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:

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.

Aaron Lives La Vida Loca and a Very Uncomfortable Spanish Class

The weekend up to Tuesday afternoon (now) was very eventful. It included a large mountain, some french girls, karaoke, bad sangria, and some very nasty accusations made against myself. I'll post something about that later.

From now, we'll move backwards from the last hour: today was my first day of the Intensive Spanish Course, and it was one of the most uncomfortable three hours of my life. After initially taking a placement exam, I wound up in a course with two other people: a Korean girl who doesn't speak much English or Spanish and a French girl who's apparently still in her angsty/bitchy teenage phase (then again, who isn't?), was separated from her twin sister and so sulked for three hours in the classroom.

Basically for three hours, the teacher (poor guy) would ask a question, wait about twenty minutes (because I didn't want to answer EVERYTHING) and when the girls had made it very clear that they either couldn't or wouldn't say a word, I finally gave the answer. This went on for the whole time. Afterwards, the French girl complained to the teacher and then to her friends that they stuck her in a class with a "Korean and a 30-year-old" (I was the thirty year old).

I have to be honest, that was quite hurtful. Seriously. What the hell is up with that? I was 17 years 5 years ago. That really wasn't that long ago. There's only been one new US President and one new Harry Potter book since I was 17.

Please, if you must call me old, at least wait until I have a job. Or send me some social security checks. Otherwise, it's just completely uncalled for. If I have to deal with this again, I might jump out the window of the classroom tomorrow. But then again, I'm so old, I'll probably just blow out my back before I even get that far. The young "kids" will have to help me over the ledge.

Apparently there's a class with the same level of Spanish, except there's ten students, not three. I dropped some subtle (maybe) hints to the director of the Spanish program that if the classes aren't mixed together, or I have to deal with today again, that this would be an unacceptable situation. I've got peeps to back me up on this too; I'll get the guys behind the school cafe and the girl from the computer room to help me bitch out if I have to.


UPDATE: and the day got better! After spending an hour healing my wounds from being labeled an old man, I wound up going on an accidntal "date." It was fantasic.

I was the only person on the intensive Spanish course to bother showing up for the cultural program they'd scheduled for the afternoon (there is 1 every day). Today was supposed to be going to Barceloneta/the Beach. Instead of cancelling it though, the Spanish girl who was hosting the event gave me a one-on-one tour of the area for an hour and a half.

Is it too soon to say I'm in love? Only because we don't even know what love is. I had a good time, that will count as love for now.

Victoria works part time at the teaching school and in the afternoon/evening she gives tours of Barcelona and studies English. She had a great sense of humor and was exceedingly tolerant of my Spanish and my accent.

I was too nervous to ask more personal questions, such as where she gets her hair done, or what she wants to do with her life besides touring me around the city (but from my perspective, thats not such a bad life). She lives near the University (and hates it there because of the traffic and the plethora of banks) but I forgot to ask her if she likes cafe habaluc, but honestly, I think I already know that she LOVES cafe habaluc, because who doesn't love skewers of patatas bravas?

Our conversation was not completely intelligible, but I figured if I even picked up 60% of the things she was saying then it was a success for my ability to have a spanish "conversation." Some things I learned from our tour:
a. she doesn't want to ever ever ever live in barceloneta because its too wet
b. there is a sculpture near the port olympic titled "david and goliath" because...something about when you are standing beneath it, you are david looking up at goliath
c. It sucks when its raining on the beach. That's just poor form from the weather-controlling Jews
d. She hates the beach in the summertime because there's way too many tourists and naked people and its gross and annoying.

The only question is: am I too old for her? I'm going to have to ask the French girl tomorrow.

Aaron Tries to Climb a Mountain, Winds up in the Science Museum

My 23rd birthday came and went. As far as birthdays go, it was pretty unspectacular, although part of that had to do with the weather, which made it difficult to go anywhere. Some of the highlights, anyway:

*having the drive to get up at 10 am; there's nothing like using your birthday as a force for self-motivation

*seeing the port olympic again, always a pleasure

*some very decent paella, and a good value lunch overall. It's nice to eat calamari that doesn't cost 18 EU per sitting. In fact, the AMOUNT of food at the restaurant we ate at, on a pier next to the Port Olympic, was pretty amazing: four tapas, bread, a monster paella portion, mediocre chocolate cake, and some non-alcholic shots of mystery apple liquor.

*the weather cleared up enough to go to the beach, so that was nice as well. The water was freezing cold, but that is actually how I would prefer it to be on my birthday. I've never been a fan of warm water. I am disappointed, however, that the time on the beach did not last long enough to build a sandcastle. Maybe next time. I imagine I'll probably be heading over there at least once more before its time to go. The beach is only about a 25-30 minute walk from where I am, and an even shorter trip on the metro. All of the sudden its been raining here, hopefully that ends soon.

Unfortunately evening plans seemed to fizzle out, but the truly unfortunate thing about that was I wound up watching the Mets, which is right now a truly miserable experience, birthday or no birthday. I should have known better and just have gone to sleep.

I've had 2.5 interviews so far, waiting on a 4rth as we speak. I also should have a fifth interview but not for TESL. I applied for a job at a newspaper in Utica, NY, and heard back from them. As frustrating as it is to wait a day for an interview that isn't going to happen, at least it allowed me to work on another blog post while I waited.

Two of the interviews, as far as I can tell, went well. They were both for job positions in Indonesia, most likely teaching kids. The other job was a recruitment agency in Boston for positions in North Korea, and they were very rude to me. Recruitment agencies have bad reputations as is, but the problem here was that I was called impromptu, without having an interview scheduled, and the first thing they asked was what questions I had for THEM. Then they got annoyed because the only questions I had off the top of my head were ones they said could be looked up on the website. They told me to call when I had looked at the information. I don't think I'm going to bother with them. I think its suspicious when someone begins the interview asking me to ask about them.

Job people, let's talk about me, okay? It's all about me. Or, at least, if we're going to talk about you, tell me when you're calling so I know when to do research.

On a completely unrelated note, my efforts to go up to Tibidabo, a mountain behind Barcelona where there's a bunch of stuff including nice views, a church (?), a giant tower, and an amusement park.

Yesterday I got as close as I had ever come, but then I got lost. I took a train to Avenidu de Tibidabo, and it seemed like it'd be obvious from there where to go, but it was not.

On one of the roads I saw tracks and overhead cables for a cable car, but the cable car didn't show up (until I was going back to the Barri Gotico-THEN I noticed the cable car).

There IS a pretty funky structure right when you get off the train. Labeled the "rotunda", it looks like this:

This building used to be a brothel, until it became...a hospital. It looks like from the faded facade it might now be an ex-hospital, but then again, you never know.

Either way, I just started wandering around the area, and without planning to at all, ran into the COSMO CAIXA:

I cannot even begin to describe how amazing the cosmo caixa is.

Part of the reason for this is that I'm completing this blog post at six in the morning. The OTHER reason is that this place is really a spectacular museum.

The picture on the left is the entrance to the exhibits: before going anywhere, you have to walk six stories down along a spiral path which documents the history of the earth, unti you get to the bottom floor, which is the beginning of a number of exhibits including dinosaurs, recycling, the amazon rainforest, etc etc.

I feel like a lot of these science museums tell you the same things, but I always forget, so all the science factoids are new to me. For instance, part of the museum includes an optical illusions section, where you can watch black and white lines change to colors just by moving them in a circle. This HAS to have been demonstrated at least once to me at the many museums which dot the US landscape, and yet nevertheless I am still fascinated.

The same thing goes with dinosaurs. You can show me an endless amount of dinosaur bones, even if I've seen them millions of times before, and yet it's still immensely engrossing to stare at them over and over again. I think scientists just keep inventing new types of dinosaurs to keep exhibits fresh. I have no problem with that. Dinosaurs  are awesome. It just so happens that the dinosaur fossils on display at the Cosmo Caixa are from the Gobi Desert. If this is the case, you are welcome, rest of the world. You have America to thank for the dino exhibit in the Cosmo Caixa.

Aaron Tries to Eat "On a Budget", Fails Miserably

A few notes up front: comments on birthday will happen next blog post. Also, starting at some point soon, I'm going to put up essays I've been working on about more general topics, including safety in Barcelona and phonemes (not both of those together, though). I'd also like to look back at some point on the relationship with the Spanish (or other) TESL students who we "taught."

First, the good news:
I've recieved e-mails back from three places so far (two in Indonesia, one in South Korea) trying to schedule interviews with me. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I'll continue to apply for jobs.

Today for the most part was very excellent. I started off looking for a shellfish restaurant recommended to me (more on that later), and wound up walking from my flat in the Barri Gotico southwest towards Montjuic, the "Jew Mountain" which is now a massive network of parks and former Olympic sites, many with spectacular views of the city. Here are some pictures:

Clockwise from the bottom: a view of the city looking northeast, including Port Vell and Port Olympic, as well as the Mediterranean Sea; the "official" entrance to Montjuic Park, leading gradually up to the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya; a view of the Montjuic mountain going south from the Barri Gotico; Miramar, a luxury hotel/club complex which is also where you can get the cable car which travels between Montjuic and Barceloneta beach; a closer look at the Museu and the magic fountains (which in the picture are not running).

These pictures unfortunately are not my own. I have had difficulty putting pictures on my computer, so there is just going to be a massive photo dump when I get back to the US in 17 days.

Before I went there, I had a chance to see the Maritime Museum, one of the best deals in the city. The museum is housed in the former shipyards, the complex had been used as a shipbuilding site since at least the 13th century, and apparently some of the original structure remains. There are some really neat artifacts in there, including old seafaring maps of the world and a surplus of nautical gadgetry like astrolabes and compasses. In addition, there are some great ship models, and large (in English) descriptions of various periods of immigration/travel across the Atlantic. The museum cost 2.50 Euro and I spent an hour inside. Here's a picture of the interior:

You can see from the picture that the museum makes great use of the shipyard structure. So that was nice.

Montjuic requires at least a day, and likely more, to explore fully, and its one of the nicest urban park areas I've evern been to. Imagine combining the scenic views and hiking trails of Henry Hudson Park with the palacial grandeur of the Empire State Plaza and the architectural wonder of the NY State Capitol and the historical resonance of the Schuyler Mansion and the...okay, maybe that's enough.

Montjuic more accurately resembles the big park in San Diego (name?), except elevated about 300-500 feet over the city. The mountain is a massive park complex with gardens, luxury hotels, castles, palaces, museums, replica Spanish villages (okay just one) and really really shitty red wine, which almost sabotaged my sunset but, in the end, merely ruined my pants.

It's fun, but somewhat difficult, to navigate by foot, because some of the trails up the mountain don't match up with the roadways, but I walked up from one of the smaller entrances, in order to get a better view of the city going up. I walked up to the cable car (which wasn't running) and then walked across Montjuic to the "main" entrance, where the big art museum towers over a dramatic path of descending stairs and fountains down the city below.  Looking over the city, there's a seating area where you can listen to free music and watch the sunrise/sunset (which I did). I'll be back there soon.

Then after such a wonderful day, it was both figurately and literally downhill from Montjuic as I descended from the museum down towards culinary hell.

So I conclude grandly with a warning: DO NOT EAT AT "LA PARADETA". Do not listen to guidebooks that tell you it is value dining. Do not listen to websites that tell you the wait is worth it. Do not listen to your inner voice which says you should try to enjoy some local seafood (you should, but not at la paradeta). Do not try to be a hip hipster and eat somewhere because its popular.

JUST DONT EAT THERE.

Who you SHOULD listen to is God. Or more accurately the Jewish God of the Old Testament. Old Testament God says you should not shellfish, or bottom feeders, ESPECIALLY on Passover, during which you also should not eat bread (I ate that too). At least if you're Jewish. Maybe if you are Goyim you can eat at la paradeta, but I would recommend if you even fit under the Nazi definition of what it is to be Jewish, do not take a peek at what is on the other side of the empty Mercat del Born.

I will show you what is there right now:

There. You've seen it. The best part of the restaurant is the underwater graffiti over the door.

I waited ninety minutes to eat in this hole-in-the-wall. I very nearly walked up and down Montjuic in 90 minutes. You can take a train to France in 90 minutes. Most football/soccer games last around 90 minutes. There are some baseball games which last 90 minutes. The whole time I was thinking: this is going to be worth it. Otherwise, who would wait in such a long line?

At the end of the 90 minute line was a raw SHELLFISH seafood bar, meaning no fishy fish, and they proceeded to promptly lose my order, as the guy and took my calamari and prawns into the kitchen didn't bother asking me to pay or giving me a ticket.

What is so special about the restaurant? Not very much. The decor was sparse, cafeteria-style sitting. I had been led to believe that the kitchen was open to the view of the customers (I thought that was the whole appeal of the place-you order the fish and they cook it in front of you). As it turns out, looking in on the kitchen was not encouraged.

The menu is literally just the raw shellfish bar and some cold disgusting bread. I think you can also get salad, too. The food is all per kilo, except for what I actually wanted, crab and lobster, which was all extremely expensive. All in all, by the way, my "cheap" seafood dinner turned out to be one of the more expensive meals I've had, 18 EU for just me, and while I badly misjudged the amount of food I ordered, well...maybe that's why most restaurants fix the size of one plating? 

Just paying for my meal however was an ordeal because the hostess behind the bar decided she didn't like non-natives and told me IN SPANISH that she didn't understand (my Spanish) and that I had to wait for someone else because she didn't want to deal with me. 95% of the people I've met here have at least appreciated my attempts at Spanish, but I guess la Paradeta hires from the other 5%.

All they do with all that raw seafood is either fry it or grill it, and than douse it in oil and garlic. You can get store-brand tartar and tomato sauce, if you so desire (unlike most restaurants here and everywhere, that kind of crap isn't provided au gratis on the table-it costs 80 euro-cents). The seafood was fresh...but it was too fresh. The oil and garlic was instantly ruined by the (literal meaing here) shit which I squeezed out of the prawns.

The calamari was okay but was somewhat bland. All in all, this was a meal that one could have bought at the local supermarket, or at least one of the many fresh food markets around the city (Ramblas, Santa Catarina, etc etc etc). In fact, it would have been better that way, because at the restaurant the food got cold fast, whereas in the comfort of your home (or flat) there is often a heating element, such as a microwave.

Writing about la Paradeta has made me almost as angry as when I had my meal there. I need a hug now.

Aaron Visits Casa Batllo

 WE PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those six of us and the teachers are my "TP" group, which just means we were all watching each other during the teacher training sessions. There's more CELTA kids, maybe some of them will make it into the blog, but I've been trying to be careful not to write too much about the other people on the course, because it is (mostly) a thing not done.

In fact, I'm not even going to correctly identify the people in these photographs. For the purposes of this blog, the two tutors are named Wombat, and Charlie, respectively, while starting clockwise from me, the students names are

:Mary Sue Elizabeth, Mathilda, Bernadette, Valeria, and Xavier.


As a way of celebrating my passing the course on Saturday, I went to visit on of Gaudi's snazzier architectural works bookended by eating disgusting amounts of food.

The more I travel along the Passeig de Gracia (a major shopping/eating/having fun street) the more I wish I was living around there, in the l'eixample district.  The Gothic Quarter is fun but its dark a lot of the time and kind of drippy. Uptown about ten minutes from where I am is the more modern areas and the city transforms from narrow streets and stone buildings to more modern structures and wider expanses. Also, and very importantly, the city gets greener as it moves out of the Gothic Quarter. The Ciutadella is "kind of" in that area, but with the exception of that park, the gothic quarter can feel very drab even in really nice weather like today.

The newer parts of the city make a point to plant trees in the middle of the wide boulevards, and the areas around the University and the Sagrada Familia and host of other places also have lots of nice green park space.

Also, in the rest of the city, the intersections all form octagons around a central square so that apartments can look out onto it. The result is pretty cool because the city puts a lot of fun things into the larger intersections, such as rental bikes, playgrounds, tiny parks, etc.

The Passeig de Gracia starts just above where the language school is, coming off of Plaza Catalyuna, where a very large and obnoxious department store is, the Corte Ingles. I spent about an hour in the Corte Ingles, an 8-story monstrosity which looks like it was transplanted from Times Square, and couldn't find the two things I was looking for: tissues, and shaving cream.

Several of Gaudi's more entertaining works are on the Passeig de Gracia, including Casa Batllo and La Pedrera, which are two very psychadelic buildings squeezed into the rest of the cityblock.

Here are some pictures:

The one with the colorful roof is Casa Batllo, the big white on is La Pedrera.

Casa Batllo was really amazing, because the interior is just as wacked as the outside. There are no straight lines anywhere in the structure, and the doors, windows, and stairs are all vaguely sea-themed and meant to evoke animal bones, sea shells, etc..

Chimneys

A staircase

Aside from the crazy roof and chimneys, the neatest part of the building is a giant central enclosed courtyard with landings looking out on either side, and tiles which gradually become more blue as you move up the structure. You can see that pretty distinctly in this picture:

The museum itself was pretty overpriced and on top of that, they trapped me in the gift ship where I spent MORE money, but overall it was worth it.

I had lunch at a restaurant called Qu Qu, which doubles as a large take-away food market, and tried and failed to explain to my waiter what "wind" was, and because I couldn't convey the message, every five seconds or so I had to interrupt my patatas bravas with trying to catch the water bottle before it fell on the people sitting next to me.

Qu Qu is somewhat more well-known as a fun place to eat on the Passeig de Gracia, but I thought my dinner was more fun at a trendy/organic place a few blocks away called Habaluc. Supposedly in the "gay" part of l'eixample (or as I've heard people call it recently, "gay'xample") they served me patato wedge SKEWERS drenched in some kind of pumpkin/garli aoli/balsamic vinegar sauce. It was more interesting than delicious, but it made for a pretty neat food. The potato skewers looked nothing like the picture below, but its a rough approximation.

Last night I was able to experience watching a football game (real madrid vs. FC Barcelona) with real live Barcelonans. It was pretty fun, as every few minutes, people began to chant, and people who make exclamations at plays that didn't have any meaning to me at all.

The announcers for the football game were really great. They used a lot of exclamations so that even if I had no idea what they were saying, I could "feel" what they were saying. Here is an excerpt of what they said: (spanish words spanish words) VELLAR! (spanish words spanish words) XIMENEZ! (spanish words spanish words) PELOTA! (spanish words spanish words) VELLAR CON LA PELOTA! (spanish words spanish words) FERNANDEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One of the people I met was excited that I was from New York, and she started singing Jay Z. When I tried to explain that I wasn't from Jay Z's New York, she told me to "shut up" and that I was mistaken. Which is fine, because I'd much rather be mistaken and actually live in New York. I got in trouble because then I started telling people my father was a hot dog vendor in Central Park, and then when they believed me or asked me for more details I had to backtrack.

House parties where half the people speak a different language can be difficult and I think for a lot of the time the group segregated itself along CELTA/non-CELTA lines. At one point it got too awkward and I said goodbye to everyone and left for ten minutes before I decided that I wanted to come back and stay after all.

There were some attractive girls there but I didn't talk to them until four hours into the party (because of the language barrier) and then when I asked who they were they asked me why I was asking who they were four hours into the party (apparently they spoke English).

But then we all went out to a bar until six in the morning, and four of the CELTA students (including me) travelled in lockstep back to the metro station.

The wonders of technology:

tonight I was talking with four different people on four different channels of communication. I was speaking with people on facebook, on skype, and on gchat. If Marga came in and asked me to turn off the light, that would have made five; she didn't but she COULD have. So I'll be on the record as saying that I could have been talking to five people at once. I couldn't talk to anyone on my phone though. That thing is out of minutes.

The Course Is Finished!

My teacher training course is over. All indications are that I passed.

Bounty Hunters!

Yesterday was my final teacher practice with the CELTA course. The next time I teach will be for moneyz and the students will probably be on average about 30 years younger or so.

The last lesson went very well, as far as I´m concerned. The tutor in the lesson had a different perspetive on some of the activities, but I don´t really care at this point. I´ve passed the course and I think I can be objective in my own self-criticism. The teacher also made a comment about the language I use in the classroom-not cuss words, but my tendency to ramble or just talk period-which irritated me because he hadn´t really mentioned the issue before. But all the same, I was happy with the lesson, so that´s all I care about.

The lesson was broadly about idioms related to money, and more specifically there was a listening activity about bounty hunters.

 Up until a few days ago, 99.7% of my experience with bounty hunters was from Star Wars (the other 0.3% being trailers for that awful movie with Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler), so it was interesting to learn, for my own education,what a ¨real¨ bounty hunter is, although Boba Fett still leads a far more active and exciting life than most of these guys.

I don´t feel like explaining what a bounty hunter does here, except to say that my feeling is mostly they hunt fugitives who didn´t pay their bail bonds and fled before the trial could begin. The listening exercise was about Domino Harvey, who was the subject of ANOTHER shitty film about bounty hunters.

I gained a valuable cultural insight about Spanish life yesterday, as it became apparent about two minutes in that people here do not give a rat´s ass about bounty hunters. Even Boba Fett. I tried to get them interested. The listening exercise was ultimately though too long and too obtuse for anybody to care. By the end of the listening activity, that included myself. I do think I was able to teach them what the word ¨bail¨ was.

Before and after that, however, the class went great. I was telling jokes, they were laughing at my jokes, the students were learning English, the students were expressing their desire to deal drugs and win the lottery (or ¨lotary¨, as one of the weaker students in the class wrote on the white board), and I even think I was able to explain why ¨stealing a bank¨ would be a lot more difficult than robbing a bank or stealing from the bank (although, if you stole the bank, they´d never be able to get your fingerprints or interrogate the bank teller, would they?).

As a homework assignment, I asked them to come back today having done one of the ten things they wrote down about how to become rich. It would show a lot about their personalities: one of them will come in with his brand new bestseller that he wrote in 30 minutes, while another will come in asking me to buy cocaine.


I found a new and more vibrant place to wander around at ngiht than the Gothic Quarter. Not that the Gothic Quarter isn´t vibrant, but the stone walls and the narrow streets make things dark a lot of the time, and trying to find a good authentic restaurant is like dodging landmines. So wandering UPtown from the school, away from the Gothic Quarter, and the sea, you get Léxaimple, which is sort of pronounced as rhyming with ¨Gay-zham-pluh¨, and that is not an accidental rhyme, since its supposed to be a great place for gay bars and everything. But gay bars or no, the area has more wide avenues and exciting-looking restaurants, especially the Passaig de Gracia, a major street which has some great places to eat as well as some of Gaudi´s more elaborate buildings.

Last night we went out and went to a cheese bar for about 30 seconds until we decided it was too expensive. We went to what I thought was a nice pizzeria except now I am horrified because I was informed later on that my pizza might have been frozen when I ordered it. From now on, I will just as a rule not eat anything here that I would eat in the US, or my house.

The World´s Most Disgusting Performance Artist and Barcelona´s Equivalent of the Soup Nazi

On Monday I had to teach my class about Orlan. If this means nothing to you, good. Don´t even bother reading on.

But if you don´t take that advice, be warned, the images below are kind of wierd and kind of gross, which is apparently why this ¨carnal artist¨ is ¨world-reknowned.¨

Orlan is an artist, except she doesn´t paint pictures, write novels, design buildings, cook profiteroles, or do anything that would actually require true skill or talent.

Instead, she mutilates her body and does loud, violent public stunts in order to, in her words, ¨shock and provoke¨ an audience. That bit about the audience is interesting, because that always seems like a spurious defense of one´s own artwork. Maybe that´s too broad an adjective, and maybe that´s okay, because art should be an inclusive, open genre of expression. However, there´s a difference between allowing crackpots to mutilate themselves for attention and sponsoring said mutilation with public money.

Orlan´s is most widely recognized for a serious of artistic operations during which she had plastic surgery to distort her face to make it look like various past forms of beauty, like the Mona Lisa. Somehow that translates into having surgery to to have a tumorous-looking ¨growth¨ on either side of her temples. During the surgical videos, the doctors were in costume, Orlan recites poetry, and in one, an African man dances around the operating table. It´s like a bad SNL skit (or maybe just an SNL skit, since they´re all bad).

She also does more ¨conventional¨ pieces like stanidng in front of a picture of herself nude (see:above) and having people drop coins in a slot between her boobs for a kiss. After she kisses them, she screams really loudly, or a siren goes off. I can´t remember which. Maybe both happened. Either way, you kiss her and then something really obnoxious happens. The piece was called ¨kiss of the artist.¨

This kind of nonsense always smells like an ¨emperor´s new clothes¨ kind of scheme. The emperor has a right to go out in public with nothing on, just don´t tell me the reason I can´t see the kashmir robe is because I´m not enlightened.

Teaching about Orlan was frustrating because the class was supposed to be learning about art, as in the landscapes in museums, or sculptures, not experimental nonsense gone horribly wrong.

I guess what makes her an artist, as opposed to someone confined to an asylum, is that she is self-conscious about her work. But even then, that might be a bit too presumptuous. A more cynical evaluation would be that the difference between doing violent performance art inside a isolated cell and doing it with honorary professorships and public money grants is some combination of luck, knowing the right people, and cultural climate. The last bit isn´t necessarily true either, though, as she was born in France and became famous there but is currently doing a professorship in Los Angeles. I´ve already written more about Orlan than I ever wanted to again after Monday, so we´re done with her.

Thankfully the class had an appropriate reaction.

Maybe there is no culture clash after all.
New York City has the soup Nazi. And Barcelona has the sandwich Nazi.

There´s a cafe near the water, just by Port Vell (an artificial inlet built for the Olympics), which serves sandwiches to long lines of (mostly) Americans. The sandwiches are pretty good, very cheap, and are served cafeteria style, like Ben´s Chile Bowl or...whatever the name of the soup place is where the soup Nazi works in NYC. We´ve been there thrice now, and all three times, the staff has taken a very creative approach to serving people. The first two times there the cooking station was manned by this smarmy guy with blond hair who will serve any lady who gets there before a guy, regardless who first arrived. He smiles at them and laughs with them, all the while my sandwich gets pigeonholed for a few hours.
And I don´t hold this against the girls; its all on the dude, who said he was from Austria. I didn´t realize he spoke English and so I badmouthed him in the cafe line and he overheard me, so he gave me a death stare.
Then I saw him AGAIN on Calle Laeitana near my apartment the next day. We both exchanged looks of mutual hatred.
I don´t care if someone is just ¨nicer¨ to the girls than the guys. That is what it is. But when it affects me personally is when I get mad. I expect sandwiches to be made in the sequence in which they are ordered. Does this guy think he´s going to get laid because he serves them before the guys who ordered before they did? Maybe. It probably works too. After all, its a popular restaurant and all you need to do is get lucky once every few hundred times or so.
Whatever. I am DONE with that prick. And as good as the sandwich shop is, with only 3.5 weeks to go, I´m going to try sticking to more exotic culinary eats when I go out.

This blogpost was a little heavy on griping and social commentary than I would like, but I´ve been busy lately, with the course wrapping up, and the Mets losing every night. Starting tomorrow, I´ll have more time to be able to explore and write about the city, which is why I started the blog in the first place. Sort of.

This is More Fun Than Doing My Assignment

I had promised myself that while I'm here there was one rule about eating that I could never break: no hamburgers in Spain.
So at least I waited three weeks to do so.

Late last night,  some people from the CELTA course and related friends/family went to a burger joint near where I live. I was tired and in a bad mood (for reasons that I have learned to keep off the blog) but I was also hungry. As said above, a burger sounded very American to me, but the guy who recommended it had a good track record of food places so not only did I go to the burger joint, I even bought one myself.

The burger was good. The meat itself was very good although they skimped a bit on the cheese. I made two faux pas in a row, however, because when asked how it was, I just said my burger was "okay, pretty good," and the guy who recommended the place commented that I am hard to please and should get more excited about good food. So then I said it was "the best burger I've had in three years," after repeated pressure, and now one of the Americans starting picking on me, saying "you live in the country of hamburges and you haven't had a good burger for three years?"

It's true now that I think of it, that I have had at least one better burger in the past three years. The only problem again is that I found it in Queenstown, New Zealand.

The US is the "country of burgers" in the same sense the Golan Heights is the "country of land mines." Mcdonalds, Burger King, Wendy's et al, are places that I try to avoid at all costs, and have successfully done so. Even eating a good burger in the "country of burgers" is not very memorable precisely because it is so common.

Whoops. As I was writing I realized where I HAVE had a better burger in the US. Burger Brothers in Towson Maryland. That place was amazing. So there. But even so, my threshold for calling a burger "amazing!" is still very high.

The day that preceded being grumpy and having a burger was actually quite nice. There was a birthday picnic in the Ciutadella, a really nice park in the city towards the water. We spent about six hours or so eating homemade spreads and drinking bad box wine. Some people went boating and I helped use up someone's camera with pictures myself in various action poses around the park.

Earlier that day, I'd gone with a friend to see the old Main Synagogue of the Jewish Quarter, which went out of use when the Jews were expelled from the city in 1391. The four synagogues of Barcelona had become lost to history due to either poor records or building over them, but in the nineties, they'd figured out where the main synagogue was and dug it up underneath one of the gothic quarter's apartment buildings.

Mostly, it was just cool to see a "Jewish" excavation site, as the restored building itself was extremely underwhelming: two small rooms with no original decor (the pieces in on the site were all donated from other places and none were even half as old as the synagogue itself) and only minimal explanation about the site itself.

Also I think because I was a foreigner I got ripped off, as the "requested" donation was demanded by the man behind the desk and I also wasted more money on a dinky pamphlet which got lost at the picnic.

An Israeli man gave a five-minute talk about the project. Apparently the tallest synagogue in Barcelona had to be shorter than the lowest church, which was interesting. We had an interesting conversation with an Israeli man who considers himself left-wing and I thought he had a very reasonable and balanced approach to various issues. I wish HE had been around during my trip in January. One thing is clear though; Israelis (understandably) hate the UN. Which is a shame, but ultimately the UN's own fault.

This week is the final week of the teacher training course. I guess I'm in the home stretch but Monday-Wednesday could get very stressful and upsetting. Thankfully the Ramblas hookers are only about a five minutes walk away starting at 1 am.

Aaron Cooks His Own Lunch and Lady Gaga Conspiracy Theories

My flatmate Valerio is leaving tomorrow to travel around Spain. The three flatmates-me, Tony, and Valerio-all went out to a Vegan bar last night to celebrate the good times we had. Valerio understandably got upset because he paid for toppings and all got were two tiny mushrooms on his mystery-veggie-meat-substitute-soya hamburger.

He will be gone but not forgotten. Before I never see him again, he was able to impart to me possibly his greatest conspiracy theory yet:
Lady Gaga is a member of the Freemasons and her clothing and makeup choices are actually secret codes to understanding their secrets. Could her meat dress perhaps be a coded message to the weather-controlling Jews in Antarctica?
I promise I am not making this up. Valerio explained to me that Lady Gaga's wardrobe functions much in the same way as the hidden symbols on the American dollar bill.

He's a very nice guy, but he represents the extreme of a far-too-common tendency in our culture to buy into outlandish theories and become cynics. It's frustrating because it takes the focus away from real problems and real instances where those in power are trying to hoodwink the public.

Today I brought my own lunch to school. I'd made a "garbage" salad of whatever canned veggies I could find in the supermarket and curry sauce. I also poured in a generous amount of habanero sauce as well. It's no great culinary masterpiece, to say the least, and I almost instantly regretted just throwing a bunch of vegetables in, so people were making fun of me today for "panning for artichokes" amidst the sea of whatever else was in there.

One of the intermediate students came over while I was eating and pointed out that what my salad looked like shit. I didn't appreciate this. His opinion was not valued.

Today's lesson was a trainwreck in the middle because I got frustrated with the student's lack of participation, went off script, and started talking at them again even though I knew this is a bad idea. I can't deal with silences as a teacher; the problem is that in a normal classroom you can fill the silences with your own voice most of the time, but in a language class you cannot. Maybe that's why I'd prefer at this point to be a professor (long-term).

Also, a note on destiny: Walking home from school, I took an extra-long time in a restaurant toilet, and because I did, I ran into two of my classmates in the Gothic Quarter. As Valerio would point out, the puppetmasters have struck again.

Aaron Visits the Chocolate Museum To Learn About Mayan Prostitutes

Yesterday I finally took an opportunity to go see the Museo Xocolata, which is about ten minutes from the school. I´d meaning to go and I finally grew tired of not entering any of the buildings (although I did see the Roman Ruins on Sunday).

The museum actually gives you a chocolate bar for a ¨ticket¨, which is a nice and delicious idea, but the museum is really mostly downhill from there as its not very large and not very interactive.

Once you get past the cafe-chocolate store, you enter a big room which takes you around in a circle past three types of objects:
1. plaquards which tell you about the history of chocolate dating back to its Precolombian-Mayan roots.
2. chocolate sculptures of various Spanish-related objects including the Arc de Triumf and the windmill scene from Don Quixote.
3. old tyme machinery for making chocolate (and chocolate sculptuers)

Sprinkled here and there are some other interesting artifacts, like unroasted cacao beans and plants, as well as early 20th century bar wrappers, advertisements, and photographs.

The factual information was pretty strange. For example, the museum points out that Mayans used the cacao as currency, and lists the price for various things, including mentioning that ¨a prostitute costs ten cacao beans,¨ which is either a very extraneous or very useful factoid about Mayan culture, depending on your perspective. I wonder if that was ten cacao means for just a ¨standard¨ prostitute, or a high-class one?

Either way, you´ll have to go there if you want to find out any real information about chocolate. The only other thing I´ll mention is that I have a new historical context for Roald Dahl´s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as promotions inside chocolate bars was apparently a fad in Britain for a while.

The best part of the museum complex isn´t actually part of the museum at all: right next door is a confectionary school with large glass windows so you can watch what they´re doing inside. You´re not allowed to go in but it was fun to watch them work with chocolate, even for just five minutes. It looks like you can also book expensive tours there and walk through the school and have exotic chocolatey drinks and such.


I have been called out several times (by the students) for nodding off in class. This does not bother me, but this morning I was preemptively pinched ¨awake¨ by the person sitting next to me, I guess because I lowered my head for about 5 seconds. This is completely unnecessary and I will get considerably more annoyed if that happens again. If I´m snoring or missing something important or about to be caned by one of the tutors, fine, elbow me, but don´t elbow me just because I have a bad rep and it´s the morning. That crosses the line from concern to straightforward physical abuse.

Another frustrating moment from yesterday with another American student:
Jane Doe: Hey Aaron, I noticed we´re the only two people who sleep in class.
Me: Hmmm. (none of this is true, we´re not the ¨only two people¨ and ¨sleeping in class¨ is a rather extreme designation. I have not slept in class. I´ve had the fuzzies about three times over the past few weeks).
Jane Doe: Do you think its because of the British people?
Me: What ever do you mean?
Jane Doe: Well, they get up there, and they just go ¨Wa Wa Wa Wa.¨ You have this problem, right?
Me: .....No.

The Zoo, More Tapas, and the Jewish Quarter

Yesterday I saw the zoo but I didn't go in. I've been doing that a lot while I'm here; looking at places without actually paying to experience them. At some point I'm going to have to visit some of these things, like the chocolate museum, or the Sagrada Familia (I've been outside twice now), or the zoo, or the Picasso Museum, or the old Jewish synagogue, or the Gaudi House, or the beach, or the big fountain in the Cuitadella, or....

I've been right outside the Sagrada Familia twice now. I went this morning on four hours of sleep because I thought it was going to be free and I wanted to avoid the line. I didn't avoid the line and it wasn't free, although I did wait in line for twenty minutes before I decided to go back on the metro.

One of the few places I HAVE been in is the casino at Port Olympic, which looks like, unlike other casinos I've been to, they have reasonable medium-stakes poker games. I was almost going to go back today but then I had work to do, and the Mets were on.

Speaking of the Mets, here's a riddle: What do Passover and Opening Day have in common?

A: They are two April events which go unnoticed by the population at large in Barcelona. But this wasn't a big surprise.

Saturdays are becoming my long walk days. In fact, yesterday I took a long walk on the beach. Should I put that in a personal? Do I like long walks on the beach? I did yesterday. It was very nice, there's lots of expensive bars and restaurants on one side, the Mediterranean on the other. People were showing off their tans but kept things appropriate (at least on this part of the beach).

I also had some nostalgic moments, finding "Marina Moncho's" where we ate four years ago on the last night in Barcelona. Maybe I'll make that a tradition.

This afternoon I toured the "Jewish Quarter", which was where the Jews lived in Barcelona 650 years ago until they were all kicked out. Now its just another few blocks of the Barri Gotico; the only thing left is the basement of the old Main Synagogue, which I will have to see sometime while I'm here but it closes at 3 pm and I got there too late today.

I'm also starting to "discover" really good restaurants and eateries off the main streets. I ODed on tapas yesterday at around 4, ordering I believe 5 different dishes while I read the newspaper. I was going to sit outside but the place charged 10% extra to do so which is BS, but I guess they can get away with it, so they do.

Tomorrow I'm teaching students about numbers.

The textbook gets confusing here; they have speeds in kmph, but moneys in $. This is a publishing inconsistancy. I hope I spelled inconsistancy right, but just in case, I'm going to spell it inconsistency in the next sentence, right here.