my favorite, if not my favorite, parts of the trip. There were so many amazing paintings and exhibits. Some of the exhibits still stand out in my mind more than others. First, the African room, with huge colorful, politically-charged murals by artists like Chéri Chérin and Chéri Samba:

Also, there was a really interesting video, taken by a Brazilian artist, of ants carrying confetti left behind after Carnival, with a soundtrack of of mambo beat made by recording the sound of fallen matchsticks.

Another cool video to check out if you can find it is "Drumroll" by Steve McQueen. Here's a description:
"... a triptych of video images shot simultaneously by cameras mounted on the top, bottom and side of an oil barrel as the artist rolled it along the streets of New York City. The film was shot in real time as British artist Steve McQueen made his way through midtown Manhattan. The momentum of the oil drum rattling against the city streets creates a cacophonous clatter which blends with the ambient noises of traffic. The soundtrack also records McQueen’s voice, warning and apologising to pedestrians as he passes by. The spinning images create a vertiginous and abstracted impression of his surroundings, suggesting the rapid pace and chaos of the metropolis.
McQueen’s unusual method of filming means that Drumroll is an example of a work of art that documents the process of its own creation."

The trip also confirmed that I (KC, too) really despise Math Rothko and his followers:

"Red on Maroon". Right.

The current featured exhibit, Shibboleth by Doris Salcedo was impressive as well. Basically, she made a giant crack in the floor that runs from one side of the main hall to the other. The symbolism is really interesting. Shibboleth means, "a word used as a test for detecting people from another district or country by their pronunciation," and was taken from a Biblical story about lower class people being killed for being unable to pronounce the word (used as a password) while they were fleeing across the river Jordan. The idea was that a crack in the floor represents the idea of separation, particularly of race or class, and therefore confronts the idea of racism. The significance of the name is interesting to me as well since people in Catalunya have a distinctive way of speaking (pronouncing "c" and "z" as "th") compared to people in South America and the rest of Spain.

Anyway, here's pictures of the crack, which the artist won't tell anyone how she made. Plus, pictures of something else I'm interested in.. not taking myself too seriously:

The beginning:

Getting bigger:

Oh no!

My reflection:

Close up of the chain link fencing inside the crack, which is the most common means of separating people (by the way, I could never be an advocate of the "let's build a fence across the Mexican border" since I'm currently working under the table and trying to learn the language as an immigrant).

The giant spider in front of the Tate Modern Arts Gallery:

This is going to be a "to be continued" post, since it's taken me forever and I'm heading out to go see the Body Exhibit. Que tengas un buen fin de semana!

Catching up

2007-11-27T12:36:00.001+01:00

At my friend Eric's birthday party a few weeks ago I met someone else who's even newer in town than I am, and last weekend he invited me to a party with his friends. It ended up being a fiesta de disfraces (costume party), but unfortunately I wasn't told beforehand that there was the option to dress up. There were some people who went all out as santa clause, 80s Madonna, etc, and I just ended up saying that I was a disco ball since I was wearing a silver top and was attacked with someone with glitter. Luckily, there was a disco ball there to point at when trying to explain this, since I somehow that isn't one of the Spanish phrases I know.

Another interesting thing I learned that night: don't get into a discussion/debate about bullfighting with someone of Hispanic heritage. Or do, just be prepared for an intense explanation of culture and pride, complete with physical reinactments of the matador waving the cape. I don't remember how Kmilo (my new Cuban friend) and I got into it, but it was interesting either way. My argument that it's inherently cruel and unfair because the bull is drugged beforehand was met with complete shock and denial. Of course, it's just a coincidence that the matador always wins.

http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/sport/bull/bullfighting.html

Anyway, it was interesting to me since I always regarded bullfighting as an antiquated tradition that has mostly stuck around due to the patronage of curious American tourists. Despite my own curiousity, I avoided the bullfight that was held in Sevilla during my TEFL course, but here are some pictures from a friend's camera if you're interested. (Warning for Kira: You won't like these)

Doesn't seem like a fair fight to me, but of course you're free to your own opinion(s). Anyway, the bullfighting ring itself was beautiful; I just prefer to stay on the outside.

Now that I've gone off on a tangent, I think it's time to wrap it up. I'll write a post or 12 on my month in Sevilla one of these days, but it will be quite the project to undertake. Hope you all are having a great time in Delaware/DC/Lannion/Itako/BCN/wherever else you might be reading from!

PS I looked up "disco ball" and it's bola de disco. Pretty anti-climactic, right?

Mi apartamento

2007-11-16T18:40:00.000+01:00

I've had a very unique living situation since I moved to my new apartment about a week ago. Yes, I've moved in with strangers before (I'm looking at you, Karen Salerni), but I've never had to consult a dictionary in order to understand what one of my roommates is saying. Except maybe that one Halloween when Erin had a few too many and caused me to look at Winnie the Pooh in a whole new way (had to be there, sorry). Anyway, I'm now living in Barrio Gotico (the Gothic neighborhood) with a really nice couple, Laura and Gus, and a French girl named Florense who's in an exchange program at the University. Laura and Gus own the flat and have gone out of their way to make me feel comfortable, from letting me use their computer to talk on Skype to leaving dinner in my room when I was up late, and making it Gus' personal mission to get my internet up and running. He had my laptop next to his computer with a Spanish website up so he could figure out the translations of the English computer terms on mine. Not easy.

You might recognize this as the plaza in the main picture of my page. I can't take credit for that one, but I took some of my own since it's really close to my new apartment.

I'll take pictures of my room and inside the apartment soon, even though I'm pretty sure no one is dying to see them, except maybe my mom and anyone who is planning a visit.

Top picture: Sign on my floor ("third"), which you can only reach after climbing way too many stairs. Since I live in the Gothic neighborhood there's no elevator, but it works out since I'm too cheap/poor/busy to have a gym membership.

Casa Milá

2007-11-16T16:47:00.000+01:00

Yesterday in between my afternoon and evening classes, I visited Casa Milá, one of two Gaudi buildings in Passeig de Gracia, where my main work building is. There's not too much I can say about it that you can't get from the pictures. With the theme of designing architecture to reflect things found in nature, the inside is meant to look like the skeleton of a huge snake. The roof is unbelievable - you just have to see it for yourself. I almost feel like I should put a spoiler alert on here it for those who are planning on coming to visit, so you can see it for the first time for yourself. You can't see most of it from the sidewalk, and it's not what you expect to see as you come out of the staircase and step onto the roof. The best way I can describe it is as a surrealist's playground. I found out as I was leaving that five families actually live there. Imagine?

At the main entrance, the building is hollow, and there are drains in the floor to collect the water after it rains.

This is that first thing you see when you first step out onto the roof:

My attempt to make it look even more surrealistic:

View from the top:

Patrick, unwilling and unknowing subject of many of my pictures:

The ceiling on the first floor:

And finally, the view from the outside:

Muy guay!

Park Güell

2007-11-15T03:23:00.000+01:00

Disclaimer: I recently discovered all the fun features on iphoto that let me adjust my pictures in a lot of different ways, so this post is going to be full of my little photo experiments. Enjoy. Or tell me to maybe look into a new hobby.

Last Sunday, I finally went to Gaudi's park, Park Güell, after many weekends of thinking about going and not actually doing it. It was well worth the wait and nothing like I expected. Instead of being like any normal park in the states, it was a gorgeous garden on the top of a hill with paths twisting all around, amazing architechture, and a beautiful view of the city from the long, curvy, mosiac-tiled bench.

This is part of the long climb to the top. They have outdoor escalators, but I decided to get in my full workout for the week (and practice for climbing the stairs in my apartment building).

I stopped to catch my breath and take a few pictures of the scenery. This is Tibidabo, one of the two mountains on either side of the city. There's an amusement park up there that I haven't been to...yet.

I found out later that we kinda snuck in through a back entrance and missed the impressive real entrance (next time...), so this was the welcoming message instead:

It seems a little ironic that someone who hates tourists would buy a house next to the famous park, but I guess it's a good place to get your message heard.

One of the main attractions is the long, winding bench that overlooks the entrance. It sounds strange that a bench is such a tourist attraction, because after all, it's just a bench. But this is no ordinary bench. I did a little research on it:
The focal point of the park is the main terrace, surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent. To design the curvature of the bench surface Gaudí used the shape of buttocks left by a naked workman sitting in wet clay. The unique shape of the serpentine bench enables the people sitting on it to converse privately, although the square is large. The bench is tiled and in order to dry up quickly after it rains, and to stop people from sitting in the wet part of the bench, small bumps were installed by Gaudí.

Pretty genius, in my opinion. Here are a few pictures of the mosiac tiles:

My favorite part, hands down, was the bubble man. This guy brought a bucket with some bubble solution (soap and water?) and some sort of bubble making contraption, and it made the kids go loco. I could have watched for hours.. I had to restrain myself from joining in. Everyone was taking pictures and the kids were running around trying to pop the huge bubbles.

This one was my favorite: she just stood in the back with her white dress all dirty and looked at the others like "Really, this is nothing to get so worked up about".

Afterwards, people gave their kids coins for the bubble man, and he packed up his things and left. (We later saw him getting onto the metro, but unfortunately he wasn't there to make more bubbles). One little guy got distracted by kicking the mud around, but when he noticed the bubble man had left he was determined to give him money and sprinted across the plaza. So cute.

Since we got there only a little bit before sunset, it made for some great pictures but not much time to explore before dark. Plus, in true Laura fashion, I tripped and broke my sandal and had to ghetto-rig it back together with a hairband. Hobbling around like a fool was definitely a step back from my goal of blending in with the locals.

Here's the birds nests that Gaudi built to look like the trees above them. Now they're the home to tons of fat, happy, pigeons.

I have to end this now because my laptop's about to run out of battery on me. I hope everyone is having a lovely evening. Don't forget to watch The Office tonight and think of me waiting days before someone uploads it on Youtube.

La cuidad de color

2007-11-14T22:46:00.000+01:00

Barcelona means "City of Color". OK, I don't actually know that, but it could. You wouldn't know it by every woman's refusal to wear anything outside the black/grey spectrum, but the city itself is known for being very vibrant and artsy. A few of the things that remind me of this are well-known symbols of BCN culture: the street performers along Las Ramblas and the surreal Gaudi buildings and architecture. But also, at night the shop keepers pull down big metal barriers over their front doors, giving graffiti artists and muralists a perfect meduim to decorate the walls with color. So here you are: a few of the things that make Barcelona such a unique and beautiful place to live.

First up, more pictures of the street performers. A lot of them change their costumes periodically, so there's always someone new to see and it's impossible to tell which one they were before.

And then sometimes
when you're walking
home after running
errands, you run into
a random clown on a
bike in front of your
apartment. He was the
one who insisted on
the picture, I swear.

Then there's Gaudi. Gaudi is famous around the world for his colorful, curvy, surrealistic buildings which are located in different places around the city. Lucky for me, my work is located right near Passeig de Gracia, where two of his better known buildings are found. This is La Casa Batlló at night:

And here's some pictures of Casa Milà, or La Pedrera, that I took during the day between classes:

Finally, the most informal and impulsive form of art. I'm planning on taking a lot more pictures of the interesting murals I see along the maze of the Barrio Gotico streets where I'm living, but here are a few to give you the idea:

These look like they were commissioned specifically for the clothing store, but there are tons more (like the tiger behind Sad Clown's head) that were done informally. There are still plenty of people with cans of spray paint who can't resist the urge to sign their name all over the wall, but some of the artists are really talented.

More pictures to come soon, including some from my trip to Gaudi's park this past weekend and my new neighborhood.

P.S. I'd like to pass along some advice I learned this past week: Don't Google image search "jello" in front of students (or anyone young and impressionable). Yes, it's hard word to try to explain to ESL learners, but it's better than having pictures pop up that involve red fishnets. You'd be surprised what crazy things jello-related activities young people are doing these days.

¿Donde está la fiesta?

2007-11-07T13:02:00.000+01:00

Right before leaving for Switzerland, I figured out that I had a four day weekend the following weekend (after Halloween) for no particular reason. In Spain, they apparently have random weeks where Thursday is a random day off work, so most people take off Friday and make it a long weekend. They call it 'puente,' which means bridge, because it's like a bridge from Thursday to the weekend. But the point it, I wanted to take advantage of the long weekend by going somewhere fun and not too far away, even if it meant trying to plan it all out in three days. I ended up finding out Wednesday night that there were really inexpensive ferry trips and hotels to Ibiza this time of year, and the next evening I found myself on a ferry headed toward the Balearic Islands.

Ibiza is famous for its club scene and hedonistic party atmosphere during the summer, but as you might expect, it's a little bit different in November. Not bad at all, just different. It's an island that thrives off British tourists flying in for drunken holidays during July and August, but most of the bars, restaurants, clubs, and moto rental places shut down during the rest of the year. But, that means that the island is free to explore in peace and without being lumped into the group with the obnoxiuos tourists who leave beers cans everywhere and refuse to speak any Spanish.

The ferry arrived at the main town in the morning, and we (Patrick and myself) had a little time to kill before the bus came to take us to the other side where our hotel was, in San Antonio. We wandered around and found a pretty little park and some very loud graffiti.

Approaching the island at sunrise:

Street Art:

After arriving in San Antonio and taking a much-needed, extended siesta (sleeping on a ferry isn't easy), we made our way to the water and ate dinner while watching the sunset over the Mediterranean. Not too shabby.

The next day was absolutely beautiful.

We walked up and down the beach and I took way too many pictures. Here's a few:

One of the clubs that was closed for the colder months:

And some pictures near the port:

That night, we walked the streets to check out the few local restaurants that were open, and we found one that we pretty much had all to ourselves.

Finally, on Suday, we borrowed the free bikes from the hostel and road along the coast, finding private little beaches along the way.

We made our way inland a little bit

and then headed back towards the aquarium to find an underwater cave that a local man told us about. One of the bigger differences between this trip and the one to Geneva was the ability to communicate with the people who lived there. There were a lot of things we wouldn't have been able to do if we hadn't been able to talk to the people at the hostel and the man on the beach who was brave enough to swim in the cold water.

Here's the aquarium:

You have to walk along the cliff down this little path to get to it, and it was closed when we got down there. I love the hand-painted sign. Looks a little different than the one in Baltimore. I think here they're in the process of catching fish for next year's exhibit.

This is the cave that the local man directed us to. We ditched the bikes for a bit and climbed down into it.

The ferry (which you can see if you look closely below) left in the evening, so that gave us a chance to see the sunset over the city from high up.

On the way back we discovered that it had a pool, hot tub, sauna, dance room, movie theatre, etc, but I ended up standing at the back of the ship until I couldn't see the city lights anymore, then passing out in a chair in the movie room. The ferry got in to Barcelona at 7 am Monday morning, and I went immediately to teach at class at 8. Yesterday, I found out from a British girl living in Ibiza that there are cheap flights there that take half an hour. Good to know for when I go back in the early summer. Can't wait!

Geneva, Switzerland

2007-10-29T23:38:00.000+01:00

In case I haven't mentioned it before, there's a rule in Spain that says that you can live here legally as long as you leave the European Union at least once every three months. Even if you just walk across the border of Andorra, as long as you return with a new stamp in your passport you're good to go. So, seeing as how my three months are almost up and I don't want to have to bribe the Spanish customs officials to let me back in after my trip home for Christmas, I took a trip to Switzerland this past weekend. The thought process on choosing Switzerland went something like this: Switzerland is out of the EU. There are cheap flights to Switzerland. The cheapest flights are to Geneva. Let's go to Geneva.

Patrick and I left early Friday morning and slept through most of the hour-long flight. I woke up in time to take some pictures of the Alps as we were flying over them:

The first day was cloudy and cold, but we wandered around and found some interesting places

including a restaurant where they let birds fly around freely

(I named these 3 Brad, Owen, and Viggo for Mom)

and my personal favorite

At night we made our way to a hookah bar (past this pretty fountain) and chilled out enjoying mint tea and strawberry hookah.

The next day we explored even more and made our way around Lake Geneva,

making friends with some swans along the way

We climbed some steps for a view of the city before deciding that we needed to get higher to get a better view.

So... we went inside a church (the St Pierre Cathedral) and hopped the turnstile to get to the top (oh so rebellious!)

Then we climbed the approximately 1,000 winding stairs back down (I didn't trip once!) and wandered back to the lake.

This is my favorite picture from the trip:

Here's when I figured out how to take panoramic pictures on my camera:

If you look closely, you can see the rainbow off the Jet d'Eau.

Friday and Saturday involved a lot of walking around and exploring the city, which we quickly found out is the most expenive city in an already expensive country. A normal dinner meal (not including pizza or salad) was about 30 francs, and there's not a huge difference between the franc and the dollar. On Sunday, we showed up at the booth to buy ferry boat tickets only to find out that there was a time change while we were sleeping, so we were an hour early. Bonus hour in Geneva. On the ferry we took a tour around Lake Geneva and got a closer look at the huge 140 foot fountain.

We had some time to kill, so we got off at a random bus stop, wandered down a trail, and ended up hanging out on a swingset watching the little French-speaking children play before taking the bus to the airport.

This is a pretty church near the airport bus stop.

View from the plane:

And just as I'm finally done uploading these, I have a fresh new batch of photos from my trip to Ibiza this past weekend. Here we go...

Update

2007-10-29T23:08:00.000+01:00

A few notable moments related to my teaching job:

1) I lost one of my classes because representatives from the EU program that was funding the class were going to start coming and asking nosy questions like, "Are you teaching here legally?". It was actually a blessing, though, because my schedule is a lot better now Mondays and Wednesdays plus now I have confirmation that my work knows and doesn't care that I don't have legal papers. And, a security guard who works in the building where I was teaching the class asked me to start teaching him private lessons ( = more $$$). Which brings us to...

2) Creepy security guard. The first sign of strangeness was when he insisted that he was 24 even though his birthday is about a week before mine, despite my attempts to show him that it wasn't mathematically possible. Then he started giving me weird compliments and making awkward attempts to ask about my relationship status. Today he told me I have a "good neck" and asked me if I knew Dracula. Then he said that if he were a vampire he would want to bite my neck. What a dreamboat. Needless to say, I'm increasing my efforts to find more students so I can afford to drop this guy.

Here are some completely unrelated pictures I took of Plaza España because it's pretty:

Un viaje comienza en nuestro interior

Tarjeta Verde

Return of the Mac

English Only

"It sure is hard to leave here but it's really not my home"

Success!

Draw me a tree

I will make you so much happy

Simon Says "Enough Already"

Messages from my students

Juca Update

Mucho Mucha, and other Musings

Menorca

El Fight de Tomatoes

Pictures from Sicily

Molto piacere. Sono ubriaca.

Ciao from Sicilia!

Juca

El estado del techo

Cute things my students have said that I hate to have to correct (Episode 1)

Moving on up

Dinner party

My next lesson plan

Gay Paree

Some pictures

Mom and Renee's Visit

Happy Sant Jordi! *Updated*

Karen's Visit

Crawling back...

Back in Black

I lied

Random Thoughts

America, Land of Dreams

"Smile With Your Eyes"

Success!

Feliz Navidad

People pay me to speak English.

Big Changes

London, parte dos

London, parte uno

Catching up

Mi apartamento

Casa Milá

Park Güell

La cuidad de color

¿Donde está la fiesta?

Geneva, Switzerland

Update

Happy Sant Jordi! Updated