being home, etc...

i sort of figured but never really thought much about how hard it would be to go from doing the amount of traveling and exploring and meeting new people and speaking another language all the time to being home in san diego where no one is out of school yet and i just as a general rule don't have much to do. thankfully now i am just starting my internships at unasd and the irc, going to the gym, getting back into the hang of hanging out with people, etc... but i have been so beyond bored in a kind of (okay, really) pathetic way.

i miss barcelona. i miss the freedom, i miss the momentum, i miss my spanish gym and the sights and smells and sounds of the city. i miss morning bakery runs and walking through born's windy sun-streaked streets. i know i complain(ed) a lot, but i had such a wonderful time abroad. entonces, bcn, gracias por todo. ojala que nos vemos pronto?

distant thoughts on catalunya

when we were in lisbon, the guys we met mentioned a dislike of barcelona (compared to madrid) that they said was linked to the city's "anarchist vibe." "you mean.. the catalan thing?" i asked, surprised by their reaction to what i was beginning to learn about the history of catalunya.

looking back, this "vibe," the catalan presence in barcelona, was one of my favorite things about the city. i think the history of catalan culture, so suppressed politically and linguistically under franco, plays a fascinating role in the way this city behaves. in my last few weeks in barcelona i kept thinking, i wonder what it means to speak this language that is not technically needed to communicate with anyone (i could be wrong, but i don't know that anyone only speaks catalan). what does it mean to speak and create in a language that exists for reasons other than use-value? to make the choice to communicate in catalan because it signifies a history is, i think, very important and very interesting. to resist what gloria anzaldua calls "linguistic terrorism" is very important, very interesting. this is a reason to study language and literature, there is a free-ing there.

adios y tal

today was sunshine and chicken sandwiches and last minute postcard souvenirs and passion fruit martinis and sushi and lovely catherine and 3am walk home with albert talking about barcelona and traveling and coming back and staying home. hasta luego, bcn; you've sure been swell.

goodbye daytrip, sand between our toes

kelly and i spent the most lovely lazy sunshine-y day today at a little town an hour out of barcelona called sant pol de mar. the beach was beautiful and isolated and i just read and napped and cooled off in the mediterranean sea (also, got very sunburned). tomorrow is my last day in barcelona and my plans are to relax and meet catherine for margaritas and walk down my favorite streets and get ready to finally fly home. i will enjoy old comforts, i will not indulge in (bad) old habits.

sant jordi i el drac

yesterday was sant jordi's day, a very catalan holiday when all barcelona girls get roses from barcelona boys and boys get books from their girls. the whole city was packed like i've never seen it, and the streets are lined with roses of all kinds and books of all kinds for people to pick up along the way. kelly, tara and i got roses from the boys and found them these vintage catalan cookbooks for housewives. it was all very valentine's 2.0.

also, i know it makes me beyond boring, but i just want to go home. i have appreciated this opportunity so much but i am done.

or, dramatic change of plans:

staying in barcelona hostel for 7 nights until my flight back to the states. biggest bummer.

south of france tomorrow for sure

eyjafjallajokull, hate you.

quejido: i just want to get to french riviera with jenni and then GET HOME. ay que horror. que. hor. or.

as of now my "plan" (hah. hah.) is to avoid london like the plague and be very sad about not being able to meet catherine in paris and figure out some other way to get back to the states. royal navy?

last hurrahs, etc..

(photos from catherine's camera. love these girls!)

más alla de aquí, etc...

i find it amazing how even when you know four months will go by fast, four months goes by and you wonder how they could have possibly gone by that fast. or how much things could stay so much the same. i am envious of people who study abroad and find a new self in their new place; i won´t pretend to feel that drastically changed by my own experience, although i have loved it here.

i had wished to feel somehow at least more mature, more independent, more a future, free-me by the time i left here, but i think i clearly just do not do well with the whole forward motion thing (i am allowing myself the small displacement of blame in this case that my time in barcelona did not exactly start off under the kind of circumstances that inspire moving away from the comfort of family or friendfamily). but i´m not sure i mind. i have learned about myself and as a mini-self test this studying abroad as taught me that yes, peace corps would be difficult and painful and yes, it will always be hard for me to "let go," but also that yes, i am always still me and as long as there is work for me to do and things for me to learn i will never be bored enough to be too lonely.

i am sad to leave barcelona, especially just as the city is starting to wake up from the winter. most of all, i will miss the language so much. i have loved speaking it every day and learning new words and listening to myself hold fluent (albeit short) conversations in this language i have been missing since i stopped speaking it so many years ago. i have loved the chance to watch NCIS in spanish, listen to the news in spanish, gossip in spanish, give directions in spanish, learn in spanish. loved loved loved.

i am also sad to leave churros y xocolata, pa amb tomaquet, paella wine siesta sundays, menta infusiones, metro people watching, walking everywhere all the time, doble mejilla besos, guapa guapa, sun shining off gaudi roofs, street musicians, traveling every weekend, bakeries, flower shops, spending days wandering and without hardly saying a word to anyone, the little man at the gym who calls me guapisima. but i am so glad to go home and i am so looking forward to san diego summer loveliness!!

finde

i have one weekend left in barcelona. this means:
1. demasie cafe for some adios xocolata
2. ciutadella parc
3. tibidabo
4. beach rollerblading
5. beach disco
6. get a grip
7. pack up life
8. thesis application
9. tutoring re-application

londres

granada, favorite

semana santa (preview)

best of bcn post

some of my favorite favorite places to go (read: eat) in barcelona.

1. la boqueria. fresh fruit, fresh fruit juice, fresh everything, delicious.

2. demasié cafe. best xocolata i´ve had in spain, by far. also, adorable and also delicious. (photos via http://www.demasie.es/)

3. bar lobo. this super chic bar has the most amazing salads, whole wheat honey walnut bread, home-made pizzas and home-made coffee ice cream. loved.

there is the kind of distance that breathes and there is the kind of distance that suffocates. most of the time i am constantly vibrating between the two; halfcaught halfbreathed breathing out and in. this week of sunshine on our skin and flamenco guitar in our ears i think i will be breathing breathing.

barça barça baaaaarça

tomorrow semana santa starts and my family comes. i am so looking forward to warmer andalucian sunshine, flamenco, bull fighting, l'alhambra, moroccan shops, beach lounging. love and besos.

the first day of spring

from "stuff white people like: #72"

"By attending school in another country, white people are technically living in another country. This is important as it gives them the opportunity to insert that fact into any sentence they please.“When I used to live in [insert country], I would always ride the train to school. The people I’d see were inspiring.”

If you need to make up your own study abroad experience, they all pretty much work the same way. You arrived in Australia not knowing anybody, you went out to the bar the first night and made a lot of friends, you had a short relationship with someone from a foreign country, you didn’t learn anything, and you acquired a taste for something (local food, beer, fruit). This latter point is important because you will need to be able to tell everyone how it is unavailable in your current country.

It is also important that you understand the study abroad ranking system. Europe/Australia form the base level, then Asia, then South America, and finally the trump card of studying abroad in Tibet. Then there is the conversation killer of studying abroad in Africa. If you studied in Africa, it is usually a good idea to keep it quiet, it will remind white people that they were too scared to go and they will feel bad. Use this only in emergencies."

las fallas

i left my memory card at home last weekend, so these are some pictures i took on lovely justine's camera. valencia during the fallas fiestas equalled basically paella, folk dancing, churros, horchata, fireworks so close the ground shook, aquariums and dolphin shows.

nieve etc...

today it is snowing in barcelona (for the first time in 10 years, i heard). big wet sloppy snowflakes in my hair and in my cafe con leche and on the ground and in my shoes. i am such a california baby, but i just want it to be warm and sunny and mediterranean. wahh

rivulets

my hip flexors are sore, my abs are weak, but i am so grateful to finally have a class to go to every day for the next two months!! hello again, body (hello again, downward dog); it feels nice to start coming out of hibernation.

pilates: w th f s

finally finally!

so i am having this rebellion against words, against too many words, against empty words and that kind of enthusiasm for unreal things that because i have been too prone to makes me feel kind of sick to my stomach now. i am distrusting all words except a few ("claro," "news," "maravillosa," "true"), wanting to refuse their ineffectuality, their pomp, their fluff. i don´t know how i am going to write my honors literature thesis if i am still having this problem, but i think i better figure it out before april. oh also, i only have six weeks left in barcelona. ooph.

semana santa and family

my dad just told me we are staying in the alfonso XIII when we visit sevilla. how gorgeous! (how extravagant, ooph) but also how exciting, to keep seeing such beautiful things and to spend a whole week seeing them with my familylove!

sunshine lovely barceloona