Huevos rotos

I had the most pleasant lunch today - patatas bravas, olives, scrambled eggs with potatoes (enough starch?), the best coffee I've tasted in awhile, and cinnamon ice cream with a dessert that I can only describe as french toast x 100, in terms of how delicious it was. I left the restaurant with the feeling that I get when I have Med brunch on a Sunday afternoon. Despite any work that I may have, that hour of respite makes me love the fact that I exist, and that even when I'm stressed or in the academic hole, I can still go out to breakfast with my Dad, or a friend, or whoever it may be. 

But now I'm searching for an apartment and attempting to navigate the harrowing process of choosing classes for next semester.

I'd like a big chocolate bar right about now.

Too many troubles

Perhaps that title (my favorite Beta Band song) isn't so apt for today, but I've come home feeling like I have an anvil sitting in the pit of my stomach (maybe it's the two cups of coffee and lack of lunch), and I'm torn between the separate urges to cry, to head to Plaça Catalunya to buy a sweater (retail therapy? always a good choice) and (perhaps the best option) to take a deep breath and repeat the sentence that has led me to accept whatever disappointments, large and small, I've encountered here: "la situació és així i prou." 

My interview with la Caixa de Catalunya was somewhat tainted with drama from the start. I went to the wrong address, entering an apartment building and asking the unassuming painters if they'd ever seen a woman named Olga. In the end, though, I arrived only a couple of minutes late and won at least the tolerance of the other girls by assuring that yes, I could indeed follow a session led in Catalan. For a few weeks now, I've wanted to do a program here called Viure i Conviure in which Caixa Catalunya places a student in the home of a 65+ adult. In return for a free room, you keep the person company, help with chores and agree to be home during the week. In considering my motivations for participating, I could only think back to my time with Celina and Teresa in Buenos Aires and how living with them was what truly defined my experience there. Since I'm leaving at the beginning of June, though, I probably won't be accepted, as participants are expected to stay until at least the end of June. I know that it isn't the end of the world, but during my interview, the program began to appeal to me more and more, and I started to imagine myself making dinner with an aged Barcelonan, talking about the city that she knew when she was younger and how different things are today. Living in a residence with wealthy Americans can't begin to compare to the experience of living and sharing a space with a person of a completely different culture and generation. I plan to write a very gushy email in Catalan to the woman who interviewed me and will just hope for a positive outcome. 

Today was memorable for various reasons, I suppose. As I was attempting to determine the location of the interview, a tourist from Israel came up to me and asked me if it would be worth seeing la Sagrada Família. After I offered to give him the names of some places here that I like, we ended up having a coffee and chatting for half an hour, and the whole time, I had to marvel at the propensity that humans have to connect even with complete strangers. If I hadn't had a map in my hand (something that I try to avoid), he never would have made the assumption that I, too, was a tourist and decided to approach me. There's something very nice about the thought that some sort of serendipity exists, even though the concept is probably just a product of our need to think that there's some kind of reason behind everyday coincidences. Who knows? Maybe we'll even have Thai food together tonight. 

In any case, after skipping lunch and then essentially bidding farewell to the housing program of my dreams (though I won't stop crossing my fingers), I think that it's time to make myself a bikini (ham + cheese + toast = GREAT). 

Procés de Bolonya

I've been debating starting a blog since I arrived in Spain (more appropriately, Catalunya), and evidently I've caved. I was good about keeping a travel diary in Buenos Aires, and it used to feel good to put the pencil to paper and talk about things that, in large part, probably wouldn't interest the public anyway. Today, however, sitting in my Organitzacions Internacionals class, I decided that there are some experiences that I never want to forget. When the students came into our class at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona to talk about occupying the Political Science department (again), I couldn't help but think of the University of Chicago, and how if a large group of students walked into any building on campus with sleeping bags, posters, megaphones, and other staples of a grassroots rebellion, they would be shut down immediately. And yet today, scrambling to move from UNESCO to regionalism, our professor started lecturing at a mile a minute, just in case the occupiers kicked us out of her classroom. I'm still in favor of the Bologna process. 

I guess that a lot of my gripes with Barcelona are starting to lose steam, and I'm beginning to feel a lot more settled. In the 3 months that I've been here, though, I feel like I understand Catalan culture less and less. The experience of living here is akin to mastering a tongue-twister: it takes a lot of practice to get the hang of it, and most of the time you end up sounding kind of stupid. Still, riding the Ferrocarrils home from class, the Beta Band streaming out of my earbuds, it felt pretty good to be here. 

I picked up this free newspaper at the Autònoma, recognizing it because a guy I met here told me that he wrote for it. (He stopped answering my emails, and I in turn drifted further toward female chauvinism.) I read something in it that I thought was eerily fitting:

"Whether it's a rich, uptight businessperson on the prowl, or your newfound kinship with a tubercular street rat, we're all rubbing elbows. A friendship between a Joe and a Ratso might not be that likely anywhere, but in a city, our forced interactions make it more so. In learning how to share space, we are given a crash course in who we are, how to tolerate differences, and the infinite possibilities offered by the world." 

And that's Barcelona in a nutshell.