Fun with Jeanne, Phil, Shane, and Jarrett

Well, I have just spent 5 fun-filled days with my friends Jeanne and Phil, and Jeanne’s two kids, Shane and Jarrett, and we had a great time. I have to admit I was a little worried about hanging out with them because I don’t really hang out with teenage boys very much, but we had a blast, and Jeanne’s kids are totally cool. They also came at a perfect time because I was starting to get tired of Barcelona, and I needed a shot in the arm about how great this city is, and hanging out with them and acting as tour guide really helped me remember how fun and interesting of a city this really is.

Many of the things we did I’ve done, and written about before, but amazingly, and considering that I’ve been here for close to 6 months, we did a lot that I hadn’t done before. The first, and most embarrassing, thing we did that I hadn’t done was go to the beach. I’m not really a beach person, but it is really weird that this whole time I’ve never made it down there. I have a picture to the right, but I’m going to go down there some more this weekend, so I’ll be able to write about it in depth later. We went down there really to take this cable car from Barceloneta to Montjuich, which I also hadn’t done before. The wait was too long, definitely, about 90 minutes, but the ride itself was fun, and we were able to see great views of Barcelona.

The reason for going to Montjuich was to go the castle, which, quite frankly, I had no idea existed. But when we got there things all fell into place. This was the castle that the Catalan army, and then the Spanish army used, for their headquarters. It was also the castle that the Republicans used to defend the city from Nationalist, but really Italian, warships during the Civil War, and it’s also where Franco brought Catalan and Republican enemies to be executed. He was following in a long tradition of using the castle for executions. It has a great view of the Mediterranean. Shane and Jarrett are, essentially, communist children; they are so far to the left that they make me feel moderate. However, they also have a complete and utter fascination with World War II and the military in general, and so Shane told us many fascinating details about armaments, etc. They’re hysterical to listen to. First, they are railing about “the man” and the oppression of the innocent, and then they quickly switch to serial killers and the various methods they use to kill their victims. It’s such a non sequitur, but then, they are kids.

I also got to go to some of the restaurants that I had wanted to try, and that was great. We went to this place called Flash Flash, which is a tortilla restaurant (omelettes essentially). It was great, and I can’t believe it took me this long to go there because it’s incredibly close to my apartment. Also, I made my first return trip to Sureny, an amazing tapas restaurant that was my friend’s Tiffany’s favorite when she was here. The food was just as good as I had remembered. And we checked out a great vegetarian restaurant in El Raval called Sesamo. Yum.

Also in that vein, I finally got to go to the chocolate museum. It’s very small, and very weird. They have statues entirely made in chocolate, and unfortunately, their café was closing when we were leaving, so we didn’t get to try their hot chocolate, which is supposed to be amazing. So I guess I’m going to have to go back. Qué lastima!

The other amazing thing about their visit was once again I was reminded of how good my Spanish is actually getting. I translated for them without much trouble. We went to this contemporary art space called CCCP for an amazing exhibition on borders, and I could basically understand all the Spanish. And it was weird how walking around with them, Spaniards would automatically look to me as the Spanish speaker. I think, one day, I have to write a book about coming into a language because this transition from someone basically afraid of talking to any Spaniard to someone who just talks to them without thinking twice about it is an incredible transition. I can’t imagine what it will be like after one more year of learning and living Spanish.

But it was a lot of fun to hang out with them, and do things that were sort of touristy and sort of not. Obviously, we were acting as tourists, but all four of them are so "cool", and I mean "hip" in this case, that they fit right into the city swing of Barcelona. Shane and Jarrett, in particular, were amazing. The last day, they were walking through the city, blocks in front of us, as if they lived there all the time, and they looked amazingly Spanish. At one point, I was walking to meet them at the Contemporary Art Museum, and I saw this kid sitting on the wall of the museum with a skateboard talking to some other kid, and I said to myself, "Wow! Shane bought a skateboard! And how cool he´s talking to some Spaniard." But it wasn´t him; it was just some kid who looked like Shane, which, of course, means that Shane looks like a Spanish youth. And Jarrett wanted to buy a t-shirt with a pot leaf on it, but Jeanne wisely didn´t let him. I can´t believe these kids live in Orange County!

And Jeanne and Phil are cool too.