So I've sat here for the last 45 minutes and this entry has remained empty, so that can't be a good sign for my ability to write Barcelona-related content from 5000 miles away (or whatever the distance is).
A quick Albany update: it's raining outside. End of update.
My plan for now, until my life moves ahead to the next adventure, is to continue writing about Barcelona even from my remote location. To do that, I'm going to organize the blog, mostly for my own purposes, so I'm motivated to keep writing.
This week, I'll write up each day at least one restaurant that I'd recommend and then I'll rehash one that I'd suggest people skip.
Today, we'll start with my favorite, and least-favorite restaurant in Born, around the Catedral de Santa Maria del Mar. There's a huge cluster of restaurant in this area and since it was only about five minutes from my flat I frequented here. The area is usually full of tourists but unlike the Gothic Quarter, there's less places here that are just trying to rip you off-there are some genuinely nice places to eat, in addition to tourist traps (you only get the latter near where I lived).
The Best Full Service Tapas Restaurant
Casa Delfin (Passeig del Born 36)-this was ironically the first place I ate in Barcelona, completely by accident, but it wound up being my favorite. It's not cheap, but it's also not overly expensive compared to other restaurants and the portions are decent. Although it's slightly touristy (open all day-they don't have "Barcelona" hours), what sets this restaurant apart for me is that the staple dishes, like tapas, are more creative than other places.
One of the "problems" with restaurants is that, in many places, the tapas were interchangeable, meaning patatas bravas in one place was exactly equivalent to the patatas bravas somewhere else. This was true for a lot of meals I had: fried artichokes, bread, padron peppers, chorizo, calamari, fried minnows, etc, if you were blindfolded, you wouldn't know where you were. This isn't necessarily a problem, especially if you like tapas as I do (did-sigh), but unless you are particular about atmosphere then it becomes very redundant, which leads to choosing restaurants based on tedious decisions like whether or not the bread is 1 Euro or 1.50.
Anyway, back to Casa Delfin; the presentation of their tapas was above many of the other places. They make their own bravas sauce, always a plus for me (some places use store-brand sauce, or worse, just squirt mayo and ketchup), and they seemed to add nice touches to the others. For example, their chorizo was served in a sweet wine reduction sauce, and I believe they came with salad and/or padron peppers on the side too.
In particular, I was partial to the monkfish stew. Actually, my love for this restaurant had a lot to do with the monkfish stew. It's in a tomato peppercorn sauce. It's good.
One to Skip:
Cheese Me Restaurant- the anglicized title of this restaurant should have been something of a dead giveaway, but nevertheless, this place shows up in numerous guide books and online listings. It also had appeal because it's not a tapas restaurant, instead it's supposed to have a more "fusion", international cuisine appeal; as the name suggests, it specializes in cheeses, and so the menu items theoretically offer creative variations of cheesy dishes.
When I ate there, much of the food was actually quite good. I had some kind of carbonera with pasta pillows filled with sweet potato, or something along those lines. The cheesecake was fairly good as well, not spectacular but memorable enough. So the food isn't the issue.
The problem here is it's just a money pit. The portions were too small for the prices they were pushing, and although eating small portions is good for the diet, Cheese Me isn't advocating a healthy lifestyle, they're just ripping you off. I don't want to say how much I spent on a glass of wine, but I will say they filled the glass only about a quarter, like in a feaux-snooty restaurant. Don't ask me me why I didn't complain, I felt kind of cheated but I'm sure they do that at least for all the tourists/non-locals, my sense of righteous indignation isn't peaked to the point of direct action, but I knew after that, my first and last meal at Cheese Me were going to be one and the same.
Places like Cheese Me in some sense count on people (tourists) not knowing any better than to think that they are getting a good price. But the reality is that there are plenty of places that are somewhat more expensive but don't try to cheat the customer. I suppose the difference is that between a place like Cheese Me and Casa Delfin is that one place counts on the ignorance of tourists while the other counts on the expectation that people will spend more money on a nice meal in Barcelona. Not that there aren't places where you can get a nice meal AND not spend a lot of money, but in Barcelona, those places are often harder to find and require taking some risks. Which is fine too. But this has already diverted into something different than what I wanted.
Summary:
Treat yourself occasionally at Casa Delfin if you are in the Born area.
Take the Americans (or English-speakers) you don't like to Cheese Me and they won't understand the joke.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Saturday, May 14, 2011
My Last Day in Barcelona: The Purgatory Carnival
First, a real-time update: although there is possibly at least one job offer on the table (it's hard to tell), the job hunt has continued to be slow and painful. At least the weather in Albany was nice this week.
Now, for perhaps a final story-telling moment (then I might write some "essays" about my time in Barcelona), we turn to my last full day in Barcelona.
I was originally very ambitious, having planned to return to Tibidabo in the morning (this time via the cable cars), and then coming back by the afternoon the be with people either on the beach or on Montjuic. As it happened, it rained in the morning and I slept through most of it anyway. I had some time to take a final walk around the Gothic Quarter, taking in its gloomy splendor, before taking the metro to Plaza Espanya (where I was planning to walk up to Montjuic).
My last lunch in Barcelona turned out to be mediocre fast food pasta, although it could have been much worse: it could have been like my last dinner! More on that later.
Although Barcelona was cloudy the whole day, it didn't rain at all. That was nice. I ended up seeing some of the Montjuic sights that I hadn't been to yet with Pat, one of my friends from the CELTA course. The first stop was the Olympic stadium, which was hosting a basketball game that night. The stadium itself is pretty generic, at least from the outside, but adjacent is a really interesting telecommunications tower:
Appropriately (but uncreatively) titled the Montjuic telecommunications tower, the 446-feet (136 meters) tall structure was actually one of the first things I saw when I first arrived to Barcelona on the plane, and it's a striking monument. That's not my picture-all my shots of the tower are in the cloudy weather, this picture is nicer. Although you can't go up to the top (like I had wanted to do), it's fun to walk around and gaze at.
The tower was completed in 1992 for the Olympics so its one of Barcelona's more modern landmarks (there's a handful of them, most from that Olympic building boom). It's supposed to look like the arm of an Olympic athlete holding up the flame. Sure, why not?
The tower was designed by a famous architect named Santiago Calatrava. I almost called him Sergio here but then I looked up the real name on Wikipedia. I also found out through that that Calatrava designed an art museum in Milwaukee. If anyone wants to go to Milwaukee to check it out you can let me know if the styles are similar.
From there, we went to tried to get to some strange stone structure, but instead wound up at the entrance to the Botanical Gardens. You have to pay to get in, but one of the entrances was open.
If you see an open gate, do not ask the lady at the ticket booth if you have to pay before you walk in. We learned this the hard way. After finding out the price, we got about 10 meters through the open gate before the girl came out, and in English, chastised us for trying to see plants for free.
Here's a photo I was able to take before we were kicked out:
From there, we proceeded to the Castell de Montjuic, which I think in the past I've inappropriate referred to as a castle, but its really more of a fortress, and its been used like a fortress up until (very) modern times, where its now a tourist attraction.
The Castell sits on the highest part of Montjuic; the original fort was built in 1640 but there have been several versions. I thought it was a symbol of Catalan pride but it really isn't because during the Franco (oops! I did it again!) years it served as a Spanish prison for Catalan dissenters. But either way, it was nice to walk around. The outer walls of the fortress are heavily covered in ivy, and the flower beds are shaped to look like cards, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.
WRONG!-said the portly and pompous waiter when he delivered us the bill. The waiter, who was a real prick, didn't actually say anything. He just calmly assessed the damage and then wrote out in hand a bill for us for 100 Euros.
Now, for perhaps a final story-telling moment (then I might write some "essays" about my time in Barcelona), we turn to my last full day in Barcelona.
I was originally very ambitious, having planned to return to Tibidabo in the morning (this time via the cable cars), and then coming back by the afternoon the be with people either on the beach or on Montjuic. As it happened, it rained in the morning and I slept through most of it anyway. I had some time to take a final walk around the Gothic Quarter, taking in its gloomy splendor, before taking the metro to Plaza Espanya (where I was planning to walk up to Montjuic).
My last lunch in Barcelona turned out to be mediocre fast food pasta, although it could have been much worse: it could have been like my last dinner! More on that later.
Although Barcelona was cloudy the whole day, it didn't rain at all. That was nice. I ended up seeing some of the Montjuic sights that I hadn't been to yet with Pat, one of my friends from the CELTA course. The first stop was the Olympic stadium, which was hosting a basketball game that night. The stadium itself is pretty generic, at least from the outside, but adjacent is a really interesting telecommunications tower:
The tower was completed in 1992 for the Olympics so its one of Barcelona's more modern landmarks (there's a handful of them, most from that Olympic building boom). It's supposed to look like the arm of an Olympic athlete holding up the flame. Sure, why not?
The tower was designed by a famous architect named Santiago Calatrava. I almost called him Sergio here but then I looked up the real name on Wikipedia. I also found out through that that Calatrava designed an art museum in Milwaukee. If anyone wants to go to Milwaukee to check it out you can let me know if the styles are similar.
From there, we went to tried to get to some strange stone structure, but instead wound up at the entrance to the Botanical Gardens. You have to pay to get in, but one of the entrances was open.
If you see an open gate, do not ask the lady at the ticket booth if you have to pay before you walk in. We learned this the hard way. After finding out the price, we got about 10 meters through the open gate before the girl came out, and in English, chastised us for trying to see plants for free.
Here's a photo I was able to take before we were kicked out:
The Castell sits on the highest part of Montjuic; the original fort was built in 1640 but there have been several versions. I thought it was a symbol of Catalan pride but it really isn't because during the Franco (oops! I did it again!) years it served as a Spanish prison for Catalan dissenters. But either way, it was nice to walk around. The outer walls of the fortress are heavily covered in ivy, and the flower beds are shaped to look like cards, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.
Once you go over the bridge, there's not much to do inside, except walk around the inner courtyard and try to squeeze into the tiny guard towers. There are some exceptional views from the top level of the fort, however, and you can also admire the heavy artillery (no longer operational) which appear at various points around the fort.
For the evening's festivities, a group of us decided to go to the Feria de Abril, which was a big fair occuring in the northeast corner of the city.. Before I say anything else, it should be noted that this was a very excellent idea before we actually got there. Most of the information about it made the fair made it look, at the very least, like there was some kind intriguing cultural component, such as dancing, and the food in the promotional materials online looked delicious.
The fair was supposed to be a celebration of southern Spanish culture, and apparently it's a copy of a much grander and more famous fair which happens every year in Seville. It certainly looked festive when we got there. There were lots of bright lights and big tents. I knew we are a fair though when, at the entrance (three giant green gates) there was a "Mr. Burger" booth.
Poor "Mr. Burger" must be quite low on the social strata. It's quite a big leap to go from Burger King to Mr. Burger. Oh well.
We settled down for dinner in one of the large tents which, from the outside, looked inviting, as there was a large stage for dancing in the back and a lot of food being fried and served up. None of us bothered to check the price, and if we had, we'd noticed that there...was no price. This was a mistake. You can pobably guess what's coming, sort of. That counts as something of a spoiler alert here, but I'm having a hard time building suspense, it's 3 am.
Although the food was kind of terrible, we enjoyed ourselves for the most part. The flamenca dancing was fun to watch, even though they were local girls from just outside of Barcelona and the "native" (my flatmate from Gibraltar) with us at the dinner table assured me that this was not exactly award-winning material. But how would I know that? It looked like flamenca dancing to me.
All the same, we ordered some bad tapas, talked about our general difficulties finding work, and at one point one of my friends was teaching us sign language.
I'll repeat again, that the food was not particularly excellent. The calamari was good, but the baby octopus we ordered was cold and kind of greasy-gross, and the patatas bravas seemed like defrosted potatoes in ketchup. But who cared, right? We didn't go there trying to eat a fancy meal, we just wanted some cheap eats, because we were having a good time and talking and watching flamenca dancing.
At one point I even (foolishly) commented on the possibility of a "second dinner." Because who goes to a fair but to eat as much fried food as possible, and besides, we'd have plenty of cash and appetite left over for more eating, right? Right???
WRONG!-said the portly and pompous waiter when he delivered us the bill. The waiter, who was a real prick, didn't actually say anything. He just calmly assessed the damage and then wrote out in hand a bill for us for 100 Euros.
Now, that almost sounds like a reasonable bill for five people, but...we didn't really eat anything. We had three appetizers and a plate of ham. The tent was charging 18 Euros a plate for cold and/or microwavable "tapas." I'll try not to whine too much here (too late), but when I was eating at nice restaurants in Barcelona, ones that are considered expensive, the price for tapas was about 3 or 4 Euros (6 tops and only for the nice things like monkfish stew). On the beach, I ordered four times that much food for half the price. This is like the equivalent of someone trying to charge you 20 dollars for half a sandwich at Subway. That's what it felt like. Or I think that's what it felt like, since I've never actually been to a Subway.
We did not take this lightly or without an argument. After the initial gasps of shock and outrage, our reactions ranged from continuous eye rolling, to looking down and fidgeting with the money in our wallet, to refusing outright not to pay. That was never really going to work, but in the end, over about 20 minutes, we cleaned ourselves out of cash (at least I did) and slowly skulked away.
That ruined the fair for me.
I'm not actually if we survived the dinner, because afterwards, we got stuck in the largest, most offensive display of temporary carnival rides that were ever assembled in one place on planet Earth, ever. That's not hyperbole. I was pretty sure that we had all died because the procession through the rides DID NOT END. It also started to rain.
For a few minutes, it was kind of amusing, to stare at all the tacky, very non-cultural, attractions. There was a "Jamaica Express" which rocked people back and forth. There was a funhouse. A ferris wheel. A carousel. A caterpillar that went around in a circle. Another carousel. A tilt-a-whirl. A makeshift roller coaster. One of those giant swings that people love. Some arcade games. Another carousel. Another ferris wheel. Another makeshift roller coaster. A pirate ship. Giant Spongebob Squarepants balloons. Bumper cars. Bumper boats. Bumper pirate ships. Those stupid flying airplanes. Another carousel.
By the 1,495th tacky ride, I realized that we were in hell. There was one moment, where we were walking past this loud and garish ride where people were riding fake bulls backwards and forwards, that I had this terrible feeling of panic. That I wanted to leave IMMEDIATELY but could not, because the carnival never ended. It was just the right combination of overly bright lights, loud American music, screaming children, rain, and stupid smoke effects, which pushed me over the edge.
There were just so many rides, and all of them were so bad. It was almost as if someone had looked at all the rides in Disneyland and tried to create a smaller, cheaper, tackier, carnival version of them to try to scam people with. There was even a fake "tower of terror" that people could ride on. I just wanted to sleep, I asked the man working the ticket booth for the "Hollywood hotel" how much it would cost to stay the night. He stared at me and said nothing. I don't think he thought my joke was funny.
I would have taken some pictures to try to convey the full horror of this experience, but
1. it was raining and I didn't want to ruin my camera and
2. I don't actually want to remember it
Four days later, we finally arrived at the exit, and after we waiting around for a while trying to figure out what to do next, the evening was mercifully transmuted to one of the CELTA students' flats back in the Gothic Quarter.
The final few hours of my time in Barcelona turned out okay. People stayed for a long time and talked, every so often someone would go downstairs to buy a bunch of cheap beers from the illegal vendors outside, and at one point, the flat got engaged in a political discussion, which I tried to stay out of, just because as a rule I don't follow up bad carnivals with politics. Even so, I think the argument was all in good fun. If it wasn't, it certainly seemed like people had made peace by the end of the night. To prove that the night ended well, here is a picture of the CELTA kids, being fabulous:
It doesn't look like it, but I am happy in this photograph. This is my "happy and content" face. And there was a gold pillow behind me, which is neat.
The End.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Aaron Hikes Up Tibidabo Alone...Almost a Good Idea
Here at home, the job search is in full swing. In other news...
Last Thursday after class I decided to walk up Tibidabo Mountain by myself. It's a 512-meter tall mountain (thats about 1600-1700 feet) that overlooks Barcelona and the sea, and there's some interesting attractions on top, including an amusement park.
That's a view from the top, with the Temple de Sagrat Cor towering over the amusement park. That picture is an Aaron Dorman original, btw. Spoiler alert: I make it to the summit.
This started out as a spectacular idea. I will start off by saying that I highly highly highly recommend anyone to try and to try to at least walk up to the second funicular (that will almost make sense if you know the area). To start off, I was following the track of the first cable car, which wasn't running, and as it wound slowly up the hill, I discovered some beautiful homes that I couldn't afford, as well as a spectacular little park which I could afford (it was free). Set against the side of the hill is this tiny park, the "Parc de la Font del Raco," which offers some very excellent views of the city as well as some interesting varieties of flora (just one type of fauna, it looks like, the kind with opposable thumbs). There's a picture of what it looks like inside the park on the immediate right.
After about an hour walking up, I noticed the shadows beginning to creep down the mountain:
That's a view looking straight up. So ends the hike up the mountain and the "good" part of the journey. Even though the tower was closed, I had enjoyed a good two hours walking up the mountain and feeling adventurous, taking in the scenery along the way and sweating a lot. I also was feeling very good about myself, having "discovered" the path up.
Then, at around this time, with dusk settling in, I got lost. My original goal was to try to take a taxi back down if I was too tired to retrace my steps, and I was. I had been lugging my school bag around the whole time, I didn't bring any food or water with me, and I was operating on 4 hours of sleep. After I left the Torre Collserola, I began walking down the road on top of the mountain, and for the next 90 minutes, I did not see another human being.
I'm not sure what my expectations were, but Tibidabo is dead on a Thursday night. Like Osama bin Laden dead. No people, no bikes, no cars, only a few scattered homes here and there. I passed the trail that lead down to the observatory. I tried to make it up to where the amusement park and the Temple Sacre Cor were, but I couldn't figure out how to get there, which was odd, because at a certain point I was walking next to the fence enclosing the park; I could see red train tracks winding around on the other side. However, I missed the road that went there, but even so, there were no taxis or vehicles of any kind about anyway, so getting to the entrance of the park would have been futile.
Having wandered signicantly further afield, at this point I encountered another wild boar. Up until this point, it hadn't occured to me that as this was a large, mostly undeveloped mountain, and that there would be animals wandering at night. I only freaked out a little. The wild boar was on the other side of a fence, but began following me as I walked down the road. We both broke into a run. The wild boar jumped over the fence and then ran across the road, away from me, but I still was running, until I found a trail which looked like it went down the mountain.
After walking down for about twenty minutes, the trail stopped and I panicked. I was stuck on top of a mountain with a legion of wild boars. They were much bigger than me, all one had to do was ram into me at 1/2 speed and that would probably do me in. For the next 20 minutes, I was retracing my steps, making a lot of noise, all the while thinking how obvious a target I was making myself to predators and how long it would take anyone to find me out here. My phone wasn't working.
I was about reading to start knocking on the doors of the isolated homes on top of the mountain, one house at a time, trying to explain my situation in bad Spanish to them. This, and all the preceeding panicking, was in the end completely unnecessary as I finally found a path that was parallel to the funicular, at around 9 pm.
I'm not sure where they came from, but there were actual people walking down this trail. This was a very welcome sight; if any wild boars were around, they would at least have to make a choice about dinner. The rest of the walk down was relatively uneventful, although I had to duck out of the way for a cyclist who was wheeling down the mountain. I was able to make it safely down the mountain and back to safety; I took the last bus from the funicular down to where the train station was, and stopped feeling like I was about to die at any moment.
Here is a picture of the bus:
On the way back down, I also tried to take a picture of the wild boars that were hanging around the animal shelter. This is the best I got, probably because I was afraid to look any of them in the eye, or use the flash:
In summary, climbing up Tibidabo is a GREAT idea for anyone who wants to experience Barcelona often the somewhat-beaten path, but some words of caution, learned from experience:
*don't go at night
*don't go alone
*don't go on weekdays when everything closes at 5 pm
*don't get lost
*bring water
*watch out for wild boars
Last Thursday after class I decided to walk up Tibidabo Mountain by myself. It's a 512-meter tall mountain (thats about 1600-1700 feet) that overlooks Barcelona and the sea, and there's some interesting attractions on top, including an amusement park.
Tibidabo can be seen from any part of the city and it looks deceptively close to get to. However, to actually get to the top of the mountain, you have use 3 different kinds of public transportation. By the time I got to the foot of the mountain, 2 of those options were closed. (As you may or may not recall from an earlier blog post, you take a train which arrives at a former brothel, and the science museum, but not at the mountain itself). However, being as I only have a few days left here, and I had spent some time getting to the mountain in the first place, I decided to try and travel as far as I could go on foot.
This started out as a spectacular idea. I will start off by saying that I highly highly highly recommend anyone to try and to try to at least walk up to the second funicular (that will almost make sense if you know the area). To start off, I was following the track of the first cable car, which wasn't running, and as it wound slowly up the hill, I discovered some beautiful homes that I couldn't afford, as well as a spectacular little park which I could afford (it was free). Set against the side of the hill is this tiny park, the "Parc de la Font del Raco," which offers some very excellent views of the city as well as some interesting varieties of flora (just one type of fauna, it looks like, the kind with opposable thumbs). There's a picture of what it looks like inside the park on the immediate right.Here's another picture of a view of Barcelona from the park:
That's Montjuic in the background; you can just make out the Palacio Nacional and the white needle sticking out is the Montjuic Telecommunications Tower designed by Calatrava. It's supposed to be shaped like an Olympic athlete holding a flame. I have some close ups for the next blog post. That's neither here nor there.
Once I arrived at the second funicular, also closed, I took a break and spent 45 minutes on a lovely terrace sipping an excellent mojito and taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror.
I was having fun. Finally, at around six in the evening, I decided to make my up to the top of Tibidabo, with my ultimate goal being the Torre Collserola, a giant tower with an observation deck.
The first leg of the journey was a little sketchy. I took a heavily wooded path which was clearly marked for travelers but was fairly narrow. It lead past some kind of animal shelter, when I happened upon some wild boars. They were grazing but there were about five of them and they were very large. I walked slowly past them and they ran away when I got too close. More on the wild boars later.
Anyway, after about a minute I wandered on a path that wound along the edge of the mountain, and this was far less suspcious, as there were suddenly quite a few people walking along, and some bikers as well, although most people were going in the opposite direction as me (down the mountain). Also, the trees disappeared and gave way to spectacular views of the city below. Here are some pictures I took while walking up:
At this point I was determined to go as far up as I could, and after another another I finally made it all the way up to the Torre Collserola:
Then, at around this time, with dusk settling in, I got lost. My original goal was to try to take a taxi back down if I was too tired to retrace my steps, and I was. I had been lugging my school bag around the whole time, I didn't bring any food or water with me, and I was operating on 4 hours of sleep. After I left the Torre Collserola, I began walking down the road on top of the mountain, and for the next 90 minutes, I did not see another human being.
I'm not sure what my expectations were, but Tibidabo is dead on a Thursday night. Like Osama bin Laden dead. No people, no bikes, no cars, only a few scattered homes here and there. I passed the trail that lead down to the observatory. I tried to make it up to where the amusement park and the Temple Sacre Cor were, but I couldn't figure out how to get there, which was odd, because at a certain point I was walking next to the fence enclosing the park; I could see red train tracks winding around on the other side. However, I missed the road that went there, but even so, there were no taxis or vehicles of any kind about anyway, so getting to the entrance of the park would have been futile.
Having wandered signicantly further afield, at this point I encountered another wild boar. Up until this point, it hadn't occured to me that as this was a large, mostly undeveloped mountain, and that there would be animals wandering at night. I only freaked out a little. The wild boar was on the other side of a fence, but began following me as I walked down the road. We both broke into a run. The wild boar jumped over the fence and then ran across the road, away from me, but I still was running, until I found a trail which looked like it went down the mountain.
After walking down for about twenty minutes, the trail stopped and I panicked. I was stuck on top of a mountain with a legion of wild boars. They were much bigger than me, all one had to do was ram into me at 1/2 speed and that would probably do me in. For the next 20 minutes, I was retracing my steps, making a lot of noise, all the while thinking how obvious a target I was making myself to predators and how long it would take anyone to find me out here. My phone wasn't working.
I was about reading to start knocking on the doors of the isolated homes on top of the mountain, one house at a time, trying to explain my situation in bad Spanish to them. This, and all the preceeding panicking, was in the end completely unnecessary as I finally found a path that was parallel to the funicular, at around 9 pm.
I'm not sure where they came from, but there were actual people walking down this trail. This was a very welcome sight; if any wild boars were around, they would at least have to make a choice about dinner. The rest of the walk down was relatively uneventful, although I had to duck out of the way for a cyclist who was wheeling down the mountain. I was able to make it safely down the mountain and back to safety; I took the last bus from the funicular down to where the train station was, and stopped feeling like I was about to die at any moment.
Here is a picture of the bus:
*don't go at night
*don't go alone
*don't go on weekdays when everything closes at 5 pm
*don't get lost
*bring water
*watch out for wild boars
Monday, May 9, 2011
Aaron returns to the USA, but the Blog Continues!
As demonstrated by the patriotic photos, I am back in New York, although the city is 3 hours away, and the Golden Gate bridge is 3000 miles away. Here is a picture of Albany:
Nevertheless, this looks like a nice picture to me, almost like a place that people would want to visit. Which is good, because everyone should want to visit the fourth oldest city in America.
I have about a week's worth of material (at least-possibly more) on backlog, which means this will still be the Barcelona blog for quite some time. Coming up soon will be blog posts about my clash in the wild with hungry wild boars, and a carnival from hell. Neither of those are an exaggeration.
In the meantime, here are the five things (besides my friends) I will miss most about Barcelona:
1. The beach and Port Olympic
3. People selling beer on the street for 1 Euro
4. Being able to eat at 1 in the morning (at the pasta bar, or anywhere else)
5. Watching/Celebrating Football with the locals
To my friends who I left behind: it was great getting to know you all, and continue to keep in touch. A return trip to Barcelona is not out of the question, particularly once I find my fortune. Conversely, might you consider visitng the Empire State?
To my friends back home: let's party until I find a job, and then let's just party harder to celebrate.
And to the my new "friends" from Nigeria and Romania who've come across this blog somehow: keep reading, if enough people do I'll be able to make money off of ad revenue.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Aaron Uses the Spanish 'F' Word and My Teacher Gets Mad at Me Again
The last two days have been very busy.
I dropped an F-bomb by accident on Tuesday night at a bar with some CELTA friends and two Spanish girls while celebrating Barcelona´s football ¨victory¨ (more on that later).
Reminiscent of the first time I used the c-word (I was reading a dialogue in a theater class), we were in the middle of a conversation, which somehow turned to my new flatmate, who I mentioned offhand compared Obama to FRANCO, and that stopped the conversation right there.
That doesn´t really do it justice. I had killed the conversation with extreme prejudice. The Spaniards gasped and looked away, the CELTA kids didn´t say anything, I think someone died at the table next to us. I don´t think I´d have gotten a worse reaction if I pulled the head of Osama bin Laden himself out of my pants pocket.
It didn´t help when I tried to backtrack and say that I was referring to James Franco. Apparently you are not allowed to say Franco´s name in Barcelona. This is understandable, as he wasn´t a very nice man, and he was particularly not very nice to the Catalonians. I apologized, and they knew I hadn´t meant anything by it, but the damage had been done. My feau pax had deflated the conversation for a good five minutes. I guess I won´t do that again.
I don´t know if there´s an equivalent in the US. Someone suggested Hitler, but you can say Hitler in the US and nobody will care. Maybe in the wrong context, it might raise an eyebrow or two, but I´d say someone tries to make at least one Hitler joke per dinner conversation/house party/poker game/etc.
The n-word is pretty bad, I guess. That´s a word, regardless of context, which is going to get a strong reaction. In some parts of the country, mentioning the Civil War or global warming or Barbara Streisand might get people foaming at the mouth.
A few hours earlier, there was a football match, and I got to see up close just how crazy people. Not during the game, which was relatively uneventful and we wound up watching it in a pretty slow bar. The game ended 1-1 and the immediate reaction postgame was so comatose that I had to ask the people with me if the result was good for Barcelona or not.
But it was, I got to see that when we walked over the Ramblas which was a sea of people celebrating and acting like dangerously drunken fools. People were climbing up lampposts, taking their clothes off, throwing firecrackers around, hugging people around them and chanting. I feel like at one point someone shot a round up into the sky. It was total pandemonium. Especially the people on the lampposts, about 20 feet in the air. That was insane. My favorite part of the time we were there was when two people were climbing a flagpost, and the lower guy grabbed the flag and feel 10-15 feet back to the ground. The guy on top looked down for about 15 seconds, I guess just to make his friend landed dead or alive back on the pavement, and then started cheering wildly again.
This was great to see because I´m not sure until now that I realized just how dangerously passionate people are in Europe about football/soccer. This goes beyond fandom, it´s a religion, and it was scary. On the one hand I wish there was something in my life which could get my aroused as much as the people I saw on the Ramblas, but then again, I feel like some of those people are not in control of their lives, because as crazed as they are they will never be more than passive receivers of the football experience. To live vicariously through something so detached from one´s own life is kind of absurd (I´m being a little hypocritical here as I have my own experiences being an intense sports fan, but I´m reasonably self aware about it and if I ever killed someone for insulting the Mets, there probably would be other factors involved). At least as of yet, I haven´t found anything which is worth that kind of devotion from me, except maybe LEGOs.
In other news, my Spanish teacher is awful, enough that I´m going to complain after Friday to the administration. She treats us like toddlers and refuses to answer questions about more complex phrases. For example, we were talking about city streets, and I wanted to know the verb for ¨fail¨ because I was trying to say that the city of Barcelona tries to clean certain streets like the Ramblas but they fail because every morning the streets are still dirty, but she just nodded her head politely and completely dismissed me.
We had another clash over what constitutes a joke again. I was describing my partner and said of her, ¨no tiene una barba¨ (she doesn´t have a beard) and the teacher got very angry. She said, ¨remember Aaron what we said yesterday about talking about real things? Only talk about real things, don´t talk about things in your imagination. It´s wrong.¨
This goes beyond just not recognizing humor. I wasn´t ¨trying¨ to make a joke, maybe that´s why me and the profesora are oil and water. The way I normally think and talk is apparently anathema to her and besides, if we really wanted to press the point, I would invite her to visit the circus and then ask if its outside of ¨reality¨ to identify a woman by her facial hair (or lack thereof). But that´s beside the point.
The real issue here is her not answering questions. I am not 12 years old, this is not seventh grade, I paid good money to take this class and I should reasonably expect a teacher to at least try to help me with more complex phrases. If I want to actually use Spanish, I´m going to want to say things that I would say in English, not just using ¨esta bien¨ for everything. If the class cannot teach me how to talk like a real person, then what´s the point?
Note: the last bit was written yesterday. The teacher was a little better today, and even asked me about my life after the class, but even so, we´re not going to be facebook friends.
I dropped an F-bomb by accident on Tuesday night at a bar with some CELTA friends and two Spanish girls while celebrating Barcelona´s football ¨victory¨ (more on that later).
Reminiscent of the first time I used the c-word (I was reading a dialogue in a theater class), we were in the middle of a conversation, which somehow turned to my new flatmate, who I mentioned offhand compared Obama to FRANCO, and that stopped the conversation right there.
That doesn´t really do it justice. I had killed the conversation with extreme prejudice. The Spaniards gasped and looked away, the CELTA kids didn´t say anything, I think someone died at the table next to us. I don´t think I´d have gotten a worse reaction if I pulled the head of Osama bin Laden himself out of my pants pocket.
It didn´t help when I tried to backtrack and say that I was referring to James Franco. Apparently you are not allowed to say Franco´s name in Barcelona. This is understandable, as he wasn´t a very nice man, and he was particularly not very nice to the Catalonians. I apologized, and they knew I hadn´t meant anything by it, but the damage had been done. My feau pax had deflated the conversation for a good five minutes. I guess I won´t do that again.
I don´t know if there´s an equivalent in the US. Someone suggested Hitler, but you can say Hitler in the US and nobody will care. Maybe in the wrong context, it might raise an eyebrow or two, but I´d say someone tries to make at least one Hitler joke per dinner conversation/house party/poker game/etc.
The n-word is pretty bad, I guess. That´s a word, regardless of context, which is going to get a strong reaction. In some parts of the country, mentioning the Civil War or global warming or Barbara Streisand might get people foaming at the mouth.
A few hours earlier, there was a football match, and I got to see up close just how crazy people. Not during the game, which was relatively uneventful and we wound up watching it in a pretty slow bar. The game ended 1-1 and the immediate reaction postgame was so comatose that I had to ask the people with me if the result was good for Barcelona or not.
But it was, I got to see that when we walked over the Ramblas which was a sea of people celebrating and acting like dangerously drunken fools. People were climbing up lampposts, taking their clothes off, throwing firecrackers around, hugging people around them and chanting. I feel like at one point someone shot a round up into the sky. It was total pandemonium. Especially the people on the lampposts, about 20 feet in the air. That was insane. My favorite part of the time we were there was when two people were climbing a flagpost, and the lower guy grabbed the flag and feel 10-15 feet back to the ground. The guy on top looked down for about 15 seconds, I guess just to make his friend landed dead or alive back on the pavement, and then started cheering wildly again.
This was great to see because I´m not sure until now that I realized just how dangerously passionate people are in Europe about football/soccer. This goes beyond fandom, it´s a religion, and it was scary. On the one hand I wish there was something in my life which could get my aroused as much as the people I saw on the Ramblas, but then again, I feel like some of those people are not in control of their lives, because as crazed as they are they will never be more than passive receivers of the football experience. To live vicariously through something so detached from one´s own life is kind of absurd (I´m being a little hypocritical here as I have my own experiences being an intense sports fan, but I´m reasonably self aware about it and if I ever killed someone for insulting the Mets, there probably would be other factors involved). At least as of yet, I haven´t found anything which is worth that kind of devotion from me, except maybe LEGOs.
In other news, my Spanish teacher is awful, enough that I´m going to complain after Friday to the administration. She treats us like toddlers and refuses to answer questions about more complex phrases. For example, we were talking about city streets, and I wanted to know the verb for ¨fail¨ because I was trying to say that the city of Barcelona tries to clean certain streets like the Ramblas but they fail because every morning the streets are still dirty, but she just nodded her head politely and completely dismissed me.
We had another clash over what constitutes a joke again. I was describing my partner and said of her, ¨no tiene una barba¨ (she doesn´t have a beard) and the teacher got very angry. She said, ¨remember Aaron what we said yesterday about talking about real things? Only talk about real things, don´t talk about things in your imagination. It´s wrong.¨
This goes beyond just not recognizing humor. I wasn´t ¨trying¨ to make a joke, maybe that´s why me and the profesora are oil and water. The way I normally think and talk is apparently anathema to her and besides, if we really wanted to press the point, I would invite her to visit the circus and then ask if its outside of ¨reality¨ to identify a woman by her facial hair (or lack thereof). But that´s beside the point.
The real issue here is her not answering questions. I am not 12 years old, this is not seventh grade, I paid good money to take this class and I should reasonably expect a teacher to at least try to help me with more complex phrases. If I want to actually use Spanish, I´m going to want to say things that I would say in English, not just using ¨esta bien¨ for everything. If the class cannot teach me how to talk like a real person, then what´s the point?
Note: the last bit was written yesterday. The teacher was a little better today, and even asked me about my life after the class, but even so, we´re not going to be facebook friends.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Victoria Vanishes! And Why Catalan People Don´t Get My Jokes.
Today was the first day one of my teachers got mad at me. I think I generated some snark during the CELTA course, but never a stern talking-down.
However, one of my jokes this morning fell flat on the culture divide, as my sarcasm gave the teacher fits.
From my perspective, it was an incredibly stupid misunderstanding, if it was a misunderstanding at all. When I accidentally said ¨libro¨ instead of ¨libros¨ (singular vs plural) to describe a bookcase (armario? I don´t remember), the teacher explained that there is no such thing as a bookcase with only one book. In my typical fashion, I mentioned offhand that possibly a very small bookcase (armario pequeno) would have only one book, and the teacher FLIPPED OUT.
She went ballistic, yelling at me, calling me ¨loco¨ in a bad way, and strongly encouraging me to use ¨realidad¨ as opposed to ¨imaginacion.¨ The teacher didnt´like it when people said ¨stupid things¨ like what I had just said.
I was very confused by this, but I think it might be some kind of different cultural appreciation for humor, or just tone. My light sarcasm wasn´t taken as such, or it was but not appreciated, and from what I´ve heard, this is in part due to Catalan sensibilities about humor.
There are two other explanations:
a. the teacher just is a tool
b. the language barrier (my bad spanish and her bad english) will never allow for any kind of understated joking.
Whatever the case, it was a stupid moment.
Victoria has disappeared. The last few afternoon programs have been done by very nice but much older women. I don´t know where Victoria went. I wonder now if she was always just a dream I dreamt, a figment of my absinthe-aided imagination.
Whatever the case, its looking my window of opportunity with her may have closed last week. Would´ve should´ve could´ve.
Lesson learned? I doubt it.
However, one of my jokes this morning fell flat on the culture divide, as my sarcasm gave the teacher fits.
From my perspective, it was an incredibly stupid misunderstanding, if it was a misunderstanding at all. When I accidentally said ¨libro¨ instead of ¨libros¨ (singular vs plural) to describe a bookcase (armario? I don´t remember), the teacher explained that there is no such thing as a bookcase with only one book. In my typical fashion, I mentioned offhand that possibly a very small bookcase (armario pequeno) would have only one book, and the teacher FLIPPED OUT.
She went ballistic, yelling at me, calling me ¨loco¨ in a bad way, and strongly encouraging me to use ¨realidad¨ as opposed to ¨imaginacion.¨ The teacher didnt´like it when people said ¨stupid things¨ like what I had just said.
I was very confused by this, but I think it might be some kind of different cultural appreciation for humor, or just tone. My light sarcasm wasn´t taken as such, or it was but not appreciated, and from what I´ve heard, this is in part due to Catalan sensibilities about humor.
There are two other explanations:
a. the teacher just is a tool
b. the language barrier (my bad spanish and her bad english) will never allow for any kind of understated joking.
Whatever the case, it was a stupid moment.
Victoria has disappeared. The last few afternoon programs have been done by very nice but much older women. I don´t know where Victoria went. I wonder now if she was always just a dream I dreamt, a figment of my absinthe-aided imagination.
Whatever the case, its looking my window of opportunity with her may have closed last week. Would´ve should´ve could´ve.
Lesson learned? I doubt it.
Monday, May 2, 2011
The Final Week
A small post here just as I continue to exhibit insomnia.
As this is my final week, the countdown has begun, to try to do everything else that I haven't yet been able to do; to perhaps visit one of the coastal towns at some point; to eat at all the restaurants I have yet to check off on my restaurant list, including Cerveceria Catalana, a somewhat-mythical hotpost that was recommended to me a long time ago, and seemingly every day I plan to eat there (with no success).
I also have begun reflecting on my time here, and I realize that I am very ambivalent about going back home.
Barcelona is an amazing city with a system of parks and public spaces which rival anything in any city around the world. One of the people on the CELTA course said that they "fell in love" with the city when they looked down on the skyline from the top of the MNAC terrace in Montjuic, and to be sure, there are only a few cities which are designed to provide vistas of the surrounding area in such a spectacular way. San Francisco (among places I've visited) is one which comes to mind.
Like many cities in Europe, but perhaps to a greater degree, Barcelona blends its history with more modern city districts and amenities. It feels a little a musty and stuffy in the Gothic Quarter, but nowhere else.
So I am definitely going to miss walking up and down the Passeig de Gracia or along the beach.
But I can't say that I'm ready to live here, and so unlike some of the people I've met who have had to leave or are devestated at the thought, I will be glad to be going home for at least a little while.
Barcelona is an international city, but only in the sense that if you don't speak the language you are only "a little" fucked, as opposed to a lot. That said, if/when I come here again I'd hope to have a much better working knowledge of Spanish, so that I can actually converse with people here. This is certainly not a city where the population at large is welcoming to tourists. Especially living in the Gothic Quarter, I had to try to figure out how to avoid the ample tourist traps which overwhelmed the area.
Speaking of tourist traps, this just isn't a very safe city, and that's not something I can overlook. Every city has its bad neighborhoods, but this is the first city I've been to where in almost ANY neighborhood you have to be constantly vigilante and on guard with your belongings, or else they WILL be stolen. This is a problem in many European cities but it's something of a joke here.
In Albany, I lost my wallet in the middle of a giant mall, and recovered it at the police station with nothing missing, down to the last penny.
In Sydney, I lost my wallet on a bus and was able to track it down to one of the stations later on that day, once again with nothing missing.
Here, I have had to CHAIN my wallet to my pantspocket because every time you take it out its an opportunity for somebody to snatch it, and there doesn't seem to be many people here who are willing or concerned enough to stop robberies from taking place. If you can't find your wallet here, don't bother looking in the police station. You're better off searching for it in a sewer along the Ramblas.
This isn't as major a factor as it sounds, anyway, though. I can deal with robbery attempts because I have dealt with robbery attempts (sort of).
Ultimately, I just don't think I find that I fit in with the culture of Barcelona, and even the expat culture as well, to really want to stay here for more than I have. Maybe I'll try explaining it in a later post.
As this is my final week, the countdown has begun, to try to do everything else that I haven't yet been able to do; to perhaps visit one of the coastal towns at some point; to eat at all the restaurants I have yet to check off on my restaurant list, including Cerveceria Catalana, a somewhat-mythical hotpost that was recommended to me a long time ago, and seemingly every day I plan to eat there (with no success).
I also have begun reflecting on my time here, and I realize that I am very ambivalent about going back home.
Barcelona is an amazing city with a system of parks and public spaces which rival anything in any city around the world. One of the people on the CELTA course said that they "fell in love" with the city when they looked down on the skyline from the top of the MNAC terrace in Montjuic, and to be sure, there are only a few cities which are designed to provide vistas of the surrounding area in such a spectacular way. San Francisco (among places I've visited) is one which comes to mind.
Like many cities in Europe, but perhaps to a greater degree, Barcelona blends its history with more modern city districts and amenities. It feels a little a musty and stuffy in the Gothic Quarter, but nowhere else.
So I am definitely going to miss walking up and down the Passeig de Gracia or along the beach.
But I can't say that I'm ready to live here, and so unlike some of the people I've met who have had to leave or are devestated at the thought, I will be glad to be going home for at least a little while.
Barcelona is an international city, but only in the sense that if you don't speak the language you are only "a little" fucked, as opposed to a lot. That said, if/when I come here again I'd hope to have a much better working knowledge of Spanish, so that I can actually converse with people here. This is certainly not a city where the population at large is welcoming to tourists. Especially living in the Gothic Quarter, I had to try to figure out how to avoid the ample tourist traps which overwhelmed the area.
Speaking of tourist traps, this just isn't a very safe city, and that's not something I can overlook. Every city has its bad neighborhoods, but this is the first city I've been to where in almost ANY neighborhood you have to be constantly vigilante and on guard with your belongings, or else they WILL be stolen. This is a problem in many European cities but it's something of a joke here.
In Albany, I lost my wallet in the middle of a giant mall, and recovered it at the police station with nothing missing, down to the last penny.
In Sydney, I lost my wallet on a bus and was able to track it down to one of the stations later on that day, once again with nothing missing.
Here, I have had to CHAIN my wallet to my pantspocket because every time you take it out its an opportunity for somebody to snatch it, and there doesn't seem to be many people here who are willing or concerned enough to stop robberies from taking place. If you can't find your wallet here, don't bother looking in the police station. You're better off searching for it in a sewer along the Ramblas.
This isn't as major a factor as it sounds, anyway, though. I can deal with robbery attempts because I have dealt with robbery attempts (sort of).
Ultimately, I just don't think I find that I fit in with the culture of Barcelona, and even the expat culture as well, to really want to stay here for more than I have. Maybe I'll try explaining it in a later post.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Psychadelic Weekend: The Dali Museum and Absinthe
That's right, the clocks are melting, so it must be time for the Dali Museum!
I capped off a strange and surreal week with some strange experiences and accompanying highs and lows.
The first week of the Spanish course ended uneventfully; the Korean girl waited until the last day to request to be moved to a lower Spanish level; had she done so four days earlier, me and the snotty French girl would have moved to a different intermediate class and we all could have been spared the uncomfortable silences that went on during most of the 4-hour class periods.
The teacher was a very good and patient man, and he admitted to me during the third day that this wasn't the most ideal class to be teaching (three people including two who don't talk at all). Nevertheless, we got along pretty well. The only problem with the teacher is that he tried to compliment me by saying I looked like Stephen King at the end of the class. (We had both read his book on writing)
I don't understand why people think that you are paying someone a compliment when you say they look like a famous person. I guess there are worse peole but you would never say to a girl, "hey, you look like Lindsay Davenport!" or "you remind me of Celine Dion!" However, I wasn't too offended because, whatever my aesthetic merits of lack thereof, I really don't see the resemblance. Stephen King doesn't have much (any?) facial hair and his face is a lot more elongated.
But enough Stephen King! For something really scary and twisted, try the Salvador Dali Museum in the Gothic Quarter, a private collection of his lesser known but no less grotesque works of art. In terms of medium and aesthetic ability, Dali is a true "artist", but he seems to have three or four themes or motifs that he returns to again and again and again and again and again and again in his art.
Some of his favorite subjects seem to be:
Blood
People with holes in them.
People with holes in them with blood.
Horses.
Dying horses.
Eggs.
Mutated horses.
Satan/Hell
Corpses and Decay
Unhappy people masks
Unhappy people masks with blood
Mutated Dying Horses.
And of course: MELTING WATCHES!
And then there's just a smattering of crazy weird shit everywhere.
In case you think I'm just mouthing off sans expertise, here are some examples of the works that can be found in the museum:
This is actually the first work of art you see in the collection, when you first arrive. It might not be clear from the picture, but what we have here is some kind of freakish Satanic creature with a burning bush shooting up from his groin, where his dick would be. He's also skeletal arms, bubos on his head and a giant tongue sticking out. Attractive, no?
Here's a Venus/angel statue with a hole in her body (and a triangle head):
Next we have the ol' half horse/half swan hybrid:
And then just a plain old dying horse:
I can't forget the screaming fish man:
And here is Dali doing some his version of the dot on the wall: I think, despite not having background in art, that I can correctly interpret the significance of the giant red dot (hint: its not tomato juice).
And perhaps just to prove that he CAN in fact do "normal" artwork that doesn't make you squirm, one of the pieces in the collection is some kind of fancy take on Don Quixote:
He has a bunch of similar pictures in the collection, with Don Quixote and Sancho Panza being drawn with lines sitting atop horses.
If you want to see more twisted pieces, let me know, and I can e-mail you some more pictures that I took. Or I can post them up here at some point. I have about two dozen more or so.
Friday night people went out for a friend's birthday. We went to this bar in the Gothic Quarter called Manchester Bar which I guess is a "good" bar although I really wouldn't know. I guess it must be good because some people went home very happy.
The next day we went to see a choir concert, which was probably the first time I'd been in a church since I was IN a choir myself, six years ago, doing a concert in Europe on a tour. They sang some songs which I recall having learned back in those high school days. The choir also did a fun rendition of some English songs like "The Circle of Life" and "Bridge over Troubled Water." They did a nice job except when they sand "the path unwinding" they pronounced "wind" like "gone with the wind."
Some people were ribbing me for being in church; I was asked if it was a sin to be there during the service. I told them it was only a sin if I enjoyed it. And although I enjoyed the choir concert, I can't say I got anything out of the service itself, which was done entirely in Catalan. I also was intimidated by the giant bloody Jesus hanging over me off to the side.
Later that night, having decided that the previous night wasn't exciting enough (for me anyway), people convinced me that the reason was just that I needed to be using harder drugs.
So we went over to an absinthe bar. To get there, we went through the hated Ramblas and down to Raval, a series of back alleys where on one side of the street you can see prostitutes and on the other someone is puking all over the ground. Also, if you're not careful people will drop egg and ammonia off the balconies of homes down on tourists. If this doesn't sound like a place you want to visit...you're just a wuss.
The absinthe bar was "atmospheric", as the walls were lined with old bottles of liquor and the chandeliers were very dusty, which may have been on purpose but it was also gross. The bar was made of wood, and the whole scene would have been perfect if only someone was playing a rag on an upright piano, and there was a bar fight going on in the background.
Drinking absinthe appears to be all about the process of mixing the drink, as they give you the pure alcohol and then you are supposed to melt the sugar, add the water, etc.. That was kind of fun. As for the drink itself, I knew something was immediately wrong when the people in the bar all suddenly had red eyes. I kept on thinking there was water on the floor but my friend next to me assured me it was completely dry. But he couldn't help explain or assure me of anything when the wooden table started to fluctuate in size depending on how I tapped my shoe. We were all having a good laugh about it until my friend sprouted a tree branch out of his crotch and then little green hornets chased us out of the bar, out on the street, where Salvador Dali was playing guitar for money on the side of the road and then I started speaking in tongues until finally the green faerie whisked me away towards her favorite tapas bar in the sky, where unfortunately, there were still more prostitutes, but now there were dinosaurs as well and I started screaming and did not stop until I got on the metro and starting flicking people's noses.
Anyway, that is what SHOULD have happened.
All I'll say about abinsthe is that I should have wikipediad the drink BEFORE I ordered it and then I would have saved myself 5 euros. I'm pretty sure the craziest thing I did while under the influence of absinthe was pop some aspirin before I went to bed. Next time, I'll just take mushrooms and call it a night.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
The Weekend That Was and Spanish Class Day Two: PLUS PHOTOS!!!!!
Backtracking quite a bit here, I finally got a chance to go to Montserrat, the "serrated mountain", and it rained most of the time. The train ride up to Montserrat, and then to the mountain itself, was spectacular. I now proudly present some photographs which are Aaron Dorman originals, which I think is a first for this blog:
As can be seen from the photos, the first cable car ride takes you halfway up the mountain, to where the original monastery of Montserrat was. The complex now has a hotel/hostel, a cafeteria, and a massive gift shop. The monastery, which is located in the taller structure, is very old but the current building is "only" about 150 years old or so. We spent a lot of time there during the rainstorm.
From that area, you can take another cable car (or just walk) up to an area on top of Montserrat, where you can walk around on several different trails, one of which leads to the actual peak of the mountain, although it was too far away for us to walk to with the remaining time. The top of the mountain alternated between being surrounded in fog and opening up for the tremendous vistas of the surrounding towns and hills.
I've also emphasized the really really creepy old church which along one of the trails on top of the mountain. It's probably haunted by at least three different malicious ghosts, from the looks of things. I'd give anyone at least 10 Euros to camp there for the night (the cable cars stop running at 7 pm).
I'd also like to point out the wonderful negatives I took with my camera phone, the only interesting feature which I cannot do on my normal camera, which has been broken for the past 9 days.
Here's another fun negative photo of the monastery I took:
If you are into karaoke, I can only half-heartedly recommend the George Payne (on Sundays). The song list is just okay, and its really more about being stupid and getting the crowd going, as opposed to trying to sing a good song. The bar also lets people overstuff the list for singing; about three or four people sang (terribly) at least once every 1/2 hour, including a guy dressed like Usher who may have been a bar promoter. Also, the hosts of the karaoke night sang over people sometimes when they weren't good or if the song wasn't generating significant buzz, which I think is counter to the whole spirit of karaoke.
I wound up singing "New York, New York" (Sinatra version) because that's my "hometown" (close enough, right?) and also, if you're having a karaoke night, SOMEONE needs to sing that song, and it just so happens that the responsibility fell to me. Singing the song certainly gave me tremendous pride for where I come from.
Now, back to the present day, the Spanish course continues on, and the two girls in my class continue to say absolutely nothing. I have now learned that this is not personal; especially for the French girl, this is apparently just a character trait.
I won't make any judgements myself (just kidding, of course I will), but after an uncomfortable lunch with the French twins, the Korean girl, and an English guy who is sort-of friends with the girls, turned to me afterwards and mentioned offhand, "they're very French, those two," which was not meant to be taken as a compliment.
I've had a new teacher for the last two days, who seems to have adapted well to the fact that I'm the only person in the class who will open his/her mouth, but he indicated to me, in a wonderfully passive-agressive way, that this was an unusual and unusual frustrating class.
However, at least I am learning Spanish. So that's good right?
In the afternoon on Wednesday I was once again able to practice my excellent grasp of the language with Victoria, who I now can officially classify as a sexy librarian. She's got everything: the frizzy hair, the glasses, a pedantic disposition when touring museums. It was a pleasure pretending to know about the history of Teotihuacan with her at the Caixa Forum, a collection of part-time exhibits housed in a former fabric factory.
She didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about the excursion, although she did make fun of me when I used the word for "carpet" (alfombra) when I meant "umbrella." Once again, I was too scared to ask her to come with me to see the football match later that night.
As can be seen from the photos, the first cable car ride takes you halfway up the mountain, to where the original monastery of Montserrat was. The complex now has a hotel/hostel, a cafeteria, and a massive gift shop. The monastery, which is located in the taller structure, is very old but the current building is "only" about 150 years old or so. We spent a lot of time there during the rainstorm.
From that area, you can take another cable car (or just walk) up to an area on top of Montserrat, where you can walk around on several different trails, one of which leads to the actual peak of the mountain, although it was too far away for us to walk to with the remaining time. The top of the mountain alternated between being surrounded in fog and opening up for the tremendous vistas of the surrounding towns and hills.
I've also emphasized the really really creepy old church which along one of the trails on top of the mountain. It's probably haunted by at least three different malicious ghosts, from the looks of things. I'd give anyone at least 10 Euros to camp there for the night (the cable cars stop running at 7 pm).
I'd also like to point out the wonderful negatives I took with my camera phone, the only interesting feature which I cannot do on my normal camera, which has been broken for the past 9 days.
Here's another fun negative photo of the monastery I took:
Here's what looks to be the only photo of a person, it looks to be Joann (one of the women on the CELTA course) taking a picture herself:
And here's a gratuituous photo of the Magic Fountains, which has nothing to do with Montserrat:
Another last-chance opportunity that the CELTA kids acted on was karaoke night at the George Payne Irish bar, and that was quite a party, but I must say only if you were very drunk. Otherwise, if you were as I was for the first two hours of the show, amount of obnoxious, sloppy enthusiasm was bound to make you depressed.If you are into karaoke, I can only half-heartedly recommend the George Payne (on Sundays). The song list is just okay, and its really more about being stupid and getting the crowd going, as opposed to trying to sing a good song. The bar also lets people overstuff the list for singing; about three or four people sang (terribly) at least once every 1/2 hour, including a guy dressed like Usher who may have been a bar promoter. Also, the hosts of the karaoke night sang over people sometimes when they weren't good or if the song wasn't generating significant buzz, which I think is counter to the whole spirit of karaoke.
I wound up singing "New York, New York" (Sinatra version) because that's my "hometown" (close enough, right?) and also, if you're having a karaoke night, SOMEONE needs to sing that song, and it just so happens that the responsibility fell to me. Singing the song certainly gave me tremendous pride for where I come from.
Now, back to the present day, the Spanish course continues on, and the two girls in my class continue to say absolutely nothing. I have now learned that this is not personal; especially for the French girl, this is apparently just a character trait.
I won't make any judgements myself (just kidding, of course I will), but after an uncomfortable lunch with the French twins, the Korean girl, and an English guy who is sort-of friends with the girls, turned to me afterwards and mentioned offhand, "they're very French, those two," which was not meant to be taken as a compliment.
I've had a new teacher for the last two days, who seems to have adapted well to the fact that I'm the only person in the class who will open his/her mouth, but he indicated to me, in a wonderfully passive-agressive way, that this was an unusual and unusual frustrating class.
However, at least I am learning Spanish. So that's good right?
In the afternoon on Wednesday I was once again able to practice my excellent grasp of the language with Victoria, who I now can officially classify as a sexy librarian. She's got everything: the frizzy hair, the glasses, a pedantic disposition when touring museums. It was a pleasure pretending to know about the history of Teotihuacan with her at the Caixa Forum, a collection of part-time exhibits housed in a former fabric factory.
She didn't seem particularly enthusiastic about the excursion, although she did make fun of me when I used the word for "carpet" (alfombra) when I meant "umbrella." Once again, I was too scared to ask her to come with me to see the football match later that night.
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