"Catalan means feeling"

On the terraza at the Pedrera..see the tiny castle to the left?

Again on the terraza with my beloved audio-tour around my neck.

The first band to play, see the guy on the right with a purple "7 dwarves" hat on?  That's traditional Catalan head attire.

This is Valentino's rendition of the entire day.

My German friend Isabelle and me.

The fancy (and good) A Cappella choir in front of the ridiculously oversized poster of "pa amb tomaquet" the typical bread with tomato and oil of Catalunya.

A more manageable size.

My friend Lise from the Netherlands!  She's great...speaks Dutch, English, Catalan & Castellano.

And finally, the free "utiliza la llengua" posters we all took to wallpaper our bare walls.

This past Saturday there was an offer for all Erasmus/mobility students to go to Barcelona for the whole day for a grand total of 5 euros.  That included the bus there & back, a visit to the Gaudí Pedrera, "food," "wine tasting," and concerts.

MANY of us signed up because 5 euros for a day in Barcelona should never be passed up.

The trip was organized for all the foreign students and people doing internships in Catalunya/Cataluña.  We were going to meet up with students from all the other universities near BCN and neighboring cities that had exchanges, etc and that got me excited about meeting (possibly?) another American.  

The day started off horribly.  I woke up late since Pierre and Jairo didn't feel it was necessary to get me up- even though they knew I was going with them.  They left the house on time, woke me up with the door slamming, and I got ready so quickly and ran (literally) all the way to the meeting point that I forgot almost everything necessary to make a day successful while traveling.  For example, I forgot my chap-stick and eye drops.  As a gas-perm contact lens wearer, I am parched without the safety blanket of eye drops.  I figured I'd make it though- I'd stop at a pharmacy for some chap-it and some drops.  Also, it should be mentioned that I had checked the forecast the night before and knew it was going to rain, so I had set out my raincoat and my umbrella to bring along.  In the morning I grabbed both and threw on a light sweater. Before I went to buy drops, I was hungry and thirsty since I ran out of the house that morning.  After the 1.75 hour bus ride, we got to BCN and waited for about an hour for the other people to get there (from the other schools).  We all waited in the sunshine (no rain, and here's Melissa carrying a coat and an umbrella and wearing a sweater....) at the Pedrera for them and once they came they had to organize us into groups of 22 and we had to enter 15 minutes after the group in front of us.  I was group 3.  So, I had 1/2 and hour to go get food/drink/drops/etc.  I got to a nearby café and went to buy a small water bottle and a croissant, but I reached in my purse and found that I had left my wallet at home as well.  That really wrecked my attitude.  Now I couldn't even buy the necessary things.

It got worse before it got better.  Group 3 finally entered the Pedrera and we had to wear audio guides (which I normally like), but these audio guides were possibly the most frustrating part of the day.  We turned them on and we heard "Ca-- mi--- ---- --- dí --- const--- --s mil seis ---" like a bad drive-thru.  Not only that, but there were way too many people inside and it was stuffy and hot and I'd already been in there twice in years past.  I wanted out.  By the time we got to the best part (in my opinion), the Terraza, we had to leave.  The only good part was that we were getting on the busses and going to get FOOD.

Once the busses came, we loaded up and drove to the north of the city where one of the schools in BCN is located (with erasmus students, etc.) They dropped us off and it was now ~2 pm (still hadn't eaten).  We walked about 2 km before we got to the school b/c the busses couldn't go down those roads, but I knew when we got there they would have food- so I pushed on.

We arrived and set on the tables were little round plates with mini snacks.  THAT was the food.  They were the size of individual hamburgers designed for Barbies.  They were so small that if I had eaten a whole platter of the mini-snacks, I would have still been hungry.  They were devoured so quickly that I had 3 and resorted to buying a beer for 3 euros (oh, I borrowed 20 euros from Axel- thanks, buddy!) just to have something in my stomach.

After that we had a "wine tasting" and after that was "Speed dating" and after that was "concerts."

The "wine tasting" had good intentions, but they had to serve about 100+ people, so the servings were 1/3 of what a normal wine tasting was and the wine was served in plastic cups.  Not the same feel as a true wine tasting.  Furthermore, the wine was nasty.  The white wine wasn't even chilled.  They had 3 wines to taste, only 2 got to me since they passed them back through the crowds...and after that experience we left.

The whole day (up to this point and when we return) had been run in Catalan.  The nice thing is that I understood a lot, if not most of what people were saying.  I didn't notice much else until we got back, however.  Hunger blinds people and makes people mean.  Take me for example, on this day that I'm writing about.

We left so as to intentionally skip the "speed dating" and a group of us walked around to try to find some food somewhere.  We had good intentions of going to Parc Güell but no busses ran from where we were to there and we didn't walk it (it would have taken 45 min. to an hour (both ways) and we had to be back in 2 hours).  Plus we were all hungry, as aforementioned.

Conveniently (sarcastic tone) it was siesta time and not one thing was open other than pastelerías.  I needed food.  We ended up walked about 1/2 an hour to find a Café y Té which has a food menu too.  Jairo and I waited for 35 minutes for our pasta to come and when it did, we ate it in under 4 minutes.  We left as quickly as we could.

When we got back to the "Catalan means feeling" event, I saw everything for what felt like the first time.  There were free posters and free bags and free stickers and there was music and wonderful snacks on the tables (more food- only people-sized this time!).  It was glorious to come back when we did.  We adorned almost everyone with stickers that said "EN CATALA" and we grabbed a lot that said "I'm a student, speak to me in Catalan, please" (in Catalan, of course) so we could put them all over our school folders and bags, etc.  It was basically a big push for all of us to LOVE Catalan and show it off.  

In a very Spanish/European way, they used sex to sell the language.  There were posters and cups and t-shirts and tank-tops with the slogan "Utiliza la llengua" on it (meaning: Use the tongue) since "tongue" means language as well as tongue, they applied the double entendre and had some artist design a picture of two people making out on the bottom of the sign.  Most of us thought it was funny. 

Just then, a formally-dressed, an A capella choir came on stage and sang some wonderful Catalan traditional songs and they gave me the chills.  I was a happy camper at this point.  Food and free stuff turned it all around for me. 

We had to leave before the next band began their set, but in warm-ups they sounded like a scat-singing flamenco fusion band...wish I could have heard them.

We got home and sat down.  It was a long day of standing and not doing too much of anything.  BUT, I scored some free stuff and met two American girls teaching English in BCN.  One of them (Ashley) is from Cleveland, Ohio, went to Bowling Green University and is probably coming over to Lleida this Saturday!  The other one, Katie, went to UW Milwaukee campus and grew up in WI.  That's what I call some solid Midwest representation over here in Catalunya.