Barcelona notebook

As attentive readers will note, I managed to survive my trip to Barcelona, and not die, as I predicted last week. The trip was wonderful. I appreciated the chance to explore a new urban area, and I enjoyed getting an introduction to the way James lives. He has a pretty fantastic situation over there - if anyone is going to Spain, definitely look James up and stay with him. (Totally worth your time! Don't mention my name!) Anyways, a few observations:

...Since when did air travel become a giant sleepover? I have never seen more people (namely women) in sweat pants and pajama bottoms and horrible track suits. I know people dress comfortably in order to avoid the chance of a full-cavity search by our helpful and competent TSA employees, but most of the passengers lounging around the gate area, reading US Weekly and eating Toblerones, looked downright dumpy. It's like our response to the threat created by Al Qaeda is to really heighten those American attributes that the terrorists can't seem to get enough of. We all think: if this plane is hijacked, these a-holes are going to have to take down 250 Americans who are fatter and more slovenly than ever. And I guess there's no small amount of satisfaction in that...

...Do Catalunyan parents hate their Catalunyan teenagers as much as I did? Because there's no reason they shouldn't. The teenagers over there run around the city like packs of wild dogs, hooting and hollering in Catalunyan, which is not a language but a series of clicks, grunts, and throat-clearings. In the Parc Guell James and I watched a horde of teenagers kick a soccer ball into a crowded cafe area as they tried to nail each other with ball. People were scattering about and trying to avoid the assault, and the kids just played on obliviously. Nobody said anything, no kid thought, hey, let's tone it down. As we would walk through the city, I would get extremely nervous when a pack of them would walk by. I was aware of my status as a bizarrely-dressed foreigner and completely expected to get shaken down or threatened with a switchblade by these surly, mulleted youths. But James played it cool (his education expertise coming in handy) and we never had trouble. Still, the entire country needs to go on "Supernanny," and that woman needs to come over and straighten things out. On one of my last days I was reading a book and bunch of teens came over near my bench to shoot craps or whatever they do, and I just got up and left. Nothing good would be found there...

...I have no skill in identifying Americans among the European throngs. I thought it would be easy to tell who else was from America: they would be dressed like normal people, and they would be sort of fat. Yet every time I saw a woman in a standard sweater set, or a guy in jeans and a polo, or a teenager without a mullet, I would realize that they were all speaking German and smoking cigarettes. I had no skill in identifying Americans at all. I think the Europeans have finally learned to dress like we do, without the bizarre brand names or English phrases across their clothes, and their dietary habits are finally catching up. Fortunately, it seems like many Asian tourists to Spain are really picking up the slack, in terms of dressing weirdly. And that's not racist, it's an empirical observation...

...Three times, I found myself confronted by an errant soccer ball from some kids playing a game nearby. So I had to kick it back to them. Readers of this blog will know that this situation presents about 35 of my deepest fears in one neat package. Due to a traumatic experience with a soccer coach in first grade, it has never been my forte (as a matter of fact, baseball is) (right). So when the ball would come my way, and the kid nearby would yell, "Pasa! Pasa!," time seemed to slow to a crawl as I ... trapped the ball beneath my foot, and slowly, carefully, already hearing the taunts of the schoolchildren in the guttural, undisciplined Catalunyan tongues...kicked the ball back to them with the inside part of my foot, like my favorite soccer player, Brandy Chastain. And then the kids would forget about me and I would keep walking, ready to rip my shirt off and expose my sports bra for all the city to see...

...And, that's what I have to say about Barcelona, for the time being. The flight back was an utter nightmare, and the fact that I still haven't received my luggage a day later is some verification of that. (In the terminal, I tried to relax by composing a haiku about the pretty Indian flight attendants, with their bone structure and eye shadow, and british accents, but it was too much for 17 syllables.) Barcelona remains an amazing city, and the fact that James will be there for a while offers great promise of future visits. It's nice to get some distance to reflect on your own life while you experience an entirely different version. So I am home now, using L's toothbrush and lamenting the temporary loss of half my polo shirts, while at the same time saying "perdon" to people at the Strand and adding a slice of lemon in my Coke. This is why we travel.