A) I still can’t grasp that I’m here in this strange “Spain,” and in this strange and almost TOO convincingly awesome Barcelona. it might just be jetlag (i’m slow). it might be that i never really “chose” this destination, so I feel like my mind is blinking its eyes and going “wait, what?” i have never had a more “surreal and dreamlike” experience, though i guess that’s not saying much.
B) Every day, i follow as structured a plan as is possible in a culture like this (and more notably, in a company like this). Wake at whatever time i need to get to work (it varies from 10 AM to 5 PM, like today). I put on the TV. There are voices coming at me in Spanish and Catalan. Mostly I understand what they are saying. Hey, why do I understand what they are saying? Why are they talking like that? Then I only understand part of what they’re saying, because I’m thinking about it too much. It makes me sleepy. I’m not particularly light sensitive or any kind of sensitive for that matter when it comes to sleep, but once I’m awake, I feel a lot of resentment towards the “world” and sometimes I want to cry until someone will tell me it’s ok, you can go back to sleep and be late to school by a period or so… but then I realize I am behind on my google reader and might as well stay awake to knock that out. I microwave water for coffee, drink coffee (shitty), internet a bit, feel tired and waffle between going back to sleep for a few minutes or drinking a second or third cup of coffee, shower, walk to the little train station at Bellaterra, usually miss the train by one minute and have to wait another 15. Pero bueno, no pasa nada.
3) Work, or in the case of the past two days, Spanish class. My “boss” at BCN Week happens to also work at a cute little language school, and she got me a discount on 3 weeks’ worth of semi-intensive Spanish lessons (2 hours a day , during siesta time, unfortunately : i embarrass myself with yawns). My class is a conference table of internationals: Hungarian, Italian, Russian, German, Irish, New Zealander. We are talking mostly about past tense verb conjugations right now. Boring, but I need the review. After class, I walk back to the office.
D) The office: a hilariously “decorated,” dirty, unpretentious weirdo of an apartment right off Barcelona and thus Catalonia’s hotbed, the Plaça Catalunya. A semi-circular sitting room, three “work” rooms, a bathroom with no lights, and a petite kitchen with also no lights, no clean glasses ever, and a questionable kid-size coffee maker. A lot of ash trays, I think. Definitely a lot of rolled cigarettes. A terribly sweet but crackpot mutt, Madonna, who doesn’t bark when you come in the door, but goes apeshit when you leave. 3 fabulous regulars* – Lena, Nuria, and Joe – and a handful of comers and goers. More on the job description next time.
*with dayjobs
5) I haven’t “gone out” yet. I haven’t ired de marcha. Yes, this is Barcelona, I know. I just haven’t had time, or made it. I will. But between getting over jetlag or whatever, working and exploring the city (almost always simultaneously), meeting folks, mandatory seminars and weekend excursions, commuting, walking a helluva lot, spanish class, studying spanish outside of class, trying to go to the gym, trying to make it to the free dinners on campus rather than having yet another night of yogurt and handfuls of cornflakes, interneting at the bare minimum, and countless other “bothersome” tasks, I just can’t seem to ir de marcha. *THIS WILL CHANGE*
En resumen: muchmuchmucho more to say, but I’m too pooped to go into detail. yes, there’s detail already, and it rocks – Barcelona is a detail city (“but what european and especially roman city isn’t, you stupid ho”). it’s also a “big picture” city, which is awesome. Anyway, details to come, and in smallish, palatable portions, I hope. this entry is just to give you an idea of what kind of content i’m liable to produce in the future, what you’re getting yourself into. By “you” i mean like, me? i don’t think anyone is reading this. i secretly hope that no one is reading this so that i can come up with something better by the time someone is. if i’m going to write, and write a blog, I want this damn thing to have some class, ok, some integrity, and for god’s sake, some character (which doesn’t necessarily mean “lots of kelly.” i’m trying to get away from that as it often stunts consistent and respectable publication). which it doesn’t yet. So if you are reading this, don’t say anything, not that you would anyway, but i can’t handle the pressure. forget that you read this, go read the paper, while you can, in your timezone. in mine it’s 3 AM, which in my language means -PEACE-
