A Year in Barcelona

Preemptive homesickness

2011-05-09T09:52:00.000+02:00

It's still a bit early to think about leaving Barcelona. However, I did a rough countdown to our departure, and realized that now we have only a few weeks left before we go back. I've begun to feel preemptively homesick. The feeling is that of "did we take full advantage of the past months?," "are we ready to go back?," and "should we stay?" Since going back we must, I think we need to try and live every day as fully as we can, and try to take advantage of the time here, and try to get things taken care of. This place has started to feel like what it is for me: home. I had forgotten many of the sweet things about it. I think our lives could be very nice in here. I don't think we'll ever be at peace, always back and forth. It's sunny today, I think I'll go out and enjoy it outside.

What are you doing here?

2011-05-02T00:56:00.000+02:00

On Saturday, I attended the "National Conference for a Catalan State". There were about 2000 people who had come together to vote on a step-by-step, peaceful, democratic plan for declaring the independence of Catalonia from Spain.

During a break, I bumped into an old friend. He looked at me with a curious expression and said, “Liz! Però tu, que hi fots aquí?” which means, roughly, “What are you doing here?”

Although I hadn't quite figured that out, I answered, “to be a part of all of this.” But I kept thinking about the question even after I went to sit down and the voting began again.

What *was* I doing there? I'm an American. Until August of last year, I lived in Massachusetts, and most likely, when August rolls around again, that's where I'll be again.

I've asked myself plenty of times if I should be involved at all in Catalonia's struggle for independence. Often it's felt like it's none of my business. I didn't participate much in the referendum just for that reason.

To answer the question is to decide my own Catalanness. There's this wonderful book called “Jo també sóc catalana” (I am Catalan too) by a writer named Najat El Hachmi. I wrote about it several years ago in another blog after I had picked it up almost by accident and then totally identified with the Moroccan-born but Catalan-feeling author.

And if I had asked myself the same question nine months ago, the answer might have been different. But the other day, as I sat back in the sun on our terrace and breathed in the city life around me, I realized how much at home I felt. I don't know exactly why, but I am at home here as much as I am home in Massachusetts. And it's been like that since about 1987.

And it's not only me. DH surprised us all the other day by suggesting we stay. The kids flipped out a bit at first, but since then, I have heard each of them realizing out loud how much they like it here, how much they too feel at home.

Just for the record, we won't stay this time, since we have responsibilities back in the US, but I won't stop being Catalan there anymore than my Catalonia-born husband or my American-born, Catalan-speaking children will. We speak Catalan, we read Catalan news, we listen to Catalan radio, we eat Catalan food, we connect on Facebook with Catalan friends and family. All in Massachusetts. And I'm sure we're not the only ones.

And I do believe that Catalonia would be better off independent. There are lots of reasons, some of which I've been tweeting lately, but mostly, I would repeat what Matthew Tree says: “In all the time I've lived here, I've never, not once, felt like I was in Spain.” I've been to Spain, plenty of times. That's where my great-grandparents were from before they emigrated to the US in 1907. It's a nice place, but this is not it.

So that's why I was at the Conference. Because I'm Catalan too, and because it's time Catalonia had its own state, and I want to do my part.

Half Way

2011-02-21T10:13:00.000+01:00

It's been hard writing here lately. I think that's mostly because I haven't wanted to complain. But lately I've been feeling a bit down in the dumps. And I'm embarrassed about not being happier. What's the matter with me? I get to spend a year in one of the most beautiful and interesting cities in the world, and I don't love it?

I do love parts of it. I've been meeting lots of people involved in digital publishing and Catalan independence (and some involved in both!) and that's been really interesting. Who knew that one of the top-selling ebook apps on the iBookstore was developed here in Barcelona? I love speaking Catalan and noticing the beautiful stained glass in the buildings and being recognized by the woman who sells chicken in the market.

But other parts have been really hard. One thing I keep noticing again and again is a basic lack of infrastructure, and I'm not talking metros or healthcare. I mean our own personal infrastructure. We have hardly any books, we have no hand me downs, we have no camping equipment, no trowels or seeds. I have no sewing machine. There is also the intangible infrastructure: our network of friends, our knowledge of how things work, where things are, when things happen. We are a bit adrift.

Of course, except for the friends, none of that is essential. I am proving that one can live without a sewing machine! (Not to mention how accustomed we've become to our cushy existence.) But still we notice it, even as we accumulate way too much stuff for the very small apartment in which we are living.

Space. That one has been hard. We who were used to walking out the door into a big field and watching the deer go by and the fox get too close. I remember feeling overwhelmed by my piles of stuff at home, just as I do here, but here I'm living on a ship. On a positive note, I've learned to put things away, something 40-odd years of life before this point had not managed to teach me. Because if I don't, all the available space is quickly taken up and you literally can't move through the house.

On good days, when it's not gray and rainy and cold, and I haven't spent the entire day inside looking at my computer, I remember that I just need to be here right now, and that imagining faraway perfect places is not helpful.

In that vein, this morning, as I heard drumming from our square, I went down to see what was going on. It turns out that this was the beginning of Gràcia's "sweetest" festival, that of Sant Medir. They say there was a bread maker about 150 years ago, who was sick, and he promised that he would visit the hermitage of Sant Medir on horseback if he got better. Get better he did, and so he got together a bunch of friends and they had a big parade up Gràcia's main street, throwing candy all along the way, beginning a new tradition.

The head of our neighborhood bank branch came up to me in the square while we were looking around. He told me he's been in a Sant Medir "club" for the past 30 years (and he's not much older than I am). They ride around the neighborhood with horses and carriages and throw lots and lots of candy to the people in the street. He wanted to make sure that I knew what Sant Medir was about and explained the legend of the sick baker who started it all.

That's a thing that I love about being here. My banker lives in the neighborhood, recognizes me, wants to share his traditions with me, and participates in a parade whose main activity is throwing candy to kids.

Then little dd and I watched the little kids taking horse rides around our square

and watched the politicians and Sant Medir organizers begin throwing candy off the balcony of the local city hall.

Then we wandered back and saw how they were getting ready to share plates of lima beans (really, it's part of the tradition, and you just have to love people who get excited about lima beans)

in little ceramic casserole dishes

accompanied by red wine in huge jugs.

I know I'm going to miss it when we go. I better start appreciating it right now!

“What's normal on the street should be normal in the Senate Chamber"

2011-01-19T09:49:00.001+01:00

That's a quote from Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the rightist PP party in Spain. He was referring to the fact that yesterday, Catalan Senators were allowed to speak in Catalan, their native language, in the Senate, for the first time. Mind you, they're not allowed to speak Catalan when presenting new laws, or when responding to or making questions of the Spanish Executive, but even that little bit is too much for Rajoy.

He would prefer that "what's normal on the street be normal in the Senate Chamber". What's normal on the street? I'll tell you. Here in Barcelona, if anyone addresses you in Spanish you are expected to answer in Spanish. If you begin a conversation with someone in Catalan, you are not afforded the same courtesy and they often answer in Spanish, and again, you are expected to switch to Spanish. It's been an eye-opening experience this year watching my bilingual Catalan-English children deal with people who refuse to speak to them in one of those two languages, and instead insist on Spanish, which my kids don't understand.

If you go to other parts of Spain, as chronicled by Matthew Tree, and speak Catalan on the street, you can expect to be bullied, threatened, or belittled.

Sometimes what's normal is not so great.

Quick thoughts

2011-01-17T17:33:00.000+01:00

If I don't let myself post short quick thoughts, I may never get around to posting anything at all. So quick thoughts it is.

I love being surrounded by bakeries. Lately I buy a "xusco amb cereals" which is like a short elongated bread with seeds inside and out and a round "pa de pagès" (farmer bread) the American term for which I can't quite remember right now. Each costs 1.70 euros. It occurred to me the other day that I shop much more in the present, never considering freezing bread or having enough to last until the weekend, since I can always run down and get some more. Without thinking very hard, I can name more than 10 bakeries within three blocks of our apartment. They always ask me if I want my bread sliced, and I always say yes, at which point they put in their very cool slicing machine which does its work in about six seconds.

Also this morning as I was running around doing endless paperwork, I got asked for directions twice, and was proud to be able to answer both times. Then I laughed to myself when I wondered what they'd think if they had known they were asking an American how to get to the lovely little Gràcia square called “Plaça del Diamant”—perfect for skateboarding :), or where to add themselves to the city census.

A Day in the Life of a Castle-er

2010-11-07T17:49:00.000+01:00

7am: I wake up early, despite the fact that we had castle-ing practice last night from 7 until 11pm, and it even went late. Practice was fun, I learned a couple of new things. First, at about 9:30, I finally pinned down one of the coaches for the kids and asked how late we really should stay. Was it really necessary to stay after the specifically kid-centered practice was over at 9? And he pointed at the kids, who were running around the gym playing and drawing and playing hide and seek, and he said, "what they do after practice is just as important as building actual castles: getting to know each other and making a group".

I went back to join the pinya at the base of the grownup's castle practice. They actually map out the pinyes ahead of time and then call out people's names to tell them where they should position themselves. The first time they called my name, I felt really happy that they had included me. It's tricky though, because there are a hundred people (literally) milling around, chatting and socializing between castles, and when they start to call names, it's really hard to hear what they say over the general hubbub. But there's a second tricky part: since they're calling out a hundred names or so, you have to figure out where you are with respect to who you're behind or in front of, which means you have to listen not only for your own name, but for the names of the people next to you and, and this is the hard part, you have to know who they are. It reminds me a lot of those party games for learning people's names. And I am!

10am: The kids finally wake up and start to get ready. Despite, or perhaps because of my countdown until we have to go, small dd has a minor freakout because she's sure we're going to be late.

11am: The kid castle-ing coaches have offered to bring the kids to the Festa dels Súpers, a huge extravaganza at Montjuïc. Every parent that I have spoken with says it's a drag, but all the kids are excited. It seems wonderful that they can go without us. We meet at the metro stop where I hand off the kids and go home to do some grocery shopping.

1:30: The bus leaves to take the grownups to Montjuïc for the performance. We thread our way through the multitude of lines of kids waiting to jump on trampolines and climb rock walls. I'm really happy I don't have to decide where to go.

We come out in the middle of the Olympic Stadium where there's a big stage with characters from the most famous Catalan tv shows for kids: the Three Triplets, Doraemon, and more. There are people everywhere. We hang out for a while, build three smallish castles, and then we're ready to move on.

We go back to the dressing room to grab our stuff. There are lunch bags with a grinder, a sandwich, and a piece of fruit for each person.

The funniest part is when the musicians come in with their drums and fifes and play as loud as they can while we're changing. I think they like small enclosed places the best.

We then file back out to find a place to eat our sandwiches and wait for the bus that will take us to Lleida, where we're doing another performance at 6.

We get to Lleida about 5:30 and file through the beautiful city until we find the city hall, the usual place where performances take place. We make a pile of our belongings inside and they give snacks to the kids. Everyone puts on their black cumberbunds that serve both as decoration, weight-lifting support, and a foothold for climbers.

It's lovely to watch: the cumberbunds are long black, cotton scarves with long fringe. Each castle-er finds someone to hold the cumberbund tight while they pull on it and roll themselves up. Everyone has their own technique. Women sometimes flip the material in the middle to compensate for wider hips. Kids don't worry about making it too tight. The big guys sometimes use two.

Before we start there is a "cercavila", a sort of procession through the town. Generally, the castle-ers are part of the procession, but this time we watch as people file by with flags. Some morris-dancer like folks with bells on come out and knock their sticks together, but then the square is quickly taken up by the three colors of the castle-ing teams.

Most of the kids stay inside the city hall building while the grownups chat outside waiting. This performance is unusual in that it takes place in the early evening and it has begun to get dark.

About 6 we get under way. There will be three rounds, and each team will go in order. You can tell when they're about to build a castle because of the concentration of like-colored shirts, and a central organizer calling out people's names. Soon after, people line up and start to climb.

We're done about 8:30 or so, and everyone takes off their cumberbunds, gathers their things, and then we walk through the town to the local team's clubhouse. On the way, I notice that Lleida is where the remains of Gaspar de Pórtola—the founder of San Diego (and Monterey)—are buried.

There's a big hall, with two long, long tables (there are more than 100 of us) laid out with a smorgasbord of local cold-cuts and cheese, olives, potato chips, huge slices of bread with tomato, soft drinks, and water. There are also many bottles of red wine. It feels sort of strange to me because the local team is not here, it's just us. It feels a little bit like one of those fairy tales where they go into a room and find the tables laden with food. But we're all starving, so we dig in. When we finish there's cake and chocolate for dessert. Yumm.

We then stream through the town once again, en masse, to the waiting buses. We get home around midnight. We are exhausted.

Paperwork

2010-11-02T13:30:00.002+01:00

I'm taking bets on whether I'll have residency papers before we leave next year. I called the Spanish consulate months before we left to see what the process was, and they said, "we don't know what you're supposed to do, ask when you get there".

After arriving, they tell me that because we were married in the US, I need a special proof of marriage certificate that takes two months to process. That is, unless I want to go personally to Madrid, stand in line, and then wait while they process it and go back and pick it up in person. In Madrid. But they don't know exactly long it will be. Maybe a week. Madrid's OK, but I'm not going for a week just so I can hear the famous words, “Vuelva usted mañana.”

I opted to submit the petition online, where they promise I'll have it within two months.

Today (two months later), I still have not received the certificate. I go online to see if I can tell what's happening. The website for the Department of Justice sends up a warning that the site does not have a secure connection and I have to promise Firefox that I really know what I'm doing and accept the exception. I don't of course. I just assume (oh dear) that the Spanish Department of Justice would not be phishing my information. But it doesn't matter because the site doesn't work anyway, they can't find my application.

I go back to the trusty telephone. Has the double advantage of helping me practice my Spanish since although Catalan is a co-official language here in Barcelona, it doesn't exist in Madrid where I'm calling. I'm always intrigued by the way they answer the telephone in places like this, “Hello,” she says, as if I'm calling her house.

I explain that I submitted the petition to get this certificate and she takes down all of our information and says that yes, indeed, they received the information and have processed it.

“But where is it,” I ask.

“I don't have that information.”

“Can you tell me when they sent it out?” I insist.

“I don't have that information.”

“What should I do? Do you think it could have gotten lost in the mail? Is this normal?”

“I don't know. All it says here is that we processed the form. You'll have to check with the Post Office.”

I know she's joking with me now.

It would be funny except that this special marriage certificate is the key to residency, which is the key to all sorts of special cards that I'm both supposed to carry around, and which would be quite helpful. Frankly, I'm keeping my expectations low.

Shopping, Ugh!

2010-10-21T11:17:00.002+02:00

This is going to be one big rant. Sorry!

So I go looking for some clothes for smallest dd. First, we go to Decathlon. We find the "gym clothes" section and find a set of sweat pants and a jacket. Problem is, they're stuck together with one of those anti-theft devices. Together! DD half-heartedly tries on the jacket, but the pants hanging from the back make it really awkward. I go over to one of the salespeople and ask how we're supposed to try it on when they're stuck together. “Oh, you just try one thing and then try the other,” she replies. Good thing that older DD wasn't with me because I look the woman in the eye and ask her if she's joking. And she looks at me like I’m an alien, which I guess I am, and says, “No.” We walk out.

Next, we go to H&M. We climb up two sets of escalators to the kids’ department. DD starts reading the labels and says, “Mom, what's Pakistan?” and I have to tell her it’s one of those countries that make our cheap clothes for us. Not an auspicious start. We finally pick out some things, and look around for a dressing room. Not in the girls’ department, not in the boys’ department. I finally ask and they tell me it’s downstairs in women’s. Oh man. We bring our pile of clothes downstairs and find a dressing room but it’s cordoned off. I find another salesperson who tells me there’s one around the corner, on the left, on the other side of the store. When we finally find it, we see there are five people waiting in line. I’m rapidly dissolving into a loud albeit Catalan-speaking American.

We finally make it in and dd starts trying things on. But they don’t fit. So, I take the things, hand them to the dressing room guards, cross the entire store, go up a floor, and try to find better sizes. When I get up there, I ask the salesperson (who’s rearranging clothes), why they’re aren’t dressing rooms up here. “Oh, we have bathrooms,” she says. I’m not sure how this is relevant, but the other woman shopping for her kids is interested. “Can we use them? I just told my daughter there weren’t any.” The salesperson informs us that she has the key, that there are bathrooms for the public and for employees, but that she has to open the door. Lovely. I ask the other shopper how she deals with the fact that the dressing rooms are half way across the store while shopping for her young daughter, and she says she goes up and down the escalator like me. She shrugs her shoulders as if this is not uncommon.

Third store, Zara. I’m looking at some jackets. A salesperson comes over and reaches in front of me to put a sweater on the shelf above me. I have to stop and step back to let her do her work. I go back to looking at the jackets, trying to find the right size. She then comes back and does it again. I ask her if I’m in her way. She is oblivious to my sarcasm.

Finally—and though this happened the other day, it still rankles—I am ready to pay. The line is about 10 people long. There are two, count them two salespeople—clearly a misnomer—folding clothes and putting them back on shelves, and one, very slow person at the cash register. I wait patiently for a few minutes, but the line doesn't move. I ask one of the folders if there’s anyone else who can work the cash register. She looks at me like I’m disturbing her folding work, and replies that there isn’t.

I’m flabbergasted, and clearly shopping in the wrong places. Am I really as cranky as I sound, or should salespeople actually try to be helpful when you go in a store, and not act like you’re distracting them from their “real” work. Maybe I should try smaller stores? I’m just amazed at how complacent people are, how willing they are to be mistreated. No one else was complaining or looked the least bit miffed.

If I were an entrepreneur, I would start a clothing business in Barcelona that treated customers well.

OK, and it doesn’t help my frame of mind to have (the same) annoying music blasted at me in every store I go to

Barcelonians, any suggestions?

Chestnut roasting pans

2010-10-15T11:08:00.001+02:00

Chestnut roasting pans
Originally uploaded by Liz Castro

I wish I were being more regular with my blog posting. It's really hard because—OMG—the days just go flying by.

Anyways, I happened upon the first sign of autumn in a hardware store this morning: Chestnut roasting pans. Mmmm. For two and half euros, you too can roast your own chestnuts over an open fire. Pretty soon there will be street vendors roasting them on the corner, too. They smell so good and warm you up, even if they are a bit pasty (and always burnt!)

Happy fall!

Working at Home

2010-10-14T09:26:00.000+02:00

I suppose I should be writing about our road trip through France over the weekend, but instead, as I assembled my office as I do every morning, I thought I might show you my workspace.

You see, here in Barcelona, we have a very small apartment, perhaps about 70 square meters (700 square feet), and I think that includes the hallway and the walls. It's very compact. I don't have a dedicated office space because there simply isn't room for one. Instead, I use the dining room table.

As soon as everyone leaves in the morning, I get rid of all the breakfast crumbs and make sure the table is completely clean. I hate a sticky desk.

Next, I grab the mini Belkin USB hub from the bookshelves, which is already hooked up to my wireless mouse and wired keyboard, and plug it in to the outlet on the floor.

Next, I grab my external monitor from the same bookshelf. I would have liked to have gotten one of those beautiful Apple jobs, but instead, I got a cheap, compact, and light LG (Mine is the M227, very similar to the one linked, but perhaps only available in Europe.) It even doubles as a TV, though I don't use it for that. The monitor goes on the table, and I plug it in as well.

I set my Macbook Pro on the corner of the table with the ports facing the monitor. It's just sleeping, I almost never turn it off. I have to plug it into the wall outlet first, or else the monitor doesn't work. Then I just plug in the monitor cable and the USB hub cable. Voilà, the monitor goes on.

Finally, I grab my fancy mouse pad (read: pad of paper of appropriate size and texture), my wireless mouse, and my stack of papers, from the bookshelf where they live during the evening and set them on the table. I'm ready to go faster than it took to read this article.

In the evening, just before everyone gets home, I reverse the process and put everything in reverse order back onto the bookshelf so they're easier to get the next morning.

I also have a printer and a scanner on the bookshelf, but only put them on my desk when I need them.

What does your workspace look like? How do you make it efficient?

Castle-ers

2010-10-06T17:46:00.001+02:00

I've long been a fan of Catalonia's peculiar tradition of building multi-story towers out of people. I've used it as an example in my books, I've traveled to different cities to watch better and worse teams. I've taken lots of pictures. And I've always been entranced by the sheer variety of people who take part, from the very young monkeys that climb to the very top, through the strapping young men and women who form the middle sections, to the incredibly strong older men who anchor the base, without losing sight of the variety of men and women who surround and cement the foundation.

Shortly after we arrived in Barcelona, as the festes in our neighborhood of Gràcia died down, we wandered through our square and saw some folks taking down decorations. It turns out that the local Castle-ers club was responsible for the intricate and ghostly paper maché that had adorned the square. We asked if we could climb up the clock tower, and they said we couldn't, but somehow we started talking and we found out that they resumed practicing the following week.

I was pretty surprised that my oldest DD kept reminding me of the date. Younger DD wanted to go too. I was a bit nervous at first. Castle-ers clubs can have hundreds of people and it felt hard to be a part of it. Not to mention that your kids then climb up thirty feet into the sky.

They were amazingly welcoming. They immediately showed us around, told us a bit about castle-ing, helped the kids put on faixes, or black cumberbunds worn around the waist that help other climbers get a foot-hold. Seeing that I was hanging back, a woman came over to me with another faixa and encouraged me to take part, at least as part of the pinya, or base at the bottom that lends crucial support to the towers overhead. I didn't do much that day, but the kids had so much fun that they insisted on returning.

The next week, I spent much more time hanging out with the moms, who were really lovely. You know how sometimes in a group of new people, they can either open the circle to include you, even as they're talking about regular things you might not know about, or turn their bodies slightly to continue conversations without you? In this case, it was the former, with this lovely balance of continuing on with their regular conversations, but allowing and inviting me to be a part of it.

Indeed, the community of castle-ing is what has always attracted me. OK, it's true that these eight and nine-story high piles of people, with tiny kids scrambling to the top, and then down again as the tower trembles and shudders and sometimes even falls are totally dramatic and exciting. But it's the hugeness of the group, the variety of kinds of people that it contains, from young to old, from skinny to not so, even lately, from white to black, that pulls me.

Because building a nine-story tower is hard. Each person has a specific job. Suppose they're building a four-person wide tower, that means they start at the bottom with four really strong guys in a circle, with their hands and arms in particular positions. Then the support people are added in, all with particular names that I haven't quite learned yet, but very prescribed jobs and places where they are supposed to put their hands, arms, and bodies to lend support. The center of the circle of four is carefully and completely packed with supporters. Then people begin to assemble, according to carefully charted diagrams, around the edges of the base circle, creating spokes that radiate out ten or 15 people deep.

Hands are raised, one of the most beautiful parts of the tower construction, and then locked together to cement the foundation. Many people wear red handkerchiefs on their wrists to help support the weight and pull from other hands, and it makes a beautiful and inspiring picture.

Once the base is set, the second level begin to climb the assembled base, called a pinya, or pineapple to reflect the radiating and overlapping spokes of hands. Each level of the tower is now in position, waiting for the signal from the captains.

Until half of the tower is in position (four out of 9 levels, perhaps), there is still adjusting and moving about, making sure that the base is properly balanced. Once the midway point is reached, the band of grallers (a sort of clarinet) and timbalers (drummers) begins to play, loudly! Because many of the people at the base of the tower have their heads down, or are covered by other people, the band helps monitor the progress of the tower, using different music to mark the progression of the building.

The whole thing takes just a minute or two. As the music begins to play, castle-ers gingerly but quickly scramble up the sides. Each level pulls itself up together at the same time, defying gravity as they thrust themselves into the empty sky.

The last three stories consist of the "two-ers", usually 11 or 12 years old that form a two-person story that will support the “croucher” (perhaps 4 or 5) who straddles the two-ers shoulders, and the “anxaneta” (around 9) that actually crosses over the croucher from one side to the other, raising a hand in salute in the middle to signal the completion of the tower construction. The musicians mark the salute.

And then down again. You've never seen kids slide down a tower so fast. But they're careful not to disrupt the now trembling tower, holding on with all their might. I love watching the second level or third level guys at this most crucial point: they either stare intensely off into the distance or directly into the eyes of their level-partners, holding onto each other's shoulders and sometimes even shouting at each other to hold on. There is maximum focus.

Last week, after several days of photographing and chatting, I finally got up the nerve to join the pinya. There were a hundred people packed in and I wasn't at all sure what to do. But someone told me where to stand and how to press my chest against the person in front of me. Inside the pinya was like a secret world: I could hear breathing, and feel the strength of a huge group come together as one. At one point, the tower started to waver, and I heard a comment from the other side of the pinya: “Come on you guys, keep your chests constant, this thing feels like a flan!”

Catalonia always makes me feel like I belong. Now, even more so.

I take way too many pictures of castle-ers, or at least I did before I joined the pinya. You can find them on my Flickr site.

Barcelona Dress Code

2010-09-26T18:52:00.000+02:00

We're almost at the end of September and it's still warm enough here that DH, who in Massachusetts often complains about our unending winters, seems likely to revisit that position. We did have a couple of rainy days where it looked like we might be saying goodbye to summer, but last week it was hot again.

One day it was so hot and muggy that I couldn't bear to wear long pants and put on a pair of shorts instead. Evidently, I was the only who who hadn't read the bulletin: "Summer is indeed over and no self-respecting Barcelonian will wear shorts from this day forward." Everywhere I looked, on all my various commutes of the day, there was not a single other Barcelona resident in shorts. It was remarkable, because I swear, two days earlier, I was not the only one.

A Proud Internaut

2010-09-22T00:33:00.002+02:00

When we lived in the States and there were considerably less Catalans around with whom to keep up the language, I used to look around on the internet for ways to practice. Several years ago, I found a radio show called L‘Internauta, whose tagline I just love: “a program about technology, but more importantly, about what people do with technology”. I would download the podcasts, and listen to them in my car, incongruously hearing Catalan while seeing America.

But it wasn’t just language practice. The program is directed by a guy named Vicent Partal, who also began and runs one of the most, if not the most, important source of Catalan news online, Vilaweb. He is a great radio host: knowledgeable and self-effacing, warm and personable. Each week he finds really interesting people to talk with on the show: a group beginning a twitter-based book club, a Catalan programmer-cum-entrepreneur who has written award-winning tools for social marketing, a rural group that used the internet as an organizational tool, and many more. And there are also regular guests, who help direct the conversation to the topics of the week, be they new products, viruses, or general technology news. It always seemed like they were talking about just what I needed to know more about, and I learned a lot. OK, and I can't deny I'm intrigued by how Vicent, who is from Valencia, conjugates verbs!

Those of you who've read my books know that I tend to use a lot of examples from Catalunya. Usually, I just use my own photographs in order to avoid dealing with rights issues, but several years ago, I needed an example of a video on YouTube. I'd never corresponded with Vicent before, but I thought I'd ask him if he wouldn't mind if I used one of Vilaweb's broadcasts. I'm not sure what he thought of this American stranger writing him in Catalan with such an unusual request, but he kindly gave me permission and you can see the results on pages 306-7 of the Sixth Edition of my HTML book.

Over the next few years, as I listened more assiduously to L’Internauta, and read Vicent's editorials in Vilaweb, often about Catalunya's struggle for independence, I would write Vicent emails from time to time. Probably “fan mails” would be more accurate. I was just an admirer, impressed with the technology, his political insight, and his obvious caring about people. Once in a while, I would suggest some collaboration, and even tried translating Vilaweb articles into English for a time.

It's a curious relationship. There are a few people who follow me in this way too, folks who have used my books to start their careers and then write me letters every once in a while, and update me on what they're doing. I think it's part of how the internet works, and I like it. Somehow it connects us all together.

A few weeks ago, they opened a new Apple Store in Barcelona. I used the purchase of Pages (which can now export to EPUB!) as an excuse to go visit. And there among the throngs of devotees, I recognized Vicent Partal. It took me a while to get up the gumption, but I finally went over and introduced myself. He was perfectly friendly, but distracted with the business he had come to do. I still left happy that I had finally met in person someone I really admired.

When I got home, I was pleasantly surprised to find an email from Vicent. And when I told him about my latest book on EPUB, he suggested I be a guest on L’Internauta. That was today. At first I was really nervous, but it was so fun. It's going to sound stupid, but I love talking about EPUB. I love that anyone can publish a book, that you don't need a publisher, or expensive software, and I love helping people do it. I'm totally intrigued with how the whole market is shifting and how publishing is changing, and I've spent the last six months following all sorts of interesting people on Twitter to learn more about it. And it was really special to be on my own favorite radio program!

I think I've explained this whole thing because this, for me, is the beauty of the internet: making connections with people who might be far away and might speak other languages, but who have a common interest and are willing to share what they know. This is what that blog post the other day about print versus ebooks was getting at: How long are you willing to bet against people using things into beauty? I bet on beauty winning out.

The Politician

2010-09-21T19:36:00.004+02:00

My grandfather, whom I never got to know growing up, apparently used to say that it was a good idea to stay away from politics because it could ruin your life. Myself, I have always felt the pull of politics, although I've never acted on it. One reason is that there's just too much bull involved, but also that you need to spend your live trying to please everybody around you. On the other hand, the beauty of argumentation and elegant lying and manipulation is something that can be appreciated by anyone instructed in the Classics. The beauty of skillful conversation, that's what makes politics attractive to my ear.

That's what I witnessed last night. I was invited by a friend to a dinner cum tertúlia. This particular tertúlia is a monthly event organized by a group of friends who like to get together over dinner and talk away the issues of the day. Nowadays, in Catalonia, this most likely means talking about independence. For these occasions, this group of friends like to invite somebody who is either an expert, or someone directly involved in an area related to the topic. Last night they invited a national-level politician, Oriol Pujol, son of the former president of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol.

Now, I don't know what the protocol is in this case. I am not going to say much in terms of details of anything he said. That's not what interests me here. However, there are a few things that struck me, and they make me feel hopeful for the future of this nation.

The first one is the resourcefulness and skill with which Mr. Pujol argued every point. Not only did he turn every one of our arguments around, he did so in a very civilized manner, and on top of that, with undeniable charm. What's more, he was apparently indefatigable. Sometime around 12:00AM, when my eyes began to itch and my attention span to shorten, he was as snappy as he was three hours earlier. I think I have to attribute that to a high level of self-control and a great passion for his job. He is a true professional, and I am proud that my country has evolved politically enough to produce people of his caliber.

The second one is the fact that all around the table I was surrounded not by twenty-year-old radicals ready to embrace the most far-fetched ideals, but by forty to fifty somethings, most of them well established in society, but still very much passionate and serious about Catalan independence. Serious enough, in my opinion, to get involved politically and do something about it. All around me I saw a group of very smart and honest people, something I feared was not so easy to find. I'm glad I was proven wrong. I know I sound very politic-ish and sappy right now saying this. That was honestly my impression. I hope I wasn't being too naive.

Anyway, it was a great night. I got to experience something first hand that would have been nigh impossible to do back home in the US. I will never be able to understand all the subtleties and all the connections and all the key players, but at least I can say that I had a bit of a taste of it. In the end, I think my grandfather might have been right, and staying away from (professional) politics might be wiser. It's always more fun to keep one's own opinions :)

Softie telemarketers

2010-09-18T07:36:00.005+02:00

OK, this is a silly entry. It's about telemarketers. I've got a couple of calls from them over the past two weeks or so, and I've always been able to get rid of them by just saying “I'm not interested.” Now that's easy! I imagine that, having lived in the land where telemarketing was invented, the ease with which one can dismiss telemarketers around here sounds just too good to be true. I was expecting something like: “I see, but have you considered bullshit option #2?” to which I'd answer “No, and I don't want to, have a nice day,” to which they'd answer “OK, then you can always call this number-I'm-never-going-to-write-down blah-blah-blah,” and so on for fifteen minutes. But no, none of that. All you do is say “I'm not interested,” and they don't even say goodbye, nothin, they just leave you alone. It's like using a magic spell that destroys their schemes in one stroke. I hope they never become more proficient, that they stay noobish like they are now, that they never acquire the finer skills of the American telemarketer and stay naive and believe me when I say I am just not interested.

Old friends and the language of the empire

2010-09-16T20:06:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I got together with a few school friends I hadn't seen in many years. The different conversations were interesting, ranging from a recent divorce-cum-depression to a budding scandal involving illegal handing of contracts for public works and made-up diseases. Everybody just seems so old. More so because I've never really lived as an adult in this city. When I left, I was still one of those carefree "youts" (don't you love Joe Pesci?) without kids or responsibilities that I see nowadays sitting at terraces while I go by with a bag of groceries in each hand — boy is this a city for the young... As a result, I don't have the vocabulary of a Catalan grownup. I can't talk about mortgages or refinancing or financial aid or teacher parent conferences or anything that belongs to the adult world.

Anyway, my friends kept switching back between Spanish and Catalan, and it was interesting to notice some of the words that flew around: “trapitxeo” (can't be sure, but I think it's either trafficking or doing illegal dealings), “pollastre” (a pickle, a difficult situation), “jamacuco” (either a fit or a stroke). Many of these words actually come from Spanish. It seems that people still regard Spanish as a cool language, a language for expressing real angry feelings, for technical terms, for the movies. Some day perhaps this will change, in the meantime Catalan still gets the short end of the stick. Some days I don't know wether to be angry and start screaming at everybody because it seems that this country is slowly sinking, or to let go because no mater what I do, the sinking will continue. I am convinced that if Catalonia is ever independent, corruption will be one of the issues that will impede its progress the most. We'll see.

Barcelona time

2010-09-16T14:09:00.000+02:00

I think one of the hardest things that we're dealing with these days is our completely new schedule. Whereas before we woke up in the morning, now we are all out of the house before 8. But it's not just our new responsibilities, it's also that Catalans think of time in a wholly different way.

Because of the tradition of large midday meals and naps (migdiada is the Catalan for siesta), office workers tend to work from 9-2 and then again from 4-7. Stores accommodate the schedule by opening from 10-2 and 5-8. And kids go to school from 9-1 (presumably they can't hold out as long for lunch) and then return from 3-5.

Catalans think Americans are strange for eating dinner at 6, saying they'd never make it until bedtime without more food, but think it's perfectly normal to wait until 2pm for lunch—admittedly made much easier by a mid-morning break of coffee and sandwiches, shared by office workers and school children alike.

It's interesting to go out around 5. The metro is swarming with moms and preschoolers, on their way to pick up older kids from school. If you go to a playground at 4:30, it'll be empty. At 5:30, it's packed, and each kid is eating some kind of snack, generally sweet treat, like a chocolate croissant or cookies with nocilla, the local nutella. No wonder they can't eat dinner at 6 with a snack like that!

So, if you want to do anything after work, you do it at 8 or 9. Our Human Towers club meets from 7 until 10:30pm on Tuesdays, even though there are 20 kids in the troupe. I haven't seen anyone doing homework, but they must, no? On Fridays they meet until 11pm (again with kids) and then go out to dinner afterward.

And somehow, everyone is up and ready to go the next morning; the one thing that we share is our start times: school and work start at 9am, whether you go to bed at 10 or at 1.

The weekends are the most rigid of all. Saturday morning is for shopping, particularly for food at the market, until 2pm when everything closes. At 2pm the streets empty and even Barcelona feels like a ghost town. At 5, people start going out for a stroll, down the Rambles, to cafes, more shopping, though perhaps more for clothes than for food. Saturday night everyone is out.

Sunday mornings are really quiet. The contrast with Saturday night is remarkable. Since we're right near a plaza, we can hear people hanging out often until 3 or 4 in the morning. At 7 or 8, they'll all gone, and it's completely quiet. I didn't remember that cities could be this quiet. There's some movement around noon as people travel to their midday meals with families or friends. Again the streets are deserted.

The Day

2010-09-13T01:04:00.004+02:00

Yesterday was, of course, September 11th. It's a National Holiday here in Catalonia, a remembrance of the Catalan defeat in 1714 at the hands of the Borbons after a nasty fight about who should be the heir to the throne, which led to the loss of Catalonia's autonomy. Catalans have spent the past 296 years trying to get it back.

On September 11, 2001, I found out about the horrors taking place in New York because my brother-in-law in Barcelona, six hours ahead and off work for the holiday, watching TV and not able to believe what he was seeing, called us up to ask what was going on.

It's a strange thing to honor two different events on the same day. Here in Barcelona, there are several different pieces to the commemoration. First, different organizations offer up flowers at the statue of Rafael Casanovas, the defeated Catalan leader from 1714. I love how the castle-makers leave their flowers up at the top level of the statue! (The blue and white ones with CVG on the top left of the statue are from our team.)

Another contingent of people (sometimes the same ones) offer flowers in the Fossar de les Moreres, a beautiful semi-circular plaza built over the mass grave of the fallen soldiers and civilians from the war. There is an eternal flame and words etched in stone: "No traitor lies buried in this grave, even though our flag is lost, it will still be a vessel of honor".

This year, the plaza was a sea of slightly varied declarations from a multitude of competing nationalist groups. They don't seem to be able to agree on the best way to go about procuring independence from Spain, and instead of joining together, they have split into tiny groups. It's frustrating. There are many different flags, including one with the standard four red stripes on a yellow background, and several variations with different colored stars that friends say evoke the memory of Cuba's fight for independence more than 100 years ago. I would've liked to have bought a flag to hang from our balcony, but was a bit unsure about which flavor was the most appropriate, or which organization I should buy it from. I bet I wasn't the only one.

At any rate, the morning festivities break up around 2pm—lunch time—and the streets become really quiet. We went to a communal dinner with about 500 other people organized by Òmnium Cultural near the Arc de Triomf.

I found it remarkable for the quality of the food (salad and fideuà, with allioli, some dessert that was a combination of cake and crema catalana, and coffee that had no right to be as good as it was, given the number of people being served), and the fact that they used washable plastic plates, and then gathered them up at the end of the meal to actually wash them.

At 5:00, folks began to gather at Plaça Urquinaona to march in favor of independence. Again, there were many flags, and many different kinds of people, of all ages.

The walk took us right back down to the Fossar, but this time we skipped out just before we got to the end, and grabbed the metro for home.

I was relieved to find, upon our return, that no Korans had been burned, and that instead, there had been civil, tolerant ceremonies marking our own losses while attempting to bring people together instead of fractioning them into so many tiny, sparring groups.

Street cleaning supplies cart

2010-09-09T10:12:00.001+02:00

Street cleaner supplies
Originally uploaded by Liz Castro

Photo of the day... cool, space-age style street-cleaning supplies cart. That plastic basket on the back is very typical, but usually they have brooms that look like a witch was supposed to ride them (round and elongated), instead of the regular rectangular one shown here.

Locked libraries

2010-09-09T09:58:00.000+02:00

Because of annoying scheduling issues, younger dd and I have 45 minutes to kill before her school opens. I meant to bring a book this morning, but I forgot. So when we got to school, I asked if I could go into the library and borrow a book for a few minutes.

“Oh, no, I can't let you do that.” I wish I could say I was surprised, but sadly, it was the answer I expected. Libraries here are different: smaller, quieter, and more carefully guarded. We had to go upstairs to use the bathroom, and I walked over to the library area and considered pocketing a book for a while, but I refrained. And though I asked the secretary again once we went back down the stairs, I didn't press very hard. It's difficult to tell where to push and where I'm just being a pushy American.

But it sure made me mad. What harm could possibly come from me borrowing a book for half an hour? Why keep them hidden and unused in the library?

On the bench outside of school, we opted for playing the dots game, where you connect dots with individual lines until you finally get to finish a square and mark it with your initial. Sometimes I worry I don't know what to do with my own kids, so it felt good to play a game. Then one of dd's classmates came over and started playing too, and it made for a good start of the day. Good thing we weren't reading!

Photo of the day

2010-09-08T14:51:00.000+02:00

New feature of this blog, random things that I take photographs of! Today on the way to school, we saw a cool outdoor elevator type thing to help move into, or presumably out of, an apartment. Instead of lugging stuff up and down the stairs, you can move things up and down on the outside.

The ladder part is connected to a truck that is parked just below the apartment. Then the ladder is extended up to the outside of the apartment and attached with what looked like straps to the balcony. Honestly, it didn't look particularly stable.

Then there's a little platform that goes up and down, that they fill with the person's belongings.

I had to go by it twice, and it occurred to me that many years ago it was considered bad luck to walk under ladders, probably for good reason. As I avoided walking directly underneath it, I decided it was probably bad luck to walk under a moving ladder as well.

In person vs. remotely

2010-09-06T14:58:00.003+02:00

When I first moved to the States, I brought with me a few funny customs that took a while to get rid of in exchange for better and more rational ones. One of these is the need to go down physically to, let's say, a store to check out whether they have such and such item. DW kept reminding me that I could just call instead of wasting two hours of my life. It's definitely a nicer way of conducting business. Once I learned that behavior, it just made life so much easier. Needless to say, online transactions make things even easier and more pleasant, especially when they do work.

In any case, just today I reconnected with my old custom. I realized that most transactions around here still require you to waste an inordinate amount of time to get things done. You need to be present, in person, all sweaty and cranky, in order to get that stupid official piece of paper, or to ask someone at a store (who never answer the phone) whether they have the specific size of whatever you're looking for. What's more, even though many government agencies and local business have web sites and online presence, this is usually worthless, since once you click on the button that will solve everything for you, the page becomes eternally under construction.

However, I do not want to sound all negative. I think the reason why in person beats remotely around here is that people still prefer the personal touch. This is a people culture, not a facts or an accomplishment culture. People still seem to come first. It takes a while to get used to this when the only thing you see is the bottom line. However, in the long run I think this is a quality worth cultivating.

Shared pillowcases are un-American

2010-09-05T12:53:00.001+02:00

I'm probably reading a bit too much into this, but this pillowcase always make me laugh. It's so big: made for two pillows on a single Queen sized bed (or "matrimonial bed" as they're called here). I wonder if there's a special technique for bunching it up for reading without bothering one's partner, but I doubt it. Are folks here just less individualistic, or better at compromise? Or less picky about their pillows? (Or is there a secret pillow underneath and this is just for show?)

Waiting for something to happen

2010-09-05T00:02:00.002+02:00

Every time I go back to my country I go through a mini reverse culture shock. Over the years I have become more and more a New Englander, and a country dweller at that. So, I guess it is to be expected to have a bit of an adjustment period when arriving to the densely populated (5010 hab/km²) Mediterranean metropolis of Barcelona.

In the past, I've gotten over this culture shock unexpectedly and sweetly. Some years it's been the smell of the ocean, or the smell of someone's home cooking. Other times it's been simply the quality of light, the sky, perhaps even some feature of the arid landscape. These are the things that anchor me. Of course family is important, but in my case, what really connects me are the intangible things, the eternal things that transcend the present time. Some days I feel more connected to the ancient civilizations that shaped this country, than to the people I meet in the street.

I haven't had that welcoming moment this year yet, I still feel very much like a foreigner. It hasn't been for lack of chances. I've soaked in the salty sea, smelled incredible scents, walked in mountain paths that mirror my soul, visited 4000 year old monuments, looked at people's faces and admired how beautiful everybody is around here. Not even the Calippo popsicle is doing it for me this time. I wonder what it'll be...

Out of the Wilderness

2010-09-04T11:36:00.000+02:00

When we arrived in Barcelona, we found that our internet connection was a paltry 1Mbps... but when we called the state phone company (Telefonica) to make it faster, they told us that we couldn't get there from here. Literally. If we had had better service already (3 or 6Mbps), we could have upgraded to 10, but since we had really, really bad service, we would have to disconnect our service and then reorder, and we'd be without internet for several days, maybe weeks. Yeah right.

Luckily it's not a monopoly anymore. We went down to the Orange store and ordered their faster and cheaper internet. It's still Spain so they said it would take up to three weeks to complete the change (!), but they promised we'd lose our internet only for a day or so and even gave us a cool little USB doo-dad that would let us connect to the internet faster than Telefonica ever did—no matter where we were.

Unfortunately, we had skipped off to the beach when they delivered the new modem, so Andreu had to go down this morning to pick it up from the UPS equivalent, and though the little USB connection worked, we were all anxious to stop taking turns with it and have real Wifi again. Not blazing fast, but not bad at all. I can upload photos again, and it doesn't make the internet stand still!

The other thing I did was jailbreak my iPhone (an ancient 3G!). If you know me, you know I'm a bit of a goody-two-shoes, but not so good that I feel compelled to follow stupid rules. Even after I served my full AT&T sentence of two years, they wouldn't let me use my phone here in Barcelona. And I couldn't buy a new phone if I wanted to (which I confess I do) because we're only going to be here a year and Telefonica requires an 18 or 24-month contract (after which I wouldn't be able to use it in the US either!). So I did a bit of research online (what did we do before the internet??) and walked my iPhone over to jailbreakme.com, which does the whole jailbreak process practically automatically. All I had to do was click OK here and there.

To unlock the phone from AT&T, there was one more step: open Cydia (which jailbreakme installs), then click the Manage button at the bottom of the phone, and then Sources on the main screen. Then click repo666.ultrasn0w.com to install the unlock sequence. The only thing left was to buy a data package from Orange, which comes with a new SIM card, which once installed in the iPhone, makes everything work again. It's quite lovely