Culture Vultures

Today's quote: Take no notice of the firecrackers, you are the bomb. I was charged with taking the kids to buy fireworks for the fiesta of San Juan in the summer. This involved an awkward standoff because I didn't realise you needed ID to buy fireworks which became more awkward when I worked out that to buy the small firecrackers we wanted you needed to be 16. It will come in handy looking youthful one day!

After Saturday's excursion to Sitges, it was time for a day out in Barcelona. I hopped on the bus and was happily working away at my Duolingo (really handy language learning app on my phone) when the bus inexplicably emptied leaving only me and another headphone user seated and confused. As soon as I looked out the window the reason for the diversion became evident. Streams of people with Spanish flags and cars with horns blaring filled the streets leading up to the main square-Placa Catalunya. The 'Fiesta nacional de Espana' is a national holiday and used to be called 'El dia de la hispanidad' to celebrate the anniversary of Columbus' landing in the New World on October 12, 1492. The change in name draws the focus away from Spain's historic colonialism and links with Latin America.

In Barcelona those who want Cataluyna to remain in Spain seemed to be using the holiday as an opportunity to promote ideas of unity. 

'Everyone's Spain'

Next on the agenda was a wander over to a lunch stop via the Cathedral and a breakdancing show who were taking advantage of the spectacular setting.

I think I may have overdone it with patatas bravas recently and decided Asian food sounded very appealing so we found the Vietnamese 'Bun Bo' round the corner from the cathedral. Initially there was a tense wait while our name was drawn up on the chalk board and our place in line, and even the wisdom of the chalk board system, was disputed with various customers. We were threatened by a serious looking waitress with a half hour wait before being being led to a table after all of about five minutes. 

Delicious chicken noodle salad

Bun Bo

A selection of Barcelona's museums and art galleries are free on Sundays and the best way to be a culture vulture is to take advantage of anything free! The Museum of History of the City in the centre gives an insight into the Barcelona of the Romans. You can walk around a whole section of the remains of the Roman city streets with a laundry area, wine making, fish-smoking, shops, houses and city walls. We were slightly dubious as to quite how they had deduced all this information from at times fairly sketchy details (different shaped pile of stones) but the historians are clearly the experts here.

I think it's interesting how concepts like spoons and rings have changed so little over thousands of years because the ideas are so simple and effective. These remains have been so well preserved because it has been underground for quite some time now. I'm pretty disconcerted walking above this area knowing that buildings were built on top of these ancient remains. It doesn't feel safe!

After culture vulturing everyone deserves ice-cream

My other culture vulture attempt recently has been to make my way through 'Love Story' by Erich Segal in Spanish which the host mum has kindly lent me. She loves the film although I haven't seen it. My lack of film knowledge constantly surprises the family who have definitely seen more English language films than I have. She assured me it would be a very easy read and was then apologetic when I showed her all my vocabularly from the first few chapters! I was finding I was getting the gist by reading through a chapter first then collecting lots of useful words with a dictionary the second time around.

Vocab learning attempts

I also have a new running coach! Her motivation techniques include shuffling hopefully over to me when I'm having breakfast and generally being so overexcited I think it will become difficult to skip a morning's run. We're establishing a good routine of a warm-up walk down to the beach with frequent stops to make friends and we leave no stone unsniffed. Then the serious work starts on the beach path. Apart from a few sit down protests when we have to leave the beach and start making our way back she's really well behaved. One friend-making technique seems to involve a fun game of picking the smallest dog on the beach to sit on but I always chat to the owners and they seem relaxed! On Tuesday we had a suspicious foot injury which I'm pretty sure she was faking because she miraculously recovered when another dog came past and she wanted to play. But I can't say I blame her, I rarely want to leave the beach either!

We also have a new game: Digging to Australia. 
It's a work in progress

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Sun, Sea and Sight-Seeing

When the downpours that leave you soaked pass by, the sun always comes out. After the storms last week we've had some great weather for exploring. Nana the dog is now allowed on the beach after summer and we've been making friends with every dog owner in town and making ourselves slightly unpopular when I don't spot a sunbather in time and she rushes up to say hello, covering them in sand in the process. 

Normal service resumed on beach runs

The week kicked off with a birthday at my friend's 'intercambio' night in her local bar. Intercambios in various formats are really popular here and aim to get groups of people together who have an interest in learning languages. Some are very strict with speed-dating style timers to signal the change of language and some aim to unite people with similar hobbies. This one was really relaxed and fun, we were fairly popular as the only native English speakers! Its really encouraging to be able to speak Spanish in a laidback environment where you aren't desperately trying to get a point across and miscommunication could result in dire consequences. I've been slightly disconcerted re-learning my illness vocabulary by being asked by the mum if I'm 'constipada' like her daughter. I initially thought this was the European tendency to want to share more information than us reserved Brits before remembering 'constipada' means to have a cold.

It's not a birthday without cake!

I'm still unsure as to what to blame for my difficulties investigating sailing opportunities here despite there being a selection of marinas down this stretch of the coast. Opening times are the first barrier (not very generous) and I eventually made it to the marina in my town and awkwardly hovered in the office for a good 20 minutes whilst the receptionist took a call and ignored me. I've then had a look round a couple of others but they seemed pretty quiet. My most recent investigation however might bring some results. I was passed from office to office before being pointed in the direction of a promising looking sailing school. I then had a confusing conversation in which I came close to volunteering that I had my own boat and was a top professional before we finally managed to come to the understanding that I would like to be crew in a more novice capacity on other peoples' boats. I'll wait to hear!

Blondes sunbathing on the beach

No language barrier with this one

It isn't always a purely language barrier conspiring against me, I've started to aim to restart my driving career! The host mum has kindly put me on the insurance for their (thankfully old and already a little bashed) 4x4 and bravely volunteered to help me practice. Our first attempt resulted in an entertaining cruise around a nearby industrial estate-with the windows down but no music blaring out. I wasn't given any warning of our first expedition so didn't have time to look up some vehicle-based vocab but usually the context helped me figure our whether we were talking about the clutch, brakes or accelerator. We re-mastered gears up to third and had some interesting parking attempts with the mum trying to act out the manouevere herself to get it straight in her mind which instructions to give me. I sucessfully parked in a few spots with both of us slightly unclear as to whether we had orginally aimed for the particular space we ended up in. 

Beautiful beaches in Sitges

Spiders festooning the streets

On Saturday we were up bright and early for an aupair expedition to Sitges, a picturesque town to the south of Barcelona. The original aim of the group had been to try and check out some of the fantasy and horror film festival taking place over the week, if they managed to find a film screening it would be my cue to head to the beach as horror films tend to send me into a state of panic. We found surprisingly little evidence of the film festival apart from halloween style street decorations which looked really strange in sunny Spain rather than a more autumnal setting we're used to.

A decorated balcony

So when the film festival proved to be fairly elusive-it may have been more of a night time thing-we set off exploring. Sitges was really beautiful and we had a wander around the narrow streets and beaches, fitting in lunch, ice cream and dinner along the way. We were in top tourist mode, making the most of all photo opportunities. Working as an aupair is Spain puts you in an unusual position as you spend your weekdays living like a local with the family and then take advantage of any evenings or weekends to explore. 

My new favourite Spanish verb is: aprovechar=to make the most of or take advantage. Once you're aware of it you hear it all the time! I really like this attitude and feel vindicated in my decision to go to the beach when it's sunny in the morning when the grandma assures me that I was justified and that I must 'aprovechar'.

AuPairs on tour

Flying the flag

Buena Vista Social Club

I think Buena Vista Social Club nicely sums up a great week of good views and lots of socialising.

Todays quote: If you have a dream, being a chicken serves no purpose. Unless the dream is to lay eggs. Fairly apt for all the foreigners I've met here who have decided to take the plunge and move to Spain.

On our way up!

I started last weekend with an expedition to 'the bunkers' which are old air raid bunkers on a hill, a relic from the civil war in the 1930s. The intrepid hike started from the metro station where we luckily managed to spot some stone blocks on the distance and headed uphill in their direction. It was suprisingly steep and hot climb but we were well rewarded with the views and a picnic (in which chocolate covered oreos played a starring role) at the top. We made it within spitting distance of the top only to find the actual bunkers blocked off, however enough people seemed to have made it through and not all of them looked capable of the death-defying climbing required to scale the fences at this point. So we explored further and found a man in a hi-vis jacket confidently pointing people in the direction of a hole in the fence. He then announced to us that we should be out of the fenced-off area by 5pm because security would be here. So a man seems to have slightly surrealy self appointed himself as unoffical pre-security to let people into the bunkers rather than keep them out. A good samaritan! 

Making our way through the barriers with the help of Mr Good Samaritan

I then had a busy week tracking down the Arsenal match in an irish bar, meeting new people and the weekly local aupair 'cerveza and bravas' meet up. I also tried out a yoga class and only realised too late when the order for eyes closed and 'ohmmmms' had been given that it would be solely in Catalan. I think I managed to follow most of it but it meant most of the spiel about relaxing and emptying the mind was lost on me as I tried my hardest to concentrate and follow the gist. It was a rather tense experience as I tried to copy the surprisingly bendy pensioners. 

Bargains in the local market

Barcelona by day

And by night

I've decided it doesn't really tend to rain in Spain all that much but rather thunder and lightning creating subsequent monsoon conditions which turns the streets into rivers. I took myself on a little walk to the sea and ended up running all the way back, pouring water out of my trainers and peeling off soaked clothes that proved my pac-a-mac wasn't up to the job! The sea looked very dramatic and picturesque, some hardy surfers were making the most of the waves.

This weekend started with another mountain expedition to Tibidabo for the boy's birthday which is a small, old fashioned theme park aimed at kids. I'm not a big fan of super scary rides so this was perfect for me! We arrived in the afternoon so it was really atmospheric watching night fall over the city from the mountain as all the fairground lights came on. It's quite a drive up winding mountain roads to the top and the setting is amazing looking down over the whole city out to sea.  

Looking down on the hill with the bunkers of last weekend

Serious concentration here

The church with Rio de Janiero lookalike
' Christ the Redeemer'

Obligatory radioactive fairground treats

 



























I really enjoyed the day out to Tibidabo and the day was nicely finished off with a night out in a beach town along the coast. 

And Nana says 'Hi', she's showing off her yoga tricks: