Day 5

There is nothing quite so great as Barcelona in the springtime.

In every year but this one, that is. After many years of extreme drought, a large storm system has parked itself over most of Spain and except for the day I arrived, it has been cold, windy and rainy every day, all day and night. Depending on which weather app you trust, it is predicted to continue like this either every day for the foreseeable future or almost every day for the foreseeable future. And apparently because the storm started out really windy in Northern Africa and stirred up a bunch of dust, the rain falling here is actually dirty rain. 

But no me importa. The big idea I had for this trip was to volunteer at a nonprofit and I hooked up with Bayt al-Thaqafa. Its primary mission is to empower Muslim women, but they also serve a wider population and on Wednesdays and Fridays I’m teaching Spanish to a group of what turns out to be mostly Algerians. 

I guarantee that all of the questions and doubts you may have about this are questions and doubts I also had, but it is turning out to be a fantastic experience. The staff, teachers and students are all incredibly friendly and welcoming. I’ve met some terrific people, and the students are really appreciative. So, “you go,” me. The classes normally have around 20 students, but Ramadan is this week and next, so we only have 10-12. It should pick up later in the month.

One of the other volunteers lamented that his English is terrible and he wished he had an opportunity to improve it, so he and I are meeting after each class to practice English conversation. See, world? Not all Americans suck!

Day 1

De andar por casa is a phrase in Spanish that literally means “for walking around the house,” but it’s used to describe anything that technically fits the bill but only barely. Like “phoning it in” in English.

My apartment is de andar por casa. It’s technically an apartment, and just as the description says, it has two bedrooms, an office and an equipped kitchen, but . . . I don’t know . . . take for example the stove exhaust fan, which isn’t plugged in and even if it were, it would just move the air from the stove to 3 feet above the stove and blow it all over the room from a slightly higher point.

Despite being cheap and curmudgeonly, I decided that if I’m going to be here for two months and I can spend $75 and make this place slightly homier, it’s worth it.

Before

After

We shall never speak of this again.

On the way to the store, I noticed police all over the place closing the streets. They were immediately followed by many marching bands and people on horses throwing candy to the people watching. Turns out it’s the festival for Saint Medir, a guy who told the Romans, while planting beans, that the local bishop had just passed by, which was true. Nonetheless, the Romans killed him and then the beans grew really fast, thus justifying his sainthood. Like most religion-based stories about things that happened many hundreds of years ago, this one sounds totally reasonable.

I thought it was all kind of fun but this guy was unimpressed.

The Big One

Sitting on an overstuffed couch in a quiet, private airport lounge sipping a glass of cabernet (thank you CapitalOne!), alternating between thinking that what I am about to do is either brilliant or dumb, I am certain of one thing, and that is that my return ticket is dated two months from now and I will enjoy not being bombarded (oops, sorry Iran, Venezuela and boats in the Caribbean) by US news. Sure, Spain has its share of floods, train crashes and neo-Nazi uprisings, but we have them beat by a mile (or to be culturally sensitive, by a kilometer).

After checking a 35-pound suitcase (who knew 2 extra t-shirts and a pair of shoes would weigh so much?), I’m heading out for  . . .  I’m not exactly sure what. Aspirationally, while basing myself in Barcelona I have plans to visit friends in Germany, Copenhagen, Sevilla and maybe England, your guess is as good as mine about where and how this will all go. But no time to dwell on that because . . .

. . . now on the plane I’m listening intently to the two guys sitting next to me, both tech entrepreneurs who have just met and are explaining their amazing businesses to each other, including doing software demos on their phones. This requires the use of a lot of words, like “platform agnostic,” “5G integration,” “supply chain,” and many phrases that, combined with the ample supplies on the beverage cart that keeps coming by, ensure that I won’t have any problem sleeping on the plane. We’re only 33 miles from Washington and they’re already putting me to sleep. Next stop, Barcelona and whatever happens after that.