Birds, Bears and Carnival Rides

It's been awhile since my last post, and certain people have been bugging me to write, so here it is:

Let's see, my life in the last 3 weeks has been above all, BUSY. The weeks have slipped by in a whirlwind of homework (finally... what?), vending machine coffee and procrastination. I have finals coming up in less than 2 weeks so I've finally begun to do some work. Keep in mind, I am not doing nearly as much as I could/ should be doing. The Spanish procrastination bug has hit me hard. But I do tend to spend my time outside of class attempting to do work of some sort.

Lots of this time is also taken up by prep for the interviews I've begun for the research project I'm trying to do about the underground electronic music scene here in Barcelona. Conclusions so far: I need to learn Spanish (interviewing someone in Spanish is very very hard) and according to my first interviewee, Victor Nublas, in reference to my difficulties finding the music scene: "Well, it's very underground." Thank you for that. I have my second interview tomorrow so we'll see how that goes...

In contrast to the weekdays, my last 3 weekends have been chock-full of amazing vacations! I was lucky enough to see Rome, London and Spain's Costa Brava (although I hardly spent enough time in any of these places). Rome was by far the coolest city I've ever been to. The food was amazing (and somewhat cheaper than Barcelona) and I was thrilled to be able to walk through an amazing city and then all of a sudden stumble upon a three thousand year old ruin. A few highlights from the trip included walking back to our friend's apartment along the Tiber river at about 4:30pm after a rainy day at the Vatican and seeing a gigantic bird exodus as the sun set, wandering around the last night with Elena looking for the synagogue but instead finding a huuuge ruin of some sort of theater and stumbling upon a beautiful fountain in a hilly neighborhood while lost trying to find our way back in the dark. Basically I really want to go back to Rome.





London was cool because Celia and I tried couchsurfing for the first time. Contrary to popular predictions, we did NOT die. Terry (the dude we stayed with) was really nice, had an entire extra bedroom for us, and made us tea and curry! It was really fun to skip the hostel and meet a new friend. London was cool but very rainy and cold so we really didn't end up seeing too much. But we did walk around whenever it wasn't pouring. Also, the absolute highlight of this trip was when Celia and I went to see St. Paul's Cathedral- we get there (humming "feed the birds") and hear Motown music being blasted from around the corner so naturally we go investigate. We come across a temporary carnival set up right next to the church and, after observing the rides, Celia decided she reallly really wanted to go on the scrambler so she coerced me into going with her. IT WAS THE FASTEST SCRAMBLER RIDE EVER!! And it kept feeling like we were going to smash into the side of St. Paul's. Basically it was the most fun I've had in a long time!

Last weekend, CASB (my program) took us to Cadaqués and Figueres to follow the "Dalí Route." We went to Dalí's house in Cadaqués, a beautiful beach town with white houses located at the intersection of the Pyrenees Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, the Dalí museum in Figueres, and Dalí's lifelong love Gala's house (which was actually an old castle). After this trip I can conclude that A. There is no question that Salvador Dalí was absolutely insane and B. He was pretty much the shit. His house was decorated soo weirdly, with many taxidermied animals. There was a round room in which you could hear your echo like you were standing next to yourself and talking. He had a phallic-shaped swimming pool. He also lived right on the water and I could totally see how his landscapes were influenced by what he saw out his window. Pictures will come soon to facebook.

And that's basically it. I should be prepping for my interview tomorrow so I'm going to sign out. I feel a little sad that I'm leaving this place so soon-- I only have a month left. I feel like there's so much that I haven't done that I should have. Barcelona is amazing but I really do miss everyone and can't wait to come home!!