Octubre...el Primer dia en Barcelona

1 October 2007, Lunes

Today I decided to try out a French class…why not? After searching for blasted room 201 for thirty minutes I finally found it in a secluded corner of the second floor which I did not know existed. (room 200 was on the first floor thank you very much). It was French I, but as I found out from the Sevillana sitting next to me, you are expected to be fluent by French 1, or have acquired sufficient fluency to understand the teacher speaking French…I was out of that classroom before you could say “Eifel tower…”

I spent the rest of the day searching for lodgings in Europe for our travels, and Macarena’s class which was a bit boring…again about the Spanish constitution. After class, a group of us headed to TGI Friday’s to fulfill some long awaited American cravings…happy hour and enchiladas. Once again…..oh yeah…….

There was a fashion show occurring at Plaza Nervion which was nice.

2 Octubre 2007, Martes

Cine, Sevillanas and West Side Story. Boring class. Salad lunch. Boots and purple shoes from Marypaz. Espanol para negocios. Coffee and tapa with Petra. Rain. Dinner with Senora and her prima.

3 Octubre 2007, Miercoles
As a result of my helado fascination, I decided to join a gym. It took me a while to find an affordable one, but my senora told me about one only five minutes away so I decided to go check it out. It’s this tiny cute little lime green building, with about five treadmills, three ellipticals, two studios for classes, and lots of techno workout music. The owner was intrigued by my Americanness and asked me where I was from. When I said Chicago, he inquired whether that was on the West coast, and without trying to sound too shocked that he hadn’t heard of Chicago, I informed him it was a rather large city in the center of the country. After checking out the locker rooms and class schedules, I bade him farewell.

It was so interesting, in El Mundo Actual today, we watched a Spanish documentary about the beginning of the Cold War. Therefore, the narrator of the film was a Spaniard, but all of the old footage they showed was either in Russian or English, with subtitles in Spanish for their Spanish speaking audience. So for me, I could understand the original of everything, and therefore compare and contrast the translations. It was just entertaining and nice to know that I can truly understand three languages…

After an extremely long siesta (I don’t seem to do siesta much, but when I do it, I do it hardcore) I decided to have a leisurely afternoon coffee in one of the numerous local cafes. It was supposed to last more than 30 minutes, but my Americanness made it last a mere 10. That’s when I decided to throw in the towel, and walk over to my Sevillana class.

Sevillana is a type of flamenco dance that is native to Seville. It is usually danced in pairs, but has all the pride and individuality one thinks of when referring to flamenco. The dance is accompanied with guitar and singing, and usually the dancers use castanets.
Finding my teacher’s apartment was interesting, as it is in one of the many Franco-esque high rises, similar to Russian style apartment buildings which all look the same. Some friendly little Sevillanas helped me find the room, and after walking through the teacher’s bedroom into a little door that led to a basement studio, I looked around to discover full length mirrors and concrete floors in the little room. The girls in this class are all from our program, which honestly, I don’t really like because I need to take advantage of every opportunity to practice my Spanish, and it’s really annoying (but somewhat comforting at the same time) that Americans will always speak English together. (unless there’s a smirking profesora nearby). We started by learning the footwork for a Sevillana, and then added the graceful arms, and then fooled around a little with the castanets. I really like the dance, or should I say TO dance, as I haven’t really had a true dance class in a while and learning the culture behind the dance is intriguing. Speaking of culture, I noticed an interesting difference from the way the class was taught. As the teacher was going through the steps, and since for some reason the electricity had been turned off so we had no music, I tried to count it in my mind. Every time, however, the teacher would add or subtract a few beats so it was never the same. When I asked her what the count was, she looked at me quizzically and said it always changes and I would be able to hear it with the music. Apparently, keeping a steady rhythm and counting off, which is the staple of learning any kind of dance, is thrown out the window here.

After that, I headed to my gym (oh yes, it is my gym now) for a hip-hop workout class, which blew my mind. Walking in, I was immediately greeted by my now friend, Sergio, the non-Chicago knowing owner, who introduced me to the teacher, Alejandro, a twentysomething true hip-hop guy with many piercings, braces, sagging pants, a baseball cap thrown to the side….the whole shebang. It was interesting that Sergio introduced me as “the American” and for once, that actually made me cool. The class itself was amazing for the cultural stuff I picked up on, but not so hot in terms of exercise, which I suppose is a cultural lesson as well since, as an American, I expect intense crazy-sweating-calorie burning-cardio-make the most of my time-workout instead of, feel the music-sweat because it’s hot-loosen up and move your body hip-hop style-kind-of –sort- of workout. We danced to “My Goodies” and other hip-hop rap music that was popular a couple of years ago, and as weird as it is to confess, it made me feel very at home. The combination we learned was so basic, and everyone was falling over their feet which was interesting. We repeated the same few steps for an hour, going back to “al principio” a thousand times. After the class, Alejandro invited me to hip-hop night at Antik, the really nice club, which was very kind of him.

After a quick shower and dinner, I met up with Natalia on Calle Betis for a drink and tapa, where we watched as about a thousand Americans walked by. It was international night at Boss, the other really popular night club here. We had free passes to get in, so after a while, we joined the large line outside of the exclusive club. Interesting to note is the tendency of clubs to keep large lines of people waiting outside, while once you enter the locale, it is actually quite empty. Boss was really nice on the inside, I didn’t stay too long because of big plans tomorrow, but I did see Petra and her friend Diana and about every other American studying in Sevilla. There were a lot of Sevillanos too, I should say.

4 Octubre, Jueves

Today we watched El Otro Lado de la Cama, a Spanish musical from a few years ago which was so extremely Hollywood in its design, I’m surprised it’s not been converted into a Matthew McConaughey (how do you spell his name? who cares?)-esque romantic comedy. I will be interested to hear what Luis says about the movie on Tuesday.

Picture: Me with my lovely Luxiq bag...aren't you proud Papa?

After class, we went to the office to do a bit of internet before catching our flight. I decided to check the reviews on the hostel we were to be staying at on a whim, and was very glad I did so, as they were HORRIBLE. I made sure to write down some names of other hostels before leaving, just in case.

In the airport, I ate my lovely atun y pimiento bocadillo my senora made me, and then boarded my flight. The weather was very stormy so the whole flight was one big chunk of turbulence, praying, and I do remember saying “I can’t die…my parents will kill me!” to Natasha’s amusement. Also amusing was Spanair (the airline’s) magazine which had articles in Spanish, then translated into English. I would love, love, LOVE to meet this person who “translated” the articles just to ask where they went to school…it was ridiculously poorly transcribed…to the point of humor…it’s amazing to think they could publish and mass produce something which they do not check first. I think this makes for an interesting business opportunity as poor translation is somewhat of a theme in Spain…

Take for example, when getting off the plane in Barcelona (thank goodness we arrived in one piece) they had signs for the Exit in Spanish, Catalan, and English. “Sortida=Catalan, Salida=Spanish, Way Out=English…” Literally, these signs were all over the airport…way out…

We found out train and took it to central Barcelona. Right as we got off the train (gotta love RENFE) it started POURING. I did have my umbrella, but I also had my heavy bag and my lovely Marypaz ballet flats which turned out to be ridiculously slippery and uncomfortable when trudging through the puddles of Barcelona. We found our way down Plaza Catalunya, past the famous Gaudi buildings, down Las Ramblas into the confusion which was the BCN Loft office. There were about four people serving two, and all of these people had no clue what they were doing. They made me sign some sort of contract to which I wrote down incorrect information since I did not want to pay for something I had not seen yet, and was fairly skeptical about. Their credit card machine did not function anyway, so we asked them to show us our room before we could get more cash out of an ATM.

A tall blonde girl from Holland led us through the rain for about twenty minutes, complaining the whole time about the incompetence of her colleagues, to an apartment building. We entered the piso and walked into our room, which was supposed to be a 6 bed private room, of which we would occupy 5 of the beds, as three other girls from our program were planning on taking a later flight to Barcelona. Four of the beds seemed to be occupied as the German guy on one of the (disgusting) couches told us that he did not know who some of the suitcases in the room belonged to. The blonde girl shrugged this off and told us there was a cot in the hallway and that we should ask the office people as they may or may not have extra sheets. She left, as I stood open mouthed staring at the horrible disorganization and general miserableness of the room. I grabbed some paper towels and began drying off my poor little suede flats which had taken in about three times their weight in water.The German guy told us one of us could sleep on the couch, and really, it wasn’t as bad as it looked. I was about ready to peace out right then and there, so we began to call other hostels to check availability. One hostel, which Hostelworld (thank goodness for this fabulous website) recommended, had a really nice receptionist, Mario, who offered us rooms. After sharing a bocadillo that Natalia’s senora made her, (we needed the strength) we left and began the Great Taxi Search, as just about everyone in the city had taken a taxi to avoid the general inclement weather. Before we left, I put on a pair of gold high heels I had brought to go out in and rolled up my pants a bit, so I can only imagine how ridiculous I looked…gold heels, huge bag, general fatigue, and all. We arrived at the hostel and dumped our things there, thankful that someone was nice enough to offer us space for the night. I cursed the gal who had the fabulous idea of booking the other place, and Natalia and I decided we had to go back, return the keys the awful other hostel had given us, and tell them we refused to stay there. (also that they shouldn’t charge us for the night even though technically they couldn’t because I wrote down an incorrect credit card number). We walked down Las Ramblas, as the rain had lessened at this point, and went into the office. The manager, who had decided to drop in, flat our refused to listen to us, saying the situation could not exist. He asked us if we had gotten the names of the people who were staying in the room, and we were like..ummmm, isn’t that your job? Finally, some of the office people told him that we weren’t lying and he stormed off, leaving us standing there kind of shocked. We returned the keys and peaced out….ready to actually begin enjoying the city.

Left=me REALLY angry with Barcelona

We met Natalia’s friend who was studying in Barcelona, after searching a bit for shoes since I was still wearing high heels with my little flats left to dry in the hostel. I was a bit disappointed because I thought she would know the city a bit by now, and would know a good dinner place, but she hadn’t even really walked around the main streets which we decided to do. I was really disillusioned with Barcelona, even though I had been there before and was expecting higher prices than in Sevilla, I am now realizing how amazing Sevilla is and how much of a gem the city is. The tapas in Barcelona were RIDICULOUSLY priced and, generally everything was ridiculously expensive. Natalia and I opted to share a “menu del dia” in an Italian restaurant, which we have grown accustomed to doing as it is always enough for two people and usually ends up being really cheap…this night it was salad, steak and fries, and dessert for 6.50 euros….meaning 3.25 a person…or something like 5 bucks…not bad for Las Ramblas.

By this time, Natalia and I were soooooo tired, but I was like it’s 10:30 in Barcelona…we need to stay out a bit, come on….so we had ice cream (almost falling asleep over the ice cream cones)…and then went back to the hostel and passed out. On the way home, we had a Pakistani cab driver who we chatted with about how there are apparently a lot of Pakistanis coming to Barcelona. When we told him we were American he asked us if he could ask a serious question…was American full of “negroes running around with knives?” (sorry for the ridiculously politically incorrectness of this comment but it is a direct translation “negros con cuchillos”) We tried to educate him on how ignorant of a question this was, but he seemed pretty set in this idea of America.