Hello blog followers,
It's been a couple days, and I'm not going to do the Spanish so often anymore, mostly because I want to write a little more without all the effort! The past two days have been a blast, now that the jet lag is starting to wear off. As always, I have some musings and things to write about while I'm here. Class went really well and we talked about some really interesting stuff. Not to sound like a complete nerd, but I am excited to share some of this stuff with my colleagues back home. During lunch time, all the teachers went to the Parque Ciutadella to have lunch out in the lovely weather and really have a great time. We shared a lot about our own cultures. We really are a little United Nations and I truly enjoy everyone in the program.
After lunch, we all went back to class and just did our thing. We were all eagerly anticipating the Spain vs. Germany game of the World Cup and making plans. We went through class until came time for our tour through Gothic Barcelona, which was both fascinating and beautiful. Our tour guide talked to both Kat and I in Spanish, to which, I can speak for myself, was met with a sputtering mess of broken Spanish which was the cultivation of 7 hours of non-stop speaking in class and pure exhaustion. However, we saw some neat Roman Architecture, letters from Moorish heads of State to the Spanish royalty and some throwbacks of Granada through Moorish architecture. We even.....gasp.....learned stuff. I have some educational pictures, which I'm sure would be great learning aids for my students...however, they will stay out of this blog entry.
Kat and I had made a promise to go out and so after class we went back home and rested for what was to be a nice night out of exploring, and maybe having a drink or two. My host mother was super nice and woke me up for dinner at around 8:30.
Now, here comes the fun part. Kat and I took the subway down to Barceloneta, which is a nice area near the beach. We walked for a bit, past the outdoor bars, the roaming gangs of rollerblading hipsters fresh from the walk-in closet of the 80's, and the hoardes of guitar-playing Spanish bro-sters on the beach when Kat started to get the shakes. We had then just realized that not only had we walked past like 8 bars, but that there were none in visible sight, and it was getting late. So, we pursued the nearest bar, which so happened to be a lovely outdoor bar right near the Aquarium. We walked in and saw it. The towering, AWESOME sight of what looked to be the tower of Babel, but in liquid form. It was a, I kid you not, 5 liter tower of Sangria.
However, another battle for another night, my friends. Kat and I sat down and got our modest One liter pitcher of Sangria and had a nice chat about how happy we were to be in Spain and how it was a great little topper to our relationship up to this point. I think I probably made that sound nicer than it really was. I'm sure Kat and I made jokes of our indiscretions past and we both laughed over alcoholic beverages.
However, between digging fruit out indiscriminately from our emptied pitcher of Sangria, being mesmerized by Grey's Anatomy in Spanish and hunting down our elusive waiter, we lost track of the time, and realized that the last metro out was in 10 minutes....7 minutes....we broke into a sprint (after paying our bill, of course).
We ran after a group of Spaniards, sure that they were headed toward the metro. We were laughing, half because we really didn't expect to make the metro and the realization of walking was setting in, and half because we realized what a comical sight we were to the natives. We busted into the station, fumbled for our metro cards, screaming "LET'S GO, I CAN HEAR IT!" Of course, per our luck, my card was being spit out, and Kat's door wouldn't open, or something. We ran down the stairs....leapt, bounded, flew, darted, desperately sprinted....toward the metro like it was a Chariots of Fire video and just then we heard the voice of doom...the beeping coming from inside the metro...BOOM....WOOSH. There went our ticket home, and our wake-up call that we would be walking half-way across the earth. Sweating and pissed off, swearing in English, Spanish, French, Popiamento...we asked a nice woman if it was the last...she said we had hope. We waited and it came. Thankfully we got on the LAST train home.
Great night, and an even greater day to follow. I will leave you with the video above to tell some of the story you will hear from me tomorrow.
Until then
~Scott
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