10/3/10 Airshow!

Today I slept in kind of late because my window shades were closed.  We have these garage door type things that pull down and don’t let any light in.  Most nights I sleep with them open, so I get air in my room, but last night I kept them shut.  Despite sleeping in kind of late, I still had time to go for a run before lunch.  Today I ran above the diagonal towards the mountains.  I got to the base of the mountains, but decided to turn back.  The run was good/ bad.  I didn’t like that the first half of my run was all uphill and the second half was all downhill, but I tried to even it out by running on perpendicular side streets.  Another great part of my run was that there was some sort of celebration going on in all the neighborhoods.  Amusement park rides were set up in many of the parks and there were barbeques everywhere.  On one street, they were having little campfires on the sidewalk and making food on it.  It was great to see all the people out having fun (another example of how often Barcelona has parties), but all the barbeque smells made me pretty hungry.  Luckily, when I got back to house, Pepita’s lunch smelled just as delicious.  I had spaghetti, which is a million times better than in the U.S.  I’m thinking the closer a country is to Italy, the better pasta it has.  Our second course was roasted chicken and potatoes with onions, covered in olive oil and herbs.  I was stuffed by the time I left the apartment.

            The plan from the night before was to meet at one of the stops along the beach to watch the air show.  Jack and Lorenzo went the day before and said that it was better than any air show they had seen before.  Saturday was the main day for the show and they premiered the new Airbus plane.  The metro ride took about 40 minutes and it was really crowded the closer I got to the beach.  I talked to an American woman who was on the train.  Her and her friend were on vacation in Barcelona and were headed to Park Guell.  Hearing someone speak English here is enough reason to talk to them and ask them where they’re from and what they’re up to here.  I usually hear at least one person speaking English every time I go on the metro.  When I got off the metro, I found Emily and Alex and we walked to the beach.  It was packed with people and we found a spot in the sand near the water.  It was another great day for the beach with an air show as an added bonus.  Some of the acts for the air show were kind of boring, while others were more exciting.  They were speakers with an announcer the whole time, but it was kind of hard to hear so I tuned it out for the most part.  I’m sure if I paid more attention to the announcer I would have known more about each of the planes and been more intrigued. 

            My favorite acts included one small plane that did all sorts of loops and twirls.  I am pretty sure at one point it turned off its engine and started free falling.  Another act that I enjoyed was some group of French jets (I apologize Dad for not knowing any specific names of the airplanes).  The jets were more exciting than the other planes because they were faster and the formations are really impressive.  They also let out red, white and blue smoke from the back. See the picture below.  Daven, Miriam and Lorenzo all showed up about half way through and we left during the last act—the Spanish navy, so that we could beat the crowds to the metro.  It took a while to get home, and as soon as I got home I started to read the next chapter for my literature class.  We had another great dinner with chickpeas, mushrooms and some sort of ravioli thing with egg, tuna and tomato in the middle.  Pepita went to bed early, because she had a cold.  For everyone taking Spanish who is reading this… “constipado” is a false cognate and does not mean constipated, but it means congested.  I was confused for a while when Pepita kept telling me that she was constipada, but she only has a cold.  I fell asleep reading and then just decided to call it a night.