The Modern Age

I love technology. I bought concert tickets online today, and I can pick them up at the ATM. Bizarre, but convenient. I pay my rent by bank transfer, and I can make the transfer by text message with my cell phone. There are ways that Europe (Barcelona anyway, I guess I shouldn't try to speak for a whole continent from a single city) feels way behind the US. Heat and hot water come to mind. But then in other ways it feels way more advanced here, banking especially. I can add money to my cell phone account at the ATM, and I think even pay bills there, although I don't really have any to pay. I had a conversation a while back with a European friend about the different ways the US and Europe feel both advanced and primitive--he was right.

And, now that I have a blog, I may never have to read an instructions manual again! I'm still at the mercy of my own ineptitude, though. I lost the cable for my camera, so until I figure out how to get a new one I can't transfer any photos, dammit. Unless anyone out there knows where I put it?

Hey, buddy, would you like to buy a watch real cheap?

Sitges is the place to be for Carnaval in Spain. It's half an hour down the coast from Barcelona, with a beautiful church right on the water and a large gay community. It's small, and the Carnaval revelry was mostly confined to a few blocks of one street. Costumes involved a lot of drag and a lot of sombreros--also of note were two guys dressed as sperm and a group of people in identical cow costumes. My friend and I made friends with these Brazilians who seemed really excited about us after they heard us speaking English--weird because there were tons of foreigners there, including lots of other Americans. We really weren't that novel. By about 1am we were all Carnaval-ed out (okay I was all Carnaval-ed out because I drank too much, whatever). Getting home was kind of an adventure because it turns out that "Trains run until 4am" means "Trains stop at midnight and then there's one at 4am." But we were able to get on a bus without even paying, so no real harm done. Sorry, that's as crazy as my Carnaval experience got.

I was hungover today, anyway, and seriously considered bailing on plans to go to the Miró museum. I'm glad I didn't--it was the intellectual equivalent of eating spicy greasy Mexican food when you're hungover. (If only I could have done both--haven't found any good Mexican food here yet.) I really like museums that focus on a single artist because the really great ones always produced things completely different from what made them famous, but you tend not to see that stuff in regular museums. Miró also did a lot of sculpture and some strange rugwork in addition to paining, so there was all kinds of different stuff to see. Not a lot of variability in his titles, though--pretty much everything was some variation on a woman, a bird, or a woman with a bird, although the paintings rarely had easily discernible women or birds. You've gotta love modern art.

She's actual size

If communication were only about the sale and purchase of goods, I'd be all set with Spanish. I went shopping today; I'm pretty good at buying things in Spanish. I can ask for sizes, talk about colors, understand prices. Small victories. Most of the stores have sales in January and February, making this the last weekend of rebajas. I expected the stores to be super crowded, but there was actually kind of a strange calm over the city all day--I just don't get this place. Anyway, now I know about European sizes. Shoes are a 37, tops are 40, and pants are evil in any sizing scheme. The sizing of tops is strange--I'm used to small, medium, large, not numbers. And the numbers are big, which makes me feel like a fullback. But as usual with women's clothing, they don't seem to correspond to any actual measurements.

It's Carnaval right now--not quite the Rio version, but there were lots of people out in costumes today. Tonight I'm going to Sitges, a town about half an hour away that apparently goes crazy during Carnaval. More on that tomorrow.

And, while I have an audience: My iPod won't turn off--anyone know what to do? (Besides read the instructions, which I admit I haven't done yet.)

Celery stalks at midnight

Vegetables aren't so popular here. Salads are generally pretty boring, and entrees often don't involve vegetables at all. I'm not a huge fan of vegetables myself so I don't really mind, but sometimes I feel like I should be eating more of them. I was out for tapas last night and we were trying to decide on something vegetable-y to go with a plate of sausage and a bottle of wine (I do love Spain). We asked the bartender whether we should get asparagus or some other vegetable choice that I've since forgotten, and he got all excited about how we should try this other vegetable dish that's really good and comes with all sorts of sauces and it's really fun, blah blah blah. He really did describe the vegetable dish as "really fun" (muy divertido). So we ordered it. And we got a plate of carrots, celery, and broccoli, with ranch dressing, tomato sauce, and olive paste. More funny than fun, really. It was fine, and probably healthier than anything else on the tapas menu, but perhaps the least interesting thing I've eaten the whole time I've been here. But I guess since people here eat vegetables like that so rarely, it really was kind of novel. The bartender was still talking about it when we left.

And in all my rage at the evil bureaucrat, I guess I left out the punchline of my trip to the police station. The good news is that I did have all the right documents this time (although the evil woman tried to tell me that I didn't--luckily the woman working next to her intervened and told her she was a useless waste of space who doesn't know what she's doing an that I had everything I needed.... okay she probably didn't say that, but I like to imagine she did) and those documents are now being processed. In 30 days I have to go to another office and pay a tax of 5.48 euros, and then I'll get my residence card. Or something. Progress was made, anyway.

Hateful

My favorite insult ever is a Russian one (of course) that translates to "I hope your children shit in your soup." That's how I feel about the miserable awful woman I dealt with at the police station today trying to get my visa renewed. Hell, I'd shit in her soup myself if I had the chance. My Spanish sucks, but if people speak slowly and use easy words I can usually understand. So when I couldn't understand her I asked nicely if she could speak more slowly. She got really loud and harsh and started talking faster. I know Americans pull that shit all the time, but that doesn't make it okay. Then when she was done with me (I wasn't done with her because I still didn't really understand what I was supposed to do next, but she was having none of my questions) she tossed my passport at me and started shoving my papers into my folder when I wasn't moving fast enough. Can you believe that shit? I was so angry I wanted to kick and scream and yell and punch and bite. Lucky for both of us, I didn't. What I did was the closest thing I could do to going back to New York for an hour. I went to Starbucks and got drip coffee (and I'm not apologizing for it). But before I got the drip coffee I was rude to the Starbucks worker about using the bathroom before I bought the coffee. (The bathroom doors are locked and to use them you need a code that's printed on the bottom of your receipt. Who wants to take their coffee into a public bathroom? Gross.) I know I shouldn't let rudeness beget rudeness. But New York runs on that energy; it can't be all bad. Then I walked really fast back to work, cutting corners, walking in front of cars, frowning, with The Clash turned up really loud on my iPod. It felt great. Really great. But I still want to shit in that horrible woman's soup.

Children get older

I'm just not all that comfortable with the special treatment professors get here. My building has a cafeteria and sometimes one of the lines (although it's never marked in any way and not always the same line) is for professors only. I ended up standing in it today (purely coincidence, because it was completely indistinguishable from the other lines) and when I got to the front was told that the line was only for teachers. I said "I am a teacher," which anyone could have done because they don't actually check, and got my coffee. (It's a good thing they don't check, because try as I might I can't seem to get any kind of university ID card, even though everyone else here seems to have one.)

So the cafeteria guy thought I was a student; I look young, I was dressed casually, whatever. Here's the thing. It's not just that I wasn't annoyed that he thought I wasn't a professor; I was elated. I caught myself glowing--glowing--because some random guy in the cafeteria thought I look too young to be a professor. An actual young person would never get excited about something like that. Yikes.

And I got a very slight sunburn from sitting outside at lunch today. I know it won't do me any favors in terms of aging, but still I have to brag a little bit. It is still winter, after all.

New York Shorts

Tonight I went to a short film exposition. It was in this big old factory with concrete walls and high ceilings and red couches and felt very New York, only more spacious and with people smoking hash. And much cheaper--entrance was free, so I had entertainment and two glasses of wine, all for six euros. It even sounded like New York. People were mostly speaking English, but accented English--there didn't seem to be any American or British people there except my friend and me. One thing about short films is that language is less important--they're weird and you pretty much either like/get them or you don't, regardless of what language the subtitles are in.

It was kind of a strange day even before the short films. I was briefly Skype-stalked by some guy in Utrecht who "likes to talk to American girls." Ick. The only reason I started talking to him in the first place is that I actually know someone from Utrecht, but this stalker guy was clearly not my Dutch friend. And then it started raining. I don't mean that in the Southern California "Oh my god what is falling from the sky? This never happens here!" way. The weather here is nice, but it's not that nice. (I tried to buy an umbrella in LA once. No stores sold them and everyone acted like I was trying to buy napalm or something. Even though it was actually raining at the time.) The rain was weird because the thunder that came before the rain was so loud that I really thought we were being attacked for a little while. Also, it wasn't supposed to rain, so I didn't have an umbrella and had to run in heels through puddles to get to the short films. Which would have also felt very New York, except there were no $2 umbrella guys to be found. And I really could have used one.

Oh, and just to keep you updated, I did end up having a drink with my landlord and her Portuguese friend. So that kind of worked itself out. As I was leaving, I heard myself offer to speak English with her 9-year-old son. Seemed like a good idea at the time....

Smile. Nod. Repeat.

God DAMN me! I am such a twit I could just friggin' smack myself sometimes. My landlord has started dealing with me mostly in Spanish now. Which is good, I need all the practice I can get. But I wasn't quite ready to speak Spanish just now, I didn't see it coming, and I did that awful, useless, ditzy smile and nod routine, not understanding but not owning up to not understanding. I HATE it when I do that. She asked when I would be home tomorrow night and I said a little bit late. She asked what time and I said probably 11 or 12. So far, so good. But then she started talking about a Portuguese friend and a drink and something about 10:30. I think she was inviting me to join them? Maybe if I got home by 10:30? But I didn't even realize that was what I thought she meant until after I got back to the safety of my own apartment where I could think clearly. During the conversation I just froze. Well, my mind froze, anyway. My head nodded and my mouth said "Sí" a lot. I didn't even thank her for inviting me, if that's even what she was doing. So I'm not just a twit, I'm an ungrateful twit. Mierda.

The sounds of sickness

I've spent some time here idealizing roommates. They're instant acquaintances, if not instant friends. My Spanish would be a hell of a lot better if I lived with anyone who spoke it. Maybe my imaginary roommates would have a TV that I could watch, or cook dinner sometimes, or know where I can have passport photos taken around here. And in the inevitable case that they drove me crazy, at least I'd have some good stories.

I haven't been idealizing roommates much lately, though. One good thing about living alone is that it's okay if you need to be a little bit gross now and then. And I've actually been pretty disgusting with the coughing and hacking lately. So much so that I'm tempted to apologize to my neighbors, except that I don't really want to publicly own up to all the noise pollution I'm creating. That, and I don't know how to say cough in Spanish. Maybe it's because I smoked too much when I was younger, maybe it's genetic, I dunno, but whenever I get sick it ends up in my chest and I spend weeks coughing and hacking like an old emphysematic. So on the incredibly off chance that any of my neighbors are reading this, I'm really, really sorry. I don't like it any more than you do, and if I could cough quietly I would. And while we're being neighborly, maybe you could, um, shut your kids up now and then? Thanks.

Drunk on the sun

Oh my god I live in paradise. I went to the beach today (didn't swim or anything, but there were people windsurfing). In February. Of course everyone else went to the beach today too so it was really crowded and touristy, but still. I went to the beach in February and it wasn't on vacation.

My apartment is considerably more livable when it's warm outside. The orange and yellow walls are starting to grow on me. This is me you're talking to, though, so of course there's a but. Here goes. It's great to open the windows and get fresh air. But. My neighborhood kinda smells like sewage. So the air is fresh, but not in a good way. And they don't really do screens in Europe, so bugs may be an issue. More things to get used to. But the important thing is that I live in paradise. At least until it starts raining tomorrow.

Got Lucky

Today was the kind of day where it's hard not to feel okay about life. Friday, the sun was shining, the sky was bright and blue and cloudless. Then I stepped outside. WHAM! Gale force winds. The kind of wind that nearly knocks you down and then blows sand in your eyes. Always something.

Anyway. Do you ever do something knowing full well that it's guaranteed to be completely futile? I've been waiting for my landlord to get me some documents that she says I need in order to get the Padrón certificate, which I need to extend my visa (long boring story). But some English translation that I found online said that I only needed an original copy of my lease, which I now have. I'm more inclined to trust my landlord than anything that's been translated into English here, and when bureaucracy is involved the option that's a bigger pain in the ass is pretty much always the correct one. But the sun was shining and I didn't feel like working anyway, so I decided to try and get the Padrón with only my lease. I had no expectations that it would actually work. But I figured I could at least confirm that I was going to the right office, and maybe someone would give me a straight answer on exactly what documents I needed. So I went.

I'm starting to get comfortable here. I'm acting more like me. The problem with that is that sometimes acting like me means acting like a stark raving lunatic. I had my first weather-related breakdown today. And it was on what was probably the nicest day of the year so far. It was 19 degrees (66 F). But like I said, it was very, very windy. And those of you who know me know that wind does strange things to me. So, on my long walk through several highway interchanges and construction sites to get to the Ayuntamiento (the Padrón place), I lost it a little bit and started screaming and yelling and cursing the wind. It wasn't pretty; it never is when I curse the wind. My scarf had nearly blown off and my hair was all over the place and I could barely open my eyes and I started spewing obscenities at the top of my lungs. That I freaked out over the weather isn't really noteworthy--I do that a lot. That I had a breakdown here is kind of noteworthy though. I wouldn't have let myself go like that when everything was new and different and scary. Not that cursing the wind is a good thing, exactly, but still it's kind of a milestone.

Anyway. I pulled myself together and pressed on and, when I got to the Ayutamiento, I experienced none other thanbureaucratictic miracle. It worked. I knew right when I sat down that the woman I was dealing with was different from the other bureaucrats. She had a nice smile and didn't radiate meanness. But I also knew better than to get my hopes up. I gave her my lease and asked for the Padrón. She asked if I had lived in Barcelona or anywhere else in Spain before. I said no. She typed. And then she handed me the Padrón. Just like that. It worked. If only there were some way to quit this visa process while I'm ahead....

"Lightly unwrap one flap."

I rarely read instructions but, when I do, I tend to follow them to the letter. Even if faced with overwhelming evidence that said instructions, or my interpretation of them, are wrong. Lightly unwrap one flap, when written about a microwave dinner, to me says "Peel back one corner of the cover of the microwave dinner." So that's what I did. Even though the cover was clearly made of foil, and therefore clearly needed to come off entirely. Microwave sparking, I cursed bad translation before I cursed myself and my arbitrary pigheadedness. Now, you may be thinking "Okay, American girl, you're in Spain now, read the Spanish instructions." Or something like that. And you might have a point. If the Spanish microwave dinner in question actually had Spanish instructions. But these lentejas jardinera (garden lentils), product of Spain, had cooking instructions in English, French, Portuguese, and German. Maybe there were subliminal Spanish instructions hidden in those other languages, I dunno, but they certainly weren't written anywhere that I could find them. Ingredients in Spanish, yes, and the package did say ¡Listo! ¡Calentar y comer! (Ready! Heat and eat!), which I guess is all you really need to know. If you're not such a stubborn dumbass as to get tripped up by the English translation and leave the foil on.

You may also be thinking something to the effect of "If you're gonna eat a dinner as pathetic as microwave lentils, you get no sympathy." That one I guess I deserve.

Catalans are obsessed with shit

...that's a direct quote from last night. Someone was telling me that most European countries can be classified as being obsessed either with shit or with genitals (who knew?), and that although in most of Spain it's genitals, here in Catalunya it's shit. Apparently when they set up nativity scenes for Christmas here, there's always a shepherd off in the back somewhere squatting down to poop (not too close to the baby jesus, of course). I guess if you're gonna celebrate Christmas, you might as well have a sense of humor about it.

Speaking of shit, it's kind of how I've been feeling lately. I have this cold that won't go away, and I keep feeling like I'm on the verge of getting sick for real. Admittedly, I'm a little bit of a hypochondriac, but the coughing and hacking is definitely not in my head. [Does thinking you have hypochondria make you more or a hypochondriac, or less?] Anyway, when I stay out late, drink too much, and don't get enough sleep, I tend not to feel very good the next day. I know, what a shocker, right? The thing is, if I eat a healthy dinner, don't drink, and go to bed early, I tend to feel even worse the next day. It's like you're not supposed to take care of yourself here.

Pledging my Time

I've spent most of my life thus far being a student, and as a student I used to think a lot about the things I would never do when I grew up and became a teacher. I never actually had any intentions of becoming a teacher, but I had the "I will never" thoughts and, well, here I am. I've forgotten most of what I swore I'd never do when I became the teacher I never planned to be; and I'm sure I do a lot of whatever those things were. One thing I've stuck to, though, is never ending class late. For one thing, everyone just stops paying attention if you go over time. I always used to, anyway. But more important, it's presumptuous and rude. (My current students may deserve to be treated rudely, but that's beside the point.) People are busy, and even if they're not surely they have better things to do than listen to me blab about statistics during time that wasn't allocated to me. And I have better things to do. I don't want to lecture about p-values for any longer than I have to. (Am I in the wrong job? I just don't know.)

Which is why it really irritates me that the class immediately before my afternoon class always runs late, making mine start late. Doesn't that professor want a break the way I always do after two hours of teaching? Then I have to rush through things in order to end on time. I get to feel all holier than thou for not continuing a vicious cycle of classes ending late, but this particular high moral ground doesn't do much for me.

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I just finished listening to Blonde on Blonde in its entirety. My god what a good album. And you know what the thing of it is? I don't even think it's Bob Dylan's best album. But it was exactly what I wanted to hear about an hour ago, and it brought me joy. Joy. Really, it's that good.

Mother Superior jumped the gun

Okay, I know I'm a couple days late on this one, but Dick Cheney, the vice president of the United States, shot someone? Is everyone else as mortified by this as I am? It makes Berlusconi's calling himself Jesus look classy. [Really, I could care less if someone refers to himself as Jesus or god or whatever, but world leaders should know better--comments like that piss people off unnecessarily. At least John Lennon had a point.] What's next, Condi Rice's tragic death in a game of chicken? Christ. I've heard several people here talk about how embarrassed they were when José María Aznar, Spain's former prime minister, tried speaking English with George W. during a press conference or something. Apparently Jose's English isn't so good. At least he didn't fucking shoot someone.

AND. I don't miss New York at all right now. Even I am not such a sucker as to get all nostalgic for several feet of snow.

Where my thought's escaping

I think after this I should probably stop with the counting. But this is kind of important. I've been here six weeks now, which is officially longer than I've ever been away from the US, or anywhere I've referred to as home. (My Russia trip was just short of six weeks, I forget exactly how long.) When I moved to Boston and didn't go back to Michigan for a long time, Boston became home. Same with New York. Does that make Barcelona home now? Somehow it doesn't feel the same, at least not yet. New York still feels like home, even though I only lived there for less than two years. I wonder if it just feels that way now because it's still fresh, or if it will always feel that way because it really is home. I guess we'll see.

Anyway. Spanish people really just seem to stay home on Sundays. I was having dinner tonight at a not-particularly-touristy restaurant, and realized about halfway through the meal that everyone in the room was speaking English. Then on the walk home I overheard several English conversations. Not that English is so uncommon here, I hear people speaking it a lot. But on Sunday nights you seem to hear more English than Spanish, which is very rare in Spain.

Well, in that case....

I went into this little grocery store today to buy a snack. I picked out a bag of cracker-y type things that were very clearly labeled 0.75 € (that's 0,75 € in European). The guy at the counter was from the Indian subcontinent. He asked me "¿Eres española?" (Are you Spanish?) I said "No, soy Americana." (No, I'm American.) He smiled and said "Fifty cents." I'm not sure what that was all about.

                                *            *            *

The world is not out to get me. The world isn't out to get anyone, because the world doesn't have intentions, it just is. And even if it did have intentions, I'm sure it would have better things to do than be out to get me. But still. I had three sets of plans for today/tonight fall through. When that happens and you're left with nothing to do on a Saturday night in a foreign country where you've now lived for a while, it makes you dejected. Sigh.

...I'm writing this at a cafe and they just started playing Sweet Caroline. (Clearly not the hippest place in Barcelona, but it's smoke-free and it's not Starbucks.) And I CAN'T STOP SMILING. (I tend not to stay dejected for long.) I want to sing along. I am such a dork.

[Maybe some explaining about the blog is in order. I usually write it in a notebook and then post what I've written the next day. Maybe that was obvious, I dunno. Anyway, that's why you're reading about Saturday night on Sunday at the earliest. I don't have internet at home so if I write at night I can't post it until the next day. And the romance of writing (even if it's just a self-absorbed weblog) feels much more authentic when it's done hunched over a tiny notebook in a crowded cafe. I'm a sucker for shit like that.]

Monumental

The semester is half over. Today I finally got an English copy of one of the textbooks for my course. Five weeks late. Now I admit that the length of the delay is actually in large part my fault. But the fact that there was a delay at all is not my fault, and deserves a rant. The department I'm teaching in doesn't provide textbooks for faculty.

Huh??

I've never heard of such a thing. If you don't own your own copies, you have to check the books out of the library, where you're at the mercy of due dates and other people's borrowing habits. By the time I figured this out, the library's copies of my textbook were, not surprisingly, checked out. So the library ordered another copy for me because I'm a technically professor (I so don't feel like one), but it took a while. Then when I went to pick up the book today, I realized I'd requested the wrong title. Try explaining that in Spanish without looking like an idiot. [To my credit, we're using an obscure book by an author who's also written a very famous book. I thought the slight differences in the titles was just a translation issue and requested the famous one. Oops.] Finally, I think just to get me to go away, the woman at the library loaned me a reserve copy of the right book, although by then I'd already tracked down a Spanish version that I can actually read pretty easily, making the whole library fiasco pretty much for naught. The fact that I can be a colossal fuckup clearly did not help the situation. But still: The University does not provide textbooks for faculty. That's just fucked up.

And then, after all that Spanish library negotiation, I had to go get my hair cut in Spanish. I was pretty much Spanish-ed out by then (your brain really just shuts down after too much time speaking a language you don't really speak), so communication was pretty minimal. I was at least able to express that I didn't want a mullet (had to do it delicately, because my hairstylist had a mullet herself), although I still got more layers than I really wanted. Whine.

Just standing in a doorway

A lot of my friends here I've made over the internet. I'm not exactly proud of that, but I'm not ashamed to admit it either. Most of my American friends here have made most of their friends here over the internet. I guess it's just what you do when you move to a foreign country where you don't know anyone. So far it's made for an interesting and very random collection of people that I hang out with. [Bad grammar, I know. I just can't use 'with whom' and 'hang out' in the same sentence. Sorry.]

Sometimes it almost feels like a job. Not in a bad way, it's actually pretty fun. Maybe project is a better word than job. I've just never made such a conscious effort to work on my social life before--it's always just kind of fallen into place. That's one of the good things about being in a foreign place, though--it forces you to be more open, so you end up meeting people who you never would from within your usual comfort zone. I wonder if the openness will last, or if I'll just return to my old judgmental self when I get back to the US....

Oooh dos

The Spanish pronounce everything in Spanish. Last weekend I was at a bar called Sala Sidecar (sala means room in Spanish). The locals call it Sala See-day-car, which is how it would be pronounced if it were a Spanish word. My favorite so far is oooh dos. You know, oooh dos, the Irish rock band?

My theory is that Americans are actually the same way, but it's just less obvious because there's far less foreign influence in the US. Americans say uh-rack rather than ee-rock when referring to that country we invaded, but that's the only example I can think of and it falls somewhere near that fine line between mispronunciation and speaking with a different accent. See-day-car is definitely mispronunciation. I bet, though, that if U2 were a Spanish rock band, a lot of Americans would say "you two" instead of "oooh dos".

Я не говорю по-русски

I have this Russian friend here. She's great. I like Russians and I like friends, so it's pretty much a win-win situation. There's just one slight catch. She thinks I speak Russian. I can't seem to disabuse her of this notion, even though I clearly can't form sentences or express even the most basic thoughts when I try to speak Russian. I've been accused of speaking Spanish better than I give myself credit for, and maybe there's a little bit of truth to that. When I say I don't speak Spanish, I mean I don't speak Spanish very well. But trust me, I DON'T SPEAK RUSSIAN. Unless the conversation is about my name, where I live, the fact that I like beer and don't really like vodka, the numbers 1-10, the location of my luggage (and that's only if the luggage is "here," not anywhere else), hello, good-bye, buying tickets, the hot water not working, or the fact that I don't speak Russian very well (the most useless phrase ever), I'm toast. And numbers don't make for good conversation. I recently had a Spanish language exchange that went horribly wrong and deteriorated into counting (not my idea); it wasn't pretty. I do have my Russian language textbook here in Barcelona--my friend who helped me pack thought I was insane for bringing it with me, but maybe it will come in handy. I really would like to learn Russian, but I really need to learn Spanish. So I'm tempted to try and learn both, but fear I'll end up learning neither.

Speaking of things Russian, there's this shot that seems to be popular here called Russian Cocaine. You make a little sandwich out of lemon slices, sugar, and ground espresso beans; put it in your mouth; do a shot of vodka. Not my first choice of cocktail, but it does wake you up.

Huh???

Dear Anyone Who May Ever Be In A Loud Place With Me,

SPEAK THE FUCK UP.

Please. If you're being asked "What?" after every other sentence, it means you need to raise your voice. Try it; it works.

...sorry, I've had that rant building up for a while. I feel better now.

Speaking of noise levels, my students were eerily quiet today. Have I finally bored them into submission with significance tests and p-values?

Smooth like a rhapsody

Banks seem to sponsor art a lot here; I'm not sure why. There's a Rembrandt exhibit at one of the Gaudí houses that's being put on by my bank. I gotta remember to go before it ends later this month. Today I went to Caixa Forum, which is a whole small (free) museum of contemporary art owned by another bank, la Caixa. Unfortunately two of the four exhibition spaces were closed in preparation for upcoming exhibits, but since admission was free that was kind of okay. One of the rooms was full of only white columns, floor to ceiling. It kind of felt like a forest and was very disconcerting (you couldn't really tell how big the room was or where exactly you were in it), which I guess was the artist's intent. Very cool in a weird contemporary art kind of way.

And I got my new phone yesterday. I used to think that missing a flight was something akin to the end of the world. Then I missed a flight, took the next one, the world did not end, and I calmed down about missing flights. Now I also know that losing your cell phone isn't the end of the world. I just told the Vodaphone guy that I lost my phone and gave him my number. He did a bunch of typing and then gave me a new SIM card with the same number, and didn't even charge me anything. The worst part of the whole process was waiting for the stupid Vodaphone store to reopen after siesta. Well, that and paying 49 euros for a new phone.... At least I've stopped buying electronics at El Corte Inglés.

Coffee Talk

I finally bought a coffee pot today (fascinating life I lead, I know). It only cost 7.50 euros at 100 i mes (that's 100 and more in Catalan; I guess they're dealing in centimos). It's an Italian brand, and has the instructions translated into the worst English ever: "This is the coffee make you need to brew one or cups of 'expresso.'" Okay, maybe not the worst English ever, but it made me laugh. It's probably what I sound like when I speak Spanish. So anyway, I can have coffee now, at home! Yay!

Before I can go home and make coffee, though, I have to get a new cell phone because I lost mine, dammit. And it's siesta time right now, so I have to wait an hour for the Vodaphone store to reopen. Actually I have no idea how long I have to wait for the Vodaphone store to open--since I lost my phone I have no idea what time it is. And even if I did, the Vodaphone store will probably reopen whenever it wants to, not necessarily at 4pm like the sign says. (I'm wondering if I'll ever stop singing Voda-pho-o-one in my head to the tune of Kodachrome whenever I see the word Vodaphone. I guess in New York I finally stopped hearing the 59th Street Bridge Song at the 59th street subway stop....) Not all businesses here do the siesta thing, and apparently the government is considering doing away with it entirely to be more on schedule with the rest of Europe. I'd tell you more, but the article I read was in Spanish, so I missed a lot of the details.

...It just hit me that right now is really nice. I'm sitting in this little bar/cafe with funky art on the walls and good music playing. The bartender looks like Elliott Smith (RIP) and is pretty chilled out reading a newspaper. I'm the only one here so no one is smoking. I just finished a really good small jamón serrano sandwich and am having good coffee. And writing. Oh, I wish writing a blog could be my real job....

Feel Like a Number

Beaurocracy is so fucking demoralizing. I went to the police station today, documents in hand, ready to get legal. Of course it didn't work. No one told me I needed proof (in the form of another official document, of course, not just my lease) that I live in a legal domicile, or 3 passport photos, or a copy of the stamp in my passport from when I entered Europe. But it turns out I need all of those things, and this morning I had none of them. Which isn't a huge deal--my current visa is valid until the end of March, so I don't think there's a big rush. But now I have to go to another office and get another document, and to get this Padrón (that's what it's called) I need an original copy of my lease and of course I don't have an original copy of my lease, because that's just the kind of colossal fuck-up that I am. Shit. So I'll have to try to borrow my landlord's copy of the lease, again probably making her think I'm a total flake.... And I really couldn't understand the woman at the police station when she spoke, which was also demoralizing. (Three photos and a photocopy I understood; the Padrón thing I didn't.) She ended up writing everything down for me, which was actually pretty nice but also made me feel like an idiot. And that's the thing about beaurocracy: At best it leaves you feeling frustrated and inadequate, at worst you're banging your head against a wall and muttering incoherently in public. You can't win.

In happier news, I had surprisingly good Chinese food for lunch. Ethnic food here is just a little different, though. The fried rice had ham in it.

...and on a completely unrelated note:
     "I watched you clean the filth off your phone dial
     Swallowing the things your finger picked up"
Franz Ferdinand, what the fuck are you talking about??

Raspberry, strawberry, lemon, and lime

A few years ago I happened to catch Letterman on Thanksgiving. At one point in the show he started naming pies. Apple! ...Pumpkin! ...Blueberry! ...Mincemeat! I've never been able to convince anyone that this was funny but, to me at least, it was hilarious. Tonight's Spanish class was a lot like that scene. Only less funny.

I need a haircut. I really, really need a haircut. I'm starting to look like Chewbacca. Or Garth from Wayne's World. A friend recommended a good place that only costs 40 euros. I'd like to be brave and just ask for something interesting but not drastically different (this also saves me from having to learn a lot of haircut words in Spanish). The problem is that the current trendy women's hairstyle here seems to be, well... a mullet. Not exactly the Nascar, Bud Light, Lynyrd Skynyrd mullet of the southeastern United States, but still. I can't have a mullet, even if it's a trendy European variation on the American mullet. I just can't do it. So I'm gonna have to learn some Spanish haircut words. ¿Como se dice mullet?

Bad Medicine

I have a cold. I also have this self-defeating belief that alcohol kills germs. (Is that even remotely true?? I know rubbing alcohol kills germs. Does drinking alcohol kill anything besides sometimes people?) It's especially self-defeating here because the bars are so smoky. I'm afraid I may have this cold forever. The good news, I guess, is that if it isn't just a cold and I end up needing antibiotics or something, I can just go to the pharmacy and get them; no prescription necessary. That makes life easier, but also has this anal American a little concerned about drug-resistant bacteria....

So I've been here a month now. I've made a few friends. I basically know my way around. I haven't been mugged. I've learned about 7 words of Catalan. My Spanish still sucks. I know a few good bars. I have a bank account, a phone, and a new can of gas for the water heater. I'm doing okay, right?

You only give me your funny paper

I might like banking better here than in the US. [Money again, I know, but I'm not talking about my money, this is more general. And I never claimed to be consistent.] They don't seem to use checks here at all. At first I thought that was weird, but really checks are pretty 20th century. They can get stolen, or lost, or torn, or misread or.... Exchange of money here often happens directly by bank transfer. That's how I pay my rent. The bank transfers feel very modern--you can do them online, even. What feels very 1950's are the passbooks you get with your bank account. They're actually pretty convenient, though, because you don't have to fill out deposit slips--you just give your deposit and passbook to the bank teller who does everything for you. Also, I have a special account for foreigners through the University and the bank has a branch right across from my building. There's this super huggable older guy who works there. He looks kinda like Uncle Jun on The Sopranos, and I can email him personally if I have questions or problems. Fuck you, Washington Mutual.

Every once in a while I overreact a little bit about the weather. It hasn't been soooo bad here, at least not by northeast corridor standards. The weekend was cold and rainy and shitty, but it could have been worse. (I can be rational now that the sun has come back out.) It wasn't just me freaking out, though. Everyone here was freaking out about the weather, and everyone must include people who don't overreact insanely to bad weather the way I tend to. I'm taking that as a good sign that it shouldn't ever get much worse here than 40° F (that's about 4° C) and rainy. Which isn't soooo bad.