Concerts, eclipses, and little kids

Saturday, March 3

(I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but usually how this blog works is that I write at home, and then it usually takes a day or two for me to get internet and post what I’ve written.)

Halfway though the program and I’m already facing a few “lasts.” For example, I think this will be my last relatively chill and calm Saturday afternoon for the rest of my time in Spain. Between family visits, lots more traveling, a group excursion with my program, and finals, this is my last Saturday to be completely worthless and relax. So that’s precisely what I did, by sleeping in until 1:00 pm. If I did this in Boulder I would be completely mortified that I wasted a day, but here I don’t really care. I’m studying abroad and my study skills have deteriorated into nothing, and I don’t feel like I have to justify sleeping in late to myself. Today would have been a perfect day for the beach, but apparently there was a political demonstration going on at the beach and Americans are strongly urged to stay away from emotionally-charged political activists, because chances are they hate Americans. Instead, I walked around my neighborhood, and then went to the smoothie shop for free internet (all the employees know my name and know I’ll order the cheapest thing and then stay till my computer battery runs out).

Before my neighborhood excursion, I had a movie playing on my computer while cleaning up a bit, when this really adorable 3-year-old dressed like a little man (with a sweater vest and Dockers) walked into my room. I’ve met my senora’s grandkids before, but in a different setting, and he didn’t recognize me. He looked at me for a second, obviously stunned to see a strange lady in a tank top and shorts in his grandma’s house. Then, with no shyness, started rambling in Spanish about how he needed his toy cement truck and he knew it was in my room somewhere, and where was I hiding it. So I’m standing here confused, and this little kid is tearing apart my room looking for his toys. He finally finds the truck he wanted under my bed (NO idea how it got there, apparently there’s kids in my room when I’m not here, good to know) and then said “and I’m Nicholas” (obviously in Spanish) and walked out. It was so bizarre, he’s one of those really stubborn little kids with a lot of guts and a huge personality and I got a kick out of him. So I played trucks with him for a little while, but he was really bossy and got upset when I couldn’t understand him. I think in his mind “No hablo espanol, Nicholas. No entiendo eso. (I don’t understand that)” translated to “I don’t want to do what you say, Nicholas.” So he was annoyed by me in the end, and that’s when I decided to take a walk. But he was adorable and I hope the grandkids come around more often.

What else… last night was great. My friend Maggie’s parents are in town from Chicago, and they invited me to join them last night. We started with drinks and tapas at the craziest place in the world (if I was overwhelmed I can’t imagine how they felt) and then at midnight we moved on to dinner at a place that I’m going to force my parents to go to. By the end of dinner it was after 2:00 am and I had had a fair amount of drinks after four hours with them, so I got a cab and went home, got home at 3:00, which is pretty early by Barcelona standards (and then slept till 1:00 pm).

So I think I mentioned earlier in my time here that people in Spain have a different concept of time and efficiency. Example: If my advisor says to come see him in his office tomorrow, I have to ask exactly what time because he’s probably only in his office for about three hours scattered throughout the day. And then if he says 3:00, I should come at 2:00 just in case, and he’ll probably be there sometime between 2:00 and 5:00, or never show up. And if you have plans to meet up with a Spanish person for tapas or something, if you’re meeting at 10:00 then it’s better to show up at 10:30 and you’ll still wait for at least 10 or 15 minutes. (I just realized that this all sounds pretty sarcastic, and although it is a little bit, it’s pretty accurate also.) So being a pretty prompt person, this has been something I’ve struggled to get used to. I thought it was just a Spanish thing, but I was reading my friend Corny’s blog and apparently timeliness doesn’t translate well in Peru either. I’m copy/pasting a paragraph from his post because I think it’s hilarious, and it’s funny that something like that could be a commonality for our completely different experiences in Peru and Spain.

“So I watched the Peruvian news that plays on one of our 3 television stations before lunch. Today is the start of the national governments campaign to respect punctuality. At noon sharp, there was a celebration urging every Peruvian to set their watches to the same time and to try to be on time to everything from now on. Here’s to high hopes.”

I copy/paste people’s blogs into Word when I have internet, and then it makes for great English reading material when I’m at home.

Ok, I’m ending my boring Saturday blog. Turns out I’m going to a concert tonight (just found out… we had planned to but after spending five hours trying to track down tickets and failing, we had given up) so I now have to go tell me host mom I’ll eat a late dinner.

Oh I forgot. I saw two robberies on the street yesterday and no one did anything or really reacted. Men in business suits come up behind women on the phone, take the phone and run. It’s really freaky and I’m never using my phone on the street again.

More later on,
Laura



*later on*
Sunday, March 4

Another relaxing day in Tibidabo (my neighborhood) and this time I’ll actually do homework. I only slept in until 11:45 today (I am the epitome of lazy!) so that gives me a bit more time to get stuff done. Well, that’s the idea at least; we’ll see how much I do.

A friend of mine got some tickets to the Lily Allen concert last night, for 10:00 pm. We met a little before the concert started and had some cocktails, and then went to the venue called Espacio Moviestar. The venue was bizarre, but so is almost everything in Spain, so I’m no longer fazed. Lily Allen was great. I think the thing I like most about her is that she reminds me of one of my best friends Paula, because she’s sassy and has an attitude, and of course also has an incredible voice. She’s British and 21 and is already pretty making a name for herself. After the concert we ran into our friend Mike and some of his friends, and walked outside and there was a CRAZY eclipse going on. I don’t know enough about astronomy to know if the people in the U.S. saw the same thing that we saw, but if you did, wasn’t it cool?? Actually, if it’s night time in the states right now, (it’s 4 am there, early Sunday morning) would you be seeing the eclipse now? Or if it happened when it was light in the states (when it was midnight here, Saturday night) does that mean you don’t get to see it? Hmmm… now I’ve confused myself and I obviously don’t know what I’m talking about.

So after the concert was tapas and sangria, of course. We’re in Spain, and that’s all we do. I got home around 2:00 am and passed out exhausted. I feel better now, I think I finally caught up on some much-needed sleep. On to “homework” also known as wasting time. Midterms are coming up this week, but then the excitement in my life should pick up again, and thus the excitement in my blogs should pick up. Keep your fingers crossed!

Amor para todos,
Laura