Not as suave as Matt Damon in Ocean’s 11

I was pickpocketed today.

I was sitting on the curb across the street from the Cathedral, changing from my old pair of orange Spanish shoes to my newly purchased blue pair of Spanish shoes, when Guy 1 steps up and asks if I speak french and where the Picasso museum is.  Guy 2 comes up behind and opens my backpack, taking my wallet out.  I reach back and grab his ankle, pulling him backwards and pulling myself up.  I dance around the tree, grab him and put him in a headlock.  I watch him rifle through my wallet, taking out the 10 euro I had in there and drop it to the ground.  Guy 2 runs away.  I momentarily chase after him, then look back at my backpack sitting on the ground.  Guy 1 is “guarding” my bag and picks up my wallet, handing it back to me.  Guy 1 leaves down the same street Guy 2 ran down.

Afterwards there was a crowd gathered, asking if I was okay.  I say yes and try to go purchase a Harry Potter notebook, but am still too adrenalined (anthimeria is my BFF) to focus on the HP.  I call Matt and meet him in Catalunya for a Deutsche bank date before our Italy trip and tell him the story.  His response? “Oh, BFG…”

So I’m left with some questions and realizations:

• Were Guy 1 and Guy 2 working together? If so, did Guy 2 hand me my wallet because he was scared of me?
• Zach did warn me
• Silver lining: now my guard is reestablished, just in time for our visits to Florence and Pisa
• I guess my ninja skills are coming along just fine…

Bike and Build vs. Barcelona: Ep. 1

Things you can do when biking but not in Barcelona:

Pee on the side of the road

And now for something completely different

After my last couple of non sequitor posts, I’m back on track: Barcelona.

Today I had one class, Medieval History, at 9 in the morning, giving me the rest of the day free.  I decided to spend it at Park Güell, designed by the one and only Gaudí.  I hadn’t been yet and I planned on just wandering around.

It’s quite a hike up the hill, but worth the view.  I ended up at the Turó dels Tres Creus which was this outstanding tower with three crosses (obviously) that had a great view of Barcelona.

Torre dels tres creus

It’s weird to have this sense of possession over a city that I’ve lived in for a month and a half.  Even weirder is for me to actually live in a city- by saying I’m from St. Louis, I really mean I’m from 30 minutes outside the city; Brown is in Providence but it’s more accurate to say that Providence surrounds Brown.  So this taking the metro everywhere, lack of green space, no cars, juking through the sidewalks- it’s all new to me.

This is my city.

So after this moment of reflection, I sat down and read The Gaudí Key, a book lent to me by Aley.  It’s sort of a Barcelona themed Da Vinci code, but less well written.  Saying a lot, right?  So then I fell asleep on a park bench for a little… and walked back down to the main entrance of the park.  The entrance is famous for this dragon,

Dragon/Lizard thing

and so all of the German tourists (the park was overrun with them) took turns posing in various compromising positions.

I think my favorite part of the park was this alleyway lined with trees and arches mirroring the trees.  Gaudí used a lot of natural landscapes as inspiration for his architecture, and this was a very in-your-face example of such.

All in all a wonderful afternoon in the world of Gaudí.  It makes me want to read and learn more about Gaudí’s symbolism and inspiration- amplified by the fact that I have yet to truly visit La Sagrada Familia.

Emmy Less

This weekend, Emmy went to visit Chaz in Sweden, leaving me lonely in our lovely dorm room.  What to do without my fearless roomie?  Well, apparently I eat whole baguettes, forget to turn the lights on and don’t wash the dishes.  I also sleep a lot more.

But seriously, this weekend… Matt and I spent a lot of time on Montjuic on Friday, wandering around the gardens.  We tried desperately to find “Font de Gat” on our way up the mountain, but failed.  Maybe it was a ninja cat fountain.  We did see some fountains and statues, some more understandable than others.

Concrete needle with blue paint.

We wandered around Montjuic for a little while, then took the funicular (!!!) down the mountain and back to the dorms.  Katie has some friends visiting from Rome, so we all went out to eat and to the clubs.  Emmy’s cousin, Dan, filled the Liss void for the night, as he was in town with his program (from Madrid).

The next afternoon, Matt, Tanja and I took Renfe out to Sitges to the Sitges Film Festival.  We planned on seeing a series of short films about really strange horror topics, but arrived too late and went to a free screening of this Bollywood movie, Hawa (review here).  It was horrible.  Tanja left after a half an hour and Matt and I somehow stuck it out to the end.  I guess you get what you pay for…

The film festival itself was really interesting.  It was a fantasy/sci fi/horror type of festival so everyone was wearing their favorite black cult classic t-shirt and and there were Star Wars action figures sold at the kiosk.

I did not match.

Then I came back and made my own food (take that, Emmy) and am now heading down to the beach for a brief outing.

PS i did not see quentin tarantino at the film festival, though apparently he was there.

leche desnatada

The milk here tastes disgusting.

Ah, Catalan…

Two posts in one day? WHAAAAA???

But i just got back from class at UAB (the school outside of Barcelona that we can take classes at) and after much stress and a lot of questions to my advisor, Teresa, I arrived in General Sociology to discover… that it was taught in Catalan.

Not wanting to waste my time, I took notes.  Double column notes: first, of what was happening in the class.  2nd, my reactions to class.

Els problems de la sociologia

Subtitle: Why am I still sitting here?

La dificultat de fer “experiments”

Really bad sign when the whole powerpoint is in Catalan.  That would be difficult to change.

La “familiaritat” amb l’objecte d’estudi

Stupid backwards accents and misplaced normal ones.

Algo sobre “Weber”

I do not know why I just wrote Weber down.

I am the only blond in the room.  Out of 80

I guess it’s a good sign that I’m so lost in this class compared to others.  Maybe I DO understand Spanish.

“La imaginació sociològica és la capacitat d’abastar des de les transformacions més impersonals i més remotes fins a les dimensions més intimes de l’ésser humà i de saber venure les relacions que hi ha entre munes i les altres”  (Mills 1987)

Hey, I recognize the name Mills.

Should I have just left at the beginning?

Okay, no.  She just made a joke at the expense of a guy going to the bathroom.  Shut. It. Down.

At the requisite pausa of the three hour long class, I told her I didn’t understand Catalan and asked if any other section was taught in Castellano.  No, she said, but you could take your test in English if you wanted.  Thanks, but no thanks.

So now I’m again classless, and looking into this class at UAB about the EU. One of the few classes taught in Castellano, because it’s filled with other international students (Erasmus kids)

La Mercé

La Mercé, a festival celebrating one of the patron saints of Barcelona, Mercedes, was this Thursday.  Because of it’s location in the week, we had a “puente” or bridge, which means a 4 day weekend.  Those of us who remained in Barcelona wandered around, Mercé guidebooks in hand, trying to find human towers and fire.

Emmy has great pictures and descriptions of Correfoc and the castellers, both of which were my favorites/the crowd favorites of the weekend.  Correfoc was basically pyromaniacs let loose on the street, spraying sparks and fire, supposedly chasing demons out of the inferno.  Or something like that.  I ended up running underneath the sparks a couple of times (and chanting with the pyros) and have no burns to show for it.  Maybe it’s safer than originally anticipated.

Before the Correfoc, Aley, Katie and I went on a little “corre” of our own- up the mountainside of Barcelona.  In training for our half marathon (countdown 18 days), we had a 9 mile run this weekend.  9 miles in the city was unappealing, so I looked at my map of Barcelona (conveniently posted above my bed) and saw a large green space called “Parc de Collersola”.  We took the train outside of the city and got off, finding ourselves on dirt paths winding our way UPPP UPP UPP the mountain.  It was worth it, though, when we got to the top and to Tibidabo, an amusement park on top of the hill.  The basilica there, temple del sagrat cor de Jésus del Tibidabo, was stupendous.  (I did not take this picture.)

Katie: "there's a guy on top of it." Aley: "I'm pretty sure that's Jesus"

As we came down from the hilltop, the sun was setting over the Montserrat range.  For the first time since coming to Barcelona, I felt like I earned the view I was getting.

Sunday night was the grand final of La Mercé with the “piromusical” on Montjuic.  Most of the music ended up being American, such as the medley of Star Wars, Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings.  Plaça Espanya was packed with people, which gave me logistical nightmares that night.  Seriously, what would happen if there was a heart attack in the center of the crowd? Or some sort of infrastructural failure? Oh what’s that? My paranoia’s showing again.  Whoopsies.

Can't see the fireworks? Climb on the portapotties!

So that’s the weekend in a nutshell (gotta figure out how to say that in Spanish…)  I’m on a quest to find a Mercé bandana, which all of the kinder had throughout the festival.  I’m not completely sure how one says bandana/hankerchief in Catalan (or Castellano for that matter), so it could be a failed quest already.

El tiempo

Why is it always 72 and sunny in Barcelona? It’s so consistent, we must be in some sort of alternate universe.

Blackout Monday

All throughout the semester, international students in barcelona have been getting facebook messages from this club promoter, Kyke (apparently well known for herding the Americans in Barca). He always promises some gimmick at a club in the city, and Mondays are dubbed “Blackout Monday”.

Little does Kyke know that La Residencia Onix needs none of his help. Last night at 8, the entire building lost electricity. What to do now, the poor little Consortium thought? Let’s buy some candles and eat junk food and split bottles of wine. Many bottles of wine.

A couple hours later the electricity returned and we celebrated Danielle’s birthday in style (not blacked out).

Classes started at UPF today, with a 9 AM of Medieval History. Currently working in the Biblioteque near the ONIX on a paper due tomorrow. I have a Spanish library card now- so legit.

The A Team

Tonight was the first meeting of Fall League for ultimate.  I got mad lost on the way there and showed up 30 minutes late.  Whoops!  By the time I arrived, my team had chosen a name (De Puta Madre) and captains.  I met some of the team members, still don’t know everyone’s name, but I’ll get better.

The moment that really made me laugh was when we scrimmaged against another team, simply named “The A Team”.  What a genius name! I wish Brown had thought of that for a team! oh wait….

Background: At Brown, the women’s A team is called Disco Inferno and the women’s B team was once called Laminar Flow (dorkyyyyy).  A couple of years before I arrived, the captains and players of B got together and brainstormed a new name.  Why not the A team, some (Melissa Revotskie) thought? No, too potent.  Instead, let’s name our team after the catchphrase from star of The A Team: Pity da Fool (Pfools, for short).

So tonight when De Puta Madre scrimmaged The A Team, I was wearing my white Pfools jersey, with the glorious face of Mr. T.  During our spirit circle, I was called out for my jersey and attempted to explain the story of the A team/B team joke- in Spanish.

Let’s just hope “I pity da fool” translates.