Emily in Barcelona

Hola!

I finally have some time and energy to write! I'll be doing my best to write twice a week in this blog - because I want to keep everyone updated, but mostly because I have to for school.... haha. It is 7:15 PM (or 19:15 as they would say) on Friday… I’m sitting out at the balcony of my family’s apartment, looking out over the courtyard of the building complex. There are always tons of kids playing there, yelling in Spanish, with dogs barking, etc. There’s a MARVELOUS breeze as well, for a pleasant change. It’s been oppressively hot here. They’re so used to it they rarely use fans or air conditioning, while I, in the meantime, just about melt.

I live with a young couple, Noemi and Tony, their four year old daughter, Noa, and their rabbit – Princessa-something-or-other (Funny story: the first night I was here Noa brought the rabbit to me and in my jet-lagged haze I at first thought it was just a stuffed animal…needless to say, when it began to squirm/move, my shrieking gave them all a good laugh).

Aside from not having the time or energy to write, it’s also been difficult just to formulate my thoughts about all the new things I’m experiencing. Everything is so different! From light switches and bathrooms to attitudes and language it’s impossible to really process it all. Three basic examples of things that are very different:

WATER: water is not free in restaurants, even from the tap. When people do drink water, they drink it from bottles, because they are a) having a drought, and b) (this is just my speculation) it tastes TERRIBLE. There are also very few water fountains. Between the saltiness of the foods and the heat, I end up buying several bottles of water a day, and frequently have to contain myself from just pouring it over my head.

TIMING: as I alluded to before, they use military time, not AM/PM. They also don’t eat lunch until about 2 PM, and it’s the main meal, while dinner is not until 9ish, and is much lighter. They tend to stay up pretty late – the first night I was here, when I went to bed around 12:30 AM because of my exhaustion post-30 hours of no sleep, the little girl was still running around playing.

LANGUAGE: I really couldn’t have imagined how difficult communication could be. In this region of Spain, they primarily speak Catalan, which is completely different than Spanish – all the signs around the city are in Catalan. It is still a Romance language, but it is more French/Italian. While almost all speak this, they also speak Spanish. Spanish I can do pretty well with, surprisingly. I have been so pathetically proud of myself every time I had to accomplish something using Spanish – buying my cell phone, for example, or asking for directions. I’m sure they know immediately that I’m a foreigner but being able to get along using it is nice. With my family here, the wife speaks a little English, and the husband speaks a little more, but not much. I was actually pretty surprised – for some reason I thought they’d speak more. It’s been difficult to communicate with them, but we do our best, and using a crazy combination of Spanish, English, and Catalan words, we can usually figure out what one another is trying to say. I keep my dictionary at the table during meals for easy reference. I have an awful time understanding the little girl, however – she speaks very fast, and with that little-kid-kind-of-voice that is hard to decipher. She gets SO frustrated with me for not understanding. Hopefully my classes will help.

That was a long paragraph, sorry. It’s just so interesting and challenging at the same time. Frustrating too, of course. But my Spanish is getting better every day – and we start our intensive 2 ½ hour a day classes on Monday. I took a placement test that landed me in the highest-level Spanish class of anyone in my group of 12. I’m a little amazed at (/worried about) that, but we’ll see how it goes.

This week we’ve just been spending a lot of time touring the city and trying to get a feel for things. I’m so excited to really get to know Barcelona – to have favorite restaurants, favorite parks etc. Everything is so beautiful, especially the architecture. We’ve been to a few gorgeous cathedrals already, as well as some lovely parks, including La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell (both designed by Gaudi). We also stopped by the beach today – which was gorgeous as well (and about 10 minutes from my university - AND full of topless women … yikes).

We’ve been out to a number of adorable bars and restaurants for coffee and pastries (me gusta el café con leche), for “tapas” and sangria, as well as “el menu del dia” – a 3-course meal that includes wine or water (but not both - decisions, decisions!) for about 12$. The food reminds of a funny little example of the language barrier – I brought my family some maple syrup from Vermont as one of a few gifts – it was in a very pretty little glass bottle….I couldn’t think of the word for it originally, and Tony, trying to help me explain, finally said “Ah! It is cologne!?” … haha.

Well anyway. I feel like I could literally type on forever about everything, but I will spare you and my attention span the trouble. Here are a few parting pictures!

Adios y mucho amor a todos :)