Aventures Lingüístiques

Hola a tothom,
Things are moving along here, as they tend to do - two weeks down, and the proseminar is almost over. I have my first real class on Thursday! It's both exciting and scary, but mostly exciting. Because I know you're all dying from curiosity, here's my tentative course schedule for this semester: I'm taking Modern History of Catalonia at the UB, which is on Thursdays and Fridays from 12:30 to 2. I'll also be taking a Catalan class at the UB, but I don't know when yet because I have to take a level test on Friday to see which class to enroll in. At the UAB, I'm planning on taking population genetics, which meets Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 10 to 11. Then I'm taking the CASB course on the Spanish Civil War and Historical Memory, taught by Juanjo (the program director), which meets on Mondays and Thursdays from 9 to 11. As you can see, I have a conflict on Mondays between the UAB class and the CASB class, but Juanjo said I can work independently or possibly in a later group and then come to normal class on Thursdays. Excel•lent!

I'm really excited to start classes, largely because I'm eager to meet more people and speak to them in Spanish and Catalan (especially Catalan). This is kind of an awkward time, because I've gotten a lot more comfortable with my surroundings, so I don't necessarily want or need to hang out with other people in the program as much, but I don't know anyone else yet. It's kind of a limiting feeling. However, I think it will change soon. It's funny - there are moments when I feel kind of lonely or down, but I don't particularly miss Chicago. It's not that I want to be anywhere else - it's just that I want to be more here than I am capable of at the moment, if that makes sense. The old OA saying applies, as always: be here now. It's funny how the simplest things, though, like talking to a little boy in the park or ordering café amb llet, can make me really happy.

Hallie and I have been exploring the city a lot - we went to Montjuïc yesterday, for example - and we've developed what is now our favorite game when we're around large groups of people: Guess Their Nationality, or, as Roger de Gràcia, the host of a Catalan TV show called Caçadors de Paraules that I like, says, "Endevina d'on són!" ("Guess where they're from!"). I find myself constantly listening to people around me to try to hear what language they're speaking, be it one of the two official languages of Catalunya or a foreign one. Hallie keeps getting addressed by people in French, which is cool and funny, considering that she isn't French and doesn't speak it at all. I'm always pleased when someone speaks to me in Spanish or Catalan, which happens occasionally. I think my favorite story of a linguistic adventure thus far happened to Hallie during the Diada on Tuesday (I don't think she'll mind if I write this here). There were a bunch of really cool traditional children's games set up on the Passeig de Lluís Companys, a wide street/plaza near us, and she was trying to play one that was made out of iron shaped like a bird - you had to somehow maneuver the bird's egg, which was a small wooden ball, through it. An old man must have noticed that she didn't know how to do it, so he asked her (in Catalan) if she knew what it was. She didn't remember the word for bird in Catalan, so, thinking of Latin, she said the first thing that came to mind, "És un ave." However, "avi," which is what it came out sounding like, means "grandfather" in Catalan! I think the old man was fairly confused, so she quickly clarified in Spanish by saying, "Es un pájaro." Now, however, I keep thinking of the iron bird/grandfather... I haven't had any mixups in particular, but I was very pleased buying milk the other day to find a brand called "T'estimo" ("I love you"), with a picture of a woman kissing a cow on the nose! It was really cute, so I bought it, and later discovered that it's from a group of Catalan co-ops called Llet Nostra - hooray for buying local and loving cows!

I'm going to try to post some pictures from the Diada to give you a sense of it - hopefully this will work.

L'estelada, the flag originally designed as a battle standard for Republican troops marching out of Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War, flying from the Arc de Triomf. There were lots of these all over the place.

The sign says, "A free country, a better country." There were lots of political activists about, especially those for independence from Spain.

A giant banner of Les Quatre Barres, the official Catalan flag, hanging from the Corte Inglés in Plaça Catalunya.

Castellers! We actually saw these the night before the Diada, at Tibidabo. It's one of those awesome, bizarre Catalan traditions: making ridiculously tall human towers, accompanied by dramatic music played on a clarinet-like instrument. The most amazing part was the little kid who climbed up all the adults to stand on top and wave, then shimmied down them as if they were a fireman's pole. I was seriously impressed. I also think it's awesome that, in the newspapers, next to the horoscopes and crossword puzzles, they have a section of Castellers rankings for all the different teams from different neighborhoods.

Well, hope you've enjoyed it! I will definitely update again once classes start!
Saludos,
Sarah

Hola a tothom,
It's been almost a week, and, in that strange way time has of distorting itself, it feels like I've been here both longer and shorter than that. My room in the Residència is already starting to feel like home. It's small and can be kind of noisy, being right next to the front desk, main entrance, and elevator, but it's cosy. My roommate, Rachel, and I have been enjoying some cooking adventures in our kitchen as we discover both what it is (corkscrew, nameless wooden spatula-ish things, microwave with a "grill" function that doubles as a bread box) and is not (oven, normal spatula, lids to any of the pots and pans) equipped with. We made some butifarres, traditional Catalan sausages, the other night that turned out very well. We've also been slowly acquiring all the random items that we never would have thought of to bring but quickly discovered that we needed. My most recent purchase included saran wrap, tupperware that, upon closer inspection, doesn't seal, ice cube trays, and a bucket/trash can for the bathroom. The Residència Onix certainly isn't perfect, but things are going well here and I'm grateful to have a place to live in such a convenient location.

We're well into the proseminar by now, which means that all of our mornings - and my definition of "morning" has now expanded until about 2:30 or 3:00, since that's when we stop for lunch - are taken up by class. We have three classes, one at each of the universities we can attend. Spanish is at the UAB, Catalan at the UB, and History and Culture is at the UPF. The class sessions are kind of intense, since they go for about 4 hours at a time with a short coffee/croissant break in the middle, but they're not too bad. History and Culture is the most stressful, because the professor is really hard to understand and has a very tangential style of lecturing. The hardest part is that, half of the time, I have to stop to think about each statement he makes and concentrate on writing in down in an intelligible form in my notebook, by which time I've missed his next statement. Also, in our last session of that class, we watched a movie called "Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall," about when the U.S. sent aid to Spain through the Marshall Plan, that gave me a terrible headache because the entire time all the characters were running around chaotically and shouting at each other. I never quite knew what was going on.

My other two classes are much more relaxed. We had our first Catalan class today, which I was excited about but which ended up being pretty boring because I had to sit through all the most basic things, like how to pronounce the alphabet, when I really could have used a review of the subjunctive. I talked to Libby about it, though, and I think I might work independently from here on out, possibly reading a novel by Mercè Rodoreda and writing about it. I've read several of her books in English, so I would really enjoy that. Spanish class is good as well - tomorrow I'm giving a short, formal oral presentation on the history of Moon Pies. Should be interesting.

Although I'm starting to settle into a routine here, I am looking forward to having some free time this weekend. We also have next Thursday off, as it is the Diada, or National Day of Catalunya. I'm really curious to see what happens on the Diada. I've heard that it's more of a solemn type of holiday than, for example, the 4th of July. After all, Catalunya isn't independent. We visited the Parlament de Catalunya yesterday, which I found really interesting. The building was originally built to be the arsenal for the Spanish army occupying Barcelona in the 1700s. It briefly served as a parliament for the first time from 1932-1939, before Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War destroyed all Catalan autonomy, and it was converted into an art museum. Finally, in 1980, five years after Franco's death, the Parlament was reinstituted and the building regained its civic function. Of course, Catalunya, though an autonomous community, is still under control of Madrid - the representatives in favor of independence are in the minority, for now. Who knows what will happen eventually - but it's certainly interesting to learn about.

Besides our classes and excursions, I've basically just been adjusting to everyday life. I really like buying fresh fruit at a fruit stand near the Residència and keeping a fresh baguette in our microwave along with queso manchego and jamón serrano to make bocadillos for lunch. We've been given a ton of little guides, maps, and phrasebooks to help us find our way around the city, some of which are hilarious. There's a Catalan conversation guide from the UB with a section called "Chatting Up," which includes such choice phrases as "I like it when you tell me things" ("M'agrada quan m'expliques coses"). Hopefully I'll be able to get a bike soon, as I discovered a website called bicicampus that promotes biking to universities in Barcelona and lends bikes for free to students for the whole school year (see the banners on this blog). Also, I've seen flyers for several plays I'd love to go see, including one by Tom Stoppard (although I think Tom Stoppard in Catalan would just about do me in) and one that's an adaptation of a book I read in English called Mirall Trencat (Broken Mirror).

Thanks for the comments - I'll do my best to keep you updated! I should know about what classes I'm going to take this semester soon.
Fins desprès!