Barcelona y Madrid

Finally, I have moved in with my señora here in Madrid! Her name is Pilar and I like her a lot. Very kind, very sweet lady. A good cook too -- and I have a spacious room with a nice bathroom. So, overall, things are going really great here. Today, we start orientation here in Madrid, so I can get to know the city and how to use the Metro, etc. I will get to meet many more kids from the different presemester seminars, so I'm psyched about that.

That said, though, I miss Mare Nostrum! We all had a really good time. Barcelona is a beautiful city. Much different than I imagined, though. Big and touristy -- reminded me a little bit of New York. The language issue there was interesting because everyone speaks Catalán, Spanish, and English. Thus, when you walk into a store and you are identified as American / not Spanish (not all that difficult to peg me, either), you will probably get spoken to in English, which for me was a little frustrating. But here in Madrid, the only language is Spanish -- English is a distant second.

The language issue fascinated me, though. In America, we see disturbing and xenophobic signs saying things like "This is America, please speak English!" We see bilingualism as a problem -- you're not a true American unless English is your first language or some nonsense like that. Here, that is not the case at all. The other day, I walked into a laundromat in Barcelona on Calle Joaquín Costa, which is an ethnically diverse neighborhood. I was greeted by a Pakistani man in Spanish. When I replied, he asked in perfect English if I wanted my clothes washed. I said yes and as I was loading the washer, I looked around and saw various Arabic signs throughout his store. But the storefront sign itself was in Catalán. This man runs his own business in another country and speaks, by my count, four languages. That, to me, is a hallmark of a hard-working and intelligent person and is something that should be celebrated, not stigmafied. I almost feel a little silly telling people my major is Spanish. I am struggling to grasp this second language, but many Europeans are born knowing two or three and can learn more. Assuming my Spanish ends up near fluent, when I have children someday, I want to raise them bilingually. I want to be a part of the generation that marks the end of the "learn to speak English!" era.

The sights in and near Barcelona were something else. My favorite part of the trip so far was probably the "Teatro-Museo Dalí", in Figueras. Dalí was an impressive mind. (As was Picasso, whose museum we saw in Barcelona.) Both painters impressed me with their earlier works as well as their later works. In their early works, they showed a clear mastery of the established form... wonderful still-lifes and realistic portraits, before diving into surrealism and cubism, respectively. I think that is a common thread across the arts. Beethoven could not have been Beethoven without studying and thoroughly understanding Mozart and Haydn before him. Likewise, Dalí would not have been the respected, revered artist he is without first mastering the art forms that came before him. It is all very interesting.

The architecture of Gaudí in Barcelona was otherworldly, too. We saw the Temple of the Sacred Family (la Sagrada Familia), and an apartment building that he designed. (Also the Parc Güell, which you saw if you saw the movie "Vicky Cristina Barcelona.") Gaudí and Dalí are treated like a national treasure there in Cataluña... and as they should be. They were bona fide geniuses. I will post pictures of this stuff as soon as I can get my pictures off my roommate Alberto's camera!

We also went to a FC Barcelona match in Camp Nou against AC Bilbao. It was SO much fun! The tickets only cost 30€ each for the five of us, and we had to wait a few hours to get in... but it was worth the cost and the wait. Spanish soccer is something else. The chants, the cheers, the tension. I didn't really "get" soccer until the other night, when I saw it live. You can see the plays develop, see the passes in their full arc, and see just how close a play really came to being a goal. Barcelona ran circles around Bilbao, eventually winning 3-0. (We left some 10 minutes early to be sure we caught the last Metro train back... and we did get the LAST train.) And even though I live three blocks from Santiago Bernabeu where Real Madrid plays, and I will leave Spain a Real Madrid fan, I regret no part of buying my replica Xavi jersey and going to that game with my friends. A great experience.

Running out of time -- until later, ¡salud!