Ireland (sham)rocks

If you ever fly RyanAir (a popular discount airline), bring a blindfold.  Their aircrafts are just as, if not more, obnoxious than their website.  The seats and walls of the plane were highlighter yellow, the attendants' suits were electric blue, and there were giant, emphatic self-advertisements on each of the overhead compartments.  Dude, we're already on your plane!  Leave us alone!  The whole thing was so bright I had to literally wrap my black scarf around my eyes and ears in order to fall asleep (ears, because of the child behind me who shouted and thrashed in his seat for the duration of the flight).

That being said, Dublin is so awesome.  I sort of took this trip on a whim (mostly because I happened to be invited), so I didn't really have any expectations, but I quickly discovered that it is very beautiful place.  A river splits the city into a North and South region, both of which are replete with cobblestone streets and charming, bustling neighborhoods.  Each shop/pub/cafe is marked by a facade of bright, saturated color, and an impossibly tall spire pierces the sky in the center of O'Connell street (analogous to Paris's Champs d'Elysees).  Also, the people are so incredibly cheery and nice, though some were too nice - I have never been hit on so much in my life, not even in Italy.  Ironically, I found myself less able to understand Irish people than Catalans.  Their accent is so friggin' thick, it doesn't even bear a resemblance to American English.

We took Shannon's advice and avoided the infamous Irish cuisine ("It will kill your gut, your palate, and your heart"), feasting instead on Chinese, Japanese, Italian, and even Mexican food.  After having spent over a month paying for individual glass bottles of snobby, tepid Euro-water, it was a great relief when the waitress at Elephant & Castle, a well-known restaurant in Temple Bar, delivered to our table a huge jug of tapwater with a ton of ice.  They might have shitty food, but the Irish sure know how to serve drinks.  They never skimp on the beer - it is served practically overflowing in pint-sized glass bottles, which often have the name of the beverage stamped on the side.  It feels almost elegant.

I'm a girly drinker so I left the Guinness to Sydney and the yeasty beers to Jordyn, and instead developed an infatuation with Bulmer's, a kind of carbonated cider which tastes like heaven and packs quite a punch.  I also want to give Helen Teschauer a shoutout for recommending the Porterhouse Bar near Grafton street, which serves over 100 different varieties of beer.  She suggested I try the Fruli, a unique, strawberry-flavored beer.  I drank two pints.  It's sublime.

Somehow on the very first night we managed to stay out until 4am at The Purty Kitchen, a bar/club that had four floors and a 2 euro drink special.  On the walk home we took photos with some men in kilts, and met four American boys who invited us to a rugby game the following day.  We then returned to our comfortable beds (long story - basically all hostels were booked solid so we ended up staying at this kickass hotel) flipped on the TV, and fell asleep to appallingly sexually explicit European music videos.

The next morning we window shopped, met up with the boys, and took a yellow double-decker bus to a small stadium in Donnybrook to watch a club rugby game, A.K.A. to watch young men with very thick thighs beat the shit out of each other.  As we were leaving one of the players walked by with blood all over his face and jersey.  Cool!  We all spent the first part of the evening at Busker's, which had sort of a mixed crowd.  It was fun to watch all the thirty-somethings dance with each other - a welcome departure from the sweaty, drunken, and often awkward grinding of our generation.  We then relocated to a more casual pub and the boys bought us shots of Soco Lime.  The background music was purely Irish, and the locals sang merrily along to every word.

Saturday morning we went to a sketchy Italian/Mexican hybrid restaurant, hilariously named "From Mexico to Rome".  We stopped for coffee and chocolate in a cafe and read the Irish newspaper, which had a section entirely devoted to the U.S. election.  Since I've been here it's become very clear that almost every country in Europe supports Obama.

Next we wanted to visit the Dublin Castle, but we were a little lost, so I went up to the first red-haired pedestrian and asked if he knew where "the castle" was (haha!).  It's actually nestled right in the city, a block or two from where we were standing.  We marveled at the fairy tale-like structure and then frolicked in the gardens, eventually finding ourselves in the Warren Beatty library, which has on display some of the oldest religious scriptures in the world.  The ancient Egyptian scrolls we saw were disintegrating, to the point where you could make out each thread of papyrus.  There were also beautiful illuminated Christian manuscripts, some cool Qu'ran stuff, and a nice collection of old Buddhist statues and paintings.

Then we went to Porterhouse to watch the Ireland vs. Scotland rugby game (the professional one, not the club one we saw in person).  These two teams are rivals, and the game was huge, which explained the abundance of men in scottish kilts roaming the streets.  Apparently tickets were going for like 500 euro on eBay.  The pub was packed.  Ireland won.

That night we went into a bar called Fitzsimon's, and there was a really great live band inside.  I had a Bulmer's and some more Soco lime, and danced and sang along to a few songs by Oasis and an incredible acoustic cover of "Mr. Brightside" (I don't even like the original version that much, but this guy did such a good job).  The Irish people knew all the words, too.  It gave me chills, I was so happy.  There's just something about live music.

Sunday, our last day, we took the train into Dalkey to stalk Bono (he lives there).  It's a small cute town on the coast, so the ride had some pretty views of the ocean.  We wandered around, ate a spectacular lunch at a place called Ivory (fried brie with raspberry sauce appetizer, then a perfect dish of eggs florentine), and then sat in a pub called Finnigan's.  After a few hours we started walking back to the train station, when around the corner comes BONO, in his tall, dark, sunglassed-glory.  We chatted with him for a while and took some pictures.

Just kidding.  We didn't see Bono.  But how cool would it have been if we did?

Train back to Dublin, plane to Girona, and finally, bus to Barcelona.  Got back late, and woke up at 9:00 am for class.  Now I have to deal with all my matriculation paperwork.  Shit!

Thief!

Yesterday was nuts.  I went to class at 9:30 and on the way home I ran into Dan and Sarah on the subway, so I went to lunch with them.  Then Dan had class, so Sarah and I went to the train station to change her ticket (she loves us and Barcelona so much that she stayed an extra day!), and then to the park to lay down, talk, and read (I just bought The Sun Also Rises, which takes place in Spain).

So we're sitting on this patch of grass in the park.  It's about 3pm and there's a ton of people around, strolling down the surrounding paths, walking their dogs, etc.  After about an hour it started to drizzle so we decided to leave.  I was laying on my leather jacket and purse, kind of using them as a pillow, so I turned and started to get my shit together, and when I turned back - literally, two seconds later - I see Sarah wrestling with some guy for her iPod!  She's yelling "what are you DOING?" and he's like tugging at it, trying to kick her away, and I'm just standing there frozen, shouting "No!" over and over again with a spanish accent.  Finally she just lets go, and he walks - WALKS! - away with it.  I looked around and started gesturing wildly at everyone around us, but no one did anything.  Some blonde woman with a dog just stood and stared.  A scrawny french guy came up to us and told us he would follow him, but didn't want to get hit.  We were both shaking.

This guy seriously came out of nowhere.  He must have heard us speaking English and realized we were tourists, and then hid behind a bush, waiting to pounce.  Sarah said she just looked over and saw him going through her purse.

I kept replaying the scenario in my mind, thinking maybe I should have kicked him or something, but he could have had a knife (a friend of a friend attempted heroics on the metro at 5am and was stabbed in the stomach).  I guess what I probably should have done is just yelled really loud, and the thing is, I was considering shouting something, but I didn't know what to shout or in what language to shout it.  It crossed my mind to say "THIEF!" or "AFTER THAT MAN!" but in my mind it sounded so silly that I kind of giggled to myself.  Funny, how in the middle of getting robbed all I could do was smile and think about how the situation seemed like a giant cliche.  It was like my body rose above the scene and I was watching it from above.

Sarah is okay, she just got a little dirty and a cut on her elbow.  Luckily he only got her iPod, and not her wallet/passport/camera.  We just felt really shocked and violated.  This had never happened to either of us before.  And the weirdest part was, he had absolutely NO shame.  It's not like he discreetly pickpocketed her - he confronted her in the middle of the day, and physically struggled with her face-to-face.  He was strangely calm about the whole thing, never saying a word.

I called my mommy and she told me to file a police report, even though we probably wouldn't get the iPod back, just to put this asshole on the map.  We got back to the Residencia and told Dan what happened, and his male-friend instincts kicked in.  He got really mad and protective and marched down to the police station with us.  It was really far and we were too flustered to look up a route on the metro, so it took us like 30 minutes to get there.  We sat in the lobby for like 20 minutes, and Sarah and I were so exhausted from the rush of adrenaline/fast walking that we both fell deeply asleep in really uncomfortable chairs.  Finally they called our name, and we went into this white room.  A woman took down all the information and typed up an official report.  She also gave me a book of mugshots to see if I could identify the guy (I couldn't).  Sarah said she didn't even see the man's face, she was just watching his hands and her stuff.  It was kind of cool and weird to look at all the mugshots.  Some of the people are really creepy looking, but others seem pretty normal, and a handful were even attractive.  I guess bad people come in all shapes and sizes.

The good part is now I'm much more watchful of my things, and wary of my surroundings.  It could have easily been me.

On a happier note, that night like 25 of us went out to dinner and then to chupitos for Kimmy's birthday, and it was really fun and delicious.  Sarah left this morning.

Excuse me, Where's the Vomitorium?

My fever is gone!  Went to class all week.  It's been so nice to break out from the jam-packed pro-seminar schedule.  Things are much more relaxed now.

The other day in my literature class the professor needed someone read a poem aloud, and she started to approach me, but then she stopped herself and said, "No, no, you're from California" and promptly asked the girl behind me.  Is it really that obvious that I'm from the states?  Of all things to ask a foreign student to do, reading a poem aloud is probably the most benign.  I would have done it!  Oh, well.  

After class we went to the Salvador Dali museum, which was awesome.  It's small, but it holds a huge volume of works - the walls are crammed with rows and rows of crazy drawings and paintings.  He is insane.  Some of his sketchier works are very tongue-in-cheek and funny.  And one room was, to our dismay, entirely dedicated to very erotic paintings of horses...

Another highlight of the week:  yesterday the professor of our consortium class took three of us out for coffee after class.  On the way, he showed us a beautiful church and where Picasso used to live.  We sat in a pretty courtyard and chatted for a while.  He's so chill.

Last night me, Jordyn, Mike, Dan and Emma went to this famous seafood restaurant called Cap Pep.  It was phenomenal.  We didn't have to order a thing - we just sat down and they brought us plates for two hours.  The waiters were really friendly and animated, pretending to drop the wine bottles as they refilled our glasses (I fell for it every time) and poking fun at Jordyn for drinking too much.  Among the dishes we had were pan con tomate, thinly sliced salmon on crackers, lightly fried artichokes, one of the best tuna tartars I've ever had, some fish/egg dish, a perfectly cooked tortilla with a tangy sauce, green peppers, assorted clams and mussels, shrimp (you're supposed to suck on the shrimp heads - I'm the only one who dared to do it), a scrumptious steak dish, bratwurst with beans, and for dessert a tray of bite-sized dark chocolate pastries and shotglasses filled with lemon-flavored creme.  Needless to say, the bill was hefty.

I went to bed full and happy, woke up at 5:09 a.m., vomited, and went back to sleep.  Clam allergy, I think.

So the night left me without any cash, or entrails.

Whatever, it was worth it.

Feverish

I'm sick.  This morning we were all supposed to meet downstairs at 8am for an overnight trip to Zaragoza, but I felt too ill to even get out of bed.  So I'm missing the trip.

Hopefully with some rest I will feel better, but now I have to hang in the Residencia by myself for two days.  Maybe I'll read Jordyn's Allende novel, or catch up on some House episodes, or something.

This sucks.

If You Can't Cook, Just Bring the Wine

Real classes started this week.  Monday was the consortium course on urban studies which seemed cool, but the best part was afterwards when Antoni, our professor, offered to take a group of us up to Tibidabao, a mountain which overlooks Barcelona.  We hopped on the subway, then on a gondola, and then into this little shuttle which circled slowly up the mountain before letting us off at the peak.  Stellar timing, because we disembarked from the bus and found ourselves in the middle of this gorgeous orange and yellow sunset.  Against the sky were silhouettes of a ferris wheel, Calatrava's "needle", and an enormous church with a statue of Jesus on top with his arms outstretched.  Not to mention, of course, the spectacular panoramic view of the city.  It was freezing, but I barely noticed as I took in the view and made love to my camera.  Such a lovely day.  And it was cool to hang with the professor outside of the classroom.

Tuesday we woke up, went to La Champagneria (sp?) for lunch, got tired, and immediately returned to La Residencia to nap.  Jordyn and I tried to fall asleep, but the song "The Way You Say Goodnight" by The Magnetic Fields was playing in the background and the beautiful lyrics were keeping us awake, so I had to turn it off.  God, they're good.

That evening I had my first UB course.  Beautiful, wooden, official-looking classroom, but absolutely NO leg space.  It was pretty full, about fifty people, and I was surprised at how many of the students were older, like in their 30s and 40s.  The professor sat behind the desk and spoke in spanish for over an hour about the syllabus which, for some reason, was in catalan. I could understand about half of what he was saying when I was really focusing, which was about half of the time.  He clipped a lot of his words, and the acoustics in the room were terrible.  Overall, it was very exhausting.  

Also, the class seems like a lot of work.  There's a reading list of about ten novels.  Emma asked a spanish guy in the class when he thought we should start the books.  His response:  "If I were a foreigner, I'd start tomorrow."  Fuuuuck!

On a better note, last night we did a pot luck dinner at Andy's apartment, which was one of the most delicious meals I've had here.  Andy made beef/salmon carpaccio and shrimp/vegetable skewers, Ansell made a fluffy spanish tortilla, Claire made a salad with avocado and pomegranate seeds, and Jose Maria made rice with shrimp and calamari.  Emma brought the cheese, I brought the wine, and Kimmy brought Catalan-style sugar coated doughnuts.  After we ate we just sat around for a while talking, while Andy strummed his guitar lightly in the background.  It was really nice.

Now I have to decide if I want to go to Dublin with Jordyn and Sydney the weekend of the 22nd.

Taste the Rainbow

Friday after our exams, Juanjo and Libby arranged for us to go to a wine tasting (tough life).  The session was led by this adorable, old couple who bickered cutely throughout the whole thing.  Like most wine-os, they were incredibly passionate about the subject.  Lots of swirling, swishing, and smelling with their eyes closed.  But in a genuine way, not a pretentious way.  The woman was particularly incredible; after each sip she would superbly articulate how the flavors changed on the palate.  I think it's so cool how people can develop their sense of taste like that.  And their sense of smell, too - I guess they're interconnected.  Smelling is such a strange thing, sort of the outcast of the senses since it's the least necessary for survival.  It's ambiguous, but also sometimes shockingly powerful.  Like when certain scents brings back memories and stuff.

Afterwards everyone was slightly buzzed and in a good mood.  We grabbed some sandwiches, packed up our things, and hopped a train to Sitges (the tickets were free!).  The town was beautiful, and it's only thirty minutes away.  It's very small and mediterranean, with narrow streets that open up to a gorgeous blue coastline.  We drank some wine on the beach (no swishing this time) and went to a nearby restaurant for nachos.

I should probably explain that Sitges is one of the best places in Spain to celebrate Carnaval, which is taking place all over the world this weekend. Supposedly Salvador Dali used to hang out there a lot.  It is very famous for its colorful parties and vibrant gay and lesbian community, which would explain why, in the middle of our nacho snack, a group of men dressed in heels, ribbons and thongs sauntered by and happily volunteered to take pictures with us.

As it grew darker, the streets swarmed with people in costumes.  A group of blue-faced women dressed as smurfs.  A man in two-foot-high platform boots.  People in full-on animal costumes.  Complete madness.

We spent most of the night on the main drag, which is lined with bars playing different types of music.  Crowds were spilling out of each door and people were dancing in the streets, so even though we jumped from place to place, the whole thing sort of meshed together into one giant party.  We danced so hard in our crazy wigs, hats, masks and boas.  Really fun, though throughout the night I probably second-hand-smoked like 15 cigarettes.

Crashed in the hostel pretty late.  Jordyn and Mike were all perky in the morning and pulled the rest of us out of bed.  It was chilly as we walked back down to the beach.  There's this buoy in the water a ways off from the shore, and it has a statue of a white man on top of it.  I remembered it had looked so cool the night before, because the water and sky were both black, so it was just this shaky white figure hovering in the distance.

We ate at a mediocre restaurant, and realized a little too late that it was ridiculously overpriced (over four euro for an orange juice!).  We threw down our money and swore to never speak of it again.  Then we were gonna go back to the train station, but we heard these drumming noises, so we followed the sound to this AWESOME percussion group that was marching through the streets.  It had people of all ages, shapes and sizes, and they were just pounding out these fucking incredible beats.  There was dancing and shouting, too.  One woman was miraculously able to smoke a cigarette as she played.  Another man and kid switched off between playing their own drums and each others'.  

I love drums.  It's the kind of sound that goes all the way down to your bones.

Anyway, after a while we were getting tired, so we headed back to the train station.  Actually, we headed in the opposite direction of the train station and got kind of lost, but we asked some really nice dude for directions and he offered to walk us there.  ("No pasa nada!  Es sabado, y no trabajo!")

The (free!) ride back was much more picturesque in the light of day.  Catalonia is the shit.  And I'm not sure if it's because I've been traveling, but as we stepped into the familiar lime-green lobby of the Residencia, I realized that Barcelona is starting to feel more and more like home.