A lot of people are worried about the international strength of the American economy with respect to the rest of the world. Lately, the Dollar has been doing particularly bad against the Euro and even more so, the Pound. I made a realization today. Our kids will have nothing to worry about. Because in 40 years, the majority of people in Europe will be dying of emphysema or lung cancer. I’m kidding I’m kidding…… but only kinda.
Well, I went on a shopping spree this morning. I thought it was about time to become just a little more Catalan so I bought an FC Barca jersey and some cheapo soccer shoes this morning. And by cheapo, I mean I bought them at the grocery store. Now pair those with my fohawk and I look like a decent European. I still don’t exactly look Spanish but maybe by the end of summer I’ll have that Mediterranean tan… yeah… right. I’m not sure how much sun it would take to overcome my Scottish-Welch pigmentation but I can promise that it would take more time than I have this summer. I have, however, been mistaken for being French several times now.
Oh, I also bought a new camera too. I added up the cost of buying new batteries every time I wanted to take more than 20 pictures and realized pretty quickly that it would be cheaper to just buy a new camera at this point. I got a Panasonic Lumix. It is a little point-and-shoot and I found a decent deal on it. The closest thing I could find online is this Lumix. The main difference is that mine is 8MP, not 10. The biggest plus is that it has a rechargeable Li-Ion battery. No more AAs! When a set of 4 AAs was running ~5 euros and I went through 2 AAs for every 30 pictures I took, the new camera was a steal. It is rated at 320 pictures per charge so we’ll put that to the test in my upcoming trip next week. Oh, and this one will fit in my pocket, as opposed to my old Canon. Yay! As soon as the battery finishes charging, I will head out the Ciutat Vella or the Barri Gotic to test it out.
The past few days have been pretty uneventful. I’ve done some exploring, gone to dinner with friends and worked for my classes. Yeah, they actually make us do work! It’s ridiculous. Oh, there was one exciting thing that happened yesterday. The drain on our kitchen sink dropped off the bottom of the sink while Gaby was doing dishes yesterday essentially flooding our room. Of course, the maintenance guy had yesterday off so hopefully we will have a working sink by tonight. Today is going to be more classes. Bleh. Our first vacation is next week. Milan, Venice, Barca and ??? here I come.
I did find out yesterday that bullfights are held two blocks from Onix every Sunday night. I am undecided about whether I want to go or not. Apparently they are fairly gruesome. I walked by the arena last night and got some good pictures of the protestors though. I’ll post them soon.
P.S. This made me laugh my tail off. Enjoy.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y1e0skfJts]
Wow. I have seen a lot of great stuff in the past two days. On Friday morning, I woke up and went to the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB) with Cazzie. We saw an exhibit called Post-It City. I’m not sure where the name comes from but the entire exhibit was about how people use their city in unintended ways. Anything from communities of homeless people, to the ways kids form pickup games of soccer to graffiti artists or street vendors. The great thing was that the exhibit focused on cities all over the world on every continent. American cities, South American cities, European cities and Asian cities were looked at. It took us several hours to look at it all and it was incredibly cool to see the different ways that cultures use public space.
Anyways, after that, I got back to the room and joined some people for a pickup game of soccer under a bridge near Onix. We played for about 2 hours until we were exhausted and came back to get cleaned up because after that, we went to go see Indiana Jones! Have any of y’all seen it yet? We found a theater not too far from Onix that had it in the original English with Spanish subtitles. It was hard to not watch the subtitles and try to translate.
Yesterday afternoon I was in the mood to go exploring. I set out with one destination in mind but by the time I started walking I changed my mind and decided to walk around the Arc de Triomf, which is a large monument just down the street from Onix. There is a huge walkway behind the Arc which leads back to Parc Ciutadella, a great city park that puts Piedmont to shame. There were so many people just milling about, enjoying the day. There were certainly some tourists present, but the locals outnumbered the tourists many times over. There were groups of teenagers just killing time, there were old men playing bocci ball, skateboarders trying out new tricks on the park benches, jugglers practicing, unicyclists showing off, people playing fetch with their dog, a group of people practicing Capoeira. The pictures I took don’t do justice to the sheer volume of people in the park. Although, one of my pictures does capture a “No walking on the grass” sign, with a ton of people all over the grass in the background. It made me chuckle. All in all, it was just a lot of people simply enjoying a Saturday. They weren’t going anyplace in specific, they didn’t have an agenda, a to-do list, or a mission. They were enjoying the company of their friends and they were loving life. Some of them were loving life a little too… ahem, publicly. But anyways, I know that I am boring you, so check out the rest of the pictures. I need to get my copy of photoshop back so I can do a little editing work on these photos. I can’t stand iPhoto and almost all of those pictures need adjustments of some sort.
Untitled from michael orr on Vimeo.
I haven’t given y’all a legitimate update in a few days so here ya go…
In Spanish class today, we took a tour of the Barri Gotic, or the Gothic Quarter. I expected it to be interesting, I just didn’t know how cool it would be. We got to hear a lot about the history of the oldest parts of the city. The Barri Gotic is the part of the city that was originally an old Roman colony 2000 years ago. We got to see plazas where they committed executions during the Spanish Inquisition, the site of the old Roman Forum, old columns that were originals from a Roman temple to Augustus (the caesar at the time Barcelona was founded). It was really cool getting to walk the narrow winding roads that people walked millennia ago. We also saw the palace that is (according to legend) the place where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella received Christopher Columbus after he returned from discovering the new world. It is a shame that I didn’t have my camera with me but rest assured that I will be going back to take pictures. There were a lot of old palaces and churches that easily date to the 1300s when Barcelona was a center for international trade and one of the powerhouses of industry.
Also, today was the beginning of a celebration that goes until Sunday. It is the festival of Corpus Christi, which celebrates the Eucharist and obviously the Body of Christ (Corpus Christi). Part of the celebration included covering fountains with flowers and something called the “dancing egg” which is something you will just need to see for yourself…..
[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=-F3zJgbTE1I]
If you can’t tell, that is an egg that is suspended in the stream of water. And there is nothing holding it up besides the stream of water. Pretty cool. This video was taken 2 years ago in the courtyard of the Barcelona Cathedral. Getting a feel for the heart of the old city and seeing where the city got its roots from was a really cool way to understand its heritage a little better.
Oh, and P.S. I tried absinthe last night. After the soccer game, we went to a bar named Marsella which is supposedly the oldest bar in Barcelona. Trust me, it looks like it. This is apparently the same bar that Hemingway and Picasso would go to to become “inspired.” Now I know what you are thinking…. “absinthe? he must be crazy!!!” But the absinthe of today is much tamer than in centuries past. The reputed hallucinogen is no longer a part of the drink. It is basically just a very very strong liquor. You drink it by suspending a sugar cube on a fork over the drink and pouring water over the sugar essentially sweetening and diluting the drink at the same time. If anybody is wondering, it basically tastes like black licorice and is about 160 proof, so its best to drink slowly. This is a fairly accurate representation of what it is like to drink absinthe for the first time. Much scarier in theory than in practice.
Tomorrow I am waking up early and going to the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona which I have heard is very interesting. I honestly am not quite sure what they have there but you can expect to hear about it tomorrow night.
Morr
I don’t care who you are, this is funny… Things Younger Than McCain
Also, tonight is the Chelsea v Man U soccer game. I think we are going to an English pub to watch. Should be pretty intense. Any of y’all planning on watching?
Does nobody want free stuff from Spain? Honestly, here is your chance to ask for anything.
The only stipulations:
So, in case anybody cares… I had the timezone settings for the site wrong. Which basically means that all your comments were showing up with the wrong time on them. But I fixed it. Yay! I know that many of you are visiting from all over (7 different countries and 14 US states, in fact) but 50% come from the Eastern Time Zone so EST it is.
P.S. I follow a lot of blogs on a regular basis but one of my favorites by a cool dude named Carlos Whittaker. He has been asked to be a journalist for a pretty sweet invite-only event at Saddleback Church hosted by Rick Warren. He has some awesome perspectives and random fun stuff to say. You should check out his blog at http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/ (Plus, he works at my church, which makes him just that much cooler)
Today I had two classes: Architecture of Barcelona and City Literacy. In both, we talked a lot about how metropolitan cities grow and consume the space around them, how they grow on top of themselves, and how they reuse and repurpose existing space to meet the changing needs of its constituents. I know I’ve already bored half of you but I actually found the classes extremely interesting. I have a feeling that both classes will be quite difficult but extremely engaging, especially with Barcelona as a backdrop. Barca has a very rich culture and history that has brought it from being an ancient Roman outpost 2000 years ago to the sleek modern European city which has not forgotten its roots. Barca has somehow been able to hang on to its ancient heritage and yet become a growing center of industry, culture and commerce at the same time. Not many cities can claim both.
In between classes I took a short metro ride to Placa d’Espanya to take pictures. In the ~90 minutes I I was there, realized a few things….
It is Sunday night. I have just finished a long day of reading for class. We had crazy amounts of reading to do for both my architecture class and my city literacy class. Mainly they were a survey of Barca history and how the different societal, economical, political and national issues combined to form the diverse city that exists on the Mediterranean coast today. Although there were some interesting things in the articles, they were very dense and there was a lot of it. I’m talking about 160 pages worth! So this afternoon and evening was spent hanging out with some lovely Alphi Chi’s and reading indoors. We took a break for dinner and helado across the street. Delicious. Some people went to a soccer game tonight but we felt like we would at least start the summer off being good students. (We’ll see how long it lasts… if the readings don’t lighten up, not long)
Oh, I did go to my first Catholic mass this morning. It was… interesting. I think I would’ve enjoyed it more if it were in English. I caught a few phrases of the Spanish but the only part that I actually understood was the Lord’s Prayer and communion. I did find a protestant church not too far away that is the remnant of a Methodist outpost from the 1870s. I think I will check it out next Sunday. Hopefully the service is in English.
