I had some tomato marmalade for brekkers. It didn’t quite hit the spot. Maybe, it’d be good on some hot biscuits or something.

Well, I went to Girona and Figueres this weekend. In Girona, I saw a church with the biggest nave in Europe. Holy smokes, do I like a good nave. I didn’t see the nave, though, because of the entry fee. We can imagine it though. BIG NAVE. Props to that particular nave builder. You gotta respect someone that has that kind of nave- building talent.

I have a bunch of crumbs in my keyboard from eating Spanish cookies and writing about naves.

Figueres has the Dali museum. He does some mean art. I’ve never enjoyed a museum more, that includes every museum I’ve visited... River of History, Bushplane, what have you.

Dali built his museum in Figueres. That’s foresight. Not only did he build it himself, but he also predicted that it would make bank. It does. It’s the third most visited museum in Spain, er something.

In the museum, he’s got this Cadillac, among other things, that rains on the inside and a big picture of his babe, Gala, that turns into Abe Lincoln if you look at it right. Dali was really in love with Gala. She’s all over the place in the museum. They aren’t buried together, though. Dali is in the museum (mummified and buried like a pharaoh (with money and fanciness around him)), and Gala is buried near her castle, I think.

My senora said that all the best Dali stuff is in New York. There’s a museum in St. Petersberg, Florida, too. So stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

In other news, I spent three and a half euros to go to the Center of Contemporary Culture in Barcelona for extra credit in art history class. It explained the dope-nocity of Barcelona’s city design. Most of it was in Catalan. Pretty lame. The best part was the giant escalator that brought me to the exhibition.

I have mid-terms next week. Vamos a ver.

Drink-ing root-beer in SEVILLE (sing that in your head)

I got to do that dash-down-into-the-metro-and-stick-your-arm-into-the-train-to-stop-the-doors-from-closing thing this weekend. I had a plane to catch. I always laugh at the people who force their way onto the train then look like they just won a gold medal. But I did feel surprisingly accomplished after I caught that sucker, Kentucky Derby if not gold medal.

This weekend was the program trip to Seville. After the train to terminal 1 and the bus from terminal 1 to 2, I rolled up to security check and felt kinda tingly. Last time I had been in that airport was two months ago. I remembered how nervous and damn confused I was when I got to the airport. I remembered how I had to buy a bag of Mars bars with a benjamin in order to get my change back in euros because none the banks were open on New Year’s to change my money.

Well, this airport visit was different. I had euros, a chorizo sandwich, and a new coat.

I’ve learned that Vueling issues very little space to they’re passengers, which is important to know if you’re not as petite as me.
Seville gets down. We went on a tour of the Seville Catedral right when we got there. It used to be a mosque, and then the Catholics took over and turned it into a church.

Then we ate some tapas which is supposed to be so tasty in Sevilla. The best thing I had was fried eggplant with honey. I tried some unusual stuff like quail eggs, bull tail, blood rice, and dog fish. All tasty.

That night, we watched Flamenco dancing. Bueno. The woman danced, then the man danced, then they danced together. There was also a singing solo and a guitar solo. The best part was, when the dude was dancing, the singer kept yelling at him to do more stuff. Then the dancer kept telling the singer to change the song. They were laughing and giving each other a hard time and it was entertaining.

Saturday, we went to the city of Cordoba. They have the Mezquita, a huge mosque with a church inside. I guess its top twenty five on the top 1000 things to see before you die.

The tour guide told us that, back in the day, Muslims were good at building, Jewish people were good with precious metals, and Christians were good at conquering. So they all had to work together to make a church. Think about that.

The night time was the right time to go out for most people. We didn’t have anything to do early the next morning so most people planned to 1) botellon, or drink and hang out down by the river where hundreds of people go every night, and then 2) go to some Buddha club or something.

I planned to drink a little down by the river then go back to the room and read some Maya Angelou. We went to the the nearest grocery store, a little Russian tienda down the street.

Turns out, I bought a big bottle of Russian root beer instead of beer. This is good because I was really jonesin’ for some root beer. No joke. Also, it rained; therefore, no one was at the botellon except for Americans desperate to botellon. I quickly bounced. Root beer and reading, it was a memorable night.

The next day, we went to the Alcazar, the palace in Sevilla. (Sevilla has palaces and churches and business because it’s location was ideal for trading with the Americas. So it got exclusive Spanish trading rights. It made bank.) I wouldn’t want to live in the palace. It’s not close enough to the metro.

Sevilla is beautiful and peaceful. I would go there again.

Plague of Lobsters

Spaniards have parades all the time, holidays too. Spain’s got more official holidays than any other country. Friday was the feast day for Saint Eulalia, one of the patron saints of Barcelona. There were festivites, but I didn’t go to them. I chilled. Saturday, there were more festivities. I went to those.

I met up with a classmate around six-thirty. We were supposed to meet up with his friends. We waited a good forty-five minutes for them. While waiting, the two of us hung out at the main metro station and listened to some live Spanish music. We watched the winos dance with themselves and the old men try to dance with anyone that would dance. There were some old couples dancing. And it was beautiful. The friends came, so we went to Fontana de Magica.

Fontana de Magica (magic fountain) is a huge fountain in front of the Catalunya Art Museum (the building in my FB display picture). It’s like the fountain in the Soo, only five or six times bigger. It lights up and music plays and water sprays synchronized with the music.

I imagine that love birds probably go to the fountain on Saturday nights to re-enact the Boy Meets World "Disney World" episode, that one where Cory and Topenga get back together and smooch in front of the big fountain with fireworks shooting in the background. (Now, I feel like Stuie had something in his blog about Cory and Topenga. Well, either way, shout out to Ruben.)

This was the first show of the season. It was cold, damn cold. And raining. But I couldn’t have asked for a better cold, rainy night.

On a side note: I read about a “plaga de langostas” the other day, a plague of lobsters. Which isn’t really a plague is it? It’s more like a big cookout. But I guess “langosta” is “lobster” and “locust.” So… keep that in mind.

After the fountain, we headed out to watch the parade. We had much hunger and stopped at a Doner Kebab. Doner Kebab’s are all over the place here. They sell Kebab’s, among other things. They’re a good substitute for Taco Bell. I ate a kebab and had a beer and I was happy.

By the time we got to the parade, it was pouring. It was a parade for Carnival, I guess. Everyone was dressed up and dancing in the rain. It was a glorious feeling. And I was happy again.

We bounced and headed for a local concert. It took us a long time to get on a train because everyone goes in the metro when It rains on their parade.

I asked a guy dressed like Beatlejuice where the concert was located. His girlfriend, Cruella Deville, told us. We followed her directions and soon became lost. CRUUUEEELLAAAAA. We went to a bar.

Turns out, the bar was real funky. We found Waldo, and he was playing the guitar, some mean Flamenco. We also found a cross-dressing flamenco dancer. GOOD night.

Sunday, was Correfoc in front of the Cathedral of Saint Eulalia. It was a parade where people dress like devils and dance around with massive sparklers. Drums play lively Carnival-y type music, and everyone gets down.

The children begin the event. They’re real little. Roc, my Senora’s grandkid, started when he was three. They wear fire resistant costumes and little goggles and wander all over the place holding sparklers twice their size. After, fireworks are shot in the air. Then, the adults do the sparkler dance. The sparkler dance is kind of like the Guimond shake-down, only throw some fire-resistant clothing, gogs, and a sparkler in there.

I'm just mad about saffron

All the museums are free on the first Sunday of the month. Well, the chocolate museum isn’t free, which is silly. I mean, why would someone pay to look at chocolate? I would rather buy a Hershey’s bar and look at it real hard, then eat it.

I went to the Museum of PreColombian Art, or something. I saw some bowls and stuff that the conquistadors probably ate cocoa puffs from while they conquered shit.

I went to the Picasso Museum. I learned a thing or two about Picasso. I guess he was really in to Asian sex art, but I forget the name of the style. Googling “Asian sex art” has failed me.

I went to Caixa Forum, a photography gallery. I’ve never been to a photography gallery. Now, I know what kind of photos can make it into a gallery. In one of the classier sections, they had a five minute movie playing on repeat. It showed a human with duct tape completely covering his/her head. Parking cones were duct taped to the person head, as well. In the film, the person was spinning in a chair and was being pelted with colorful ice cream or paint or food from Never Never Land; I wasn’t sure which.

And now, I’m going to talk about food. Finally, right?

I signed up for this “Cook and Taste” class. It was just a onetime deal. Fifteen students showed up to be instructed by a Spanish chef. We made gazpacho, tortilla de patata (potato omellete), paella, and crema de Catalunia (pudding). It was fancy. We used cheese I’ve never heard of and torches and whatnot. The most exciting part: we got to use saffron. Ounce for ounce saffron is like gold. Expensive. But it’s edible and less worthless.

After the class, I hooped. Usually I hoop on Fridays, the scheduled exercise day for the CIEE program. The guy who runs the open gym, Lukas, asked me if I wanted to practice with his team. So I did. His team is like the fifth league or something. It’s decent basketball. It’s probably comparable to the Hope JV, only older and more European. They called many fouls and limped around for ten to fifteen minutes if someone stepped on their shoelace.

It’s a good time. I’ll play with them every Tuesday and Thursday.

Ombligo

My History of Catalonia Art class went to the National Art Museum the other day. I saw art, Picasso, Dali. I could spend days in art museums. They have good vibes. They also smell nice.

Once, when I was in the Catalonia Art Museum in London, I saw two love birds smooching in front of some historically significant painting. That’s probably what the artist would have wanted. Gaudi had a bench in the Catalonia Art Museum. But people were not permitted to sit in it. That would probably piss Gaudi off.

We're going many other places in that class. I'll keep you posted.

I don’t understand that much in my art class or in my marketing class or my Spanish class. They're all in Spanish. That’s what you want, though. Practice, practice. I even got a tutor for Spanish. I’m going all out, SON.

Today, I learned that a cooking pot is “olla.” That’s important for making no-bakes.

Break...

I went to Portugal last weekend, the land of many Portuguese people. I visted Ze. I got there Friday morning, so he had to go to school after he picked me up from the airport. I spent the morning with his dad. I think his dad is seventy something.

We went to a café and looked at Portuguese newspapers for a couple of hours. We had a good time shooting the shit. He explained various things to me in Portuguese. And I said various things to him like, “Oh” “Muy bonita” “Bien” “Si” “No”. I feel like we connected.

We got home, and he played something for me on the record player. I fell asleep.

That evening, Ze and I went to Viana do Castelo. We ate this egg sweet cream that I will try to duplicate when I return to the Soo. Yass. Yass. After, I had the opportunity to hoop at Ze’s practice. Eurostep.

Saturday, Ze had a game in Porto. That was something. His coach is clearly in the wrong profession, but he gave me a sandwich and a juice after the game. So he’s okay in my book. We stayed in Porto to go to the bar with Ze’s friends. Then, we slept in the car so that we could explore the city the next day. THEN, the next day, we explored the city.

Monday was chill. I cooked for the fam. We had sloppy joes and nobakes made with Nutella. Ze’s mom made chocolate mousse. And we fell in love.

At some point during that trip, I ate Francesinha, little French girl. Imagine a piece of bread covered with sausage, cheese, ham, steak, a fried egg, and beer sauce surrounded by French fries. Yep, a little French girl is the first thing that comes to my mind, too.

I sat on a bench and read a book next to Arc de Triumph, today. That’s a big arc thing. This dude came up to me and asked me if I had any music he could listen to while he smoked a spliff. I didn’t have any music. It was a sad moment for both of us.