Finally Got Internet/Finally Can Post Again

Written January 8th:

It’s so strange being out of my element.

Don’t take that the wrong way. It fucking rules being here. But I guess it’s just different when I’m used to knowing every face and every place around home; everything being new comes with the territory in travel, especially international. And I love that shit.

That being said, I got to Barcelona last night around 7pm local time. Which would be noon or 1 back where most of you are. The bus ride wasn’t too unbearable, but goddamn was I getting sick of travelling. Seriously was starting to suck, dude. Coupled with the fact that I’d gotten around 5 hours of sleep since the second day in Madrid due to clubbing and exploring, I was feeling dead. You know that special kind of “finals week” tired? When everything seems like it’s coming from a distance and, while I swear I haven’t been getting stoned, my eyes are heavier than one of the Jersey Shore chicks? Yeah. I was catatonic. Still, the drive into the city was beautiful – little flickering lights in the distance just went on and on. Reminded me of summers when I was a kid catching the fire flies in hot summer nights. Tiny luminescent orbs against a pitch-black backdrop. Cool shit. I was excited to see it in the daylight, when the ocean would be visible. Sorry though, no pics -- the past couple sentences will have to do. One reason being that they’d look like shit being taken from the inside of a moving bus, another being that I was too sleep deprived to properly function a camera.

OH YEAH. Another couple things before I forget. This post is being written on the night of Sunday, January 8^th as a Word doc, and might not get online for a couple days. My host family has internet (and a really nice apartment, actually -- pics to follow shortly), but it’s one of those USB deals and isn’t Mac compatible. I used some wifi at a few girls in the program’s apartment close by today, and need to hit up a Movistar (like the Spanish Verizon) to see about getting my own interwebz tomorrow. Also, here are a couple photos from my hotel balcony in Toledo. I’m going to have to go back to that place. Fucking gorgeous.

Back to the matter at hand. Antonio, one of the ISA directors, handed out maps and we figured things out as far as the meeting point for the Spanish proficiency test we take on Monday and our respective proximities to la Universidad Pompeu Fabra. We were all plenty excited, which brings up a vitally important cultural point – unless you’re trying to hook up some Spanish strange in the most vulgar of ways, DO NOT say that you are “excitado.” It means you’re horny. Instead, try “estoy emocionado” – “I am excited.” Totally non-sexual. The more you know!

So, I was very excitado emocionado to meet my señora. I stumbled off the bus and, while everyone found their madres pretty quickly, I proceeded to walk back and forth around the drop off point like some kind of lost child. ¡Ayudame, estoy perdido! Kids still on the bus later told me it was pretty funny shit. YEAH GUYS REAL GODDAMN COOL. CAN’T FIND MY FAMILY. THANKS. It was whatever though, the “lost child” shenanigans only lasted a few minutes. Jo Ellen, my host mom, showed up shortly after.

She’s a good-looking woman of around 40 (I think the ISA description said 46, but I won’t ask) who is actually from the States. Her surnombre is Klaustemeier, and she’s of German and Korean decent (cool mix, right?). Originally from Minnesota, Twin Cities I think, she’s lived in Barça for 17 years. SEVENTEEN YEARS. Pretty solid sabbatical from America if I do say so myself. She and her husband are separated, and she has two kids who I haven’t met, ages 15 and 18. I’m staying in what used to be her daughter’s room, and I’m pretty sure I’ll meet the both of them at one point or another.

Appearing to be stressed or hurried (or maybe I was too tired to judge normal capacity for movement and speech), we did that whole kiss-both-cheeks-and-say-what’s-up (“grab somebody sexy tell them hey?” ) and threw my bags into the back of a white Fiat – that cool little European-looking car from the shitty J-Lo commercials they made in the US. I assume they used her in the ad to talk up the Fiat’s massive trunk space  and sudden lack of musical success.

Anyway, it was pretty awkward first meeting a stranger who is taking you into their home for the next few months. She seems wicked nice, but not overly personable; we’ll see about that. It’s only day one two. So, we drove through the city and she showed me around during the brief trip to her place in the Poblenou area. This included pointing out a couple landmarks/buildings/talking about the city. We also got into a little back-and-forth convo that went slightly deeper than pleasantries. Likes/dislikes/interests/kids/family/expectations and aspirations for the stay.

The place is located in the 200 block of Calle Llull (in Catalán, this is pronounced yoo-ee) if any of you want to look it up on Google maps. I totally crept around the barrio before I came here, and got the weirdest déjà vu when we pulled up to the door I’d only seen, up to that point, via computer screen. I followed her and hauled my luggage up to the second floor apartment, which is actually pretty fucking nice. She went on a little bit about how small it is, but it’s actually a super modern cozy little spot. Once I get my own internet working at this place you guys can use FaceTime, Facebook or Skype and I’ll show you around. Naked. For now, these will have to do:

I bought all of these trinkets myself. True story.

Jo Ellen remodeled everything in this place. Looks pretty solid.

This is where I make eggs/pan/cereal/more eggs.

This is couch, good for things such as sitting or laying down or possibly both. 

I sleep here and oftentimes set things on the cama such as my backpack.

So that’s the place. I think I’m really going to like it. A lot of ISA kids are in resedencias, which are either dorm style apartment buildings with other international students in various programs, or apartments that ISA has helped kids move into around the city. As I am in a home stay, I won’t have to buy food/bedsheets/toiletries/other shit. Also, Jo Ellen is incredibly laid back. Seems like we’ll both be in and out of the place most days. Aside from being wonderful enough to let me stay here for a few months (I know, I know. She gets paid too.), she’s very accommodating in making it easy to adapt.

Remember that time I was in Spain? Yeah, dude, me too.

After getting between 12 and 14 hours of sleep (I needed that so goddamn much) I woke up and returned a couple calls from friends in the program I missed the night before. Turns out a group of people got a little loco last night at Razzmatazz, a decent club/venue close to where I live. Kat, una amiga en la programa, couldn’t find her apartment (Understandable, it was our first night here. This city is huge.) and ended up getting picked up by some rando mujer who let her stay at her place. This woman was so goddamn nice and generous that she not only took this poor lost girl, this pobrecita perdida, off the street and let her crash on her couch, but also took her to her work at a bar the next day to feed her and give her café. We’re going there later tonight to watch the Barcelona game on TV. What a country.

Today, after eating tapas and sharing a bottle of wine (hair of the dog for everyone else as I was the only one that slept last night) we walked down La Rambla del Poblenou (the main street/avenue in the barrio) toward the beach. Holy shit – THE BEACH. I’m from the Midwest, guys, and you are all very well aware that Nebraska is boring as shit in terms of large bodies of water. This place is phenomenal. Little niños everywhere (all of them, I swear, on little scooters and bikes), wide sprawling sidewalks along the sand with open restaurants and tapas bars, people roller blading and running everywhere (very active city – no fatties), and then there’s the actual water. I didn’t take my camera, because to be honest the ISA orientations were designed to instill the fear of God into us as far as pickpocketing goes. A couple other people took pics and maybe I’ll get ahold of them, but honestly I’ll have a shit ton of opportunities (accidentally just typed “poop” while typing the “oppo” in that last word) to take beautiful beach photos. I’m going to love it here. Oh yeah, there were also these odd collections of metal exercise machines on the beach. I had to say something about it because they were so goofy; they have things like that in parks in the US, but instead of pull-up bars and whatnot there were also ghetto elliptical machines. Funny, no?

My situation at home – my host home -- is going to be great as far as I can tell. The place is nice, and honestly for the past couple days I’ve pretty much had it to myself. The kitchen is open for me at all times, and Jo Ellen is going shopping tomorrow for whatever I feel like eating. She left a few minutes ago to go watch the Barça game, and I’m doing the same in 20 or 30.

For now, I’m going to nom on all this spaghetti I just made. A very Spanish dish, I know. I think I’m lucky to be both assimilating into this cultura tan rica, but also have a home where I can jump in and out of English or Spanish at will and retain some sense of the States. I’m serious dude, it gets tiring to translate things in your head all day while listening/speaking. And we’ve hardly scratched the surface in this little trip abroad I’m taking. Goddamn language. It’ll come naturally soon, though.

Sorry this post didn’t have as many pictures of gorgeous and historic places, or any shots of my handsome face. I’ll try and take the camera out and about when I explore over the next few days. Hopefully I can post this fucking thing soon too, as I’m currently sitting at my desk typing on Word. Gotta keep all you guys updated, ya know. Anyway, I’ve got a fútbol match to catch and beers to drink. Go Barça!

¡Adios! 

UPDATE – NEXT MORNING: The Barça game was horseshit. Not the experience of meeting around twenty international students at a Barcelona sports bar and knocking my cerveza back in anticipation any time Messi gets a touch around the eighteen – no, no, no. That was great. I mean the actual outcome; they didn’t win, man. Pedro should have one-touched the game winner in extra time, but in a total Uruguay  move, one of the Espanyol defenders bapped the pelota con su brazo and it ended in a draw. Both teams are from this city. If Barcelona were NYC, FC Barça would be the Yankees and Español would be the Mets. How fucking cool is it that I’m going to see game after game, with Spaniards, in Spain though?? I’ll have to make it to a couple at Camp Nou as well. I can’t wait to make Scott and you other fútbol pendejos back home jealous. If memorabilia isn’t too expensive maybe I can buy you guys some stuff too. Or I could just spend it on cervezas. Speaking of, Estrella is pretty common here. It’s actually pretty damn good, considering its generally cheap prices at most bars (1,75€).

The post-game chill time was almost better than the game itself, también. Most of the ISA kids headed back home because of the lack of seating and the fact that the metro closes at midnight on Sundays. Kat’s friend (remember, the one who saved her from the vicious Barcelonan streets??) Hallar – pronounced hah-jar with a soft j – brought us a few rounds and kicked it with the five or six of us left. She doesn’t speak much English, and we struggle with Spanish. So we traded a few phrases back and forth. Good way to learn, right? It’s called having an “intercambio.”

Naturally, I wanted to know the verb for “fuck” in Spanish. I kind of swear a shit ton, you know? Anyway, en México they say “chingar.” I was pretty sure that en España it’s “follar,” and I was right. Hallar wouldn’t say the actual word though, so she wrote it out on a piece of paper for me. What a sweetheart.

I ended up talking a walk home from El Resaurante Prince -- Hallar's bar. That rhymes, right? Going to make that my spot for fútbol matches I think. Funny how back home a 30-minute walk a casa would piss me off, but in Barcelona where everything is new and exciting, I love it. Except for the fact that I had to pee really goddamn bad the whole time. What, you didn’t need to know that? Sorry I’m not sorry – lo siento no lo siento.

Haha. But it’s Monday morning now and I’m about to go find some café downstairs en la calle and just straight up decimate this Spanish proficiency test we’re all taking today. I need to score in the superior category so my classes transfer – wish me suerte. Or not, if you want to be a dick about it. I’ll post this novel I’ve just written once I can use the wifi (pronounced weefee here, which is cool) on campus.

One last thing: try this pan con tomate thing. I’m making it for every meal. Split a piece of baguette in half and toast it, then rub/crush tomato halves on each piece. Drizzle a litizzle oil on that bizzle and enjoy. Spain swag on full.