Normal life

August 18 – 21, 2009

The rest of this week has been pretty uneventful. The glamor of vacation has melted away and the reality of a life in Barcelona has become more evident. What I mean by that is, this week I had plans, a schedule, places to be, etc. Nothing exciting and wild but, a glimpse into Catalonian life nonetheless. Pretty much my schedule has been: wake up at 8 am, breakfast on the terrace, bike to the beach, swip laps, relax for a few hours, come back home for lunch and get ready for school, then I have school until 7 pm and after that I’m pretty much exhausted from the heat!

I did get together with Alejandro and Ana twice this week. They’ve been so gracious. Last night we went to the movies, luckily the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles! I also re-connected with an old friend, Brian Guidry. Brian has been living here for the past six years. It was so great and interesting to see him..I don’t know that I could sign up for a permanent life here, it just seems so far away from family.

The low points of the week were that I found myself in the emergency room, TWICE! Unfortunately, I have some sort of bladder infection and I was given the wrong medication the first time around so I had to go back…Trying to navigate a foreign medical system with a language barrier is definitely not an easy feat. I started my new meds today and am hopefully back on the mend!

I’m a little bummed because I was supposed to go on a day trip to Figueres and the Costa Brava today with an organized tour from my school and had to miss it to head to the ER. Mostly, I’m disappointed because I haven’t actually met that many people here and was really looking forward to the opportunity to make some new friends. Don’t get me wrong, I’m totally loving the solo time and have no problem exploring alone but, it would definitely be nice to have a friend to call for cocktails on a Saturday night.

I’m going to head out tonight for a little date with the big city. Not sure where I’m headed yet but, I definitely need to get out and be social. And, I’m excited about it!

First day of real life in Spain...sort of

August 17, 2009

Today was my first day at school. It was definitely more intense than I anticipated but, intense is good! I think a month in the program is really going to help my Spanish!!

There are only seven people in my class; three Americans, two Germans, a Swedish girl and a Japanese girl…It’s so interesting to me that we can all communicate in the same class. The class is taught entirely in Spanish so, I guess you have no choice but to learn and it also sets the common ground for communicating with the other students in Spanish as well. One of the exercises we did in class was reading different opinions and you had to tell if you agreed or disagreed…I was amazed at some of the other peoples’ responses. For instance, the German guy sitting next to me basically stated that he doesn’t care if people lie to him and that he doesn’t care to get to know new people because he has enough friends. Maybe it was the language barrier but, really? I guess my ideals are just very different. First of all, I believe honestly is the key to all communication and relationships. Secondly, who has enough friends? Don’t get me wrong, I have the greatest friends in the world but, I thrive on meeting new people and sharing different experiences. I guess it shocked me so much because he is here just like me, alone trying to learn Spanish and assimilate into a new society. Anyway, we’ll see what interesting thoughts David has to share today in class.

After class, I raced home on the subway to shower and then go back out to meet Alejandro and Ana (the couple I did the first apartment swap with). They invited me to go with them to the Festival de Gracia. It’s this amazing street festival where all the streets in this neighborhood have a contest to see who can come up with the best theme and decorations and also each street has a stage where different bands play throughout the night. I was so impressed!!! The installations were phenomenal and they’re all done by the people in the neighborhood…Alejandro was telling me that they work on their concepts and installations for the entire year! Also, the music was pretty good…we stayed mostly at the pop/rock stage. My favorite band was a band called The New Raymond (I think, although I can’t find them anywhere).

Today was definitely a good day. It felt more like living here than a travel day. I’m still having a hard time getting used to the way of life here though…it’s a good thing I have nowhere to be until three in the afternoon since a mellow Monday night out ends at 2 am…

Changes, already

August 15, 2009

Kara’s last day in Barcelona….sadly we pretty much had to spend the day cleaning, running errands and moving over to the new apartment. We did, however, have a fabulous tapas lunch at Orio. Orio is a place we had walked by a week or so ago and wanted to go back to. It’s a very chic tapas bar and everything is very fresh and yummy! You sit at communal tables and it’s all self-serve except for the chef’s specials, which they bring around every few minutes. When you’re ready to pay, they just count the number of tooth-picks on your plate.

We headed over to the new apartment to meet Jordi and Onofre around 6pm. At first, I was a little apprehensive about the new neighborhood…it’s definitely not as glamorous as the L’Eixample address I had before but, I actually love the new digs after spending a few hours here. The best comparison I could make is that I moved from Pac Heights to the Mission… The new apartment has many bonuses though:

1. Air conditioning!!!!
2. A lovely terrace
3. Much closer to the beach

After getting unpacked and aquainted with my new house-swappers, Jordi and Onofre took us out for a stroll to see the neighborhood and we had dinner at this awesome place that’s part of the Maritime museum. The restaurant is set in a beautiful courtyard that is covered with trees and surrounded by the original walls of Barcelona. I really enjoyed eating my plate of fish- head, bones and all with my new friends in the very enchanting courtyard. I love Barcelona.

August 16, 2009

My first day alone in Spain…I have to say, I am going to miss Kara tremendously! We had a great summer together, both in San Francisco and traveling. I love you my little perrito!

However, as fun as the past two weeks have been…this is actually the part of the trip I’m most looking forward to. I’m excited to be alone with my thoughts and to have some time to re-discover myself. It’s been a whirlwind of a few months with a ton of big life changes. And, after all the thinking, planning, agonizing and excitement of making the decision to make a life change, here I am!

I have a pretty good idea of where my path is going in the next few months but, I’m certainly more open than I’ve ever been to let the path guide me rather than the other way around. It’s likely that after a few months here, I’ll be ready to go home, apply to business school, travel some more and then pick up and move to embark on the real next chapter of achieving an MBA…or maybe not?

I’m feeling a little sick and/or run down so, I spent the day just kind of hanging out. I accidentally ended up at the nude beach…I mean, most beaches here are practically nude anyway but, there was an exceptional amount of flesh at the beach I ended up on today. I spent half the day in the water and the other half lying on the sand reading my book. I also elected to take Jordi’s bike down to the beach today, which was an experience in and of itself…it’s one of those fold up bikes and it probably weighs 100 lbs! I’m sure I was a sight to see but, I did enjoy the exercise and the freedom to go farther than on foot – hence, stumbling upon the nude beach.

After the beach, I came back to my apartment and took a lovely nap in my air conditioned oasis!!

Going to head to bed early this evening in preparation for my first day of school. I’m excited to expand my Spanish skills!! I’ve actually done pretty well here the past few weeks but, it will be nice to really be speaking and to be more comfortable. I’m also excited to what kind of people I meet as well, should be interesting!

Catching up on the past week in Spain

I've been a little back-logged with my blogging...busy having too much fun. But, I've finally caught up!

August 8, 2009

Up at 6 am again today…for some reason I am having the worst time getting over the jet lag! I’m either sleeping til 4 pm or up at the wee hours of the morning. Godd thing I don’t really have anywhere to be.

Today was a pretty productive and eventful touristy day. We saw the Gaudi house, which was very cool. It’s craz how different Gaudi’s style and architecture is to everything else in the city.

After the Gaudi house and a horrible tapas lunch, we headed into La Rambla to check out all the shopping Barcelona has to offer. The actual street, Las Ramblas is like Fisherman’s Wharf on crack, I would NOT suggest going there. However there are some amazing side streets that have really funky shops and art galleries. My favorite was Carrer d’Avinyo. Unfortunatey, we got there during siesta as everything was closing but it was still fun to window shop and wind through the ancient streets.

We decided to join the Spaniards in siesta-ing and head down to the beach for a snooze. It was everything but relaxing…great people watching, lively with kids frolicking and people playing live music and futbol. And then there’s the Indian dudes selling AGUA, COLA, FANTA, CERVEZA, BEER? (And probably any and all illegal drugs you can imagine). They walk by every ten seconds yelling over and over, and in the ten seconds there not in your ear you have the miniature Thai ladies trying to massage you. All in all, it’s an eclectic experience. I think I’m going to have to find out where the locals go to sun bathe and relax…

We headed back to El Born for dinner at UDON, a Japanese noodle bar. For some reason we’ve been eating a lot of Japanese food on this trip. I think it’s a safe bet and the highest probability of having vegetables on the plate!! After dinner we headed back to Crepes el Born to meet up with our new friends, Rodrigo and Eduardo (Eduardo is the cute one who’s name we didn’t get the fist time). We sat at the bar drinking Estrella and eating crepes... I mean really, does life get any better? Rodrigo ended up not charging us (it’s definitely a nice perk having bartender friends) so, we promised to take him out for drinks and a day at the beach next week, I’m excited because he knows where all the secret non-touristy beaches are!!

We’re home early tonight (1 am). Have to be up early for a flight to Bilbao in the morning.

August 9 – 13, 2009: Bilbao y San Sebastian

August 9, 2009

My adventure to the Basque country began with a 6 am wake up call to catch a 9 am flight…Kara and I have become pretty confident with the Barcelona public transportation system and felt that we could walk through the city with all of our bags, find the train station (by the way, it’s not the same as the metro station but they’re both called “Passeig de Gracia Station”) and just hop on a train to the airport- simple, or so we thought…Have I mentioned that it’s hot in Barcelona? Even at 7 am, it’s excruciatingly hot and humid! By the time we get down to the Passeig de Gracia station (after dragging all of our bags down the stairs) we are both dripping with sweat and out of breathe.

Bree: “Necesitamos dos billetes al aeropeurto”
Gate Agent: blank stare
Bree: “El tren para el aeropuerto?”
Gate Agent: You need the other Passeig de Gracia station up the street about 5 blocks, abierto!

At this point, it’s already 7 am (our desired destination time to get to the airport on time for our flight) so we have to book it up the street to the other stations. We see cabs along the way but, decide that we can do it, we’ve already suffered this far. We make it to the other station with a few minutes to spare before the train departs. However, our train number is #1 and our platform number is #2…somehow we screw this up and end up on platform #1. A few minutes before the train comes I realize that everone else on the other side of the tracks has baggage and there’s no-one waiting on our side. Back up the stairs, back down the stairs, finally on the train. I think this is why I don’t take public transportation in real life…it’s way too stressful!

We actually made it on the flight on time and had a less than D list celebrity sighting on our flight…One of the guys from Playing for Change was sitting near us. He’s a reggae performer from Amsterdam and somehow I recognized him from having seen him in Austin at SXSW, random.

Finally in Bilbao. It is so beautiful and the weather is amazing!!! It’s only about 65 degrees – really nice change from Barcelona. I was extremely shocked by everything in Bilbao. I only made plans to spend a day there because I didn’t expect much and I actually loved it. There is an aura about the city that is extremely peaceful and the people are so friendly. Unfortunately, we were really only there for the day on Sunday and everything is closed but, it was still nice to walk around and take in the quaint views of the city. The highlight of the day was the Guggenheim (which was open thankfully). Kara’s favorite part was the perrito that is in front of the building- It’s this GIANT dog made out of flowers which I found personally kinda creepy but, for some reason she was obsessed with it.

The Guggenheim is a very impressive building. I think what’s most impressive about it is the backdrop it’s set in…It’s an ultra-modern building set in an old, perfectly manicured, Basque town. I really liked all of the exhibits as well. Everything was larger than life art installations. The two main exhibits were Richard Serra’s “Matter of Time” and all of Cai Guo Qiang’s permant works.

Kara and I ventured up to the top of the hill overlooking Bilbao for a traditional Basque dinner. Partly because it was the only thing open and partly because we were trying to be adventurous and take in all of the local culture. The dinner itself we pretty good- we got a white bean stew and a whole local fish that they de-boned for us at the table, yummy! What was disturbing about this restaurant was the décor, there was a leg of lamb sitting on the table behind us (and I’m pretty sure they actually cut the meat from there if you order lamb) and it was as if they had just cut if off the lamb outside with fur and hoof still in tact. I mean, I guess you know it’s fresh but, I found it quite odd…Needless to say, we didn’t order the lamb.

August 10, 2009

I had the BEST night’s sleep I think I’ve ever had in my entire life last night. Air conditioning is my friend.

Kara and I decided to treat ourselves to sleeping in, massages and a little shopping in Bilbao before taking off to San Sebastian. Again, I can’t say enough good things about Bilbao. It is just so quaint! Great shopping, nice people just a very friendly place to be. After a full day of tooling around, we were pretty ready to get to the beach though! An easy 1 hour bus ride and we arrived in San Sebastian.

San Sebastian is quite possibly to most idyllic town I’ve ever set foot in. All of the beautiful pictures and post cards do not do it justice! It actually reminds me a lot of Santa Barbara and maybe I have such warm and fuzzy feelings because of that, I don’t know. Either way, all I know is that I definitely want to go back there and quite possibly spend the rest of my life there!

We happened to be in San Sebastian during La Semana Grande which is like Fiesta (in Santa Barbara) on crack! The city was completely packed with tourists and locals spilling out into the streets to watch the nightly fireworks and enjoy all of the street festivities! Kara and I started our festivities with dinner and a bottle of Sauvingnon Blanc on the beach at a Fusion restaurant (shocker). After dinner, we just decided to meander through Old Town and see what sort of trouble we could stumble upon. It wasn’t diffucult considering Old Town is probably a 1 mile square of cobble-stone streets and there were probably 100,000 + people out and about. We walked right in to a bar called Mendaur which turns out to be the backpackers party bar. We immediately made friends with a group of Australian surf instructors who live in San Seb and a few Ciprianna’s later it was magically 4 am! The bars stay open until 4:30 during La Semana Grande but, don’t worry if you’re not done with your beer they’ll give you a to go cup for the walk home, brilliant!

August 11, 2009

Due to the to go beer cups at 4 am, we were pretty worthless all day today. We actually only got out of bed once and that was to crawl down the street to find a kebab shop.

We finally left the hotel room around 9 pm and out of half laziness and half not wanting to be adventurous with our food choices given our current state, we opted to go back to Txi Tao (the restaurant from the night before). I think this was our 4th Asian meal in 7 days here in Spain, still it was delicious!

Like clockwork (or déjà vu) the fireworks started going off just as we exited the restaurant. We decided to venture to the other side of the river after dinner but, ultimately ended up back in old town…it’s hard to resist when the fiesta is going on and the crowd is pulling you in.

We ended up at a different bar on the same street as Mendaur. After being harassed by random locals asking Kara, “where did you buy your eyes?” we turned to our new Aussie friends who bailed us out and ended up being a really fun group of guys to hang out with. The trade off was that we would go to their beach the next day to play volleyball.

August 12, 2009

Finally, a full day of relaxing on the beach! We spent the morning at Playa La Concha, the main beach in San Sebastian. It was pretty uneventful but, so strikingly beautiful and relaxing. We headed over to Playa de Zurriola in the afternoon to meet up with the Aussies and try to play some volleyball. Unfortunately, us travelers didn’t think this through as no on was prepared with a net or a ball so, we opted for some swimming and body surfing instead. Playa de Zurriola is a great beach with much better waves and more lively people than La Concha…it was a great day!

The Aussie’s invited us to join them for some free “pie-ella” but, we decided that free paella was not the authentic Spanish meal we were looking for for our last night in San Sebastian. Kara and I were on a quest to find the best and most authentic pinxtos we could. Mission accomplished. The bummer is that the pinxtos bar was overflowing with locals and nobody spoke a word of English so, we were too intimated to try and compete. The good news is that they had a sit down restaurant adjacent to the tapas bar…it wasn’t quite as thrilling but, we had a very good meal nonetheless starting with Iberios mixtos (which we thought were an assortment of tapas), wrong! Literally the translation is an assortment of Iberian products and what that is is a HUGE plate of raw meat…kind of like a salami and prosciutto platter topped with foie gras. It would have been an Atkins dieter’s dream meal! We topped it off with a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine, oops!

The plan was to take it easy after dinner since we had to get up the next day to head back to Barcelona. An “easy” night in San Sebastian during La Semana Grande means no hard liquor but, still staying out until 4 am. It actually turned out to be a very amusing evening. After dinner we stumbled upon the Plaza de la Constitucion where there were live Basque bands and performers, tons of singing dancing and cava! I wish I had known the words to any of the songs or how to dance along but, it was really fun just to be a spectator. It’s amazing how the Spaniards carry on with their lives, kids or no kids…I mean, there were families with toddlers out at 2 am carrying on…the Spaniards really do have a passion for life that’s contagious!

August 13, 2009

Managed to get up pretty early this morning to head out despite last night’s festivities. Kara and I were on a quest for some real breakfast. We sat down at a smoky local joint and waited for about 15 minutes only to be ignored. Can’t a girl just get some coffee??? We finally decided that we should just head to McDonalds which was on the way to the Europcar office anyway…we were keeping our fingers crossed for breakfast after 11 am. No such luck but, I tell you A quarto libre con papas is pretty damn close to and egg Mcmuffin! It’s funny because I find myself doing a lot of things here I would never do at home like taking public transportation and eating fast food…it’s not so bad.

After the Micky D’s feast we trekked over the river to Europcar. Good thing we got there right before siesta time. They handed us over the keys and we were on our way to Barcelona (or so we thought). We get in to the car and Kara says to me, “you know it’s stick right?” Hmmmm I hadn’t really expected this but, how hard could it be?? I did drive Dana’s Hyundai in college and only stalled a few times. 20 attempts to get out of the parking space and about 5 stalls later, I realized there was no way we were going to make it out of the Europcar parking, much less back to Barcelona. So, we turned the car in and quickly began devising plan B and C. If Kara didn’t have a flight on Sunday morning, we’d be in a motor-home with the Aussie’s headed down the coast on a surfing trip but, alas we opted for the more predictable route of hopping on the 4 pm train back to Barcelona.

August 14, 2009

Back in Barcelona. It has certainly been an adventure having Kara here with me for the past week and a half!! But, I’m actually getting excited about having a little routine again and starting class on Monday.

We had a pretty relaxing day. Just hung out at the beach all day and then had dinner in Le’Eixample (my neighborhood here). We’re now back at the apartment enjoying our last night in the sauna…I’m really excited to move to the new place with a/c tomorrow!!!

I can’t believe the adventure in Spain has only just begun…My next tasks, besides learning Spanish:

1. Learn how to use my fancy camera
2. Take more pictures
3. Learn how to update the blog with pictures

August 7, 2009

Yesterday was quite a long day…We hit up most of the tourist locations including La Sagrada Familia, Gaudi Park, and El Corte Ingles. Kara and I thought we were outsmarting all the other tourists by getting going at 9 am, the only problem with this plan is that nothing opens for breakfast until 10 am…not even McDonalds!!! I was so impressed by La Sagrada Familia. It is easy to imagine the finished product. My favorite part is the main room where if you look up you feel like you are in a forest looking up at the trees. El Corte Ingles is an amazing shopping center that is the combination of Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, Safeway and Walgreens. Needless to say, we found our fan here, score!

After a long day of sight seeing, siesta and a few cold showers, we ventured out for a night on the town. Our intention was to find a great restaurant that we found in one of the non-touristy tourist guides. Apparently it doesn’t exist. However we did have an encounter with a real-life “Hey chi chi” moment (I think only Todd would understand). In an effort to escape the creepers, we happened upon a great Japanese restaurant, Komomoto…it had shared tables, hip art and played 80s music and the food was EXELLENT, it was Japanese/Peruvian fusion place. I loved it and will definitely be back!

After dinner, we ventured through the ancient cobble-stone streets of El Born. We had a bottle of Albarino at a cozy wine bar then made a stop at hipster cocktail bar where we were intrigued by the hot bartender. We ended up making friends with Rodrigo and the hot bartender (I don’t think I ever did get his name) who over-served and undercharged us. Too many drinks and many hours later, we stumbled home to our sauna of an apartment. Unfortunately, the fan didn’t help as much as we had hoped.

August 8, 2009

Somehow, Kara and I managed to sleep until 4 pm today. I think it was so hot that we were melted to the sheets…not to mention the combination of the hang over and jet lag. The day was pretty much wasted. But, we finally got up and out the door around 5pm. We headed down to Port Olimpic and hung out at the beach for a few hours before having some tapas and bloodies. After dinner, we just wandered around until dark (Mainly in an effort to avoid going back to the sauna before sun down). The two major highlights were a fun little band in the park and a scary Tranny in the street that started yelling at me..I thought she/he was going to bite me!

First blog post from Spain

August 6 2009, 8:40 am

Landed in Barcelona at 8 am yesterday… weird day of getting situated and trying to beat the jet lag. Spent the morning settling in to the new apartment, which is great except for the fact there is no air conditioning and no fans (must go on a quest to find a fan today!!). Kara and I ventured out mid-morning to figure out the metro system…I wanted to be sure that I would be able to find my way to school once Kara leaves. It was easier than expected, other than the fact that the school has the wrong address published, but we found it nonetheless. We did pretty good navigating our way through the underground minus our first attempt to exit…we couln’t figure out how to get out, there was nowhere to put your ticket and we somehow managed to get stuck in the handicapped aisle. Turns out, you can just leave the subway without swiping your ticket (unlike NY which makes things very confusing)….Perhaps it would be helpful if I practiced public transportation in America before attempting to be a pro in a foreign country???

Around noon, we stopped in a neighborhood pub for a beer and we were also given some complimentary bean and fake crab salad, it wasn’t that great but it was a nice gesture.

The afternoon was filled with a siesta (I have a feeling I am going to get accustomed to siestas very quickly). After siesta and my second cold shower of the day, Kara and I went to meet up with Todd and David for some rooftop cocktails, more heat and then a quick jaunt down to their room to sit in the a/c. I’ve decided that some point on this journey I may have to whore myself out in an attempt to sleep in an air-conditioned room!!

The random crew of us headed down to Barceloneta for tapas and wine on the beach. The weather is much cooler and peaceful down that way…And, I definitely understand why the Catalunyans eat dinner at 9 pm—it’s way to hot to do anything civil before that hour.

After dinner, we strolled back through the marina and the city center. The first night’s sleep was pretty restless. The combination of the jet lag and the heat made for a very uncomfortable evening. I woke up at 4 am unable to go back to sleep. Thank God for the Sex and the City DVDS and Facebook!!

Today’s tasks include the following:

1. Sight seeing. We’re going to see the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi house and potentially the Picasso museum.

2. Find a fan so that we can sleep this evening

3. Find a market so that we can consume fresh fruits and vegetables (apparently the Spaniards think that jamon and potatoes are a complete source of nutrition).