A fistful of ideals

I've returned from my weekend in Barcelona, during which I had a great time. I enjoyed the city much more this time around, as my friend Jenna proved to be a good tour guide (although our visit may have caused some strained relations with her host mother).

I must say that Barcelona might be one of the coolest cities I've ever visited, but, after 2 visits, there are just some things that I can't get past. The first is the number of people involved in "unofficial" businesses of sorts. Perhaps it's not prevalent throughout the entire city, but, in various areas, the number of pickpockets is incredible...so much so that the locals will tap you on the shoulder if you're simply wearing a backpack to tell you to be careful. Marta and I had a few brief encounters with said persons, but no real problems occurred.

Posing less serious risks are other shady people such as prostitutes and the infamous beer sellers. The prostitutes of Barcelona dress more like normal people than ladies of the night (or putes, if you will), but they give away their intentions when they grab the bosoms of poor, unsuspecting American boys. However, I think mine was a separate incident and that this particular female was, in a rather symbolic gesture, actually reaching for my heart, as she was experiencing a dearth of true human love in her life and occupation. Or at least that's what I'm taking from it. In the midst of my disgust and overwhelming desire to shower with a scrubbing rock and a bar of well-aged horse fat, I couldn't help but express my incredulousness to Marta and Jenna that a female had actually hit on me.

Existing for the dual purpose of providing humor and quenching thirst in the city are everyone's favorite sellers of the cheapest local beer available. Entrance to the city comes with the guarantee of experiencing an onslaught on any given night of men whose vocabularies consist of the words "cerveza" and "beer," although, for maximum efficacy in reaching their international clientele, these words have been combined into the phrase "Cerveza-beer." Hmm, no, thank you. Well, actually, since you're still standing there, looking at me like it's only a matter of time before I change my mind, I've changed my mind. "One Cerveza-beer, por favor." There are some, however, who demonstrate greater word-combination abilities, sometimes adding "marijuana-coca?" onto the end of the phrase. I can only assume that these are the ones who have been voted "Most Likely to Succeed" at the Cerveza-Beer Escuela de Cerveza-Beer. Escuela.

The final grievance to be aired is the language situation. The people in Barcelona and the surrounding areas speak Catalan, which is a strange mixture of Spanish and French (not that a native speaker of either could really comprehend it). Spanish is moreso the second language, but this occasionally presents problems. Marta, who comes from the Basque region in the north of Spain (and speaks Basque and Spanish) pointed out that the people continually responded to her in Catalan, ignoring the fact that she was speaking Spanish. Apparently in the Basque region the people understand that most people don't speak their language, and they will speak Spanish unless someone responds to them in Basque. I think the way the people of Catalunya take pride in their language is great for the preservation of the culture, but I think they take it a bit far in their often stubborn refusal to more fully embrace Spanish. Thus, in spite of my amazement at the history and beauty of the city, I feel that I would not want to live there for an extended period of time. However, I would recommend anyone to visit it at least one time, because it is definitely worth seeing.

Leaving Barcelona was very sad because it was the last time Marta, Jenna, and I will be together for some time. Jenna will be returning to the States just before Christmas, and although I am sure I will see her again there, it may be more
difficult for Marta, who studies in Madrid. Hopefully a reunion with at least the 3 of us will happen, though, as I've become close friends with the two of them since our summer internship in Paris. They're guaranteed to provide hilarity, funny stories and experiences, and caring friendship every time we're together, and I really enjoy spending time with them.

In other news, I've already not had 4 classes this week. Two were canceled because the students were on special internship programs, one canceled because the students needed to catch up after missing class during last week's teacher's strike, and one I arrived late to because of a metro problem, only to find no students. Thus, it's a rigorous 8 hour work week for me. However, it is Thanksgiving week, and, all things considered, I probably deserve time off to celebrate my culture's holidays.

Lately I've been enjoying coconut far too much, using it to cook and pouring it unnecessarily on pudding, bread with nutella, and pretty much whatever else I can feasibly use it with. I'm waiting to hear soon that too much of this delightful fruit causes some sort of cancer. People seem to think that everything somehow causes cancer, ignoring the possibility that, as life expectancies grow, everyone still has to die of something, and maybe cancer just comes more frequently in old age. Cure cancer and something else is going to kill us anyway. In the meantime, I'm going to continue eating coconut and perhaps begin lobbying for a name change to "cancernut," that way the name will turn other people off, cause decreased demand, and thus lower prices throughout the world, all for my convenience.

Today I bought cancernut ice cream, but I don't expect that it will last for too long. I arrived in Europe with some sort of cancernut-scented body wash, and I'm hoping that this idea can be extended so that I can brush my teeth with cancernut toothpaste and coat my underarms with cancernut deodorant. Perhaps they could even develop cancernut-scented toilet paper. Maybe this product already exists in the dog world, and we just don't know about it, thus explaining their tendency to shove their noses into each other's rears. Please, dogs of the world, share your secret! For you humans out there, I apologize if I've turned you away from ever eating coconut again. Not.