10/4- 10/6/10 Semana de escuela

These three days can all be kind of summed up with a routine… Breakfast, class, lunch, class, dinner, watching TV/ reading.  I could write about each one individually, but it would probably put you to sleep.  I’m guessing your reading this blog either:

A) because you’re my parents or Ben and have to

B) because you are genuinely interested or

C) because you are procrastinating from doing work/ homework (Let’s be honest…that is why I would be reading it)

For everyone who picked C, I don’t want to put you to sleep, because you have important work to get done when you finish reading… so I’ll abstain from reciting everything I’ve eaten in the last few days (even I get bored writing about that).  Anyways, nothing remotely exciting to fill you in on for the last few days, aside from being here which is always exciting.  Pepita has had a cold, but that hasn’t stopped her from her day to day schedule, other than the fact that she hasn’t been taking care of her grandkids after school. 

Hmm… what else?  Emily and I have booked everything for Rome and we leave tomorrow!  Not letting the State Department warnings keep me from traveling, but definitely paying more attention to my surroundings.  Today I took the purple line to school instead of the red line, because it is practically the same distance, but purple is less crowded… maybe that is going too far, but better safe than sorry.  Watching the news every night during dinner, I haven’t seen anything on the Spanish news regarding the potential terrorist threats in Europe.  I have pretty much come to the conclusion that whatever news we watch is useless when it comes to broadcasting issues of importance and that they consider fashion and runway shows more important than terrorist threats… at least I have the NY Times to fill me in on everything the Spanish news doesn’t cover.  I’m not sure what else to write, since it has been a pretty boring week, so instead of boring you with every mundane minute of my life, I have come up with a list of intriguing things I have noticed in class over the past few days.

Observation 1: PAPER- Everyone here uses graph paper.  Stores don’t even sell notebooks with white lined paper.  Maybe they think it helps their handwriting, I’m not sure.  Although I am pretty sure that graph paper is a European thing and not just Spanish.  Also, the paper is longer than the normal 8.5”x11” that we have. I’m not exactly sure what the size is, but it is obviously too big to fit in the folders I brought from home.

Observation 2: NOTE TAKING-  As much as I try to make my notes look neat, they never do.  Even the graph paper hasn’t helped the cause of my awful handwriting, which I had hoped it would.  Despite my messy notes, all the native Spaniards in my Game Theory class take perfect notes.  I think they strive to take perfect notes.  Both guys and girls take out every color pen and little rulers to make perfect lines and matrices in game theory.* Every pen they write with, matches the color marker that the professor uses on the bored.  Even after writing the notes perfectly, I have noticed a few people next to me pull out rewritten copies, that make the originally perfect notes look like they just got pulled out of a garbage can.  I cannot and will not live up to this note taking standard…

*Side note (that isn’t important enough to be its own observation):  They use parentheses instead of brackets for their matrices.  I refuse to do this, so I still use brackets in my notes

Observation 3: ENGLISH- In my Game Theory class, I bet about a third of the kids are foreign.  Aside from all the U.S. students, there are about 10 of us; I have also noticed another group of Dutch kids.  How do I know they were Dutch?  They were complaining about the results of the World Cup, ragging on Spain pretty badly and still complaining, 3 months later, about how the Netherlands should have won.  Even though they speak English, I don’t have any plans to talk to them.  One kid sang Lion King songs throughout our whole ten minute break between the first and second half of class.

Observation 4:  FOOD-  Food in class is not allowed.  I found this out when my History of Spanish professor stopped the class to tell me that in Spain people don’t eat in class.  At Bowdoin, all my classes are during lunch time, and I eat the whole time.  I was kind of mad that he stopped the class to tell me not to eat, when he could have waited until after.  I was the unlucky one to get called out for eating, because other people definitely eat in that class.  I simply apologized and stopped eating, but I really wish I could have said, “that when I start learning something in the class, then I’ll stop eating, until then, I need something to keep me awake.”  Clearly, this observation about food in class was a reason for me to complain about the class in general. The only reason I’m taking the class is to get Spanish credits.  This class ranks pretty highly on my Worst Classes Ever Taken List, probably coming in second to Fiske’s Calculus 172.  It is pretty hard to learn when the professor plays a movie in class and then tries to talk while the movie is playing.  Result: not hearing the movie OR the professor = bad teaching.  I’ve gotten over the fact that I’m not learning much, because he only ever talks about the which Spanish king married which who.  Whether I hear him or not, Wikipedia will be my best friend when it comes time to review for this midterm.

Observation 5:  TARDINESS- In the beginning of our trip, the director of the program told us that the stereotype that Spaniards are late to everything is a myth.  Thus far, the professors are just reinforcing this stereotype and the tardiness legend continues...  Most of the professors show up about 10 minutes late.  Although I’m used to taking classes that are an hour and half long, so I definitely have the potential to pay attention for that amount of time.  I can’t complain about these shorter classes though.  I’m constantly checking my watch throughout class, so 10 minutes less of watch checking is a bonus.  The time passes extremely quickly in Game Theory, because we start late and get a break in the middle of class.

Observation 6:  LESS IS MORE-  The vacation days just keep on coming… Dia de la Merced, La Huelga (Strike) and next week no school on Monday or Tuesday.  Tuesday is el dia de Pilar (patron of Spain).  Because the holiday is on a Tuesday, we clearly don’t have school on Monday.  I feel like this system is work one day, holiday the next day, work again, holiday again… Still not complaining.  And yes parents, despite the lack of school here, your money is being well spent—I am learning the ways of the culture, which just happen to be fiestas all the time.

Okay, I can try to get this list to 10 observations, so that it is a nice even number, but it is late and I don’t to B.S. things that I haven’t actually seen.  I’ll the list at 6 (my favorite number) and continue to bore you with other observations in blogs to come.  Until then, stay tuned for updates from my Rome trip!

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.    

10/2/10 Sitges Otra Vez

10/2/10

Woke up early to run before I met everyone else at the train station.  We met up at 11:15 to take the train to Sitges.  Sitges is the coastal town south of Castelldefels where I went with Morgan the first week.  It was a nice train ride and it made lots of stops, but it only took a half hour.  Emily, Daven, Miriam, Alex and I went.  We walked to the beach and pretty much hung out there all day.  The beach to the left of us was having some sort of swimming competition, so there were lots of buoys in the water and kayakers out to watch over the swimmers.  I broke out my bocadillo as soon as I got there and for the first time I tried a banana.  I chose a banana from our fruit basket today, because all the apples are getting mushy.  Also, one thing I learned that I though was interesting is that in Spain, many people are allergic to the skin of apples and peaches.  A bunch of people in my group have said that their host parents have given them funny looks when they just bite into an apple or peach. I verified this with Pepita who said that she doesn’t feel well when she eats the skins.  Continuing from that side note, the water was really warm, pretty much like a swimming pool.  I am so happy that I can still go to the beach in October.  There were lots of people selling sunglasses on the beach and giving massages as usual.  There were tons of sailboats out on the water.  It would definitely be fun to go on one of them.  Overall, it was nice to spend the day chatting and getting our bronze on.  We left around 5:30 and I took the train back to Sants Estacio (one metro stop from my house).

            I chilled out before dinner for a little while.  We ate kind of early, having boiled potatoes and some sort of green bean for our first plate (drizzled in olive oil, everything with olive oil… siempre aceite).  For my second plate, I had fried pork and little green peppers cooked in olive oil.  For dessert, I had a kiwi and flan.  I love the flan here and I am really hoping they sell it at Hannaford.  Although I think the chances are slim, it is made by Dannon. 

After dinner, I went over to Emily’s house.  Emily’s parents went away to their house in the country (Leida) for the weekend and left her behind, so a few of us met up at her house.  It was nice being able to meet up at someone’s house for once.  In Spain, it is rare to invite friends over to the house.  Usually, they just meet up with friends outside the house at a café or bar.  It is weird, because back home I invite people over to my house all the time.  So anyways, Emily invited a few of us over and we just hung out and chatted.  People showed up one by one as we finished dinner.  I luckily ran into Lorenzo on the way to Emily’s, so we navigated the streets to find her house together.  Also, Emily and her mom had made these delicious fried dough things before her parents left, so we got to snack on those.  It was cool to see someone else’s house.  Emily’s bedroom is smaller than mine, but she has her own bathroom and there is a room with a piano (Emily loves to play the piano).  We all left a little after 1 a.m., being in the sun all day wore us all out.  I made it home a little before 2 and fell right asleep.

 

10/1/10 Examen...

10/1/10

I spent the morning studying for my exam.  I stayed in the house until after lunch, when I went to the University to actually take the exam.  The exam was just like our practice exam the day before that we did during the review session, so the test didn’t feel that hard for me.  There were definitely mixed feelings about it afterwards though.  A bunch of us wandered around outside the University after the exam and hung out in a bakery for a while.  All of the amazing crossaints and pasteries are really inexpensive here.  It is surprising to me that they cost less than 1.5 euros, just because they all seem so fancy to me.  After having a merienda (snack), we walked around a little further and put more minutes on our phones in the tobacco store.  On the sidewalk near the tobacco store a bakery was having its opening day, and they were giving out balloons and free samples on the sidewalks.  I must have gotten at least three different samples, and it was all so good.  Because it was such a nice afternoon, I decided to walk home with Lorenzo to La Sagrada Familia.  It is a pretty far walk, but he walks everyday and I thought it would be a nice walk.  A group of us started walking back, but one by one people left to get on at different metro stops or to go to their houses.  I got on the metro stop by La Sagrada Familia after buying some postcards at a near by store.

            Pepita had to miss dinner, because she was bring her grandkids to the pool.  She left dinner out for me.  I had some meatballs and tortilla de patatas.  It was nice to be home alone and just relax by myself.  Since Pepita usually leaves the TV on all day while she is home, I enjoyed the quite for a little while.  Then I channel surfed while I ate my dinner.  My two best finds were a music video channel and a travel channel.  Most of the songs are popular songs in the U.S.  The travel channel was cool, because the guy was exploring food in Rome.  The downside—it was in Catalan.  Pepita got home right after I finished doing all my dishes.  I left around 10:15 to go out with people for the night.  We ended up going to a bar on the green line, two metro stops from my apartment.  Everyone who lived around me was excited, that other people were finally coming to our part of the town.

9/30/10 TGIThursday… End of Another (Really “Hard”) Week

            I woke up early to run this morning.  Early morning is not the time to run if you want to avoid people and traffic.  I first ran to the Correos box by the metro to mail a postcard and decided that I would have to run on side streets to avoid all the foot traffic.  I saw lots of people out cleaning the streets.  A few men were scrubbing spray paint off of a bank.  Some other people were sweeping up around the dumpster and some other people were trying to peel stickers off the trashcans in the park.  It wasn’t as cold as I thought it would be this morning, so it was a comfortable run.  I got back, then the usual breakfast, shower and school…

            Today on the metro I looked over my book again for class.  Reading on the metro makes it go by SO much faster.  When I got off the metro, I noticed the effects of the strike on the Plaza.  A few of the Walk/ Don’t Walk signs were torn from the traffic light posts.  There were stickers with 29-S stuck on everything and graffiti on every other window.  In class we talked about the book blah blah blah.  After class I did my final registration for classes at the BCA office.  After Guerra Civil, I went home for lunch.

            When I walked in, there was some random guy sleeping on the couch.  I turned the other direction and went to my room to put my bag down.  It turns out it was Francesca’s husband who was feeling sick.  I’m still not exactly sure why he wouldn’t have just gone home.  Either way he was almost as childish as his kids.  Pepita pretty much yelled at him to eat every plate that she brought out for us.  She was telling him that he can’t just take pills without eating.  It was a fight to get him to eat every plate but eventually he would.  It just seemed like weird behavior for someone who is at least 40 years old.  That made me wonder what role grandmothers have in the family here is Spain.  It seems as though Pepita is always taking care of someone or cooking for someone.  To me it just seems like Francesca and her husband can’t take care of themselves, but who knows maybe they just come over all the time to keep Pepita company.  Still, the first time I met this guy was because he wasn’t feeling well and came over.

            I went back to the University for a review session for our presemester language exam.  The review helped.  I’ll probably study a little bit tonight, but if I don’t know the language by now then I’m in trouble.  I think I’ll be fine.

9/29/10 Un mes en Barcelona y la huelga

          So today we didn’t have class because of the huelga general (General Strike).  The strike occurred in many places in the EU and you can read about it in the article below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/world/europe/30europe.html?_r=1&ref=europe

If you don’t want to read the article, I’ll sum up what I’ve learned about the strike.  The reasons for the strike involve lots of different groups.  First, employees that work for public works such as the metro, Correos (mail), Telefono, sanitation services and other state run companies are striking for better benefits, because with the economic downturn the country is cutting costs.  Basically a strike initiated by sindicatos (unions) to get the attention of the government.  Another reason for the strike is that the EU is cutting retirement pensions, so this got another class of people involved.  In Barcelona, it seemed as though the strike also gave reason to promote the idea that Cataluña should separate itself from Spain altogether.  What ever the reason was for joining the strike it definitely caused mayhem in the city.  All public services closed for the day and so did a lot of private companies.  The day before the strike Pepita told me that some stores would stay open like the supermarket, but most stores would close.  And some stores would just roll down their doors if the police came by or a group of protestors, reopening once the crowd passed.

            While I was eating breakfast, Pepita went downstairs to meet Nuez and Sergi on the curb.  They go to a small private elementary school a few blocks away, but their school was cancelled for the day.  Their parents still had to work, so Pepita babysat for the day.  When they got into the apartment, they started watching Spanish cartoons as always.  I went back into my room to start reading for my literature class, but then I heard all this shouting.  I looked from the terrace attached to my bedroom, but couldn’t see anything.  Then I went to the terrace by the living room and on the street below were protestors.  They looked to be all young men.  They were running down the street, pushing dumpsters into the middle of the street and there are some yellow gates on our road for construction that they were throwing into the middle of the street.  The police had 4 big vans that were slowly driving forward trying to get the crowd out of the way.  The most surprising part to me were all the police officers walking in front of the vans, beating the protestors with their batons.  It was a pretty shocking sight for 9 in the morning.  Lots of other people were out on their terraces watching the spectacle and it came and went within a matter of 5 minutes.  From then on, I decided I wouldn’t go out for the rest of the day.

Huelga- Everyone was out to watch it!

Pepita-Nuez-Sergi

            I spent most of the morning reading.  Francesca (Mom of Nuez and Sergi) came over for lunch, which she usually does a few times a week.  She was saying that there was not as much traffic out as she expected, but that the telephone company (which is a national company, not private like in the U.S.) had graffiti all over it.  Lunch was a fun experience too.  Nuez is usually well behaved, and Sergi usually isn’t.  At lunch they were both being kids, not doing what their told and whining about everything.  It was hard for me though, because they were both being difficult for their mom in Catalan, so I could only half understand what was going on.  Once they finally got settled down to eat, it was a little bit better.  Nuez is old enough to know that I only understand Castellano.  She was trying to tell her brother to only speak Castellano, but he didn’t really listen.  I am still impressed that by the ages of 4 and 6, they already speak two languages.  Nuez even learns English at school and Sergi kept asking me how to say words in English like “motorcycle” and “traffic”.  I had gnocchi for lunch with fried chicken and fried eggplant.  Francesca went back to work and I went back to reading.

            Around 5:30 pm I worked up the courage to go for a run and really I was scared for nothing.  About 50% of the shops and restaurants I saw were open.  I ran for a little more than an hour and saw lots of signs of the strike.  I ran by this park which is open to the public, unless the King of Spain comes to Barcelona.  When he comes, he stays in a house there and it is closed to the public.  A few nice statues mark the entrance of the park and they were covered with graffiti.  I also ran by the Corte Ingles, which Pepita told me would be closed.  It was open.  There were a lot more people in the streets than usual, probably just wandering around because they didn’t have to work.  Either way it was a pretty peaceful run.

            During dinner, Pepita and I watched the news and saw the demonstrations that took place all over the city and country.  While a lot of places didn’t take part in the strike, many of the stores downtown did not have a choice and had to close because of all the riots around them.  In Plaza Catalunya, which is a few blocks from the University and where I spent a lot of time for Dia de La Mercedi, a few police cars were torched and the rioting was awful.  Brush was burned on one of the highways going in and out of the city so no one could pass.  Dumpsters were lit on fire.  It was not the type of strike that I would have ever imagined.  There were even some anarchist groups that came out just to destroy things and express their discontent against the government.  It seemed like a lot of unnecessary and costly damage was done to the city.  It was a national strike that didn’t have the participation of the majority people, yet the damages done definitely can’t be overlooked, so I guess in that way the strike got the attention of everyone living here.  I finished reading our assigned chapter before going to bed.

9/27/10 Lunes...

This morning I went for a run, but it has been getting colder outside.  I ran up towards the Diagonal (the road that cuts diagonally through all of Barcelona).  On the Diagonal near where I live, there is a Corte Ingles and a mall.  I also ran by a Decathalon Sports store that looked like it might have some good clothes for running.  An issue that I’m having while both running and walking in the city is how slow people move or that they always seem to stop right in my way.  It seems as though they don’t care that it is a city and will stop in the center of the sidewalk as opposed to the side of the sidewalk.  This happens as I walk to the metro too.  It is really hard because a lot of the elderly people have these bags on wheels to transport their groceries and they don’t realize that they are slowing down foot traffic in both directions on the sidewalk.  Maybe it is a city thing or maybe it is a Spanish thing, either way it seems as though the cities I’ve been to in the U.S. people walk with more of a purpose and are a bit more cognizant of their surroundings and if they are in the way.

I had 3 classes today.  We watched another movie in History of Spain about the Conquistadores who came to the Americas and fought the Incans and Aztecs.  I’m pretty sure I learned the same stuff in middle school, so I could understand the movie without knowing all the words in Spanish.  Then I had my European Union class which is quickly becoming my favorite.  The professor talked about how people in the U.S. don’t understand the idea of the Estado del Bienestar (Welfare State), because in the U.S. the perception of welfare is something for people who lack basic necessities, whereas in Europe it is basic support that every one in the nation gets rights to.  Overall, it was an interesting class.  Daven and I then took the metro to our Game Theory class.  There are a few other American students in the class from Brown and Northwestern.  The class moves slowly and we only did two problems during the whole class.  One of the problems we did was the famous prisoners’ dilemma, which we had also learned in Microeconomics at Bowdoin.  We also got a problem set assigned.

I decided to walk home from the University today.  It would probably take a half hour, but it took me a little longer because I stopped at Decathlon Sports to check out some cold weather running gear—that I didn’t pack.  Everything in the store was really cheap (barato).  If my memory serves me correctly, Decathlon went bankrupt in the U.S. or maybe it was just the one in Salem.  Either way with the prices they had, I can understand why.  They had all sorts of sections ranging from Tennis, Futbol and Running to Camping and Scuba Diving.  I found some nice long sleeve non-cotton running shirts for only 6 euro.  I didn’t have money on me, but I’ll go back sometime soon.  All the clothes for cycling were really inexpensive compared to what I’ve seen in the U.S. at places like L.L. Bean, EMS and Sports Authority.  The quality isn’t top notch, but it definitely would serve its purpose.  I walked back excited that I won’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get warm running clothes.

Pepita got home about the same time that I did.  She had spent the afternoon at the Corte Ingles near Catalunya with her sister getting clothes for their Mediterranean cruise.  She is going in early November.  I am excited that she gets to go, because one of the stops is Rome and she was telling me earlier that was the one place in Europe she wanted to see that she hadn’t.  The cruise makes tons of stops—leaving from Barcelona.  It would have been cool to do at the end of the semester with people to see a bunch of places at once, since we wouldn’t need to fly to get to the port, but I didn’t think that much ahead.  For only 380 euro and a week of traveling in the Mediterranean, it is a pretty good deal for people already in Barcelona.  After dinner, I did my game theory problem set, which was actually really fun.  As nerdy as this sounds, I stayed up late to finish it, because I was having such a good time doing it.  Not to mention I haven’t had to do any homework up until now, so I was excited to have an assignment.