More carnival

Remember what I said about the carnival here? Not as bad as the Feast of St. Zeppolidunkingclown? Wrong. Very wrong. We've been living the dream (nightmare) of Catalan carnival for days on end. The obnoxious dunking clown has been replaced with (a) rapid gunfire of firecrackers thrown all over the place to celebrate Merce - the martyr of our little barrio, (b) thump-thump-thump of bad music and recordings of shouting voices to attract uninterested people to rides, (c) screeching voices shouting god-knows what, and (d) catalan speeches of independence accompanied by car horns. Funny thing - nobody seems interested in the carnival anymore. I've heard tonight is the last night.

We turn our fans on full blast for some white noise.

carnival

It's September and there's a carnival near our apartment. Late at night we hear the noise of people and the din of fireworks. Occasionally, we'll hear some strange sounds, of what we aren't sure. I'm reminded of the years Brad, John, Phil and I spent in Little Italy when the Feast of San Genaro appeared like a hurricane each September. The first 2 days of that feast were like having Disneyland at your doorstep. We ate zeppoli, sausage sandwiches (some more than others, ... John), laughed with the crowd and thought of ourselves as geniuses for having chosen such a fantastic place to live. That soon turned to despair. After 5 or 6 more nights of moving drunked people away to get in our building or stepping over the piles of trash to walk to work, we wanted that damn thing over with, but it's a 10-day feast, and we had another few days left. The worst was the dunking clown. You know him. He sits on a collapsable bench in a glass tank full of water below and tries to get people to spend $3 for 3 chances to throw a baseball at a target which, if hit, will drop him in the water. Unless he's your high school principal, it's not easy to convince people to spend the money, so typically these clowns resort to ridiculing people walking by ("Hey fatso, one more of those zeppoli and you may lift off"..."Does your wife know you're dating that dog?"... and it goes downhill from there). Fine if you're walking by. But our window was not more than 100 feet from the clown, and since he was in a glass tank, they gave this guy a microphone and speakers. And it was summer, so it was hot, and not that many apartments had air conditioning. We didn't for the first year or two. So the windows were open. Weekdays, he did his spiel until 11pm. Weekends, until 2 or 3am. And it's pretty quiet at 2:30am, except of course for mr. clown. Even after we bought an air conditioner we could still hear him through the window. (they gave this guy a speaker system!).

So no dunking clown here. Though it's early in the fiesta. We'll see. Gen and I have been playing around with some insults in Spanish ("Se veste estupido su mama!"o "Con una marido como el debe usar una correa!" o "Es su papa o se cepilla su perro"). We're trying to make do. We do, however, have a gypsy beggar who walks the streets of our neighborhood and sings her little gypsy song for people to please give her some money. And we've got the guy with the steel barrels of water that bangs on the barrels every two blocks or so to let people he's coming by. Like a spanish version of Mr. Softee.

Possible New Career Path

I recently found this in the newspaper and since I've been thinking of a possible career path, I thought I might be considering this. It adds a whole new image to the field of sustainable design.

Mr. Clean, International Man of Mystery

Mr. Clean, as it turns out, has multiple aliases.

Is he an Agent Disinfecteur or something worse? Here in Spain he goes by Don Limpio, however our preliminary intelligence reports state that he's been spotted in France traveling under the name "Monsieur Propre."

We've already alerted the Department of Homeland Cleanliness.

El Beisbol, parte 2

OK, OK, I think Greg left a few salient facts out of his account of our baseball excursion. First of all, so we are all on the same page, the baseball we saw was terrible. Terrible. At or below the level of play we saw on the recently televised Little League World Series. Dylan could easily win MVP in any position he wanted to play, including being a one-handed (left) pinch hitter. (In fact, we think Dylan could take the European league by storm).

Don't get me wrong, it was fantastically fun. Terrible baseball makes for interesting games. Lots of action, lots of "ohhhhh!"s and "oooooooo"s and "jeez, what was he thinking" (the latter were mostly reserved for large lumbering swedes failing to maintain appropriately small distances between themselves and first base).

But let's not get a head of ourselves. Shall we start at the beginning?

First, Greg and I were very proud of our ability to get to the baseball game. As Greg mentioned, baseball isn't so popular here in Spain. So, we not only had to figure out where the field was located, but also navigate not one, but two forms of public transportation to get there (subway then bus). Fortunately, Barcelona has an exemplary public transportation system that even the most dense of tourists (um, that's us) can figure out.

After taking the metro to Plaza Espana, we found the appropriate bus stop. There we waited for quite a long time. Believe it or not, in Barcelona, it is fairly unusual to wait for public transportation. Subway service runs slightly more frequently than once every five minutes. One could get spoiled here.

We figured we were in the right place, though, because we heard these two guys in their early twenties (who looked fairly unwashed and unkempt) waiting at the same bus stop talking about making it to the game in time for the first pitch.

One of them was English (we think) and the other was American. The American never actually spoke to us--there was something a little strange about him. He was also the lesser washed and lesser kempt of the two. As it turned out they played baseball in Germany. They told us that Americans that were either in college or who had been injured or who otherwise couldn't make the cut came to play ball in the European leagues. They were out to support some of their friends (Americans) who played on the Swedish team.

Anyway, I digress. So, finally our bus arrived and we got on. The first thing that Greg did was ask the bus driver if the bus went to the Baseball Field. It went something like this:

Greg: "Esta bus va al campo de beisbol?" Does this bus go to the Baseball Field?
Driver: "Que??????????" What (you crazy foreigner)????????????????
Greg: "El campo de beisbol. Vamos alla?" The Baseball Field. Are we going there?
Driver: "QUE? Beisbol? QUE?" WHAT? Baseball? WHAT? (stupid foreigner)
Me: "What are you doing? Stop talking to the driver!"

Um, yah. Baseball is so popular here (not), that the guy who drives by the field 10 times a day doesn't even know it.

Ok, so finally we find the field and the four us (2 of us washed and reasonably well-groomed, 2 not) walk in. As Greg mentioned (see supra) he then, much to my horror, tried to talk his way in. I was so embarrassed.

Me: "What are you doing? Pay the 5 Euros! Who's Johanson?"

Note that the two unwashed players from the German team actually were friends of the Swedish team and they had no problem ponying up the 5 euro entrance fee. Although, really, we shouldn't have paid. There were hardly any people in the stadium. They should have paid us. We were probably the only ones that really understand what was going on and why the baseball was so terrible.

Soooo, when Greg started shouting very loud, very American cheers and jeers during the game, it was also a bit embarrassing. It's OK though, because I got him back. After one of the Czech players hit a solid, albeit foul, fly ball down the third base line, I waited until the stadium grew quiet and yelled:

"OVER THE FENCE, NOT OVER THE FANS!"

That, apparently, he found embarrassing.

Here one week

I've been here one week. So far, so good. I think we're starting to get on a normal sleep schedule, though it's not easy.

We had dinner and drinks with some of Gen’s schoolmates last night. Elsa (France), Sansui (Hong Kong), Juey (Mainland China), Klaus (Germany), Sofia (Peru). [By the by, I could have butchered any of those names and spellings, and I'm sorry if I did.] We spoke English, slowly, and simply using our foreign speaker voice, which I perfected during my stint in Aruba and countless phone orders of chinese food and all my thousand or so Dell customer service calls. For a change of pace, I tried to use a contraction like shan't but couldn't think of a usage. There was much talk of the magazine The Economist. Much talk. I’ve never heard so much Economist talk. Like when architects get together and talk about deconstructivism and cladding.

Sansui told us about a friend who had a funny experience in Germany when he asked for a “dry martini, please” and the German bartender gives him 3 martinis (drei martini).

El beisbol

Baseball, in Spain. It’s bigger than Yahtzee, but not as big as, say, rock/paper/scissors. Maybe not as popular as bowling, but definitely more popular than curling. Gen and I went to the European Baseball League Olympic qualifying tournament here. No, really. Mostly there were American college kids or others not quite ready for single-A ball. We saw Sweden play the Czech republic. I tried to get us in at the door by telling the rather bored ticket vendors in the ticket shack that we were friends of the Swedish team (not true) and that I was invited by the outfielder named Johannson (not at all true but I figured I had a good chance). Nope. I had to pay my 5 euros like the other 8 spectators. It was like those old Mets games (in the 70’s when they were lousy) that my grandfather used to take to when we would call the stadium to ask when the game started and they would reply, “When can you make it?” Not that bad.

We were sitting on the Sweden side, with maybe 20 other fans. The Czech side has maybe 10 fans. The Czech team was thinner, faster, except for the first basemen, who was a giant. The Swedish team was beefier, slower (2 players were picked off at 1st base and the Czech team turned at least 2 double plays), and luckier. At the top of the ninth, Czech was leading 1-0, and Sweden was up at the plate. After 3 errors (1 passed ball, a throwing error, another passed ball, then a fielding error), Sweden pulled ahead 2-1. Czech could not rally in the bottom of the inning to tie it, sadly. We wanted extra innings.

The cheering from the dugouts was unintelligible. There was Czech chatter, Swedish chatter, and spanish chatter (from the stands). “Varish! Varish!!!!” So I started saying the same things. No idea what it meant.

The announcements were in Spanish and English. Most of them. They didn’t translate everything. Also, the names were a bit of a problem. We’d hear: “Now batting for the Czech team, (pause)…..(longer pause)….(a slight exhale as it to say ‘Oy, look at all those consonants’)….Myrkowtz, el first baseman.”

Oh, and the center fielder’s name was Johansson. But he didn’t know me. Also there was a pitcher named Johansson. He didn’t know me either.

All in all, a fun day. We got our Euros’ worth.

Greg Has Arrived!

Finally, after flying all night in an irish accent (Aer Lingus--the best deal to Barcelona), Greg has arrived! Yay!



He also had a bit of the Luck of the Irish in that his planes arrived on time and so did our copious luggage. He's a little tired, but insisted on cooking lentils, of all things for dinner.

Welcome to Barcelona Greg!

Classroom of Babel

I just love being in a room where I can hear at least 4 or 5 languages being spoken simultaneously. It's one of the aspects of living and studying abroad that I like most.

As I've mentioned, the "review" class I'm taking is pretty much Greek to me. I don't understand a thing that is going on. But, throughout the class I can hear groups of 2 and 3 students conferring amongst themselves, trying to sort out the details. I can hear Italian behind me, French next to me, German in front of me, Spanish across the aisle and occasionally Turkish in the far back.

Outside of class, I've fallen into a routine of hanging around with two of the French students. Elsa, who speaks an almost perfect American English and Baptiste whose heavily accented English is simply enchanting. I've come to observe that they, being French, have a routine as well. At least once a day (sometimes twice), they devolve into a heated discussion of......wine, cheese or both. It can go on for 30 minutes. Or more. During the course of all this, I've learned nothing about wine or cheese, except that, apparently, the only good products (of either type) come from France.

In fact, Baptiste takes his cheese so seriously, that he had a last meal of cheese before departing Paris. He described it as a cheese orgy. I told him that I thought perhaps a better description would be "cheese feast." He asked, "what does this word 'orgy' mean?" I obliged by explaining. He replied, "I am French, that is OK, too."

In the course of observing this debate, I learned something else rather interesting. It appears that in France, not only is the distinction between the love of cheese and, um, other earthly pleasures blurred, but also the distinction between studing Geography and Wine. As Baptiste recently explained, they are pretty much the same. "Why would you study Geography except to understand where the wine comes from, and how could you study wine without understanding Geography? You cannot study one without the other."

Excellent questions, don't you think?

The Buckeye State

So, as many of you know, I've spent a good portion of my life defending my homeland. I don't mean in an overly zealous, xenophobic, jingoistic, warrantless wiretap, constitution-violating kind of way.

It's more of a defensive, don't-think-my-parents-are-first-cousins kind of way. My brother Dylan understands. He's had to do the same thing.

After years of hearing comments like "doesn't it take 2 days to drive to Cleveland from DC" or "Isn't Ohio out there near Iowa?", I think the best one (until yesterday) was from my law school classmate Lisa Munoz (from San Diego) who repeatedly used Ohio as an example when referring to rural places. One day after making one such reference and realizing I was from Ohio, she apologized and said that she meant no offense and that she had previously thought I was from New Jersey. What???? What is it exactly about me that says "Jersey." How is that better? (Sorry to my sister-in-law Reina, a native Jersey-ite. Note the irony of my trashing New Jersey whilst trashing people who trash Ohio. Such hypocracy.)

As usual, I digress. Back to the point of the story.

Yesterday I met one of my fellow Americans (there are 5 of us) between classes. I politely introduced myself, informed her that I was THE Genevieve that had, in fact, yesterday responded to one of her posts on Facebook (see discussion re Facebook, supra) looking for a tennis partner.

She said "OK" and stared at me blankly.

Not one to be deterred by socially awkward situations, I pressed on.

Me: "Where are you from?"
Her: "New York."
Me: "Oh really?"
Her: "Well, no. Connecticut."
Me: "Oh."

[At this point in the conversation her eyes glazed over and she stared off into space. After what seemed like an eternity, she continued:]

Her: "Where are you from?"

[At this juncture, I had a decision to make. When speaking with non-Americans I usually say, "Oh, it's a little complicated since I've moved around a bit, but I lived most recently in Los Angeles," or just "Los Angeles" depending on the listener's attention span and capabilities in English. However, with Americans, I prefer to be more accurate and I usually say, "Well, I grew up in Cleveland, but I've lived most recently in Los Angeles" and depending on the circumstances, I give the whole spiel about how I lived in DC before LA, and about how I spent the last year in New York and Buenos Aires. Because you know, I like to be accurate.]

This time, however, I went off script:

Me: "I'm originally from Ohio. Cleveland."
Her: "Oh, Ohio." Silence. "I, like, call that a fly-over state."

[Silence, while I choose between a) walking away and b) punching her in the face.]

Again, I go off script:

Me: [insert friendly smiling tone] "Ah, yes, well you know, I just spent 3 months living in New York explaining that people from Ohio speak in complete sentences, wear shoes most of the time and don't walk around with corn husks hanging out of their mouths."
Her: "Yah, like, I mean, it's not like it's as bad as Missouri."
Me: [feeling like a cat with a mouse] "Um, actually, it is quite a lot like Missouri. Cleveland is fairly cosmopolitan, but the rest of the state is pretty much like Missouri."
Her: "My job almost transferred me to Ohio."
Me: "Really? Where?"
Her: "Mason."
Me: "I don't know where that is."
Her: [incredulous] "You don't know where that is??????? Really????"

[As if I know every town in Ohio. I can probably only name 5 of the 88 counties.]

Me: "Uh, yah. Where is it?"
Mer: "It's near the border with Tennessee."

There was silence as I cocked my head to the side and looked at her. I'm not sure exactly what kind of an expression was on my face, but I can only imagine it was somewhere in the neighborhood of smug and contemptuous because she started stammering.

Me: "I think you mean Kentucky."
Her: "Uh...um....yah...it's...uh...south."
Me: "Yes, because Tennessee doesn't border Ohio."

More silence.

Then she turned to the dear sweet Peruvian woman standing with us and said: "You're pretty tall for a Peruvian, huh?"

And thus, my long-standing theory that education and IQ have an inverse relationship to social skills was confirmed. I looked around for a reason to step back from this madness. Finding none, I quickly chugged my coffee and politely excused myself to throw away my now empty plastic cup. I ducked behind my Brazilian classmate who was standing near the trash can and hid out until it was time to go.

For those of you too embarrassed to admit that you also thought Tennesee and Ohio were contiguous, you can go to http://www.blogger.com/www.50states.com/us.htm for answers to all of your questions.

Facebook, Part II

For those of you old fogeys like me who are/were unfamiliar with Facebook, there is this function where you add people as "friends." So, imagine how sad it was (and how Les Mis) to see my lonely profile screaming at me "YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS."

That is until dear sweet Niels sent me a message asking if he could list me as a friend on his site. Woo Hoo! I have a friend! Niels is now my hero....rescuing me from my sad, lonely pre-Facebook, pre-friend existence.

Here's to Niels!!!!!!

Genevieve 2.0

Greetings from sunny Barcelona. At long last I have arrived!

My trip over here was the sort you only dream of. I flew the very green Aer Lingus without incident or delay. I arrived on time and in one piece (which if you know me is quite an accomplishment) and my bags also arrived on time and in one piece. There was a sea of yellow taxis waiting for me at the airport and I was whisked off without delay to my beachside (almost) apartment.

The only thing missing, of course, is Greg, who is scheduled to arrive on Monday.

For those of you who don't know, forgot or simply didn't pay attention to my incoherent ramblings, I am here to attend the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and pursue an MSc in Competition and Market Regulation (see http://www.barcelonagse.eu/).

So far, things are going well. I showed up for my first day to find all kinds of nice people from all over the world in my program. Classes haven't officially started: the first two weeks are sort of a pre-season to give us all a refresher course in Advanced Math and Statistics. Take a look at my notes from the first day:

WHAT???????? The formulas contain more Greek letters than I have seen since Rush Week at AU. I have no idea what any of this means, but I dutifully write it all down in the hope that it will make sense someday.

Sadly, I seem to be the only student who doesn't know what this means.

I also seem to be the oldest student, by far. The very sweet Niels, who sat next to me today and is clearly at least 13 years my junior, very politely asked if I had taken time off between college and this graduate program. Um, yes. He then asked if I was on Facebook. Facebook? Oy. I feel a generation gap coming on. I read an article about Facebook in The Economist, but to be honest, I wasn't all that solid on the details of what exactly Facebook is. But...when in Rome, or Barcelona as the case may be, do as the Romans do. So, after much consternation and much trial and error, I figured out how this Facebook site works and I now have a....(I don't know the term. Is it page? site? registration?)...presence there. Ah, the things I do to fit in with the cool kids.

No one said it was going to be easy, right?

On a brighter note, I'm managing to make my way around the city without speaking English. In general, Spaniards understand me, but furrow their brows and make quizzical faces upon hearing my thick Argentine accent and latin american vocabulary. However, there are a large number of North Africans in Barcelona for whom Spanish is a second language. I am pretty much incomprehensible to them. I did, however, run into a Brazilian store clerk today who was simply enchanted with my accent and happily mimicked everything I said with a special emphasis on my argentinisims.

So far, no particularly interesting things to note (still trying to erase the image of a drunken Englishman pee-ing in the street), but I will be sure to report any that arise.

For those of you who dutifully tuned in to our Buenos Aires blog, I apologize for being so neglectful and leaving you with a cliffhanger. I will endeavor to be a much more responsible blogger from here on out.