Musings of a Danae

Barcelona, Take 2

2011-10-06T23:21:00.005+02:00

Ask me what I’ve done in the last month in Barcelona, and I’ll tell you about four things I haven’t. I haven’t gotten a tan, or sunburn for that matter. I haven’t stayed up and out all night. I haven’t been to the main tourist attractions. And I haven’t worn pants or long sleeves.

The last one highlights the fact that it is still hotter than blazes here, and the sun pays no attention to my hankering for colorful fall leaves, aromatic fall soups, and cuddly fall sweaters. No, midday is still tanktop-time here in sunny Spain.

The other comments should relay to you that Barcelona is not just a vacation destination: many people, including foreigners, rise early every morning, commute to work, pause for lunch, finish the day late and save the housework for evenings. I have joined their ranks. For the next three months especially, my posts will be sporadic but entertaining as I relate the ironies of daily life in Busy Barcelona. Let’s start with stories of settling in.

Arrival:

I arrived the 29^th of August, on a lovely flight with Scandinavian Airlines that allowed me an 8-hour layover to visit Stockholm before flying on to Barcelona. I stayed with friends and proceeded to exercise all my might to bend fate and the great Spanish bureaucracy to my will. That is, by Day 2 I had my padrón, which registers me at my new address as an official city resident. That involved some pre-game paperwork from my new flatmates, Roger and Elena (and there is another girl, Judith). Foreigners spend a lot of time waiting at government offices, but I think more time and energy are required to assemble this pre-game paperwork.

On Day 3 I moved. I happened to snag a friend of a friend with a car to help me retrieve my belongings from storage in my old apartment and transfer them to my new one. I live in the same neighborhood, just 15 minutes from the old apartment, but this room is bigger, the apartment more spacious and homey, and all of it has beautiful views of the city and the port. I live with some other adults now, instead of students, and so life seems calmer and everyone does their part to take care of our home together. It’s a good place to be and good people to be with. I still visit occasionally with last year’s flatmates; they have often felt like little sisters, and so I check in on them. But when I walk into their creative mess and listen to their growing pains, I can still leave in the end.

The University offices all opened on 1 September, and so on Day 3 (don’t worry, I’ll soon stop counting days) I also waited in line at my Departmental Secretary’s office and then at the Residency Card Renewal office. My residency card (or NIE) was set to expire on the 15^th, and so I couldn’t waste any time in filing for a renewal. I naively thought that process would be easier than obtaining the NIE the first time around. Nope! It has already required five office visits. The second meeting only lasted five minutes but required a lot of preparation (and a first meeting), and in the end I was short one official stamp from my Departmental Secretary. (Not my fault.) I took it back to her (third meeting) and asked if she would pretty please stamp, scan and email or mail this paper. She coolly told me it was beyond her capabilities.

You see, paperwork is like a great duel, you versus the bureaucrat. From the first en garde! the bureaucrat will use various ploys to fool you, lull you into submission, and distract you to then turn and touché! belittle you, send you on a wild goose chase, and whisk you away like a bothersome fly. Your task is to befriend her, ease the way for her, affirm her narcissism, and then lie, cheat, and steal necessary papers, stamps, or signatures. Anything to foil a bureaucrat. Anything for God, glory, and a valid residency card!

But victory is slow and arduous. The average this time around has been roughly six hours of waiting for half an hour of meeting time, spread over three offices and a government website I had to keep checking randomly to see if my dossier had been accepted. And now my card is being made using a very meticulous process, and I can go wait to pick it up in about a month. In the meantime, I have to keep explaining to everyone that my NIE “is being processed.”

A brief history of September:

I began work again at the University with one of my professors. Continuing this work while at home in July proved nearly impossible with the beautiful Michigan summer lazing by, and so there is some redeeming value in the Blind Crows’ Nest, as I like to call our top-floor-office-with-no-windows.

I spent one week in the middle of the month at the Barcelona Summer School on Bilingualism and Multilingualism, hosted by one of the newest universities in the city. The attendees were all students and some of us presented our current work on the last day of the conference. This being my first graduate-level conference presentation, to faculty of international renown in linguistics (from New York, Montréal, Belgium and the Basque Country), I was brimming with excitement. This first glimpse into my professional career has me hooked!

At the end of that week I flew to Paris to see Antoine. We spent a day visiting nearby Chartres, a small town famous for its cathedral, built in the thirteenth century and apparently one of the best-preserved. Almost all of the incredible stained glass windows are original, in spite of or thanks to the effort during World War II that led to their complete removal, storage, and replacement after the threat of bombing ended.

Over the weekend I celebrated Antoine’s birthday with his family: I like to consider it part of my diplomatic duty as an American abroad to engage in such festivities and make a good impression, but these have gone overboard and could probably be converted into treasonous spies. They were happy to see me. But they did call me gourmand, which as far as I can tell means something akin to glutinous; maybe I’m taking my American duties a bit too literally.

Am I having two desserts?

This one's for you, Dad.

While I was in Paris, I went for the first time to the Comédie Française, the Paris theater established in 1680 and still performing plays from that century. For example, I went to see L’Avare by Molière, a very classic piece about an old miser. Watching that play, surrounded by red velvet seats and gold accents, using theater binoculars…was the experience of a lifetime.

I returned to Barcelona under the influence of this Parisian glow, and realized I was living in a rather scatter-brained way. So I unpacked the last of my things, got some better sheets and a rug, and started settling in. Now I’m working, studying, writing, cooking, cleaning, planting, Rotaract-ing (you’ll remember that from my scholarship last year), and teaching. Or at least should be teaching.

I did my best to begin my English teaching assistantship this week, but sickness got the best of me. Despite the redness of my smarting eye, on Tuesday I went to La Roca del Vallès, a village about half an hour by train from Barcelona, to the primary school Mogent where I will be teaching this year. After signing a few papers, I was led unsuspectingly into the school gym, where ALL my students greeted me with a big HELLO and WELCOME! Each class presented me with a gift: a poster, a bouquet of hand-made tissue paper flowers, a clay US flag, a short song, and a large Statue of Liberty with—can you believe it—my face on it! I was so grateful but slightly embarrassed, and all the kids thought I was crying because my eye kept watering. I thanked them all personally as they left the gym and went promptly to a pharmacy to get antibiotics for pink eye. Sent home on the first day of school!

And here I sit, my eye already better but still contagious, everyone telling me to rest it but leaving me nothing but computer work, and feelings of regret for failing (already!) my new Lady Liberty image!

I wouldn’t say this month has been smooth sailing, but while the sun has shone fiercely, the breezes have been gentle and constant. Next week I’m sure to pass beyond the horizon.

A Few Points of Interest

2011-06-08T15:40:00.003+02:00

In the post-birthday euphoria, I allowed the last weeks of May to slip away and now find myself in June—halfway through 2011—with a few new projects on my hands. The end of the academic year may seem an odd time for new beginnings, but timing is everything and nobody consults me. First, after several months of miring myself in the university crowd, I have finally found some young ones to brighten my days. Or rather, just one day, Wednesdays at 5:10pm. This family sought me out through a mutual contact and now employs me to play with their kids in English for a little while after school. Their ages are nine, seven, and four, and they will henceforth be called my little darlings. They are delightful and we have great fun playing games, a good break in my new schedule.

The new schedule is determined by the weightier new project: my work as a research assistant for the University of Barcelona! The professor of my course on advances in Second Language Acquisition research was looking for a couple people to help in her strain of the English Department’s communal research project on foreign language study in Catalunya. I didn’t exactly have the required level of Spanish, and certainly not the preferred level of Catalan, but I eagerly applied anyway. (Since I am still on the waiting list for the English teaching assistantship in Catalunya, I figured I better look elsewhere for a way to make ends meet next year.) And what luck! Only two of us applied for two spots! Although the professor assured me she is pleased with the selection.

I immediately started working in the fifth-story windowless assistants’ office of my university’s historic building: I like to call it the Blind Crow’s Nest. I work with four other assistants on the same team, and there are a couple others who use the office. It is quite a mix of nationalities but all women. My current projects include transcribing, or typing up with some notes what is recorded in student oral interviews; checking over other assistants’ transcriptions; organizing the transcription files based on themes in response to the question, “Was there a turning point in your learning of English? A moment when you thought oh, I got it, I can really speak this language!”; and looking through linguistics articles to see what research has been done on parents’ role in their students’ foreign language achievement. Mom, Dad, comments? This is not technically a job but rather a grant requiring twenty hours of work per week, and it will cover my basic expenses through December.

A few other things have happened since I last wrote. I attended two Rotary meetings, one with the club Les Corts where I had been before with my parents, and another with Barcelona 92. The latter is a group of about twenty, all men, and meets in the city’s premier hotel. The dinner was divine, the company better, and we were lucky enough to visit on the same day as David, a Rotary World Peace Scholar who has studied at the program centers in Japan and Australia and is currently interning with the Barcelona soccer team’s foundation working with kids and sports.

I also attended a conference called “How Terrorism Ends” at the Institute where Natalie is doing her masters in international relations. It was enlightening to say the least, with presentations by top US and European researchers working on de-radicalization programs (to change how terrorists think) and disengagement initiatives (to change the terrorist tactics they use), with several case studies on Hamas in Palestine, the IRA in Northern Ireland, and ETA here in Spain. I could go on and on about what I learned, but for now the one point I want to make is that the assassination of Osama bin Laden is likely not a deadly blow to Al-Qaeda, which like most terrorist groups is organized more like a web than a pyramid. “Decapitation” is just one debatable way of ending a group’s terrorist actions.

And that’s the news from Barcelona—but wait! Before I sign off, a correction: I have just gotten news that I was accepted into the Teaching Assistant Program and placed in Catalunya. What a stroke of luck! It makes me want to buy a lottery ticket!

Family Tradition

2011-05-24T22:50:00.004+02:00

First, a word of gratitude to those who have given me life: to my mom, who carried me and bore me; to my dad, who taught me through play and who has always missed me fiercely; to both my parents, who raised me and love me; to my sisters and wide generous family, who have grown with me and looked after me; especially to my grandmothers, who encircle me and give me a strong foundation; and to all the friends who have passed through my life and stayed or left their mark.

Now, it’s possible our family tradition of celebrating birthdays to abandon has become a bit exaggerated over the years. Maybe the day is worth remembering, but whoever decided that a birthday includes the weekend before, the week of, and the weekend after…should be properly thanked. The celebration of my 24^th vintage was a roaring success and I’m grateful for the opportunities I had to gather my dear ones around me.

It all began the night of Thursday the twelfth, when I took a long overnight bus to Madrid. I had been once before to the Spanish capital, but with three more years under my belt and a couple good friends in the area, I decided to be more ambassador than tourist. Luckily, a new acquaintance from my Catalan class is originally from Madrid, and as I was asking her logistical transport questions, she graciously offered to host me for my first day. This is more than token: she was home visiting friends and family and celebrating her birthday, and in the midst of it, she managed to find time to meet my 8am bus, feed me breakfast, provide amenities for freshening up, and guide me around downtown. We returned home at midday (remember, 3pm Spanish time) and ate a fantastic lunch with her parents who are originally from Galicia in northwest Spain. Thus lunch included octopus and hake, a very popular and succulent fish. The meal was incredible and the company better, and throughout the day I got to visit the historic center, the main Plaza del Sol, the Royal Palace and Cathedral, a free exposition on women in painting, and the rooftop of the Royal Academy of Fine Art. On top of it all, it was the Madrid city festival, La Fiesta de San Isidro, and there were many special events and people dressed in traditional Madrileño outfits eating churros (think elephant ears but in ropes) and chocolate.

In the evening I collected my bag and went to stay with Alberto, a techie friend who I know through my roommate from last year, Victoria. We spent the weekend visiting: the Thyssen Museum, which is right across from the famous Prado Museum and is a fine and varied collection; the large Retiro Park; the Telecommunications Palace, where all mail used to be sorted; the Rastro street market; and not to miss the late Madrid nightlife. It was exhausting and fun, a great visit to a great city. It’s true what they say: the downtown feels like a small town.

I returned from Madrid on Monday just in time to ready myself for a presentation at my host Rotary club, Condal. The meeting was jovial, and I added some of my own Catalan-Spanish jokes to win over my table of businessmen. I had been a bit intimidated by the prospect of this meeting, because at the Christmas dinner with this club it seemed there were nearly a hundred members. However, at the dinner last Monday we filled three tables and there was a friendly family atmosphere that put me and David, the other scholar, at ease. Here we are with Club President Casajuana.

During the week I also had the chance to visit Vic, a small town in the mountains north of Barcelona.

I went with a colleague from my masters program, and the visit was part professional part leisure. Back in January, we attended a presentation on Catalan sociolinguistics by two professors teaching at SUNY-Buffalo, and there we made contact with a couple researchers in the area. The one teaching in Vic—who has written about the motivations of foreigners learning Catalan, my proposed thesis topic—invited us to come visit the campus, the town, and have a coffee. After about four months now, we finally took advantage of the offer! We also managed to visit on the same day as an English doctoral student, and so we were allowed to tag along on her scheduled visits. This included a presentation about the Catalan educational system and a visit to the local center for Catalan classes. It was all interesting, and what a stroke of luck! The first presentation helped put many things in perspective. For example, you might have the impression that Catalan is a minority language; while technically true, it should not be considered a small language, as there are more Catalan speakers (13.5 million) than Greeks (11.8), Portuguese (10.5), or Swedish (9.3). As I’ve referenced before, the population of immigrants in Catalunya has soared in the last 10 years, increasing from 2% in 2000 to 15% in 2008. Surprisingly and likely thanks to the all-Catalan educational system, children of immigrants use Catalan (over Spanish) up to 86% of the time when interacting with friends, watching TV, or reading books. This is quite an amazing recovery and regeneration for a language that, only a generation ago, was banned.

So, a weekend in Madrid, a Rotary presentation, an enlightening visit to Vic, and then with the B-day approaching, the week culminated in a Southern belle-themed dinner Saturday night. Although I as a Midwesterner perhaps cannot create an authentic evening in the old South, I certainly gave it my best shot. On the menu we had: biscuits, sweet potato fries, chicken salad, delicate cucumber sandwiches, zucchini fritters, peach crumble, apple pie, and sweet tea. I had pearls, white gloves, and a parasol just for the occasion. Friends came from all the diverse groups I know and we had plenty to eat, a birthday cake at midnight, and drinks on the upstairs terrace with a view of Barcelona by night. It was the perfect ending to an excellent birthday week. As I began with thanks I will end: to all those who have made this year successful, entertaining, bearable, and lovely.

A Few More Reasons About Why I'm Here

2011-05-03T11:45:00.004+02:00

At times, when I happen upon an unplanned weekend, with no roommates in sight and no ideas in mind…I take it. Because even though it may seem dreary, at the ripe age of twenty-three, in the lively city where I live, to stay in Friday and Saturday night, I know it’s only a rest, and that I need it.

The call of schoolwork is relentless, that much you know. Now, as people inaugurate springtime and prepare for the end of classes, invitations come raining down as well. My Friday commitments included a Royal Wedding Brunch to celebrate the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Although I am not in the least a royalist, I played along with a classmate and wedding enthusiast who hosted the brunch. It gave me a good excuse to bake muffins and scones, sit around a pot of tea with friends, and toast mimosas. We were also accompanied by our token Brit, also a classmate, who added class and accent to our light-hearted gathering.

Saturday was a business day: I attended my host Rotaract’s meeting in the afternoon, which was followed by a short special-topics conference. The issue at hand was protocol and was lead by the president-elect of Rotary Condal, my host club this year. We covered scenarios from within Rotary, but mainly discussed points of business, international, and social protocol as a means of welcoming guests and making them feel comfortable. I can empathize with that: sometimes when I’ve arrived late to presentations because of my afternoon classes, I’m relieved to know that someone has already explained and apologized on my behalf. Some concepts were new, and overall the conference was a good refresher on what I can expect in my interactions and what others are expecting from me. Here, on the left is Luz, president of Rotaract Condal; and in the middle Señor Riquelme, president-elect of Rotary Condal.

Sunday was primarily dedicated to reading, but in the middle of the sunny afternoon, with hints of barbecue wafting up to my window, I gave in for a bike break. I just signed up for bicing, the municipal bike share program that complements bus and metro. It costs 35 euros for the year, and allows me to essentially rent a bike from point A to point B for free (for a half hour, but you can have it up to two hours total). It’s extremely easy to use: there is a bicing station just down the street from me, where I scan my card and pick up a bike. Then I ride down the bike line over to the beach, where I can pedal around for a few hours. Whenever my time is up, I return the bike to any of the numerous stations, sit on the beach for ten minutes, and return to check out another one. It is a nice escape from walking, which seems inefficient, and the metro, which can be very tiring.

In the evening I was invited to the Spring Festival of Hospitalet, one of the Barcelona bedroom communities, by one of my classmates who is from the area. We went to the tabalada, where groups of drum players march through the town square, and then watched the correfoc. The word means “the running of the fire” in Catalan and involves groups of people, dressed up as devils, lighting and spinning around with firecrackers. Kids, covered from head to toe with hats, hoods, scarves, and gloves, rush in and dance with the fire-devils, a bit like Fourth of July with devilry. The devils take off, group by group, to run through the center of town, and the drum players follow them. The whole scene is vivifying, and you can only imagine how it is for all the Catalan children that grow up dancing and running with fire.

This week I have an intensive course in Psycholinguistics taught by a visiting professor from Concordia University, Montreal. The class and his teaching have already proven excellent, and even though I’m not taking the course for credit, I’m glad to attend. What I find so inspiring about linguistics research is the continual discovery that every question I have ever pondered about language has actually been explored and expanded. Why don’t I remember things as well in Spanish? Why am I plagued by these weird switches between languages, when a French word will come out in the middle of a Spanish sentence, pronounced with a Spanish accent or formatted like a Spanish word? Why is it difficult to feel genuine in French when expressing emotions or opinions? Language is, in a phrase, so much more than a tool. Use it wisely and playfully!

April Crazy

2011-04-28T13:18:00.003+02:00

So much to report on!

If the period of craziness from March through early April did not bring me to nervous breakdown, then I can survive anything. It was truly a feat of coordination, complemented by some gracious extensions on the part of professors and coordinators. Now, let’s see if I remember it all step by step.

Mom and Dad arrived Thursday morning in Paris at the end of March. I actually arrived in town after them, and we met at the hotel, each glad to see that the other made it okay. From our spot on Boulevard Pasteur, we visited the Luxembourg Gardens and lunched in a crêperie, typical of Brittany where I taught last year. Then we took the train out to the suburbs to have a fantastic visit with family friends who have often dined at our house in Michigan and were glad to host us on their home turf.

The next day we left for Orléans, about an hour train ride away, to stay with another French family we know. It was great to catch up with them, and we played with the kids, walked along the Loiret river, and visited the manor where Leonardo daVinci lived out his last days in Amboise. The house is filled with is designs and the gardens contain the actual structures, so it’s like a mechanically sophisticated playground.

I finally managed to tear Mom and Dad away from their vie en rose and woo them over to Barcelona. After a first-night feast of paella (a rice and seafood dish), they spent the week visiting and enjoying the view of Montjuic from their vacation apartment terrace, and I spent the week scurrying from visit to Catalan class to masters class. One highlight of the week was my presentation to the Rotary club Barcelona Les Corts, which hosted me and my parents for Wednesday afternoon lunch. I was proud to introduce myself a bit in Catalan to this bilingual club, which then continued with a presentation on the Chinese economy and closed with a debate. It was, I think, the most challenging Rotary presentation I’ve given, between translating for my parents and trying to follow the quick and heated discussion about economics in Spanish. I responded to several tough questions, including the overarching theme of this year, why do some Americans refuse to institute national social security programs? Anyone with comments, please post. My response always contrasts historical precedents limiting government power, which is seen as the problem, with contemporary European perspective, which sees government as a mechanism of the solution.

I wish I had had more time to play the tour guide, but in the end I think the only real problem was my stress level. Unfortunately it only got worse when we rented a car (and I’m waiting for years to pass so we can laugh about this) and drove through insane Barcelona traffic and poor signage to get out of town. We did happen upon a fantastic seaside tavern for lunch, where somehow Mom lucked out with roast duck and Dad and I ended up with fish sticks. But the weather and coast were beautiful and we had the chance to see the Greek ruins of Empuries, an ancient trade settlement.

From there we stopped by Figueres and Girona before spending the night at Luz’s family’s house—the villa in the photos from last fall. It was worth the complication of the car rental just to wake up and look out through the arcades of the second balcony towards the mountains across the valley. Oh, the peace of the countryside.

After a return to Barcelona, a final afternoon walking around the old part, and an evening view of the city from Montjuic (the hill-park near my apartment), their final day in the city came to a close. We had dinner with my flatmates and a friend at my current pick of tapas restaurant, El Glop. Although we meant to get to bed early, and had to get up at 5am the next morning to leave for the airport, somehow the city just calls you to stay. We made it home at midnight.

I think this is one of the most important lessons I’ve learned this year: how to let time slip through my fingers. I like to be in control of my own schedule, and when I have set ideas about how things will come to pass, it’s difficult and disappointing to see them changed. But the Spaniards have this way of staying on and on, never mind the time or the cold or the tiredness. I commented on this a year ago when I attended the April Fair in Sevilla: during twelve hours of eating, drinking, dancing, and talking, my Spanish friends never once got bored with themselves or tried to create an agenda to pass the time. Time passed all on its own. Although I’m not by any means a pro, since September I’ve learned to let this happen, to stay until the conversation runs out, and if it never does, so much the better. To watch time as the hours pass and enjoy the people who surround you while it happens.

Am I Crazy?

Saturday morning, early, the parents left, and I got back to some assignments I’d left hanging during their stay. I made studying an Olympic sport over the next three days as I turned in paper after paper and studied for a high-pressure exam in one of my favorite courses this year, Advances in Second Language Acquisition Research. [Essentially, research has focused on how age of learning affects your success in your second language, and how this factor is also affected by others such as aptitude, motivation, and learning context. For example, my accent and grammar in French can be very good because I’m highly motivated and expend a lot of effort, and I have 100% aptitude for learning things like grammar rules and sound-symbol relationships, but it will never be native because I started learning French late and as a foreign language. My proficiency and fluency improved enormously when I was immersed in French studies in Strasbourg.]

I had to be organized and quick because Tuesday evening two dear French friends of mine arrived from Brittany. It had been a year since I’d seen Julien, a very close friend from my Strasbourg days who never lacks for words, and so you can imagine the conversation. After a good late-night catch-up, I sent them off on their own the following days so that I could study, finish some projects, and go to class. They were good sports, but when I could finally join them when my vacation started Thursday afternoon, I felt a complete decompression. As you can tell, Barcelona never stops, so there is more to visit and do than even I can finish this year, but we gave it a good try.

Saturday morning we left in Julien’s car, headed north for my first French road trip. The scenic drive along the Costa Brava allowed us an afternoon dip in the Mediterranean at Roses, where Julien fished (he’s taken up wet suit-snorkel-harpoon-under-water fishing) and Sebastien and I napped on the beach. After passing through the Languedoc, we stopped in Auvergne 100km south of Clermont-Ferrand to camp for the night. Just off the highway we found a small village with a small river just perfect for “savage camping,” as it’s called in French. We set up the tent, built the fire, organized our supplies and enjoyed the afternoon’s catch. The night was cold, but clear with a full moon. Couldn’t ask for more.

Sunday was a long day of driving, and we arrived late in the evening at Julien’s house outside of Rennes. The week unfolded perfectly, without any prior organization on my part: I spent a day at the house, then a day at the seaside in Dinard, where Julien and I went fishing at low tide. The high tide that evening was exceptional, splashing up on the beach terrace, to the surprise of many small giggling children.

The next morning I took the bus to Pontivy, the town where I taught last year, and visited some of my favorite people and places. All the teachers were surprised to see me, and I had a wonderful long lunch with some of them and met others later for coffee, in between walks along the canal. I had time to reflect on my year there, which I hadn’t given much thought to since I left. There is no room for complaining: even though I thought of life in Pontivy as calm, by the end of the year I was surrounded by friends and had a trove of memories. The whirlwind of a summer and settling into Barcelona last fall had separated me from that time, and it was good to think over it again and spend some time with the people who made it so special.

I came back to Rennes the next day, visited the art museum, and sunned in the Parc du Thabor which was all a-flower. The weather was incredibly nice all week, and I got my first suntan of the year in Brittany! I was a little sad to leave the region Friday morning, mostly sad to leave friends there. Julien has been hired by an international hydro-engineering company and will start work in September in Oman. The news came as a surprise to me, although I had helped him correct his English CV. I can’t believe the gall of some friends: I move to Europe to be near them and then they move even farther away, or worse, to the US!

I left Rennes and arrived in Paris, where I stayed with Antoine and his family for Easter weekend. The irony here is that the family is Jewish, and for logistical reasons I hadn’t been able to attend the traditional Seder meal earlier in the week for Passover. And there I was for Easter instead, eternally grateful that we still got to have an Easter egg hunt, that I could talk with my family over Skype, and that my Easter 2011 included a special afternoon trip to the Louvre. Irony continued to plague me though, as during this Jewish holiday wheat and yeast are prohibited, and we were relegated to eating matzah (unleavened bread, like a cracker). What is a Frenchman without his baguette? They were all good sports, though, and breadless meals were full of clever conversation and debates and, later, cards. I found Pit, the stock market card-trading game, to be the perfect outlet for this boisterous bunch.

On Monday morning I began the long trip back to Barcelona, first by train to a town near Lyon, where Luz’s family picked me up, and we continued by car to Girona. After stopping by the warehouse and picking up lots of organic goodies from Luz’s mom, we returned home by train. I was flat-out exhausted, but feeling rested, relaxed, and removed from the stress of the previous month. It should be much smoother sailing from here until the end of June—I hope!

Marching on

2011-03-24T23:31:00.003+01:00

March is crawling by, busy as promised with classes, projects, meetings, and planning. I have attended a slew of subjects, including Advanced Studies in Multilingualism, Discourse Analysis, Advances in Second Language Acquisition, a research seminar to advance my thesis, and a project in Content-Language Integrated Learning. I’ll return to the content in another post.

The most important change in my academic track this year has been my decision to expand the program, which was made official in February. Instead of scurrying through my research planning now, and collecting data like mad until May, and analyzing and discussing and writing and revising frenetically until the 1 July submission date, I have been blessed with the resources and ability to push my thesis back until the fall. So I will return to Barcelona next fall to collect data for an ethnographic study on immigrant learning of Catalan and resulting sense of integration. I plan to visit Catalan classes offered by the city government, civic centers, the university, and public schools, and try to understand the Catalan policy of integration through language by studying the perspectives of students and teachers and comparing it with program objectives. I’ll defend my thesis next February, plenty of time to organize a thorough qualitative study. To support myself, I’ve applied to be an English teaching assistant in Spain much like I was last year in France, and am still waiting to hear about my placement.

Rotary events have continued to be regular, even as our leadership has changed. Now the four of us scholars in the Barcelona district have a new host counselor, who will help us organize presentations. He lives and works in the city, but unfortunately his club is located two hours away and will be difficult for us to have much contact with. On the other hand, our host club has not been extensively involved with helping us settle in, inviting us to events, and checking in on us; this will be the most unfortunate aspect of this year. The most accessible groups have, not surprisingly, been the young adult Rotaracts. I presented in one just last night, and I (and the group, I think) was pleased with how my Spanish has come along: I can present fluidly and coherently, without notes, while paying attention to the audience. Quite an accomplishment!

Finally, planning and logistics have kept me incredibly busy since I returned from Tenerife. I’ve been responsible for planning various parts of approximately four trips: one to the Spanish and French Basque country, last weekend, photos to follow; the long-awaited arrival of my parents and their European vacation, take two, beginning next Thursday; the visit of two Breton friends, and our following camping/road trip over spring break; and a very far-sighted service trip to Morocco in June with our sponsor Rotaract group to distribute reading glasses. Spring is always a busy season, full of possibility!

Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France

Donostia/San Sebastian, Spain

The "Wind Comb" by Eduardo Chillida

Promised Pictures

2011-03-23T13:25:00.005+01:00

This picture update is long overdue, mostly because it took a great deal of effort to sort through the 1600 Tenerife-Sevilla-Granada pictures taken by my dear traveling companion.
These are truly the best of the best, pieces of the patchwork of Spain.

Tis the Season

2011-02-23T11:13:00.002+01:00

Although most of my readers will beg to differ, springtime is here! In February and March, the Catalans look up at the ever-blazing sun, admit it’s never really that cold here, and start planning calçotades. I like to translate this as “Festival of the Green Onion,” a calçot, although it is actually akin to a good down-home barbecue. First, stacks of thick green onions are cooked over open flame, so that the outer stem shoots burn to a crisp while the inside steams. The vegetables are then taken off the fire and carried to the table, to be served in a typical rounded clay roof tile. Meat is cooked over the coals as the flame dies down, bread is toasted, and red wine or cava is served. Now, how to eat a calçot: slide the inner part of the vegetable out of its charcoaled casing by grabbing the inner stem shoots; dip in romesco sauce (almonds, pine nuts, roasted garlic, olive oil, sweet red pepper, and roasted tomatoes); and open your beak like a baby bird waiting for a worm. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate spring.

If you’re lucky and have managed to make a few Catalan friends, you will be calçotaded-out by the end of March. I went to my first a few weeks ago, invited by the Rotaract club Vallés which meets at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and which had their calçotada at a family’s country home complete with an olive grove. The calçots were hot, the romesco sauce was Grandma’s finest, and the day blessed us with perfect sunshine.

I’m on route to attend another calçotada this Saturday with all the Rotaract clubs in the district of Catalunya. We’ll be congregating in nothing short of the homeland of calçots, Tarragona (the Roman town I visited a few weeks ago). Then hopefully the Catalans in my program will succeed in organizing another in a few weeks, north of Barcelona in Girona. By the end of the spring, I expect I will reek of green onion—and be completely full and satisfied.

Adventures

Catalan countryside excursions have not been my only break from Barcelona: after a month of classes, projects, exams, and intensive Catalan, I was blessed to have a ten-day break. I took the opportunity to visit the most remote corner of Spain, technically separated from the European continent by a three-hour plane ride. Technically located off the coast of Africa. Known for its dogs, birds, whistled native language, and for the highest mountain in Spain: I vacationed in the Canary Islands! A classmate from Colombia accompanied me, and we explored Tenerife’s northern fishing town, Puerto de la Cruz; hiked on 3.7km high Mount Teide, and visited the mountain town of La Orotava, which has several fully-functioning mills and its own brand wine, which I highly recommend.

After a few days in Puerto Cruz, we moved on to Santa Cruz, the capital of Tenerife. It was a short stay, mainly to visit the Natural History Museum and learn more about the islands’ aboriginal inhabitants, the Guanches. They migrated to the Canaries in the BC era, and were largely subsumed into the society of fifteenth-century Spanish settlers, who used the islands as a launch pad for voyages to North America. Columbus himself took off from the island La Gomera, where he apparently overstayed his scheduled stopover due to romantic ties with the island’s governor. Ah, the twists and turns of history.

Sandra and I then left by ferry for Gran Canaria, where we spent an afternoon before flying to Sevilla (budget airlines and moneywise travel do make for interesting sidetrips). Sevilla is the capital of Andalucia, Spain’s southern agricultural region. It’s known for its flamenco music and dancing, its cathedral, and its scorching hot summers. I have visited Sevilla twice before, once last year with Victoria for the Feria de Abril, when all Sevillians put on their expensive colorful dresses and Spanish cowboy suits and head to the fairgrounds to eat, drink, dance, and mingle. This was just a brief stay to visit the Alcázar, or royal Moorish palace and gardens, try to see some authentic flamenco dancing, and enjoy a guided walking tour.

On Friday we made our last stop in Granada, another prominent Andalucian town where Victoria lives, my flatmate from last year. I was thrilled to see her again and visit the city’s Albayzín, the white-washed maze-like Moorish quarter now a center of Bohemian culture. The neighborhood has a view across the valley to the Alhambra, the fourteenth-century Moorish castle that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Granada was the last Moorish stronghold (the Moors, an Arab dynasty, once ruled the Iberian peninsula for 800 years) and fell to the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1492 as the last victory of the Reconquista. Moorish architecture is prominent in all of Andalucia as a result.

Granada was a nearly non-stop weekend of tapas and fiesta as we celebrated anything we could think of: a friend’s birthday, Victoria’s C2 (near-native) English grade, another friend’s acceptance to Sweden on a university exchange…everything. By the time Sandra and I got on the plane for Barcelona on Monday, I was tired of vacation! It was a good break from the computer screen, though, which I will likely become re-addicted to within the week as new classes start and projects beckon. I am, however, indebted to the Rotaract clubs of the area, which continuously plan events and fundraisers, stuff me with green onions, and give me reasons to balance study with play.

Photos coming soon!

New Experiences

2011-01-31T00:16:00.002+01:00

A week of new experiences. While sometimes I wish I could rise like the sun, leave the house at half past, walk by the same flower stand and say good morning to the its kindly florist, put in a good day’s work and break for lunch on the same sunny park bench, and walk home to the sound of familiar closing-up routines—in short, have my own routine—I realize that my life may never be this orderly. Academic study is a binge in the best sense: you gorge yourself on information, which hopefully you feel guilty about because you love it so much, and expulse it all in terms of exams, papers, projects, and discussions. It doesn’t lend itself to regularity, and you sleep hard when you can get it. At least, this has been my experience with life as my classroom.

I am straddling the overwhelming midpoint of a two-week intensive course in Catalan, a 9am to 1pm daily appointment that has finally booted out the jet lag and made way for a Spanish siesta. It is the beginner’s beginning, although I’ve captured some advantage from my roommates’ Catalan conversations. (And they thought I couldn’t understand!) It is a point when you feel like you’re learning at an incredible rate, until you realize you can only communicate in numbers, seasons, and the weather channel. I can provide stalkers with all the information they could ever need (my name, where I’m from, where I live) or, alternatively, tell the umbrella-holding celebrity that it is, in fact, raining.

Perhaps my perspective on this skills set is unfair; it is most certainly influenced by the course I’m currently taking in content-language integrated learning. CLIL, like bilingual or immersion education, uses language as a means to an end, i.e., teaching history in Spanish rather than Spanish itself. Over the course of studying the Spanish Civil War, for example, there will be plenty of opportunities to observe, learn, and use the past tense—without dieting students on grammar exercises alone. But here I am conjugating “to be” in Catalan, with which I can say an impressive amount of things:

Em dic Colleen.

My name is Colleen.

Sóc dels Estats Units.

I’m from the United States.

El meu pare es diu L i la meva mare es diu C.

My dad’s name is L and my mom’s is C.

Tinc dues germanas. Es diuen M i H.

I have two sisters. Their names are M and H.

Tinc un gos també.

I have a dog too.

Estic estudiant a la Universitat de Barcelona.

I’m studying at the UB.

Tinc dues campanyas de pis molt macas.

I have two really nice roommates. (By far Anna and Luz’s favorite phrase.)

Besides the new Catalan intensive, which I am taking free of charge with other foreign students thanks to the Catalan regional government, I started another course this week. It too is a cross-cultural experience, though of a more sweaty sort: Colleen meets Bollywood, dance of India. I realized how much I missed dance classes and looked up something new. Unfortunately, with masters classes at night, very few fit my schedule, and this one is in a faraway neighborhood. But for one night, I got to dance with bangles on my ankles, following the bird-hands and circle-hips and bare feet of an adorable little Indian woman. I hope to find another class closer!

And last new experience: I finally made it out of Barcelona for a cultural excursion down the coast to Tarragona. It took us an hour and a half to get there by train on a sunny Saturday afternoon, and not long at all to realize why the Romans picked it as a winter resort. The seaside setting is calm, the amphitheater and ancient city walls give it character, and the play of light in the airy colorful streets reminded me of a cool summer bath. We followed the walls, learned about the city’s role as Rome’s principle stronghold in first-century Spain, had coffee in a plaza as a rag-tag marching band drummed by, and walked along the cold sunset beach. It was, literally, a breath of fresh air.

Back to BCN

2011-01-19T10:20:00.003+01:00

When I left Grand Rapids earlier this month after spending Christmas at home, I felt sated on the long, warm, filling, and loving embrace of my family. While living abroad has become more manageable, and the Atlantic is now a well-beaten path under my feet, my heart can’t help but sink a little when I walk away from home and heartland.

What a blessing that life here in Barcelona is so rich! I had barely arrived Saturday morning when I received my first invitation, a comforting sign that I was missed. Surely I was the newly-recertified American: Saturday night was an American pizza party, and I came bearing PopTarts, rice crispy treats, and peanut butter. The first filled a request from Natalie, Texan-born Rotary scholar studying international relations in Barcelona. The second landed in the hands of my flatmate Anna, who spent a year in Wisconsin during high school. And the peanut butter? Part of the Hamilton stockpile. These are the things we miss (and fit into a suitcase).

I also spent time passing by my favorite places here, all languishing in the glorious Barcelona sunshine. My apartment is a short walk from Montjuic, the great seaside landmass that separates the city from its industrial port. To get there takes a ten-minute walk out my door, across the busy Parallel Avenue, and through a neighborhood called Poble Sec. The high, colorful, laundry-strewn apartment buildings are spotted street-level with bars, mini-marts, hair salons, and some odd shops. I love to walk down shaded Blai street, then right onto the street where parakeets chirp away, and sometimes past the intriguing vine-covered house. Then it’s a long staircase up through the parks that dot the hillsides of Montjuic. Then finally, the Lookout, a high rise garden that lays the city out before you. Most times I stop there, where you can catch your breath a little, above the city and watching the boats glide in and out of the pleasure port.

Walks like these will become my guilty pleasure, I suspect, as the semester’s work continues to pile on. Last week we all scrambled to turn in thesis research proposals, general areas that are meant only to pair us with a supervisor but seem also to carry the weight of a life’s work. The three areas I outlined were bilingual education, bilingualism, and content integrated language instruction. The first would pull me into a Catalan case study, as I’m especially interested in how the region integrates immigrants, children of course but especially adult language learners. The second area would involve a fun study of which languages people use and when and why, and how they all affect each other. Finally, the third area is a proven-effective teaching approach that has students learning, say, science through Spanish instead of a course on Spanish. In another week, my program professors will assign me an advisor and determine the course of my professional career. Or will it only be a 6-month thesis?

The general academic program is also intensifying, as visiting professors often appear on the scene for a week of four-hour lectures in their area of specialty. This week I’m enrolled in a hit-and-run on pragmatics, or the teaching, learning, and usage of language forms to express apologies, requests, refusals, invitations, etc. How we frame these phrases depends on the status of the speakers (think employer-employee, for example), distance between them (best friends or strangers), magnitude of the request or misstep (forgetting the forks versus the wedding), and to a great extent, cultural norms. Here in Spanish, it’s not rude to use commands and say, “Give me a coffee,” or “Pass me the salt,” no please, could you, or thank you ma’am. It’s perfectly acceptable, not bad manners, and not insulting. In fact, Americans or Brits are often ridiculed for being extensively, overly, annoyingly polite. I try to strike a balance.

Two more points, the first one short. Hooray, again and over again, for socialist health care. The Spanish government staffs and runs health centers, which provide general care and can be supplemented by private insurances. My residency card entitles me to my very own general practitioner, most necessary treatments, and a discount on already-cheaper prescriptions. In ten minutes of paperwork last week, I had my temporary health card and even got to meet my doctor! She looked into my ear, told me I had wax and to get over it, but these drops might help. I beamed.

And lastly, Rotary also vied for my attention last week, and I was more than grateful to consent. With the other Scholars, I lunched with Club Barcelona Pedralbes, whose members meet on the nineteenth floor of a very nice hotel on Diagonal Avenue. On Saturday I braved an early-morning rendezvous with Rotaract young adults to train out to the Autonoma University hotel for a day-long Rotaract District Conference. It was a day full of presentations, breakout sessions, and fun and games (we are all young!) that helped me make contact with the seven Rotaract clubs in the district. This week I will be presenting to one that meets at the Autonoma (after four hours of lecture, and after a PhD meeting at the university…). Life is miraculously full and joyfully filling!

La vie en rose

2010-12-14T23:19:00.002+01:00

I am feeling particularly content this week, even amidst busy concludings and preparings that often accompany the end of a semester and the beginning of a holiday break. Since I last wrote, the strength of my friendships and new connections this year has become abundantly clear, and the bounty of my community has graced my table, my travel, my life.

Even aside from the innumerable things I have to be thankful for, Thanksgiving was a momentous occasion in itself. Luz and Anna let me decorate the apartment with hand-made turkeys, cornucopia baskets, and feather headbands as part of the preparation for the ultimate cooking marathon and Thanksgiving dinner. The menu chalked on our kitchen wall read: crispy mashed potatoes, whole wheat rolls, spicy pear crumble, sweet corn, squash soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, sweet potato biscuits, baked mac and cheese, stuffing, green beans in lemon sauce, and finally turkey, which I purchased direct from my favorite Mercat de Sant Antoni. It’s rare that I cook meat at all, let alone an entire bird, and believe me it was an exciting experiment (highly successful, I’d say). Around this full table we gathered: friends, classmates, and roommates, each thankful for numerous blessings. It was truly a fantastic occasion.

Then I burrowed through a few days of class before the long weekend. No, I didn’t have Thanksgiving Day off to cook all that menu, and I even had class until 9pm when the cena began. But I made up for it when good fortune (and scheduling) extended my long weekend into a week-long break. From 1-9 December I took a break from Barcelona and returned to my native land. Or was it just France? So many things feel so comfortably familiar in that land of berets and baguettes that I was nearly overwhelmed by nostalgia. Or was it just the chocolate croissants I managed to eat every day? Returning to such familiar territory felt like living la vie en rose. Or rather, returning to the open arms of some dear friends in France made my stay rosy and cozy.

In any case, I spent most of the break in Paris, metro-ing across town to see museums and expositions. Ana, a Spaniard who spent last year teaching in the same language assistant program, had never visited the Musée d’Orsay, and so we spent an afternoon in the remodeled train station enjoying the Impressionists. I caught a fantastic Monet exhibit in le Grand Palais, with nearly 200 paintings gathered from all over the world, the likes of which I will probably never see again. One impressive pairing was the side-by-side paintings of the British Parliament, painted by Monet twenty years apart with the entire evolution of Impressionism between them. It must have been a Monet week, because I also made it to the Musée Marmottan on the west side of the city to see another collection of his. In between I went to the Arab World Institute, the Musée Carnavalet of the history of Paris, and the Catacombs. Few people realize just how many tunnels and old quarries lie underneath Paris, who knows how many of them filled with bones from the 18^th century when a large city cemetery was emptied. I have now seen much of Paris from many angles…but there’s always so much more to discover.

But my heart still lies in Alsace, and I was thrilled to be able to visit Strasbourg this December during the Christmas market. I acted as guide for a French friend who had never visited the city, and the light snow that whisked our train away from Paris brought us east to the sunshine.

We visited my old haunts, my favorite picturesque Strasbourg sites, the neighborhood where I lived, and all along the way I remembered moments of my life there. Not all painless, but all meaningful. It was enchanting.

Back in Barcelona now, my nose to the grindstone. Two projects and an exam down, three projects to go. And Sunday looming with its flight home into the arms of my family to celebrate Christmas. I could not be more excited!

Life Doesn't Settle Down

2010-11-23T20:08:00.003+01:00

Routine is hopeless. Just as life is becoming less busy, it becomes more intense. My Spanish courses have ended, but my roommates decided it is time for me to learn Catalan and insist that I become accustomed to common phrases now to begin full immersion in January. Although I would like to understand Catalan and to have more exposure to specific Catalunyan traditions and history, I keep begging for more time to improve my Spanish. They argue it’s quite sufficient.

Of course, they’re right on both points, and the policy holds for all immigrants: Catalan helps integration and Spanish acquisition is nearly unavoidable given its omnipresence. I have some examples to illustrate these points. This weekend I returned to the Girona country villa where I was invited to celebrate Luz’s birthday, again with the group of friends who gathered for the cena two weeks ago. The ambiance had changed, as everyone had just seen each other recently, and perhaps my attitude had also changed. I was quicker to connect with individuals, who also made more efforts to address me directly in Spanish, and the topics of group conversation in Catalan seemed more accessible. I found I could get the gist, and I was more willing to interrupt to confirm and comment. We had a great time! I had read and worked all day in front of the woodstove and enjoyed relaxing in the evening in the amazing facilities Luz’s house affords: bar, group dining room, and dormitory with bunk beds. You can host great get-togethers when you live in a retreat center! The weather was beautiful, full moon included, and in the morning some people went mushroom hunting while others visited the horses…and of course we all cleaned up. I can’t overstate how nice it is to get out of the city.

Then yesterday I had occasion to prove my Spanish competence, despite ignorance of complicated grammar. I presented solo at the meeting of Rotary Club Barcelona Mar, which gathers every Monday in a beautiful hotel on La Rambla. Lunch was divine and the presentation was more an exchange that incited some interesting discussion about immigration, languages, politics, and economics. I was thrilled to connect so well with them, and they declared me a “guest of honor” and invited me to their Christmas dinner in a few weeks. Here is a photo of the cheery group:

As I mentioned at the beginning, routine is impossible. I finish two classes this week and enter into preparations for final projects, due in a few weeks. Most deal with designing studies or testing a certain instrument or method of analysis. In the meantime, I start a new class on content-integrated language teaching, for example teaching math in a foreign language. And also in the meantime, I’m using a long weekend to travel to France and visit old friends and old cities.

Friends and Visiting

2010-11-16T23:37:00.002+01:00

One thing I love about life here is the endless cause for celebration. So far not a week has passed without festivities, whether in the region, the city, or our apartment. I arrived during the Festival of the Mercè, metro’ed through film and now music festivals, blended Halloween with the Catalan chestnut holiday, and am preparing to host a Thanksgiving meal next week. Last week, my festivities revolved around visits from friends from around Europe, including an Australian road-tripping from Spain to France with a German and a Breton who also happens to be my banker. With these friends from my years studying in Strasbourg and teaching in Pontivy, I revisited all the Barcelona sites: Gaudi’s Park Guell, the beach, Montjuic’s fortress, the Gothic Quarter, and the lively Boqueria market. I’ve included a selection of photos for your enjoyment.

On Sunday we even ventured out of the city to the famous pilgrimage site of Montserrat, home to the Moreneta or Black Madonna. The monastery is built into the mountainside, supposedly around the Moreneta statue because it could not be moved, and we enjoyed hiking around on some mountain trails with amazing valley views. There were a stupendous number of tourists and so it was difficult to appreciate the legendary holiness of the site, but easy to appreciate the natural beauty.

This weekend I was also invited to present at a meeting of Barcelona Rotaract, which is a young adult version of the Rotary club. We met outside of town in Castelldefels, a beautiful beachside suburb where we had a picnic lunch meeting. The group is incredibly welcoming and has an international flavor: only one member is actually from Spain, and the rest come from South America, Russia, and France. For those of you from Michigan, never fear, I taught them all how to locate Grand Rapids using their hand as a map!

This week holds much work and study, catching up from last week’s distractions. My Spanish courses are coming to an end, and I’m looking for a language exchange to take its place, along with cultural activities sponsored by the University and possibly a gym membership. It’s about time to move on from the adjustment phase and settle into a routine, I think.

Weekend in Girona

2010-11-08T17:18:00.003+01:00

After some weeks of getting to know Barcelona, this fantastic city where I live, I had the opportunity this past weekend to venture out to the city of Girona. My roommates, both from this town located one and a half hours by train north of Barcelona, invited me for the town festival. I could compare it in some ways to a county fair: there were carnival rides and games, concerts, and food booths selling all sorts of regional goodies. There were no animals or competitions, but the festivities lasted much later into the night and morning.

On Friday I went with my roommate Luz to her house in the valley of the Llémena, a stream that flows down into Girona. Through my young American eyes, her house looks like a mix between Italian villa and medieval manor. In fact, “Can Sala,” belonging to the Señor Sala, was built around 1100. The latest addition to the house was built in 1773, and all has been renovated extensively by Luz’s family. They have turned it into a magnificent mountain retreat center called CEL, Centre Ecològic Llémena and Catalan for “heaven.” The family manages an organic and natural foods brand, bioSpirit, and the house has a shop, restaurant facilities, and guestrooms. I loved spending a sunny fall day in the countryside in such a beautiful setting, visiting the horses, swinging in a hammock on the balcony, reading on the sunny patio with the cats, and exploring this grand house. I hope I’ve made a good impression and will be invited back!

After a relaxing day, we returned to Girona on Saturday evening for a friend-guided tour of the city. Girona began as an Iberian city, expanded later by the Romans, inhabited by the Visigoths, conquered by the Moors and then Charlemagne before being incorporated into Spain. Most tourists come to Girona to see the “Call” or Jewish quarter, a cramped but beautiful cobblestone neighborhood that reflects the flourishing community that was then deported during the 15^th century Inquisition. We also walked along the city walls, strong fortifications that protected Girona during many sieges. Part of the tour took us through the festival food booths, where I tasted local cheeses, sausages, sauces, candied almonds and roasted chestnuts.

My roommates, back in their hometown, had organized a cena (late dinner) for everyone to get together. The restaurant was located in the old part of the city, so the ambiance of stone walls and wooden beams was magical, but something about the evening gave me a new perspective on the very subject I came here to study: multilingualism. These friends, like most youth in Catalunya, speak Catalan amongst themselves. This shows a strong resurgence of a once-banned regional language which is now used across Catalan society. The same youth also learn Spanish, both through bilingual schooling and its use as a community language.

At this cena, I was the outsider in all senses, but this time I was limited by my nonexistent Catalan instead of intermediate Spanish. At first, friends were careful and spoke mostly in Spanish, and it wasn’t until later that I realized how awkward this was for the group. I had assumed using a common language with people who speak it natively would be a smooth transition, forgetting that sustained interactions usually fall into one language, and clearly in this instance that language was Catalan. I spent the last hour of the meal barely catching the gist of the conversation, much less jokes and references to other friends I didn’t know.

It was frustrating to come face to face with a situation that I have often argued against: language as a barrier instead of a bridge. Through experiences and research and writing, I have maintained that the beauty of linguistic diversity is people’s capacity for multilingualism. But there I was unable to integrate into this multilingual group because of their natural preference for Catalan. I understand the context, the tendencies, even the absentmindedness, but I was at a loss for how to address the situation. How often can you interrupt to politely remind people of your own linguistic limitations?

Tonight in class I’m going to check with some of my Catalan classmates for their perspective on this situation, how they would address it, and how it interacts with the concept of Catalan identity and history. Not to mention how they think I should address it! And then next semester I’m starting Catalan courses!

Late News

2010-10-25T11:46:00.003+02:00

Due to an extremely unfortunate two-week internet outage in my apartment, I have not been able to upload this post from 10 October until now. Enjoy a little belated update:

Today it’s raining in Barcelona, the first time a shining blue sky has not greeted me. I’m ready to stay inside, though, since I have a lot of class reading to work on. My four classes for the next several weeks are Bilingualism and Multilingualism, Research Methods, Tools for Quantitative Analysis (statistics), and Crosslinguistic Influence. Most require me to read and comment on articles in the field of second language acquisition, and some will involve projects like reporting on the linguistic profile of my home country, designing a research project in bilingual studies, and using a data analysis program.
I also began Spanish classes on Wednesday, taking a forty-hour intensive that puts me with other international students. It’s a helpful forum for asking grammatical questions that bug me in my everyday speech, the equivalent of asking the difference between since and as. My Spanish is functional and even better sometimes, but the classes will help me with vocabulary, comprehension, and definitely the subjunctive verb tense. (In English this would be, “If I were you…” and in Spanish it’s rampant.)
Although I just began classes, this weekend is a welcome five-day breather. Tuesday is a national holiday celebrating Spanish culture, although it seems some nationalist groups abuse the day to downplay regional cultures, a very contentious issue here in Catalunya. Many of the customs we think of as Spanish, such as flamenco dancing, bull-fighting, and ¡Olé! in fact reference Madrid’s Aragón and southern Andalucia. They’re not indigenous to Catalunya, whose regional dance is called sardanas and involves circles of hand-holding jiggers. The Sunday I visited Park Güell, I met some on the Passeig de Sant Joan. Another Catalunyan tradition is castellers, or human pyramids, which I have yet to happen upon.
Speaking of traditions, the Rotary clubs in the Barcelona district have a spectacular fundraising tradition for Rotary’s campaign to eradicate polio worldwide. Every year, the clubs have a blind tasting of cava, Catalunyan sparkling wine. The winner boasts the Rotary symbol, and a euro from each bottle sold is donated to the campaign. Last year the district raised over 13,000 euros from sales, and this year’s winner was announced on Friday at the reception and check-presentation ceremony. We four scholars in the district were invited to attend and enjoyed cava, pan amb tomate (bread rubbed with tomato and salted, also a Catalunyan specialty), and smoked ham jamón serrano while meeting the district governor and young Rotarians.
And from today, 25 October:
Last weekend I was fortunate enough to go to Berlin for the wedding of Susi and Nathan, two dear friends of mine. Susi taught German last year in the same high school in Brittany where I worked. Nathan is originally from Virginia and writes, plays, produces and records music. He sang a song he wrote for Susi at the reception, then we danced the night away to the 80's music most Germans adore. Also during the weekend I visited the German History Museum and its new exhibit on Hitler and German society, which portrays the build-up of Hitler's persona as an expression of societal desires of the time. Sunday was a perfect fall day to spend in Berlin's largest park, visiting segments of the Berlin wall, and eating a warm and filling German dinner. And now, back to Barcelona.

A Spanish Life

2010-10-05T23:30:00.002+02:00

Since many of you have not visited Barcelona, you may wonder what daily life is like here. Although my life as a foreigner and student may differ from that of most working Spaniards, this week is my best chance to establish a routine. For those of you who have followed my writing some, it might also be helpful for me to compare life here with other places I’ve lived abroad.

First let’s talk schedules. It’s true that if you live as Spaniards do, you will burn the candle at both ends—and rarely does the post-lunch pause actually mean having a siesta. Some stores open at 8:00am, most at 9:00, and some university offices at 10:00. I’ve heard of workers taking breaks for breakfast while at work, although I don’t know how common this is, although coffee breaks are rampant. Shops stay open until 2:00pm, and generally this is the most productive part of the day. Whether it’s for enrollment, bureaucracy, or shopping, my errands aim for the morning. Then I return home at 3:00 for la comida, the main meal of the day. My roommates, two wonderful Spanish girls, usually return home from classes at this point and we eat heartily and leave the table slowly. Businesses then reopen at 4:00 and most stay open until 8:00. I have evening classes between 6:00 and 9:00, and then I make the twenty minute walk back home to eat la cena, a lighter dinner meal, sometimes leftovers. We gradually move from eating to talking to homework for the rest of the evening, and bedtimes are late. World-renowned Spanish nightlife doesn’t start until midnight and often ends around 6:00am, when everyone comes back to have churros con chocolate. On Sundays stores stay closed and everyone takes a paseo, a stroll, around the parks and down the popular avenues.

As for language, I’m learning. People speak both Castilian Spanish and Catalan, a similar Latin-based language that has made a significant comeback since it was outlawed under the dictatorship of Franco, 1936-1975. In comparison with my past observations of Alsatian and Breton, regional languages in France, the regional language here has retained and even cemented its role in administration, education, and media. Public schools teach only Catalan and classes at the university may be offered in both languages; if you don’t speak it, Catalan language classes are offered free of charge. My roommates speak to each other and their friends in Catalan, so I’m looking forward to taking classes at the end of this semester. For now I’m focusing on Spanish, although all my Masters courses are taught in English. Although I’m not aiming for total immersion as I did while studying in Strasbourg, language intensives will help me move beyond the functional Spanish I speak now. Classes start tomorrow, 11:30am-1:00pm.

School and home life: I live much now as I did last year in Pontivy, France. It’s an academic life, with all the benefits of the academic schedule and calendar. I love being back in the student seat and thoroughly enjoy the Masters cohort I’ve fallen in with: Spanish students, young multilinguals from Belgium, Finnish-Brazilian couples, two culture kids, and a few of us Anglophones. My class last night on bilingualism could not have benefited more from this mixture, debating questions like: What is a mother tongue? What counts as bilingual? Do balanced bilinguals exist? What is “native speakerness,” and until what age can it be acquired? How is what you speak associated with who you’re speaking to, where, when, and why? I love being a part of these discussions. And then I come home to a living language lab! I question my roommates relentlessly about their Catalan, education, use, words, and more. I would love to study how reinforcing Catalan has affected speakers’ knowledge of Spanish and their use of both languages. The city is like a never-ending experiment rolled out before me, day after sunny day.

That’s why I came to Barcelona.

Beginnings

2010-10-02T20:59:00.003+02:00

I have been in Barcelona for one week now, and what a long week it has been. First, let me tell you of my arrival: I have worn out my beginner’s luck with travel. On the flight from Chicago to London, one of the passengers became very sick (in fact was having a heart attack) and we changed routes and landed in Boston to have him hospitalized. The delay caused me to miss my connecting flight in London, which may have been the most ill-timed mishap in all of flying history. Usually there are several flights daily to Barcelona from Heathrow airport, but I happened to be flying on day 7 of a French air traffic control strike. Ah the French, I think of them constantly. And I thought of them constantly during eleven hours of being on standby in Heathrow, hoping for just one flight to go through with a seat for me. I finally boarded a flight at 7pm, arriving Barcelona at 11pm, glad to be in Spain…but without my bag.

I logged my missed bag and made it to my hostel. Fortunately I was staying at the hostel where I had stayed a few years ago, so I knew my way around and was glad to see a familiar place. The staff were extremely helpful, but informed me that since the next day was a holiday (the festival of the Mercè, Barcelona’s patron saint), all the shops would be closed. So here’s to living out of a carry on bag! My bag did show up the following evening, late, and fortunately that day I’d made contact with Natalie, another Rotary scholar from Texas.

I stayed on Natalie’s couch for a few days while letting her show me around, help me get a phone, and look at apartments. Can I say she has become my patron saint? We also went out to some of the performance stages, because really the Mercè is a great time to arrive in Barcelona. And the weather has been beautiful, sunny and 70-75 degrees.

On Sunday I visited an apartment rented by Anna and Luz, two girls from Girona (a town an hour outside Barcelona) who are studying here and who just moved in themselves. Something about their new paint job (my room has a bright lime green wall) and friendly faces drew me in, and I came back later that day for la cena. La cena is dinner, but eaten later around 9 or 10pm, and is a lighter meal than la comida, the midday meal around 3pm. I really enjoyed their company and have ever since Tuesday when I moved in.

Since then it has been a whirlwind of paperwork and visits. All of my documents are in to the Universitat de Barcelona, waiting for the Rector’s final approval. On Monday I had a meeting for my masters program (Applied Linguistics and Language Acquisition in Multilingual Contexts) and am deciding which electives to choose so I can register next week when classes begin. I am now an official resident of Barcelona, although I need one more paper to go wait at the foreigners’ office to become an official year-long visitor to Spain. I’ve visited several of Barcelona’s main attractions, taking advantage of my free time this week. One of the attractions happens to be my university:

And today I attended my first event with my host Rotary club, arriving just in time for the district’s group meal out at a farm in the countryside. It felt great to leave the city and see the mountains, meet my Rotary sponsor Pilar and other members of the local club. I’m excited to present at a club meeting, which should be coming up here soon.

Introductions

2010-09-03T20:35:00.004+02:00

I would like to re-introduce myself to the blogosphere this year as Colleen, Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to Barcelona, Spain from North Manchester, Indiana.
I will be enrolled in a Masters program in language education from October until June 2011. The title of the program is Applied Linguistics and Language Acquisition in Multilingual Contexts, and every one of those words gets me excited!
All the paperwork is through and I'm nearly ready for my departure on 22 September. Now, just to find an apartment or host family.
Thank you to all the folks, especially the North Manchester Rotary, who encouraged me to pursue this opportunity and helped me along the way. I look forward to blogging often and hearing from you in return.

Reprise and Recovery

2010-03-11T23:12:00.002+01:00

Last week was a downer, and I will never forgive March. I mean depressing, discouraging, disappointing, a real down-right downer. The kind they make movies out of, because in the end all you can do is gather all your woes together (provided they are not too serious) and pour them into a bottle of a wine with a friend. Everyone laughs at the end of a bottle of wine shared around common frustrations.

It all began with the heat. Again, you say? Yes, and you will say again again before long. When I arrived chez moi after a difficult return journey on Sunday the 28^th, I found the heater had gone on strike, as anything French is wont to do. Conditions have been worse in the apartment, if you will recall my return from Christmas break to an unheated apartment and sluggish heater. By comparison, that story ended happily. Last week’s saga ended with a reprimand from the gas company, who argued we had never paid our bills, neglecting the fact that we have yet to receive a single one. Although using utilities for six months without paying may seem odd, it does fall into the venerable tradition of colossal French paperwork and goes the way of, say, my housing assistance.

On Monday morning, still without heat, I awoke to a dear FedEx package that cost me a hefty price to receive. But I was grateful, seeing as a second package that had been delivered just after my departure could no longer be found by the Poste. They are still looking.

But this was a minor sum compared to the large charge sitting on my account from the phone company. I had settled my grievances with Orange and graciously pardoned them last month, when for all my troubles I was finally reimbursed, and then some. Well, the “and then some” is now the problem, as Orange has figured that it over-reimbursed me, and now has over-billed us. Since I am now an expert in French phone negotiations, I decided to try a new tactic to widen my repertoire. After eliciting the service rep’s sympathy for our six months of entanglements, I mentioned that I was “on the verge of cancelling the contract because I have no confidence that next month’s bill will be correct.” And you know what, it worked! I was offered a pitiable sum to pacify my concerns—enough to cover next month’s payment to Orange.

Also, bad news came from the Académie: our request to change our end-of-April work schedules was denied. Since a two-week spring break cuts April in half, leaving just one of week of work before the end of our contracts, we thought it would be wise and reasonable to make up the twelve hours beforehand. The idea of leaving in five weeks had become very appealing these last two months, as I slowly realize the futility and dissatisfactory nature of my work here. Simply put, I have never worked a full week; I have never been asked to coordinate my activities with teachers; and I have never received further training or supervision. I don’t seem wanted or needed here. To be required to return, for (possibly) twelve hours of work, out of petty propriety, is infuriating.

And to top things off, I received notice from the McGill Masters in Linguistics program that I have not been accepted. That took a few days to sink in. To quote a dear friend of mine: “Are you sure you read that right? They must have their heads up their bums. Christ, what are they looking for?” Let’s not dwell on it: the next step is to get my Rotary scholarship reassigned to another institution, and the four I’ve submitted are two public universities in Montreal, one in Brussels, and one in Barcelona. I most like the program in Barcelona, but I would be happy in any, and I imagine Rotary would prefer to keep me in the same country as the original institution. I’ll keep you updated.

As if to bring me from the depths of defeat into the realm of psychotic irony, the CAF finally granted me my housing assistance. I guess they just ran out of excuses for delaying. It’s retroactive and covers a good majority of my housing expenses from October to February. I receive 154 euros per month towards my rent, and although I am exceedingly grateful for this help, my question for the CAF is this: and what if I hadn't had the funds to wait six months?

Questions better left unasked. Like why can't one week just go as expected? Bills become routine instead of tribulations? One bureaucrat be organized and knowledgeable and sympathetic? Coworkers be more welcoming? And my favorite, What if I just don't like teaching?