Spanish time – the past (pasado?), present (presente) and future (futuro)

The title probably has little to do with the CONTENT of this blog (well I guess given it isn’t actually written yet… so who can say!). It is a mind play on several levels for myself:

1. I am starting to learn to use (clumsily and amusingly) the different tenses in Espanol – I can now have had a past and have a future
2. … but in reality when you’re in tourist mode it’s the most present you are ever likely to be. The past is somewhat muted and distant and everything else manana, manana (pronounced manyana - means tomorrow)
3. Yet just now I made the alarming realisation that my time in Barcelona is 2/3 over, eeks!
4. Also, in my mind, I am documenting and recounting so, sooo much... but it evaporates before it hits the blog – the tension of time, experience and documenting is ultimately insurmountable – already heady magic moments seem ordinary and cliché while new daily triumphs supercede…

But for now let me take you back into my recent past -

I’ll start with my first outing with Ana – the German girl who moved in when I did… that is if I can find my random iPhone scribbles.
We took a train into Catalunya and just started walking, randomly taking turns down side streets. She was taking pictures of graffiti while I took pictures of people and their dogs and concrete paving.
We eventually chose to sit at one of two outside tables at a small café in a windy (as in curvey not blowy) paved side street. We talked and then fell into comfortable silence while she sketched, drinking her café, and I wrote, drinking my te con leche. –We did this just for a wee while until we started gabbing on again.

ANA-THER EXCURSION
Random wanderings in old streets given ambience by smokers, passionate embraces and a family bickering. We look everywhere, unselfconsciously staring – touristing other people’s lives. On our aimless, gobsmacked mission, we eventually stop.



Sitting at a café we awkwardly attempt to place our meagre order – un café y un te con leche – our accents assault my ears but gift us a smile from the camerero. We sit, we talk, we laugh - we stop. We drink in everything even before our order has arrived.

The sound of the pavements being hosed and the cadence of foreign languages in flight, pour down the sides of balconies an accompaniment to the ivy. I watched a man meticulously hose down the pavement from one end of the small street to the other. It took us at least 20 minutes. I sat in concentrated shock and awe – a drought still too close for me to be comfortable with what I was witnessing.

Wrought iron balustrades failed to imprison distant jazz escaping an unknown balcony … it clashed in triumphant discord with the rumble of mopeds passing and an imagined child practicing piano. Violent colours of haphazardly hung washing became part of the romantic fresco palleted before me.

Where was I? I may never really know.

Es extrano lo que se observa en una ciudad extranjera…. Or… it’s bizarre what you notice in a foreign city!

STEPPING OUT ONTO NEW TERRAIN







One of the first things I observado when I first arrived was the footpaths. It was the detail in them not the condition of them! They’re as neglected as they are at home but in many places they are patterned. It also came to become a visual representation of me stepping out into a new world… As you can see I have been many places… in fact if you saw my blog on La Rambla you would have seem a pic then too.

MY KINDA TOWN





Mucho, mucho perros! I have to encantada (love) a town that has so many dogs! EVERYWHERE people are walking their mutts – often odd looking bitzas but you can’t walk 50 metres without seeing them. They are allowed in shops! Once I saw one in a panaderia (bakery) and a tapas bar. It makes me happy! This is un poco sample...

EVEN HERE THE OBVIOUS IS PUBLICLY DECLARED

Turns out Singapore ain’t the only place that has instructions for the citizens that state the bleeding obvious – no translation needed.

AN EXPRESSIVE PEOPLE
Before I arrived I had an impression of the Spanish as expressive people… what I didn’t realise is some of it is expressed through body art. They are far more adorned than we are – it is not uncommon for people to have several large pieces on show. The tattoo artists in Catalunya (in and around Barcelona) are famous but don’t do turistes (damn!).
I will put more photos up later but the work on this woman was SPECTACULAR – the best I’ve ever seen by far. Es Charlie Chaplin, Dali y Picasso. WOW!!!



SPEAKING OF WOW
One of the things I am surprised about is that even the meaningless utterances we make, are made with an accent – not sure why I’m surprise.... aaaayyyy?

THE CHALLENGES (and joys) OF BEING ILLITERATE, INNUMERATE AND RENDERED MUTE!

Some of you may know this – others not – but when I was in Melbourne I started learning Spanish. But to say the least I was remedial – the class dunce (and clown, the obvious deflection from not having done homework etc).

I arrived here in Barcelona with a pseudo arrogance borne of being a native-speaker of the colonising language – English. Well fuck me, but hardly anyone but tourists speak English here!

This is a blessing I reckon. I have to stiltedly struggle as my 2 words multiply to 10 to 20 to really really animated mime and much pointing and laughing. Muy comico!

What is unexpected is when I have communicated required purchases I find it mu disconcertante that I then fluster around with my money, sometimes handing it over in fistfuls while condescending shopkeepers count it back to me both slowly and LOUDLY! A universal reaction. When so many nations use the same currency, why have the 5E and 20E notes so similar – and I now see why we got rid of 1 and 2 cent pieces!

On the other hand the spectacular joy of communicating with the newsagent about what "horas su tienda abierta? " (hours is his shop open… though this was written with the help of google translate which I did not have) or how to cook these amazing looking clams … I’ll post a picture in another blog… is quite indescribable.



Indeed my first victory was – eventually – purchasing super glue - if you look closely at the pic you'll see i accidently bought solvent... which I'd have known had I read the ENglish! I was rapt when I eventually successfully purchased superglue! There was also some difficulty communication my need for a fold up shopping bag. Bonus it folds up into a strawberry! While I was there I discovered my name was also the brand name for sanitary pads here. I had wondered why my teacher had a slightly amused smirk at my name! I hope I get see some cheesy ads for them too!

BY THE WAY DID I FORGET TO MENTION….
When I arrived at my first class I discovered I’d been put in level 2 – WTF!!! They all knew some Spanish – I sat there like a stunned mullet!
They’re all MULTI-lingual – everyone speaks English (competently!) and their first language in my class that’s German, French, Swedish and Swiss. Many speak smatterings of other languages… all of them have basic Spanish!!!
If I strain I kinda get whats happening (and that’s improving!) but the lag is a good 5 minutes and – as always – I try to do things differently. SO rather than just repetande the sentence fragments learnt, I want to embellish (clumsily) with description.
Anyways this week Ash arrived – another oz probs at the same level. .. his first words to me? Ohh maaate – this is fucken hard shit aaaayyy!!
My housemates – who have more Spanish than me but are in lower level classes (!!!) giggle at my inability to retain language they know I know. EG today I said thank-you as I arrived home.
The other day I tried to ban myself speaking English (it’s the default language at home) … I lasted til 2pm. I was largely silent (which had its virtues for some I’m sure ) mimed a lot and made people laugh – but it was a good challenge I plan to revisit.
I actually suspect if I learn any Spanish I will speak it with a German/Dutch accent (my current housemates) … But hey, at least I can roll my r’s!

Anyways adios amiga/os!

Hoping to do another blog after my siesta and my deberes (homework)

Early jaunts, haunts and head taunts

OMG ... I've been here a week already... so much to tell ya... here's a tidbit

LA RAMBLA RAMBLE
On my first Sunday night in Barcelona I went out to La Rambla - well you gotta, right?

Why? It's just a really long, very busy mall with muy touristy market stalls, the irritatingly shrill whistle of men selling fake bird call thingies.
As I walk along, my head rings with paranoid thoughts about bag snatching - everything you read E-V-E-R-Y T-H-I-N-G harps on about bag snatching and pickpocketing in Barcelona - esp in tourist zones (eg La Rambla)...



There were many, many street performers of the "statue" variety. The costumes and concepts for this kind of street art are far more elaborate in Barcelona BUT the skill at statueing/miming is far weaker - not sustained.



Eventually I sat on the edge of a garden bed and watched - ahhh much more like it. Observed bickering families, a group of teenage boys posing and greeting each other - they are far more physically affectionate than our "lads", touching and kissing (as well as complicated handshake rituals that seem more universal)... there was a little girl so intent on climbing a statue she just kept wiping the bird shit from her hands onto the side of her pants... until her mum realised what she was doing. Sun-blistered tourists, tottering twenty-something uni students on high heels... bored stall keepers. Then, to interrupt the pleasant art of people watching...
" blah blah blah (in Espanol) when not understood...
you beautiful lady, sexy woman - you talk to me I am Simon (oh crap!). We be friends come do coffee (much resistance and suspicion - rightly I still believe) ...."
The conversation skeetered on - me repelling thinking "oh fuck now I'm the target of one of the tourist con-jobs up there with purse snatching" - eventually when I made it very clear he started trying to keep going but incorporating his girlfriend - we just be friends - he offers to walk me to the Metro (like fuck!) ... then he says he has to go to meet his girlfriend after uni...
Okay - suuure, it's the European hols AND it's a SUNDAY night at 8:30pm. SImon says ca-ca, Lisa says good riddance
On the way out of La Rambla I bought 3 herb plants (mint, sage and basil) partly for cooking but mainly to put some "life into my room" ... for less then 4 Euros!


RANDOM THOUGHT -
When everyone around you is speaking foreign languages its amazing how sure you are that they're, for some reason, talking about you. What is more telling is how negative they are being - back to therapy for me, me thinks ;)