Country Roads (That Do Not Take Me Home)

11/09/12

In this part of Spain, the country means marshy rice farms with little black crab guys, old crumbly-but-strong farming shacks, and long stretches of road without rushing motorbikes or smart cars or iPod-toting suits on their way to tapas at the bar.

The people out here live differently. They are followed by seagulls, apparently, not jewelry-wearing yorkies. 

Sometimes I get so wrapped in the city things, like what stop do I have to get off the metro at? or where is that club with the neon bar? or where can
I get the best chocolate croissant? That I forget that I am really from the country, too.

It's a different kind of country, for sure. But old dusty roads are old dusty roads.

I've never walked through a cornfield before. They truly have little hallways for you to meander down. Maybe we shouldn't make fun of Iowa so much... It's kind of fun. I needed a hide and seek opponent.

I still remember the feeling I had when I  looked out my airplane window and saw the beautiful blue-green of the Mediteranean Sea. Then we flew over the city and then we were on the ground, and my adventure here was just on the brink.

And I used to think that I would be a city girl when I grew up, someone who could have a cool flat with a big view of my area and take buses and have my special cafe and walk everywhere quickly and not know everyone who passes on the street. But now that I've been living in the city, the beautiful aspects of living in the country are really sticking out. 

Living abroad has really made me look at things from home in a new way and appreciate them, really. Everyone who travels will tell you that traveling makes you see your world in new colors and this is so so true.  

When I get home there will be snow on the ground and there won't be a metro system and I won't be able to walk down the street to get a fresh baguette, and my classmates will be parked at the point in their jacked up trucks and blaze orange will take the place of cardigans and I'll be able to make hot chocolate and watch un-subtitled  movies with my friends and teach my little brother to drive and it will be so cold but I will make homemade double chocolate chip cookies to eat hot from the oven. There are small things and there are big things and being away for a while makes you appreciate it all a lot more.

A November Weekend in BCN

11/18/12

Good Morning World.

First of all, my computer has decided to be a jerk and not let me upload my pictures, so as I try and find a way around that you're going to have to settle for the vivid images of Times New Roman. The curves of the round letters can serve for those annoying roundabouts on Barcelona streets that force you do lose your direction (this is probably just me, it's a bit worrisome that wandering this city has not improved my direction sense at all) and the apostrophes are the irritating city-pigeons that don't take the hint when you want them to go away. Did you know people have pet rabbits here that they walk on leashes in the streets?

This week will mark three months that I've been here. I sometimes think about that and can't imagine how it can be true. I don't know where October went, or even September. They waltzed off before I really even knew they were there! We're close to December now. December means... I don't know what December means. I don't know what December brings, in Barcelona, Spain. I know Christmastime in Minnesota and that's all folks. I guess that's one of the many wonderful things about studying abroad: the new things never end. It's impossible to be bored, really. So much wonder fillin' up my head.

Today is Sunday. So... My weekend was a good one with a big splotch of ugly thrown in the end. Friday I went to see ARGO with my friend at the cinema that plays VOS films (that means in English). We made it to the cinema with only a few frantic "Sabes donde esta la cine Icaria?" questions to passerbys. With popcorn and pizza and comfy theater chairs and a big screen speaking only English, it almost made me forget where I am. Good movie. It's even based on a true story- I recommend you go see it. Saturday afternoon I went to see my friend Andrew play a basketball game with some friends from school. That was nice. I miss sports- the uniforms were a lot uglier and the HEY BOX OUT was in Spanish, but the gym had a familiar stuffy and squeaky and loud feel to it and I haven't been around that for a while. Saturday night I met a friend at 10 and we headed on the metro to Vila Olympica, to a strip of loud clubs right in front of the beach. The metro was insane- I was literally sandwiched like a pannini in between a big fat cigar puffer and a little Asian woman trying to do a crossword. It was so packed in there, it smelled like breath, and no one had more than an inch of budge space. I'm surprised nobody had a panic attack. Finally escaping that felt amazing, even if walking along the strip of clubs and bright lights and people trying to sell us both fedoras and tobacco bongs wasn't the best possible "fresh air" out there. The port was full of shiny white boats and the beach was dirty, the sand hard like it was mixed with concrete. We had drinks and a carmel sundae until 12:30, because the clubs are mostly empty by then; the night comes later for Spaniards, I guess. Not clubs...they're called "Discotechas" here. I was having a great time! Soaking up the feel of loud music and hazy lights and all kind of people just going all out on the dance floor. It's not high school prom, that's for sure. 

Anyways I took my eye off my jacket on the table for a moment while talking to an Australian (you can't blame me...that accent!) and then it was gone. My jacket, keys, metro pass, about 30€, and my ol' trusty I-can't-live-without-you iPod. I will admit I gave in to a good solid freak out for a while. but in the end, there's really nothing you can do. Pickpocketing and stealing is pretty bad in Barcelona, and once it's gone it's gone. So, the world can be cruel sometimes. You learn by experience. Rough night! 

Tonight we went to Pepe's (a cousin) baptism. Maybe 15 minutes of service at the church and then a 3 hour fancy afterparty with these delicious little strawberry pastry delights (I hope no one was keeping track of how many times I went up to the sweets table). I guess Spain does it a little differently. Overall it is a very Catholic country (a few decades ago people had to name their babies only after Saints) and the churches and cathedrals are incredibly beautiful (want proof? Look up Sagrada Familia. Or, I'll have pictures later) but people don't go to church nearly as much as they used to. Especially the younger generation. My tutor Dino says "only the elderly go to Mass now."

On Thursday morning I go to the airport to pick up my mom and grandma! I am so happy. I have a week full of things for us to do, places to see, things to eat. There are many touristy things that I haven't seen yet, even being here for a while, and I'm looking forward to a week off of school to just explore with these two. Expect a lot of pictures coming up. Hope you're all healthy and happy at home!

A New Kind of November

11.3.12
The cold has found me. We are old, bitter enemies and I was silly to think that crossing the ocean would be enough of a getaway. My journeys bought me a few more barefoot sun-kissed months, and I cherished the feeling of going to be still warm, like the sun was retained beneath my skin, and the pronounced tan line drawn past my collarbone. But I could not hide forever; the chills have found me again. Man they must have a killer GPS system.

Ok, if I'm honest its 63 now, and it was in the 50's all week, and that is absolutely nothing to frown about considering that it's currently 37 at home with frost crunching the ground and ski hills preparing to open. I have a wacked temperature gauge, I tell you. Perhaps I'm cold blooded, like a lizard. It has definitely gotten colder here though, in my defense. It was kind of a rainy week in the city, the water bouncing off slick hurried umbrellas and pooling in the cracks between the bricks of the street. "It never rains in Barcelona!" my friends say, and tell me I'm the one who brought them bad weather. If that is true, soon the streets will be blanketed with four feet of snow and as far as snow plows, they are surely a foreign mystery here as I have not seen a pickup truck since the day I left the US.

This week was a short one for the country of Espana: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday  Fiesta, Fiesta, Fiesta. As Dino, my tutor, explained, "The holidays are on Thursday and Saturday, but Friday just bridges them together so people don't have to work." Halloween passed without much bang, well, not the jack-o-lanterns and haunted houses and green witch noses and streets-crammed-with-excited-costumed-kids that I am used to. I will say that as I dressed up as a European: skinny jeans and a scarf, but I'm not sure that counts. Wednesday night was a chilly one, and my friend Andrew and I decided we'd go swimming in the school's pool to warm our bones. Not going to lie, I could almost feel my heart break when I saw there was no hot tub. But the water was warm and the pool-noodle fight was fun (until we noticed there was a backstroker trying to be serious a few lanes over and had to quit) and the swim caps we were forced to wear didn't even cut off our head circulation so it was all good. The rest of the night was spent lost in Barcelona, searching and searching for a certain cinema that plays movies in English--which we had confidently looked up directions and bus routes for over hot chocolates at Starbucks, but evidently neither of us is stellar at directions. I think that the public transportation and city layout is fairly simple in Barcelona, which would be real helpful if I didn't have the direction sense of a rock. We went to see the movie Savages with John Travolta and Blake Lively, but instead saw a bunch of drunk British, a man dressed as a bunny and a woman as a spiderweb, a few cafe owners annoyed to be giving us directions, a delicious sandwich shop happy to hand us over piping-hot onion rings and subs, a dozen street signs that were not the ones we were looking for, and finally, the cinema closed tightly by a silver gate, our movie having started 40 minutes ago. Oh well. The way I see, it, movies are made into DVDs, but my nights spent in beautiful Spanish cities can not be replaced.

Thursday morning we packed in the car and headed north again. Four days in Pals is a very very relaxing little vacation. It's calm here, and the days are broken up by siestas and aparaprentivos: this is the word for the small snack we have about 15 minutes before lunch, always pistachios, peanuts, pepper potato chips, and olives. To me it seems a little funny to have your snacktime right before lunch, but I like it. On Friday we went on an excursion. We biked to the beach and then down the boardwalk, onto the path that brings you to the nude strip of beaches (unoccupied because of the cold) and then into the woods. There is an old American radio base back there, a bunch of old abandoned buildings that were used years ago when the whole Costa Brava was nothing but miles of sand beach and trees (which is beautiful to think about). Blanca and Bruno knew of a secret gap in the barbed wire fence, so we got to explore the crumbling buildings and imagine them bumbling with American soldiers, back in the day. That was fun. Last night we went to Begur, a neighbor town, to check out the festival. The specialty of this fiesta is castanas (this means chestnuts roasted over the fire) and panalletes (a thumb-size pastry thing, covered in piniones which I'm not sure what they are exactly but they come off the trees kind of like baby pinecones). I ate a Nutella crepe -they are crazy about Nutella over here- and watched the ninos play a guessing game to win cookies.

As for now, its about 10 and Blanca, Bruno and I are splayed out on the couch watching a Spanish family game show. Bea is tucked in with Cito, her bear, and Javi and Irene are next door having dinner. The sun sets around 5:30 these days, which catches me off guard just like the cold. Tomorrow at some time we'll head back to the city and get ready for the week, which I hope brings sun. In three weeks my mom and grandma will come to visit me, and for that I am incredibly excited.

Thank you so much to everyone sending me letters and blog comments. I absolutely love to read them all and it makes me feel warm knowing that you guys are thinking of me. I like it when you tell me what you're up to back home, family and friends. I hope you're all well and staying warm and wishing you the best week November can offer.

PS. A new kind of November. What I am missing about this month at home: fires in the fireplace at night, Friday night football games, apple cider, my family all together and fat after Thanksgiving turkey, fall hikes with friends, big sweaters, cheering on the xc runners, my mom's potato soup, the sound of the wind whipping the trees, going to the apple orchard, the end of the tennis season, roasted pumpkin seeds, bonfires.
What I love about my new November: the riled sea in autumn, my fluffy gray scarf, the warm pastry shop on my way to school, seeing snow on the mountains but wearing a t-shirt, the old-fashioned curved-handlebar bike I borrow from the neighbor, the windsurfers in their neoprenes, admiring the buildings from a bus seat, soft cardigans, watching the rain from the terrace, not wearing a parka, walking everywhere, the small gelato stand in the mall, letters from loved ones, the sense of new things.


and that's all for now, folks.