7-23 Catching Up

Location: A French-speaking area of Switzerland

Listening to: Cantique de Jean Racine

Wow, am I behind. I'm driving with Capucine, Marcel, and Emily from Rottenburg am Neckar in Germany to Capucine's place in southern France, and they're having a conversation in German so I figured I'd take a minute to write.

On Monday, we had quite the international rail experience. We had to switch to a later train than planned (unless we wanted to pay €300), so it didn't even start off all that well. We made it to the station in plenty of time, which we almost needed when we went through customs. I'd written the landing card while we rode to the train station on the subway, so my writing was a little choppy. I also neglected to fill in the contact address box (which I think said “optional”) because I hadn't checked my email since mom had sent it. The customs officer was less than thrilled.

“Are you traveling with anyone?”

“Yes. My friend's over there (pointed to another line).”

“You should have stayed together.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

“It's a bit of a problem. You're supposed to be together. Remember that next time. Why didn't you write in your contact address?”

“I don't actually know the address. They're picking us up from the Birmingham station.”

“Who?”

“Friends of my family.”

“How do you know them?”

“They hosted my mother when she studied here almost 30 years ago.”

“But you've never met them?”

“Not since I was a baby.”

“Which station?”

“Birmingham.”

“I know that, but which station?”

“Birmingham! Are there multiple stations or something?”

“You don't even know where you're meeting them? Yes, there are multiple stations.”

It turns out there were TWO stations, and we weren't going to either of them because Coventry was closer.

“How do you know her?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your friend. How did you meet?”

“We go to the same university.”

“Which university?”

This interrogation went on a while longer. Once she was convinced I actually did know the person with whom I had walked in, she finally opened my passport.

“So what happened in Barcelona?”

“I studied for six weeks.”

“What did you study?”

By this time I was really starting to get frustrated, so I was incredibly tempted to say “British-American relations” or make up story about a research project investigating the unique arrogance of island nations, but I complied and told the truth as I had done the entire time.

“You know I can deny you entry into this country?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“Is there a problem? If I tried to enter the United States with a card like that, they'd turn 'round and put me straight back on the plane! Take a bit more care next time, mister Tyoos. Next!”

Eventually we'd made it through customs, but a few minutes after we sit down in the waiting area an announcement came over the speakers saying our plane had been delayed an hour because it had collided with someone on its way to our station. This delay, coupled with the later train, set us back about three hours from our perfect little plan, which incorporated a visit to Stonehenge on our way up to see the Murrays. We checked out the times once we arrived in London and realized that would be totally impossible. I won't drag this out any longer, except to give a little warning: just because the British national rail site calls the gap between two trains a “transfer” doesn't actually mean they're in the same station, or that they're on the same rail line, or that your British rail pass will work for either one. Due to problems like these, we ended up going straight to Coventry (on a slow train) and barely arriving in time for supper. Fortunately, our day took a 180 degree turn when we finally met the Murrays.

“Salt of the Earth” is far too light a compliment for these people. They were incredibly generous, witty, and hospitable in general. Bryan picked us up at Coventry station and explained the historical significance of nearly everything we saw on our drive in. They live in Temple Balsall, a tiny little retirement community built on what used to be a sort of commune for widows. Val showed us around after supper, and I took some really cool photos of the graveyard and meeting hall. I took so many pictures of the beams because some of them are from the 11^th century. That building was built as a meeting place for the Knights Templar, and they're sure it was in active use for quite some time. Getting ahead of myself – we were served one of the best suppers I've had in a long time once we arrived at their home. She grew the lettuce and other veggies herself, the beef dish was delicious, and for desert we had a rhubarb pie a la mode. I was in heaven.

We stayed up and talked for awhile, then planned out the next day. We had breakfast and then Val took us to Coventry Cathedral. I'd been there in '04, but I really only remembered the huge etched window. I'd forgotten about the ruins, the stained glass, the unity chapel, the other small chapels, and the cross of nails. The community of the cross of nails is a worldwide organization of churches committed to peace and reconciliation in a post-WWII world. The Luftwaffe nearly flattened Coventry during the war, including the cathedral. It was rebuilt in what was then an incredibly modern and edgy style, though it certainly retains or changes many traditional elements of church architecture. Actually, the building it most closely resembles in my mind is our own Chapel of the Resurrection at Valpo. They're about the same size (at least the “shoebox” part) and they both have the large windows visible only from the front. They opened at around the same time, and Valpo is now a member of the Cross of Nails community, so I'm sure there had to be a few links between them. It was really interesting to Emily and me.

After Coventry, we went to London. We walked around for awhile, then caught another one of the “free” walking tours from New Europe. I'm sorry to say it, but I finally had a bad tour guide. She was a very smart but very awkward New Zealand girl, and while she was obviously trying very hard it wasn't the greatest tour I've ever had. There were plenty of long, uncomfortable moments, including song and dance with a group of complete strangers. That said, London is a really cool city. The tour started with the three palaces and ended near Westminster Abbey, so we saw quite a bit.

After the tour, we headed for the Saatchi Gallery. I remembered where it was from 2004 and I was really excited to see it (missed it last time). I looked and looked, asking 4 different people where it was. Finally the fourth one told me it had moved to another part of the city, thereby taking a shotgun to our plans for the day. Being musicians, we improvised a second walking tour down the Thames. We saw the modern art museum, the Globe Theater, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. Unfortunately the tower was closed by the time we got there, so we decided fish and chips overlooking the moat was the next best thing. We thought about looking for a show, but realized it would put us far too late in getting back to the Murrays. I showed Emily a few things on Picadilly circus and we hopped back on the train to Temple Balsall.

There's a lot more to England, and since then I've been to Germany (again), France (again), and come back to Barcelona, but right now I have to run! I'm really sorry about the lack of posts recently – this is the first time I've found a wifi signal with my computer since Paris. I'll get it all updated ASAP. Till then!

7-19 Do You Feel Underwater

Location: The Chunnel (we think)

Listening to: A very upset baby behind me

I'm trying to remember what a sleep “cycle” really feels like – it's been awhile. Emily and I are on our train to England, and in hindsight it was probably pretty naïve to think of the chunnel as a massive aquarium with glass walls and jellyfish. Actually, it's tough to tell which tunnel you're in since you go through a few, hence the title of this post.

Paris was great. As with literally every other city I've seen (except Barcelona or the beach towns), I feel like I spent about 1/10^th of the time I wanted to just to see the touristy things. Paris is the tourism capital of the world, so you don't feel especially out of place when your only French is non-verbal. I'd been warned that speaking English and not French would be a problem here, but I didn't find that to be the case. The people were generally very nice and happy to help out the ignorant Americans.

As usual, I was ridiculously optimistic in planning the itinerary for yesterday. Two hours each in the Louvre and Versailles after a two hour walking seemed perfectly doable. Traveling one hour to see Versailles after what turned out to be a 3.5 hour tour plus a coffee break ended up seeming like too much. Here's what we actually did:

• 10ish – Went to see Notre Dame. Emily and I are both pretty “churchy” people, but somehow it didn't occur to either one of us that it was Sunday. It was pretty weird touring this national monument during a mass. I walked right by the altar during the Eucharist. I admire those who are able to worship in that environment – it was too much of a circus for me. That said, the cathedral was incredible. I was much more impressed and moved than when I saw it (and sang there) in 2004.
• 11 - “Free” Walking Tour. I've done these now in Hamburg, Berlin, and Paris, and been extremely impressed every time. The company is called Sandeman's New Europe, and they do (among other things) tips-only walking tours in some of the biggest cities in Europe (I know they're also in Amsterdam, London, Munich, and a few others). The tours have been really good every time, and the tour guides are always young, smart, energetic hosts. They also do paid tours (keep reading) and Pub Crawls. I did the one in Berlin – I think I wrote about it at some point. All I will say is that of the 5 I've now experienced (4 in Barcelona), the New Europe crawl was head and shoulders above the rest. They didn't pay me to write any of that, but if Mr. Sandeman sees it and wants a tour guide for Barcelona I hope he drops me a line.
• 3ish – Arc d'Triumph. Our walking tour essentially went from Notre Dame down the Seine to the Louvre, then turned up the axis of Paris and stopped a little short of the Arc. I told Emily she had to see it, so we walked up there. It was really cool to see again, but we didn't do the museum because we thought we could get in free to the Louvre. Not the case. We walked around the pyramid in the Louvre courtyard several times before figuring out it was an entrance, and then decided not to pay the €9.50 to see it for the hour before it closed. Instead, we went up to a train station to buy our overpriced tickets across the channel.
• 6 – We took another New Europe tour, this time of Montmarte. If you've been to Paris and haven't seen Montmarte, you haven't really been to Paris. It is an incredible area. The bottom is home to the famous Moulin Rouge and other similarly family-friendly entertainment options ranging from the curious to the proactively perverse. It's the red light district for Paris – nothing like Hamburg, but I'm not sure even Amsterdam could hold a candle to Hamburg. As you work your way up the mountain (more of a hill, really), you go through the “Impressionist” neighborhoods. Picasso, Van Gogh, and company lived, ate, slept, drank, painted, and sold their works here, much like the modern street artists still do today in a world that looks pretty familiar except for the brothels they loved. At the top sits the Church of the Sacred Heart (I can't remember how to spell it in French), a beautiful and very unique cathedral. It's made of a special kind of stone which emits calcite when it gets whet, meaning the face of the church is self-cleaning whenever it rains. It's really interesting to see because it's nearly a bleached white in the areas where the rain usually falls and black with soot in the dry spots, giving it an extra illusion of depth and complexity (especially from a distance). Unfortunately this tour wasn't free, but I'd still recommend it. It was about a 2.5 hour tour and they do give you a glass of wine in a little cafe at the end.
• Rest of the evening – Eiffel Tower, round two. Emily and I went back to the hostel, talked with one of our roommates for awhile, and then went for a little picnic supper at the Eiffel Tower. The lines were huge and we were feeling tired (and very broke), so we just sat at the bottom and watched everyone else go up. More than any building I've seen, it seems to grow in size as you get closer to it. I think the six hours of walking tours took a little bigger toll on us than we anticipated, so after eating our supper we were more than ready to sleep a bit before our train in the morning.

That pretty well brings you up to our train ride. As I said, it seems that every time I visit a city I feel like I've cheated myself by not staying longer, but I'm really excited to meet Bryan and Val Murray. These two hosted my mom when she was here, something like 30 years ago. It should be a fun couple of days.

¡Hasta luego!

7-17 Excuses to Come Back

Location: Aloha Hostel, Paris

Listening to: La Mosca y La Sopa – Un Poco de Amor Frances

Ok, back to the present. So I can talk about the last two days. Whatever. The morning after the David Russell concert (Thursday), I took a bus to Granada. I understand taking a siesta down there – it was over 100 degrees F every day – but I really don't understand why the bus drivers needed one. There was a 3 hour gap between buses and the trains cost four times as much for about the same travel time, so I hung around in Cordoba until about 2 and then hopped on a 2.5 hour bus. By the time I made it to Granada, it was almost time for the third Spanish meal (often times they eat around six and again at about ten), so I just played some guitar with a few people in the hostel and waited for the cheap homemade paella. It was really good, and I met some pretty cool people over supper. Afterwords, we went out for a bit to a Turkish place and had some of the best tea (and hookah) I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. We stayed out fairly late, but I still managed to get up by about 7. That's when I realized just how little time I'd really left myself.

Trying to see Granada in 20 hours was one of the dumbest decisions I've made since coming to Europe, but not reserving a ticket to the Alhambra has to come in at a close second. I called up there to see whether I could walk in and get one at seven, but they said the line was already too long and I wouldn't get in. Even if I had, I would have only been there for about three hours. That sounds like a lot, but everyone I've talked to about it has said they left after five or six hours and wanted to stay longer. Instead, I walked up into the Albaicín, the ancient Moorish neighborhood across from La Alhambra. The views were incredible, including the one from the St. Nicholas Lookout. Check out the “Granada” folder on the Picasa page.

Not much else to report from Granada, except that I made friends with a street musician and bought a CD without realizing my netbook doesn't actually have a CD drive. Woops. I went back to Cordoba, ate a few tapas with my friends from the Guitar Festival, and headed back to Barcelona.

This morning went off without a hitch, in start contrast to Tuesday. I arrived at the hostel at about 4 and took a little nap while I waited for Emily. When she got here, we went out for supper and went to the Eiffel tower. We decided to wait on going up until tomorrow night, when I would remember my camera. I really ought to get to bed pretty soon, because we're going to have a long day tomorrow – Notre Dame, walking tour, Louvre, Versailles, and back to Tower. Emily needs some serious American culturing – there was a guy playing Wonderwall in the park next to the Tower today and she was surprised when I knew the words. We took a few pictures, tried to figure out the meaning of what seemed like war memorials, and walked back to the hostel.

That brings you up to speed, and I didn't even get all sappy about leaving Barcelona. I won't go too deep here, but here are a few things (people, really) I'll miss:

1. 
   
   Roser – My host mom was a fiery, energetic, and extremely Catalan woman. She put sliced baked potatoes in her salads and copious amounts of salt on everything, and always made sure I turned out the lights and remembered my keys.
2. 
   
   Juan – Even though he yelled strange things in Catalan at night and farted louder than any human being I've ever met (trust me, that's saying something coming from my house), he was always entertaining and you could tell he had a good heart under the scowl.
3. 
   
   The German Girls – If you haven't seen them, you haven't looked at any of my albums. I met them my first week in Barcelona and they were great friends until my last night there, and I look forward to seeing them again at the end of the month.
4. 
   
   Gaudi – There's something really cool about using recognized masterpieces of a national celebrity with an interesting history as landmarks when you give directions.
5. 
   
   The Mountains – Coming from Nebraska/Indiana, it was so refreshing to watch the sun set over Tibidabo and the mountains on which it sits every night. I had a great view from my balcony, and I'm sure this had something to do with the four songs I've written in the last five weeks.
6. 
   
   The other students at Kingsbrook – Alexis, Atsushi, the Polish guys, the Austrian girls, Pauline, even the Americans from Alicante that I never saw past my second Friday. It was fun learning the language and culture with all of you, and good luck in whatever you're doing in the near future.

That said, I'm excited for these next two weeks and maybe even more excited to come home. I haven't seen my NE friends since early May and Jess's wedding is going to be the week of a lifetime! I'm really happy for you guys and I can't wait to see you in MN! Ok, need to sleep. ¡Ciao!

7-15 Cordoba, Cordoba, Cordoba....

Location: Cafeteria El Pilar Del Potro

Listening to: The video I'm trying to upload of two of my friends playing some kind of jazzy Brazilian thing (great description, I know).

Sorry about the title - only chorale kids will get that.  I love this city. I've talked a few times about the diversity of Spanish history – who conquered who, where, and when – and no region has a history quite like Andalucia. I'll save talking about this until tomorrow after I've seen La Alhambra, considered by most to be the finest piece of Moorish architecture on earth, but you should definitely take a look at the “Cordoba” folder on the Picasa page to see the Roman ruins I found about 100 yards from my hostel.

I came to Cordoba for the guitar festival, and last night alone was absolutely worth the trip. I saw David Russell, who recently won a Grammy for Best Solo Instrumental Album, from about 10 feet away for €10. He gave a concert that went well over an hour with the intermission, and then we pulled him out for three or four encores. It was unreal – as I said to several people last night, it was somehow both incredibly inspirational and utterly discouraging. I know full well that I will absolutely never have the ability to do what he did, and knowing the kind of effort he must have put into it I'm not sure I'd ever want to. The number of hours that guy's put into his fretboard has to be well over Levitan's magic 10,000 mark*, if not double or triple that amount. He is considered (according to my program) to be one of the greatest technical guitarists in history, and after last night I believe him. I could write for half an hour about the aspects that impressed me, but there are two that really stick out in my mind. If you aren't at least a little bit of a music nerd, you'll probably want to skip the next two paragraphs.

The first was his total effortlessness. It was as if the music were playing itself and his hand just happened to be floating over the fretboard at the time, which is exactly what every classical guitarist I've spoken with has told me it should look like. I can't even comprehend that kind of nearly perfect confidence and mastery. That isn't to say he never messed up – he actually made several noticeable errors, showed just enough disappointment to pacify the audience, and then dropped our jaws with some other insane lick. You could tell he was a perfectionist; he was obviously upset with himself anytime he slightly buzzed a string or let a bit of fret noise creep in, and I seriously doubt he ever made the same mistake twice over the course of that performance.

The second was his voicing. We're always impressed when others don't share our weak points, but he took multiple voicing to a level I've never experienced on any instrument (including piano or organ). It wasn't just the distinction in volume – each voice clearly maintained a distinct tone and color throughout beautiful crescendi and decrescendi within its own line. He would do this with up to three voices, one of them often being a tremolo line, and his right hand would hit each voice on a different part of the string to achieve the tone he wanted over a span of five or six inches. One time he did the best double voicing with a pinched harmonic line I've ever heard. The harmonics were so clear and equally balanced with a substantial bass line – it was mind blowing to someone like me who struggles more than enough with multiple voicing on piano, let alone on guitar.

The thing that may have impressed me most about David was how he comported himself after the concert. He was gracious and smiley, like most performers, but afterwords he came to a bar with all of us and just talked. Some of it was about music, but most of it wasn't. He was so down-to-earth. Pitchers of beer and various tapas kept coming, which is a relatively normal thing in Spain (someone keeps ordering for the group and you split it up at the end), but when we tried to pay David just smiled and shook his head. “Did you buy a CD?” Thank God a few of them had. The camaraderie between us, between students and masters and even a guitarist as terrible as I am, reminded me very much of the Celia Morales concert (keep reading).

Ok, no more music major for the rest of this post (or at least I'll try). Well, no. There's one more thing I have to talk about. Last night I saw David Russel, but the night before I saw Celia Morales. She's a native Spaniard (Andalusian, maybe?) flamenco player and composer, and it was truly a unique concert compared with anything I've ever seen for a couple of reasons. First, I'd never seen a flamenco concert centered around the guitarist. In this performance, there were no singers and no dancers, though there were two palmeros (professional clappers). At first, I found them a little odd and out of place since that was all they did, but they quickly demonstrated that two real percussionists can make incredible music with only their hands. They must have worked with her quite a bit in the past, because I think they only performed on her original compositions (almost half of the concert, actually). The second was that I'd never seen a professional-level artist have a complete breakdown during a song. On one of her own compositions, she clearly lost her place and began doing muted rosqueados to try and stall long enough to find it again. After a few attempts, she swung away the microphone, stopped completely, and almost started crying on stage. The audience, to my surprise, exploded into supportive applause. They – we – were behind her the whole way. It's interesting to see a guitar concert with an audience comprised almost entirely of professional-level guitarists because they want the performance to be perfect as much out of sympathy (real sympathy, meaning what most people would call empathy) as out of their own desire to hear it played well. She took a moment, managed to say “Lo siento. Voy a intentar, voy a intentar” (I'm sorry. I'm going to try, I'm going to try), and launched back into the piece with the tenacity, fire, and confidence that had been noticeably lacking until that point. She had looked nervous, like she afraid of what inevitably happened, and now the duende anyone needs to truly perform flamenco was back with a vengeance. It was one of the most inspirational experiences I could imagine, especially for someone who's forgotten as many words on stage as I have.

Well I've scrambled up the order of my Cordoba experience up pretty well, but I think you get the idea of why I came. I'm actually finishing this post right now in Paris, but I'll explain that in the next post.

TTFN (tah-tah for now)

*From This is Your Brain on Music by Robert Levitan. If you are at all interested in the science behind music and its effects, you have to read it. I'm really excited to use it in class again next semester.

7-13 Murphy and Me

Location: Sants Estacio

Listening to: “New York” over the McDonald's PA

It was a terrible, horrible, rotten, no good, very bad morning. I just wrote the parents an email, I think I'll just copy a few pieces of it here.

--

Good Morning (Awful Afternoon, actually),

When I went to the airport this morning, I brought my guitar. I'd looked at their carriage policies, and I should have been able to carry it on with a €30 oversize fee. They wouldn't let me get on the plane without buying a second seat (plus an extra charge to book the seats next to each other) both going and returning unless I wanted to pay €20 each way and have them throw it in with the checked baggage - the €30 fee only applies on their larger planes, but if that's posted somewhere it's in very fine print. All in all, it would have cost me over €300 in airfare beyond what I'd already paid, plus the train fare to and from Cordoba (not much, maybe €20). I decided not to go and told them to cancel my return flight. They wouldn't. I spoke to the manager, who said that somewhere in the fine print I accepted when I bought the ticket they have a clause saying you can't cancel a return flight after confirming the first one (which I had done by coming to the airport). I got really upset about it and the attendant I'd originally been working with started crying, but there was essentially nothing I could do but pay or leave. I left.

Now I'm in Sants Estacio, the main train and bus hub for Barcelona. I just bought a high-speed train ticket to Cordoba, which will actually be faster than flying after adding in the time I would have spent between Málaga and Cordoba. The tickets were €150 each way, but you get a huge discount if you use the same station round trip for some reason so it was a €211 for both ways. It's really expensive, but I already reserved the hostels and cancelled my classes for this week and it's a solid €100 cheaper than flying would have been.

--

I realized yet again today that things never turn out the way I plan them, and maybe that's the lesson I'm supposed to learn over here. Last night a few friends and I went and had a picnic at this open-air cinema - really cheap, really fun time, great way to spend my last night with them, but going home was a complete disaster because the metro closed right as the movie ended. Again, I planned it, so it was my fault, and the Germans don't have any problem letting you know exactly how they feel about the situation. I was laid back enough to handle it, but I failed to consider their work schedules for this morning – more ignorant than inconsiderate, I think, but still negligent. I know it's something we all do, but I seem to do a lot of it when I plan things on my own. I'm glad Emily only let me co-plan a little bit of the next two weeks, but not to worry. Today I christened my backpack Murphy, so from this point on I can just blame him when something goes wrong.

Hasta la vista.

7-12 They're Crazy. Are They Spaniards?

Location: Kingsbrook

Listening to: Duo Spiritoso (Guitar Recital I found on Naxos)

Yes, it was insane. I'm not going to write too much – this is my last day in Barcelona until the 26^th so I don't want to spend it writing! Just watch the videos. In case you've been hiding under a rock and didn't hear about it, Spain won the World Cup and I was at the big public viewing. You can't tell from the video how far up there I actually was; the distance between me and the big screen up front is less than a quarter of that street, coming up from Plaça España, and the whole thing was full to the point where I almost didn't make it back in after I took a sick friend back to the station. So crazy. I also wish that camera could have taken the temperature down in the train station. If you've ever been here, you know the stations are always about 15 degrees (F) hotter than the streets, but this was more like 30+ – it had to have been above 110 down there. To give you an idea of the heat wave we're having, my alarm clock was reading 89 degrees (f) in my bedroom of my fifth floor apartment at three this morning with the window open and the door propped. I could hardly breathe, let alone sleep.

Una cosa: Hemingway talks in For Whom the Bell Tolls about the Spanish drunkenness. This is Pillar (who happens to be named after a patron saint of Catalonia), talking about the scene I mentioned before where the village is purging the fascists and priest:

“Because the people of this town are as kind as they can be cruel and they have a natural sense of justice and a desire to do what is right. But cruelty had entered into the lines and also drunkenness or the beginning of drunkenness and the lines were not as they were when Don Benito had come out. I do not know how it is in other countries, and no one cares more for the pleasure of drinking than I do, but in Spain drunkenness, when produced by other elements than wine, is a thing of great ugliness and the people do things that they would not have done. Is it not so in your country, Ingles?”

Robert Jordan goes on to conclude that yes, it is the same in the United States. I hadn't really experienced this before last night, and I wasn't experiencing anything like the characters in this book, but I think his description is a chillingly accurate way to describe last night. Rather than augmenting my experience, even in a crazy environment like that, the rampant drunkenness around me was just disgusting. Someone vomited about three meters from where we were standing before the game even started. My shoes probably have enough broken glass in them to make an entire bottle of Estrella, and I'd be surprised if none of the people frolicking in the fountains drowned. It was a mess – a riot where there should have just been a party. After the game, I really felt like I should go out and experience the rest of the night, but I couldn't do it. I was totally burned out from standing, screaming, jumping, and dancing my way through the game. I had a few beers before we got to the plaça, but the thought of drinking more felt like a punch in the stomach from that point on.

Then again, maybe they needed all that alcohol to forget about Saturday, when 1.5 million people turned out on the streets to march for greater autonomy (or total independence) from Spain. As I've said to several people, I'm not sure I would have come to Catalonia (and hence Barcelona) if I had understood their relationship with the rest of the country, but I'm glad I did. This is a people and a story I would have never known, and they have certainly impacted my life in ways I'm sure I won't understand until I've left.

I was going to go to the music museum today, but I'm not going to make it in time (again).  I leave for Cordoba and Granada tomorrow. I should be able to bring the guitar - one of the biggest guitar festivals on earth is happening right now in Cordoba, and I really want to bring it. Anyway I'll be down there all week, then coming back on Friday and flying to Paris on Saturday. I'm so excited for that trip, though for that trip I can't bring the guitar :(

¡Os veo en Cordoba!

7-8 ¿Yo Soy Español?

Location: The apartment sala (living room)

Listening to: A Spanish telenovela (soap opera, more or less) called Gran Reserva

Wow, what a week (so far)! Montserrat was a great way to start it off. For some reason I really can't remember what I did on Monday. I think it was an uneventful day. Tuesday, I went to La Pedrera, Gaudi's last completed work. I think I would have been much impressed if I hadn't already spent so much time at Sagrada Familia – many of the exhibits cover similar material. Seeing the recreated apartment was interesting after reading Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, because the curators use the same term (emerging bourgeoisie) to paint a very different picture. To Orwell, these were the people economically oppressing their comrades. I especially remember his apparent disgust for those among this wealthy class who spoke and dressed like the common men to hide their economic superiority. To those who have made remembering Gaudi their profession, these tyrants were those enabling Catalonia's greatest architect to almost literally reinvent the wheel. Additionally, you have patrons like the Güell family – clearly innovative, entrepreneurial, politically active, wealthy investors and executives with a mind for the common people they employed. The “Güell Colony” was a village they constructed so the workers at one of their factories away from the city would never want for good housing or other necessities and included one of Gaudi's unfinished but very important churches, from which he drew much of his inspiration for La Sagrada Familia. So...are they bourgeoisie? Both sides say so. Are they wealthy? Clearly – one of them constructed Park Güell as a (mostly) private retreat. Are they oppressive or supportive? Were they focused on maintaining to their perennial family power or empowering the people of this historically poor country to call a city of their own one of the cultural and artistic epicenters of Europe, or even of the world? In the word(s) of Rob Bell, “yep.” *

Ok, getting off the philosophical high horse. La Pedrera is a magnificent piece of architecture and the exhibitions were very good. I'm glad I went. The roof (see the pictures) is the highlight of the building, though I was probably most impressed by the practical solutions Gaudi came up with for the building as a functional living space. It's ventilated and illuminated by two “light shafts” near the center of the building. You can walk around in some refurbished reproductions of the apartments as they would have been in the early twentieth century, and while artificial light had just recently become common in the city they hardly needed it here. Every room on the whole floor is very well lit by natural sunlight, with the exception of those meant only for sleeping, and the size of the windows is adjusted from the bottom floors to the top to compensate for their proximity to the open sky. In another interesting innovation, he moved the load of the floors and roof toward the center of the structure rather than the outer walls. This allowed him to turn the outer facades into beautiful works of art, but it also allowed the owners of each flat to knock down or construct walls within their apartments as they pleased. Gaudi designed everything from the tiles in the children's bedrooms to the incredible rooftop to the door handles, and it's impossible to distinguish the functionally necessary from the aesthetically brilliant. I think this fusion was exactly Gaudi's intention, and he was an absolute master.

After La Pedrera, I came back to the apartment to eat and watch the Holland – Uruguay match. It was fun – we went to a bar right outside for the second half and the waitress refused to believe I was an American. Apparently my accent is more German than Mexican at this point.

And then...yesterday. Oh, yesterday. After class I planned out my trip to Paris and the area around London at the end of next week with Emily via Skype. I'm very excited to travel again, and to meet my mom's host parents. Afterward I ran home, changed, and tried to find a spot at Ryan's. There were a lot of German fans and I thought they were going to run away with that game, but I stuck with the two Spaniards and the Irishman and pulled for Spain the whole night. It was a BLAST. Learned a few new words, spoke in Spanish the whole time, and danced around like an idiot when it was all said and done. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but Alexis brought hers. Oh, I haven't introduced her yet. She goes to Kingsbrook (my school) and she's from a Chicago suburb – she and some friends just came to town this week and didn't know where to go for the game, so I recommended good old Ryan's. Anyway, we took a bunch of pictures with the Spaniards and then tried to walk back to La Rambla. We made it, but only after jumping, screaming, and dancing our way through a huge mob. It was so much fun – people throwing what I assume was water on us by the bucket from the balconies, yelling songs I'd learned about 30 minutes beforehand, and making a lot of new (though temporary) friends. After one of the many rounds of “Olé”, when everybody was relatively quiet, I launched into “Yo Soy Español” (roughly “I'm a Spaniard”) at the top of my lungs. A few guys joined me, then whoever had the drum saw us and started playing the beat, and soon it was total euphoria. Moment of my life. I think Alexis may have gotten a few pictures, but I'll have to wait until she gets them up on facebook.

This probably should have been enough for one night, but another friend called me and said she could get me into a fun club near my school for free. I made it back to the apartment a little after four – enough said. Today, I planned my trip to Granada. I was going to head down for a long weekend, but after that game I couldn't bring myself to be anywhere but here for the final on Sunday. I'm going to take a few days off class next week and make them up when Emily, Capucine, Marcel, and I come back to Barcelona. I'm sure they'll do at least a few touristy things I'll have already seen, so it should work out well. I'll also be hitting the guitar festival in Cordoba – so excited!

After planning all of that stuff, I met up with a few friends (an American, a German, and a girl from England) and went to the top of Tibidabo. It's the only time I've really been able to see beyond the mountains that, along with the sea, define Barcelona's city limits. It was gorgeous – miles and miles of nearly unbroken green forest. That said, I was profoundly unmoved by the spectacle that is Tibidabo.

The chapel is beautiful, but it's nearly surrounded by a theme park complete with Ferris Wheel, overpriced concessions, and a roller coaster. The chapel itself is very pretty, especially on the inside. I snapped a few pictures. There was an adjoined, smaller chapel for silent prayer which smelled of incense. I walked in, put away the camera, and quietly walked around the room, admiring it and praying silently. As I walked toward the front, I heard someone snap at me (with their fingers). It was one of the fathers of the chapel, staring straight at me and loudly whispering that this was a place of prayer and that I had to leave.

The German Lutheran at my core almost came out with a vengeance. I was absolutely infuriated. The man had no way of knowing what I was doing, evidenced by the fact that I was participating in exactly what that room was meant to be. I wanted to tell him I was praying, that he was acting like a conceited and arrogant child claiming a sandbox, that it was impossible to maintain an attitude like this and wonder why the Christian faith is all but dead in his country. I wanted to, and I nearly exploded, but I couldn't speak a word of Spanish. Maybe I could have said them in English, but I knew that would just strengthen his false notion that I was some idiot tourist gaping at something I didn't actually care about. I've never had this happen to me, and it made me hurt even more. In the end, I just stared at him open-mouthed. I felt like a little boy slapped in the face for something I knew I hadn't done, and even now I'm finding it difficult to forgive him. I left the chapel, and I still have a very bitter taste in my mouth. He, along with the theme park, solidified for me the unfortunate superficiality of that majestic chapel, seen every day and every night by the people of this city as a symbol of Catholicism, Christianity, and eventually, to some degree, faith itself. It's so sad. So, so sad. My heart goes out to those trying to keep the concept of faithful living alive in this country.

Sorry to end on such a sad note, but that memory is burned into my brain like a scar. Since I'll be traveling next week and weekend, tomorrow's the beginning of what's more or less my last weekend here. It's completely surreal – everybody says “it's gone so fast”, but I don't even feel like it went. It's as if I blinked and suddenly had these memories – like vivid dreams that only pictures, friends, and blog posts can prove actually happened. I will miss this city, despite or maybe because of all the unexpected challenges I encountered. They don't claim to be hospitable here in Catalonia. They pride themselves on their work ethic, ethnic heritage, language, etc. The people may be more difficult to “get to know” (it's easier in Spanish, actually), but they say that once you make a friend in Catalonia, they're a friend forever. I hope that's true, but I think that sums up my relationship with this city quite well. It was a pain in the butt trying to understand its history, geography, and a number of its other facets, but now that I can find my way around and talk like I know many more natives than I actually do, I feel this is a city (and a summer) I'll never forget.

For those of you keeping track, I finished writing this while it was still Thursday your time! ¡Adios!

*From “Everything is Spiritual”. This quote probably looked like a joke, but it wasn't. You can find the whole thing in HQ segments on youtube, but plan an hour and a half – it's addicting and highly recommended by yours truly.