Tonight’s fun began rather randomly. After taking an extra long nap, not so much because I was tired as much as I wanted to take a break from studying, I recieved a call from Leo to come to dinner at El Rodizio Grill. I met Abdul, Kyle, and Leo at the corner of Bailen and Consell de Cent and from there we entered and stuffed ourselves at the all you can eat steak bar. We decided the party wasn’t over and walked over to passeig de gracia with no idea what to do next. There we sat on a bench for a long while hanging out and talking with some extremely drunk black guy who wanted Abdul, his brother, and us to come with him to Jamboree. Around midnight I got a call from Cindy who had been at some babysitting job in Sitges telling me to meet her and the rest of the girls in Placa Catalunya. We met up with the girls who were all wearing white tops and then went to d’Or near Placa Universitat. Cindy left early (but not before we randomly encountered her old roommates outside the bar) along with Lacey because they were dead tired and the rest of us (Mike, Leo, me, Abdul, Kyle, Julia, and Elise) continued on down Las Ramblas. Though delayed several times, Julia and I had this abnormally strong determination to make it to the beach. Somehow Abdul convinced us to take the long way along the Maremagnum and then stayed behind with Mike and Kyle so Julia, Elise, Leo, and I took the super long roundabout way to Barceloneta beach at Las Cajas. We finally arrived and Julia and I thought it would be a great idea to skinny dip. At first we only went in with our underwear into the freezing cold mediteranean water but we later built up the courage, or rather I did, and during a second go we stripped to the birthdays suits and ran in. Leo and Elise bummed out and waited on the beach while Julia and I waded around in the cold salty water for no more than 5 minutes. After having done the crazy, youthful, and ilogical deed we quickly ran back to the beach and our clothes. We hung out at the beach in the humid Barcelona air for another good 30 minutes before Abdul, Mike, and Kyle showed up. There we stayed out visiting with the British people sleeping on the beach (who sang Tom Petty and CCR songs for us), playing truth or dare, and wrestling in the cold sand until 5am. By then we were all pretty tired and most of us, besides me, had lost the initial desire to watch the sun rise. But since I very well couldn’t watch the sun rise by myself I walked back along Barceloneta, Port Vell to the yellow metro stop with the others having successfully skinny dipped for the first time. The freshly opened metro took me back home and here I am writing at 6am. What a wondefully random night. This is something that would only happen to me in Barcelona. Tomorrow, or rather today, is a Catalan holiday so the university won’t be open. I have to study at my piso. Hopefully I wake in time to get a sufficient amount done. Goodnight.

ick.
Gabe

the long winters - cinnamon

Dear Beloved Friends,

This weekend has been spectacular so far and I want to jot it all down before I lose it amoungst the zero’s and one’s and economic terms that I will be shoving down my throat this coming week. It all started off on thursday when I recieved some great advice in an email from my cousin Eddy who basically told me I need to take advantage of this time I have left. Life isn’t all fun and games and this has been my year to play, a gift from God, and let me be shamed if I waste these remaining to months worrying about a return home to “normalcy”.
Friday morning I woke late, as tradition demands, and began to study a little bit. After a few hours I got a call from Cindy telling me she had accumulated a large group of friends whom she had each encountered seperatly on Passeig de Gracia. They were all shopping for clothes for the End of the Year EAP banquet that night and she wanted me to come down. I hopped on the metro across the street and busted down the line (Encants->Sagrada Familia->Monumental->Tetuan->Passeig de Gracia) where I met them all in H&M, the favored shop for cheap, stylish, sweatshop produced clothing. We didn’t buy much, I anything, but just hung around talking and laughing at the Catalan-stripped swimming trunks and trying on different things. After a bit I walked home with Cindy where we watched a Murder She Wrote episode in spanish on her tv. I left to go home to change around 5pm, quickly threw on my nicest slacks, shirt and tie, and then made way to Lacey’s piso where we were all to meet and head to the dinner together.
The party at Lacey’s turned out to be very small and had been abandoned by many people for the rival party at Elise’s, but I stayed and hung out with Lacey and the few boys who were playing dominos and sharing an assortment of German beer. I hadn’t eaten all day in preparation for the expected huge feast and was getting quite hungry so Lacey fried up some chicken nuggets. After a little while our small group headed a few blocks over to the restaurant. As we approached it I noted how extremely elegant it was. Everyone was dressed their best and there were people I hadn’t seen since the beginning of the year. It was so fun. Before they opened the dining room we waited in the lobby with an open bar and waitresses serving great catalan ‘ourdevoures (sp?). We managed to gather up a group of our closest friends (minus a few) before we all sat down at our chosen table. The food was nice, but the best was just catching up with everyone. I knew it would be the last time I saw most of them. I took a lot of pictures alongside everyone else who had a camera present. Towards the end of the dinner the EAP yearbooks were released and we had a good time looking threw all the pictures, most of them being contributed by me. At 1am they kicked us out of the restaurant and the whole lot of us spent a good 30 minutes trying to decide where to go next. Like always, we defaulted to Oveja Negra. Cindy said she was getting really tired but I managed to convince her (drag her along) to come along. At Oveja we all shared a few pitchers of sangria whilst chatting away. After a few hours we all conveened on La Rambla to decide where to go. The group broke up, some went home (Cindy), others went dancing, and the rest along with me went on a walk to Julia’s house near Tetuan. I don’t think I’m accuratly describing how fun this night was, so I think I’ll just make it very obvious here and say, it was very fun. Even on the walk over to Julia’s we were all having a blast. At Julia’s we talked with her Brazilian roommate, watched Amelie, and just generally hung out. Before I knew it the sun had risen and I was dead tired. Julia offered me a matress on her floor which I gladly accepted.
I awoke after a few hours around noon because I was sleeping in the same room as Julia’s friends who were in town and they were preparing to go to the Sagrada Familia. I decided to get up and go with them since I lived right down the street from it. On the way over I got a call from Cynthia who told me I should meet her at the beach. I went home, changed, realized I had forgotten my camera at Julia’s house, and took the 92 bus down to Barceloneta. The weather was warm, the water was cold, the women were topless… it was a perfect day to visit the beach in Barcelona. I randomly encountered some other friends laying out in the sun as I searched for Cindy amoungst the masses of people. I finally found her on the right side of the twin towers not too far from Danielle and friends. We layed out for about an hour before we decided to jump in the cold water and splash around a bit in the super-salty mediteranean. We eventually moved closer to Danielle to steal some sunscreen and then laid out a few more hours getting extremely burnt in the process. Ironically, Cindy said she never gets burnt, but that night she realized how wrong she was. Her entire body was a glowing red. I took a long nap at her place, trying to catch up on the sleep I didn’t get from the night before and when I woke up it was dark outside. I had slept for a good 6 hours. That night I slept restlessly due to the sunburns and long nap I had taken the day before.
The next morning I went to church by myself because Cindy has a very big test on tuesday and is busy studying. But she is lucky, because this is her last. She just bought tickets to Athens, Greece and I am very jealous. My last exam is the 14 of June and I have 2 tests and 3 papers to write until then. Its so frustrating because I want to do so many other things and these stupid exams are holding me back. Oh well. Study hard and I won’t regret it later huh? Like I said last time, 5 months of play is well worth 2 weeks of torture. Well, here it goes. My two weeks of torture have begun. Its very likely you wont be hearing much from me in the coming weeks. If all goes well and Barcelona doesn’t distract me too much I should be holed up in a library. I hope you are having a wonderful, stress free day. I should be seeing all of you in about two months time. Get ready for a party.

Gabe

It feels like its been a long while. Sorry. Things are getting more and more hectic every day. Finals, Finals, and Finals, oh my! I think I left you off on last Thursday, so I guess I should start on Friday. Well, the weather has finally become warm enough to wear a short sleeve shirt daily. Some people are even beginning to brave the topless beaches. The city has definatly livened up with the weather.
Friday evening Cindy and I went out to see the movie Troy with some friends. We didn’t all get to sit together because they had bought their tickets online seperatly but after the extremely dry and overhyped epic-action we met up and decided to go out together. As friends in large groups do, we sort of meandered around a bit at first with no one taking clear initiative. The group slinkied along down along Av Icaria and slowly dissintegrated as we passed by respective metro stops with still no clear aim. By the time we found ourselves in the hip area of Passeo de Piccaso only a small group of Lacey, Mike, Leo, Julia, Pete and Gabe remained. We made it to a Basque tapas bar where we had some strong apple cider and then wandered through Jaume, up La Rambla, past the late night street beer vendors, and then to a bar called d’Or near Universitat. After everyone had drank these humongous liter steins of Franziskaner beer, except me (I settled for a half), I broke off from the group and headed home.
I suppose I should give you a bit of background on Barcelona current events before I describe what happened Saturday. For a while now the city has been rebuilding and preparing a new area of town, in the once industrial park of Poble Nou, in preparation for an ambitious and costly cultural event called The Forum (www.forum2004.com). Important world speakers (Clinton, Dali Lama, Samir Amin…), multicultural events (dances, arts, theatre…), from around the world are all scheduled. No one is really sure exactly what the exact goal of the Forum is - there are protests against it being another multinational corporation globalization breeding ground and lots of my friends think its just a joke - but the government has been pooring tons and tons of money into it. Its a really big deal right now, the advertisements are everywhere, even within other advertisements. Anyway, normally the events are held within the Forum park in Poble Nou (off the new “Forum” exit of the yellow metro line and behind a hefty entrance fee) but Saturday there was a free Forum sponsored event happening on Passeig de Gracia. The high traffic, center of town street was to be closed down for a Brazilian themed Carnival parade. I made plans with Juan earlier in the week to meet him and his family there. Apparently everyone and their mother wanted to see what the parade was all about as the streets were so packed it was sometimes difficult to move. As usual at large events in Spain crowd control was a joke and police were pretty much non existant. People were climbing trees, newstands, and benches to get some space and a view. In all actuality there wasn’t much going on yet besides huge masses of Brazil shirt wearing people, some unofficial samba band performances, and small pockets of beer chugging parties on the street. But the atmosphere was great and it was really fun to be able to walk down the center of the street amoungst all the barely controlled chaos. It took me a while to find Juan, Mayte, and girls on the corner of Consell de Cent. We decided it was much to crowded on the main street so we hopped one over to Rambla de Catalunya and found it wasn’t much better. There were millions of people everywhere. After several tries at some cafe’s Juan knew we finally found an open seat at some random place outside. Juan and I had horchata, Cindy and Mayte had a coffee, and the girls had nothing because the place had just run out of icecream. We chatted a bit, the girls played with my camera, and then we walked off down Rambla Catalunya. Before we split ways I made plans to go to Badalona for lunch the next day. Cindy and I curiously made our way back to Passeig de Gracia to find most of the crowd had disperssed but a new parade was starting all the way up towards Diagonal. We rushed up Passeig de Gracia and caught the huge chinese/brazilian dragon/bug looking float coming our way. Loud music was blasting and free stuff was being thrown out of the float as the huge crowd around danced, sang, and slowly shuffled alongside. There was a cool picture on the front page of the paper the next day of an overhead shot of the crowded street and float. Though it was nice to finally see some of the actual float, we bored quickly and started walking back towards Cindy’s place. On the way we walked by our friend Danielle’s piso and randomly made a call up to see if she was home. We ended up staying late watching a sweetly twisted modern musical Spanish movie called “El Otra Lado de la Cama” (other side of the bed).
Sunday morning Cindy met me at my place for church. This time they had a German guest speaker who spoke Spanish with an andalucian accent, which goes without saying he was difficult to understand. We left early because I had to be in Badalona by 1pm to meet Juan’s family for lunch. I hoped on the purple line to the last stop of Pep Ventura which I exited to a crowded square where some sort of bicycle fair was going on. It turned out to be Badalona’s Festa Major (saint’s day). I called Juan who was off somewhere in the city at the fair and couldn’t meet me right away. He gave me directions to his parent’s house (straight ahead from the exit, right at the fifth street, number 64 (?)) which I found without a problem. I arrived before anyone else and sat around while Juan’s mom prepared the fish for lunch. It was really fun because almost the entire family was present. The men watched motobike races while the women cooked and prepared and the girls watched some kiddy movie in the other room. Juan’s parents once again tried to stuff me to bursting with Dorada fish. After dinner we all had a good laugh when Juan’s dad brought out some magnetic squeegie (sp?) gimic thing he had bought off an informercial on the tv (very new to Spain). We all laughed along with him as he demonstrated how terribly nonfuncional it was. Juan, family and I left earlier than normal that afternoon because they had tickets to the symphony Carmina Buerana. Juan really wanted me to come along and thinking it would be really nice to see I stopped off with Mayte at La Caixa (where you can buy concert tickets through the ATM) across from my building and bought 2 of the last seats for the show. I gave Cynthia a call and told her she had a half hour to get ready, changed, met her at her place, and then took a rushed cab ride not to far off to Teatre Victoria on Parellel. We met Juan and family just on time 15 minutes before the show. It was a great great thing. The spectacular in itself symphony was accompanied by a flamenco opera set in Andalucia (south west spain). At one point they brought out dancing horses on stage which the Laura and Lily thought was the best thing ever. Cindy had once sung the symphony with her chorus and it made it extra fun to have someone along who appreciated and understood it so thouroughly. Afterwards we all went out to dinner at a new restaurent called Basilico, which is in the Lez Quintz Nitz chain, and enjoyed some wonderful catalan-tinged Italian food. The walk back was a short one as Cynthia and Juan live only 2 blocks apart.
I woke the next day and took the 35 minute metro comute (encants L2 purple to parellel, switch lines, L3 green to Palau Real) to the final class of my Economics course. It turned out to be my friend Julian’s birthday and and I was invited to his party on friday. I became a little nostalgic when I realized this would be my last time inside a UB class ever. Well, besides the dooms day final (oh my gosh, in only 3 weeks). I hung outside on the lawn with Julian, Feran, and May a little bit before I crossed the street and picked up Cynthia from her ArtHistory class. We went back to her place for lunch then made our way to the central university for the Literatura and Fonetica back to back class combo. I don’t remember what happened the rest of the day. I think I went back to Cindy’s and talked with Fredrick, her German roommate, about Economics.
Tuesday I once again became a tourist. Deciding there were some things I just had to do before I left Barcelona I made a small list and decided today would be the day top try the cable-car from Barcelona to Montjuic that I had first seen in the movie L’Auberge Espagnole. I first slept in until my 1pm Post-Colonial World of the Pacific class where we talked about a really stupid book called “Finding Theodore and Brina” that I was supposed to have read. Afterwards I met up with Cindy at Barceloneta metro stop and walked to the cable car tower. Although a bit too expensive and filled with british tourists, the ride provided a really nice arial view of Barcelona. We touched down on Montjuic and then walked down the hill to Cindy’s place. Thats all I remember of tuesday.
With no more morning economics class I once again slept in late. Once I woke I caught the metro to Cindy’s place and watched some crappy catalan tv before heading to class. I had wanted to go to the free museum excursion that day and skip class, but I first had to drop off some papers. Once there I found out we had an in class presentation that I wouldn’t be able to miss for the MNAC (museo nacional de catalunya). It didnt matter too much. I had a lot more fun in class than normal as we were allowed to go outside to the gardens to work on our presentation. After class I went out with my friend Peter to our old favorite Peruvian restaurant on Paseo de Gaudi near La Sagrada Familia. I ate far to much barbqued meat and stumbled back to the center of the city to meet Cindy and give her her keys which I had for some reason, I forget why. And thats all I remember of wednesday.
Thursday completely escapes my memory. I just remember I watched a horrifying movie about a Greek-Australian gay drug user in my PostColonial class and then afterwards going out to lunch with Cindy and Naphesa at an Austrian fast food place.
Friday afternoon Cindy cut my hair (it was getting shaggy) before we went to meet Naphesa at Starbucks to study for our Literatura class. We ran through a little bit of information in a long amount of time and then went back to my place to get ready to out for my friend Julian’s party. I recieved a call from Julian telling me to meet at La Oveja Negra (famously cheap tourist bar) at 10:30. I arrived early with Cindy and only Feran (from econ class) was there. Julain and his other catalan friends arrived not to long after. We hung out at the bar for several hours and several pitchers of Sangria talking and hanging out. I gave him some cds (jack johnson and something corporate) and a tshirt I had brought from home for presents. Julian’s friend’s were so awesome. After a while I became tired and left the festivities a little early. What a shame I didn’t hang out with Julian like this more often earlier in the year. A cab brought me home.
Saturday morning I went to the american study bar, Starbucks, and utilized the new study tables the had put in (im sure just for our group). I spent about 8 hours inside, probably half of which was productive, copying notes and talking with other friends who had come to “study”. At night I went out to eat with a few friends (Julia, Leo, Peter, Shareen, Paul, and Lacey) to a buffet restaurant called El Rodizo grill which was probably the best buffet (next to Las Vegas of course) I had ever seen. I walked back with Leo, Lacy, and Shareen with ganas de ver Los Simpson at Lacy’s place, but she ended up being too tired so we went to Shareen’s instead and watched the entire third seaon.
Sunday I didn’t go to church in the morning. Instead I went back to Starbucks to prepare for my Lit test on monday.
Monday morning was once again spent at Starbucks. I had my final exam at 3pm and it went off without a hitch. I don’t think I did all that great. The questions were just formatted funny and my essays didn’t have great structure. I would have given myself a C. I’ll probably get a B+, she grades easy. Cindy and I became really sad after the class thinking about how our time here was wrapping up.
Tuesday day was spent frantically preparing for my Fonetics exam. I had completely neglected it up until that day so it was a complete Starbucks coffee infused cram session. I copied all my notes twice and grew a large blister on my finger from all the writing. Near the end of the day I found myself one of the few left in the cafe. Cindy called up some friend’s and in about a half hour a large group of girls was assembled and I along with them marched off to eat at an Italian place around the corner. I’ve found studying to be very expensive. Between the random coffees at Starbucks (way more expensive than any spaniard would spend on a coffee. I think their clientel consists entirely of foreigners) and going out to eat because you’re too lazy to make anything after studying so much, I ran up a pretty good sized bill. At the restaurant the girls talked their girl talk and we looked at pictures of Sydney and Elise’s trip to Isreal which made me very jealous. I wish I had more money and time to travel to exotic places. Greece, Egypt, Isreal, Sweden… I went home and slept another night.
Our fonetics test wasn’t until 4:30 in the afternoon so we spent the majority of our day once again in Starbucks panicking at the mountain of information to memorize. It wasn’t until maybe an hour before the test that I calmed down. I remembered, and was rather convinced, that our professor wasn’t going to make it too difficult. The midterm had been easier than expected and this once probably would as well. And it was. It was easy. We celebrated by going out to another American establishment, Hard Rock cafe. Nachos, chicken wings and a coke. I’m so american. Afterwards Julia, Peter, Lacey, Cindy, Leo and I went out shopping on Calle D’Angel. We didn’t buy anything but it was once again really funny looking at all the new trendy tshirts with bad english on them. I found this one that said, “29 Palms California, A Desert Paradise” which, if you’ve ever been to 29 Palms CA you would agree with me that it, a) is clearly not a desert paradise and b) has no right to memorialized on any tshirt, let alone in a trendy store in Spain. I got a kick out of it. Having bought nothing, Cindy and I then came back here to my place and watched a whole lot of Family Guy episodes I had downloaded on my computer.
Today, Thursday, I did nothing but worry about how I only have two weeks left before the hardest final of my life, Economics of Business, and write this email. Here I sit at 4:45pm listening to Copeland and writing you an email. To my left is a half eaten frozen pizza I cooked up an hour or so ago and at my feet is a pile of dirty laundry. Under my desks are about 5 books I have to read by tuesday. I think once I stop typing I’m going to try to write an essay for my lit class which is due next thursday and then start studying for Econ.
Last week I bought tickets to Paris. I leave the 17th of June and come back the 23rd. The plan so far is, 2 days in Paris, 1 day in Genebra, Switzerland or some other neutral city, and then 2 days in Nice and Cannes. Afterwards its back to Barcelona for a few days, maybe London for a weekend, and then two weeks in the south of Spain. The 13th of July I’ll be back home. Don’t take offense, but I’d really rather not go back to the US.

Someone kick me off the computer, I have to study.

Gabriel