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.