Bo Nadal!

Hello Blogger Followers,

First off, a very Merry Christmas to those of you who happened to be reading this on Christmas day or eve.  I applaud you for taking the time to actually read it.  Well done.  Let’s start off with a nice Christmas song to get this blog going….

Now that we’re all in a bit of a blue mood, I must say, I don’t really feel like blogging much today.  However, I know though that if I don’t do it now, it won’t get done until I get back, so here I am, blogging away.  I don’t know when or why, but apparently I somehow volunteered to write essays once a week for the rest of my life.  Can I get college credit for this?  My last post, the one about Paris, I had typed up in Word before posting (which I do with all my posts, as I am almost always too lazy to finish writing a post in one sitting), and it was 4 pages long.  Yeah, you heard me right. FOUR pages.  SINGLE SPACED!  Preposterous.  That’s not even including the pictures.

Okay, now that my little inner complaint monologue is over, I suppose I should write about something important, like what’s be happening lately.  Well, I was in Barcelona last weekend, though I probably won’t go too in depth about that.  As I said before, I don’t really feel like writing, so as opposed to my typical meticulous posts, I’m going to do this one fairly unfastidiously.  Sorry.  It is Christmastime though, so maybe you’ll find it in your hearts to forgive me.  I’ve been very conversational today, haven’t I?  Maybe I’m going stir crazy.

To tell you the truth, not too much happened in Barcelona anyway, as we were only there for a couple of days and on a bit of a budget.  The first night we got some super tasty tapas and then went to the MGMT show, which was cool, but predictably full of slightly younger kids.  Also, the lead singer looks remarkably like the dude from the movie Kick-Ass.  I wonder if he’s secretly the same guy.  After the show, my friend Sheena’s cousin, Gabby, picked us up and we stayed the night and her flat, where she has this amazingly and surprisingly cute and loveable Chihuahua named Leo.  Also for those interested, no, I did not spell “Chihuahua” right on the first try.  Microsoft Word kindly helped me out on that one.

Hmmm.  So let’s see…. The next day we got up and headed out to start our day of sight-seeing.  I remember on the car ride there, we listened to the Spanish version of “You’re the One That I Want” on the radio, which was absolutely hilarious.  Anyway though, we started off at the Park Güell, which is this amazing park designed by Antoni Gaudí, a very famous Catalonian architect.  He’s the same guy that designed the Sagrada Família, though I doubt you’ve heard of that either.  We wandered around for a little while, and the style of the gingerbread house-like buildings were so surreal that it almost felt like I had stepped into some sort of three-dimensional Hansel & Gretel cartoon.  After that we went to the Sagrada Família, which is apparently super famous, but I think most of its charm was lost on us since they were doing a bunch of construction of it.

Park Güell

Sagrada Família

Then we hopped in the car and headed toward the old town – or the “Zona Gotica” – where we roamed around most of the evening and stopped in a few shops.  Outside the Barcelona Cathedral there was this AMAZING pianist playing some beautiful tunes, so we sat on a stone bench and listened to him play for awhile.  He’s the first “street entertainer” that I’ve given money to in Spain.  Before heading back to the house to clean up, we stopped at this little hole-in-the-wall pub to grab a beer and use the bathroom, and as most hole-in-the-walls tend to be, it turned out to be a really interesting place.  We drank out of Estrella Galicia glasses (the type of beer made in Galicia, though I’m sure you could have surmised that one all on your own) and took in the atmosphere.  Though I won’t go into too much detail, my favorite aspects of this little place were the little figurine of The King (no, not the king of Spain) hanging from the beer tap, the American $10 bill hanging on the wall, and the little piece of white paper that said “you are my joy” taped above the stove.

Let's count how many great things we can find in this photo (click to enlarge)

Edward Scissorhands!
He actually took a snip at
some girl's hair too.

Later that night we went to a nice little Argentinean restaurant where we had the BEST empanadas (sorry Galicia, but these put yours to shame) and some tasty Argentinean food and wine.  We spent the next day roaming up and down Las Ramblas, a big street in the middle of the city that is more or less directed at tourists.  The street was lined with street entertainers, or “buskers” – people who dress up and pose on the street for money, and some of them were very entertaining.  My favorites were the Edward Scissorhands lookalike and the man sitting on the toilet.  We also stopped off at this absolutely amazing market, that had everything and anything you could possibly want from a market – tasty food, candies, dozens of different kinds of fresh juice, tapas, and of course the typical Spanish meats and cheeses. 

Pretty self-explanatory, but just in case you
didn't get it: Man on Toilet.

We ended up back in the Gothic zone for awhile and stopped in to see the Roman ruins that lay underneath the city.  Though it seemed really cool, it wasn’t.  The majesty of the ruins was practically ruined (pun intended) by the big cement pillars that stood every few feet to hold up the present-day building, and the very modern walkway that covers most of the surface.  All was not lost though, as we did get to learn that Romans used to wash their clothes with urine.  They even would set out communal “pee buckets” in the street for people to contribute.  In my opinion, I think we should start doing that again.  Oh yeah, and I also completely fell on my face in the middle of a crowded street.  It totally wasn’t my fault though.

So that was more or less my trip to Barcelona.  Apparently I wasn’t quite as apathetic about talking about it as I thought I would be.

Well let’s see.  Since I got back from Barca, I haven’t been doing anything too exciting, just been lazying around the house reading books, watching Six Feet Under, and trying to learn how to eat yogurt with a fork.  I did decide though that I have the best students in the world.  Yeah, they’re better than yours!  ;)  Before finishing up classes this week, a bunch of them gave me elaborately home-made Christmas cards that totally brightened my day.  They all said some sort of variety of “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” but then a few of the older students went even a bit further, telling me how happy they are that I’m here and how they hope I come back next year, and a few lamented that I had to be away from family over the holidays and hoped that I wouldn’t feel so lonely without you all.  Though I must admit it has been a bit sad being away from home during this time of year, the students definitely made me feel like I’ve got a bit of home with me here too.

On a similar note, today I had a couple tutoring sessions with my teacher friends, and I went home to have a nice family meal with one of the ladies and take a tour around her village and the surrounding mountains.  She prepared Pulpo Gallego, which is Galician octopus, and something that Galicia is very famously known for.  Though I’d been avoiding trying it for this reason and that, I finally gave in and figured I should at least have a taste.  Everybody around here and the rest of Spain considers it to be the tastiest thing ever, but I personally couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.  I don’t plan on ever eating it again.  Aside from that though, we had a very tasty stew and some Cognac and turrón for dessert.  It was really nice being able to have a real family meal with a real family for once, instead of the pathetic little meals we cook at our apartment in our freezing cold kitchen.  I’m very grateful for all the people here who have been kind enough to take us into their homes and treat us like family, and I feel very lucky to have landed in the part of Spain with some of the nicest people in the country.  They frequently remind me of Nebraskans.  :)

Here’s a few random pictures we’ve taken around here lately that I haven’t shared yet:

Christmas cookies with our initials!
The rest of the shapes are butterflies and snails.  It's all we could find.

The view out our balcony with the street all lit up.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and Leslie and I plan on going to one of her teacher’s houses for the night and hanging out with her family.  Again, with the nice people bringing us into their homes!  After that we will probably be spending a quiet Christmas day together in the apartment, and then Leslie will leave Christmas night for Madrid/Malaga, and I will be joining her the following night for a few days in Malaga before a head up north to Scotland!  I’m really excited, but slightly scared that my flight is going to get cancelled because of the snow.

Well with that, I wanted to leave you all with some end of the year quotes that I have been collecting over the past few weeks.  I only just started writing down the odd things we say around here, but I think I might start making it a regular thing, because they are quite funny.  Anyway, enjoy: 
--“Hombro, tienes hombre?”  -- my dear Leslie.  Translation: “shoulder, do you have man?”
-- Vidal, one of the teachers I tutor, talking about making a turkey for his family over Christmas and stuffing it with apples, raisin, and ham.  Only in Spain.
-- Hugo constantly referring to the Cornhuskers as the “Cornflakes”
-- Walking by two Spanish senoras talking about 2 million Pesetas.  FYI ladies, we changed to the Euro over 5 years ago….
-- “I don’t really know what to say to that… I hope you don’t get a bunion too?”
-- “He’s actually really cute despite his dread mullet situation”

Well folks, that it.  It's 4am and I surprisingly did write this whole post in one sitting, so I apologize if it sounds loopy and erratic.  Though I won’t be writing any novel length posts until the next year, you all might want to check back in tomorrow or the next day for a special Christmas gift left by yours truly under the Blogspot Christmas tree….

Without further ado, here’s the second half of this week’s soundtrack.  I’ve clearly been in a very Bright Eye’s Christmas mood lately.  I probably would have posted the entire Christmas Album if I would have thought you guys would actually have listened to it.  Anyway:

Merry Christmas!