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Yesterday I got to explain to a slightly confused Spaniard that "condominium" in the US means the type of multi-unit residential building that is apparently standard here, where each unit is owned by the person who lives in it, and that the type of building that's owned by a company which then rents out the units to residents, is so much seen as the default in the US that it doesn't have a specific name.

(The difference in corporate attitudes to profit-making that this implies is fascinating to me - I feel like the overall sentiment, not just in real estate but in everything lately, is that renters who pay over and over are easier to squeeze money out of than customers who buy once and then own the product. But apparently here the main model is that a company buys land, builds a residential building, sells off each unit to an individual buyer who presumably intends to live in it themself, then moves on to the next project. However, does that mean that finding housing is less of a struggle? No, it's just different.)

Overall great success. I made Budget Bytes bean quesadillas because they fit the criteria of:
- eat with your hands & without a plate because we don't have enough plates or silverware for everyone
- vegetarian & relatively low on Ingredients People Don't Eat, apart from the cheese
- satisfyingly filling
- flavorful but not super spicy
also I love them, it's one of my favorite recipes and I hadn't made any in a while. Black beans are not the most common kind of bean here (which is a shame bc they're my favorite) so I used kidney beans instead. They were a hit, and in a couple of weeks we will do it again & one of my classmates will make gyoza.

(Also a big thank you to my classmate for agreeing with me that most food here is bland. Like, it's not BAD, but it is bland. By US standards I have a pretty low spice tolerance, but even so, I'm used to even most foods that are not specifically Spicy Foods having a little bit of spice to them. Pizza. Pasta. Sandwiches with spicy mayo. IDK. But here it's like, if it's a cheese pizza it's dough + squished tomatoes + mozzarella and that's it! Like at least put some onion and garlic in it! Some regular black pepper! Something!)

we did some prep for the B2 proficiency level exam that we're going to be taking at the end of February, for which we read an exerpt from Corazón Tan Blanco by Javier Marías. The point was that there were some words missing and we had to fill them in, multiple choice, and that went all right. But I don't even care about that because I had some sort of epiphany about past tenses, the way that they're used in this exerpt is so skillful. There's one bit that just blew away. But to tell you more details, I first have to tell you that this exerpt is about a suicide.
( Read more... )

Because of winter break and then we had a guest.

Today we went to Trinitat Vella and Singuerlin, north into the mountains a bit from the center of Barcelona. This is an area that was either farms or nothing until relatively recently- we saw a lot of 1960s-era brick apartment blocks, and a small number of older houses. Since there isn't as much obvious physical History in this area, the talking parts of the walk were more a collection of random things, but the view at the end was absolutely stunning and fully justified the entire trip.

At one point our fearless leader was telling us about a little group of three 1800s houses when the owner of one of these homes drove by and was like "That one's mine" (but in Catalan of course) so we all told him how lovely his house is.

We talked about how these areas are now well-connected to the city center by metro and bus lines, bike lanes, and even street-infrastructure escalators and elevators so that walking from the metro station up the mountainside isn't as totally murderous as it would otherwise be.

We talked a bit about industrialization and waves of immigration, first from other parts of Spain and then from the rest of the world, which caused this area to be developed into residential areas because of housing shortages in the city. We also saw a few "barracas" (which means something more like "shacks") where during these housing shortages people just built on unoccupied land with whatever materials they could find.

We also talked about the factories that are currently located out here- Cacaolat chocolate milk and Damm beer, and about how the founder of Damm came to Barcelona from Alsace/Alsatia during the Franco-Prussian War. So it's in a sense both a German beer and a local company.

We also saw a tiny little solar farm and talked about how Spain overall gets about 50% of its electricity from renewable sources, but Barcelona's percentage is very low because there aren't many good locations for renewable energy generation close to the city - there's a river but it's small and slow-moving, there's very little even flat-ish land that isn't in use, and there's tension between putting up windmills vs keeping the mountains pictursque and natural for tourism. When Sparkly & guest & I went to Madrid this past weekend, I saw several solar farms and some windmills from the train, out in the middle of nowhere. I"ve seen a few buildings with rooftop solar in Barcelona, but probably we need more of those.

I felt great while I was out but crashed a little after coming home. The weather was beautiful during the walk though, and I take slightly silly pride in being the lightest-dressed person in the group (t-shirt and flannel button-down, to everybody else's hoodies and winter coats).

- brought cookies, did not win a prize in the food contest but people seemed to like them, and now I get to eat the less-pretty ones that I left at home
- another American student brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which is hilarious considering how much the school talked up the food contest, but apparently PB&J is not done here and people were actually curious to try it
- the sangria that was labeled as "sin alcohol" was not in fact without alcohol, but I drank some anyway and it wasn't bad
- danced around to a wide variety of music
- the Macarena was played and people danced but not the Actual Macarena Dance? IDK.
- a classmate asked me for help figuring out how to use the microwave, and I did not Figure Out how to use the microwave (just pressed random buttons until it turned on) but I did avert aluminum-foil-in-the-microwave disaster so that's my good deed for the day

One of the most delightful parts of Language School so far (at least for me) is the walking tours they have on Fridays. The guy who leads them is very fun to listen to, so I forgive him for walking extremely fast.

Yesterday's theme was upcoming holidays, which are - let me see if I've learned my lessons properly -

6 December - Constitution Day, when the current constitution was accepted after Franco died
8 December - day of the immaculate conception of Mary
22 December - official Christmas lottery drawing day, apparently it is traditional to split the cost of a ticket among a group of family & friends
24 December - Christmas Eve which is apparently the real party
25 December - Christmas of course
26 December - saint day for San Esteban, who is not extremely notable as a saint but people like having an extra day off to travel home after Christmas
28 December - day of the innocents which for whatever reason is a prank holiday here, like April Fools
31 December - New Year's Eve of course
6 January - Three Kings Day, for which there will be a parade and a speech by the mayor to "welcome the three kings", and kids can personally deliver their "please give me gifts" letters

December 6, 8, 25-26, New Year's Day and January 6 are all "días festivos", government holidays when schools and most businesses are closed.

Why did this topic need to be a walking tour? It doesn't, but there's supposed to be a walking tour every Friday and this week all the Friday special things are supposed to be holiday themed, so there we were.

Of course most of these are Christian and/or specifically Catholic holidays, but our teacher managed to spend most of his time talking about local history. While explaining Constitution Day he had to interrupt himself multiple times to remind himself to summarize briefly and not get too far off track (and he still ended up telling us about how Juan Carlos I accidentally shot his brother, and about the suppression of the Catalan language during the dictatorship.)

He also told us about how December 8, in addition to being a Catholic holiday, is also the anniversary of a 16th century battle over Spain's control of parts of what is now Belgium and the Netherlands, wherein Spanish army forces were beseiged on an island by enemy ships? But the Spanish troops won? I want to learn more about this, but I didn't catch the name of the location where it happened.

He also taught us a lovely expression, "ajo y agua" - "garlic and water" which is a minced oath / abbreviation for a longer phrase that means "go fuck yourself and deal with it".

In my Spanish class on Thursday, the teacher showed us this music video, and it's very silly but unfortunately I really like it? At first I was just like "Wow that sure is a song from a genre with genre conventions that I'm not familiar with" but. It's silly in an intentional way that unfortunately works on me.

En el mismo folio
La lista de la compra y una canción
Como un cupón
De los ciegos
Rima la soledad
Con el atún en aceite vegetal
En oferta
¡Vaya precios sin competencia!

(On the same sheet of paper
The shopping list and a song
Like a lottery ticket (from the charity for the blind that does lotteries to raise money)
It rhymes loneliness
With tuna in vegetable oil
On sale
You can't beat these prices!)

Una mano pide al cielo
La otra en el cajón del pan
Hay manchas de grasa
De llanto, de tinta,
Estoy harto de tanto frotar

(One hand pleading to heaven
The other hand in the breadbox
There are grease stains, tear stains, ink stains
I'm tired of trying to scrub them out)

Tú que eres tan guapa y tan lista
Tú que te mereces
Un príncipe, un dentista, ¡tú!
Te quedas a mi lado
Y el mundo me parece
Más amable
Más humano
Menos raro
Y tú

(You, who are so pretty and so clever
You, who deserve a prince or a dentist
You stay by my side
And the world seems kinder, more human, less strange)

¡Qué bonito el mar!
Cuando lo miro a tu lado
Olvido las pateras
Las mareas negras
Los alijos incautados
La playa donde se dejan
Morir las ballenas
Este infumable plato combinado

(The sea looks so nice
When I look at it standing next to you
I forget about the refugee boats
The black tides (oil spills)
The captured contraband shipments
The beaches where the whales wash up to die
This inedible combination plate)

(Chorus again)

Aunque me engañe
Y me diga que no
Siempre estás tú detrás
De mi mejor yo
Aunque no soy pa ti
Que soy pa contigo
El mundo es tan redondo
Como el piercing de tu ombligo

(Although I might kid myself and tell myself no
It's always you there behind my best me
Although I'm not for you
I'm for being together with you
The world is as round
As your belly button piercing)

La cosa se pone dura sin tu aliento
Siento con amargura
Que estoy perdiendo la frescura
Que se vuelve frío sin tu calor
Y sin droga dura
Que tú

(Things get tough without your breath
I feel with bitterness
That I'm losing freshness
That it gets cold without your warmth
And without any hard drug but you)