Whoof. That was a wonderful weekend.
My Friday involved dancing with friendsies from Brazil, Mexico and my spanish profesora. I get rather prone to philosophical thoughts after the first five minutes of bobbing to the music. For instance, most discos are exactly the same... same music, same types of bartenders (this bar had men dressed as women bartenders, which was different but not unique), same creepy guys attempting to corner girls who are probably friends with their daughters. People don't dance particularly creatively, and the routine is exactly the same. I feel like an ant (which I learned about in the science museum), the boring kind, not the cool kind.
Saturday saw the arrival of my colombian bestie. We got chocolate con churros, saw a drum procession (they are super into their bateristas here) and I attempted to keep up my half of the spanish-french-english conversation. More on this linguistic challenge later.
After some fun in a chupitos bar, we went off in search for a salsateca, and ended up wandering for what felt like two hours. Which was the quantity of time which actually passed, in fact. In the cold and slightly snowing calle (my buddy thought I was hallucinating, but got smacked in the face by a killer flake, which served him right). I mastered how to ask for help (disculpe, por favor...) got pushed into several trees/oncoming traffic by my kind and supportive friend, and recounted my life story and opinions on just about everything. Typical late night behavior.
When we finally found our club, it was jam packed and undesirable, so a better bar was found. I have fond memories of chatting in rapid (most likely unintelligible) spanish with some chicas from Mexico.
SUNDAY was educational. It was the festival of Sant Eulalia, who was lucky enough to be the recipient of Roman persecution of the creative variety. Saint Eulalia is the patron saint of Barcelona, and was a thirteen year old christian martyr of the non-sexually active variety (clearly saints who do the dirty deed are not all that common). The most famous of these tortures was being gently placed in a barrel of glass and rolled down the street now known as "Baixada de Santa Eulalia." Which is catalan for "the descent of Saint Eulalia." How civilized.
Instead of celebrating this (I briefly saw an exhibit of fantastical creatures in honor of the day. Why this? Reasons explained in a language I don't speak) we went to CosmoCaixa, the science museum of Barcelona.
WHICH IS AWESOME. The exhibits on physics are dreamy, and I spent my afternoon shoving small children out of the way to play with the different stations. In a supportive and friendly manner.
I also learned about the differences between ants and octopuses. I like octopuses, I don't like ants, namely. Interestingly enough, ants do not possess flexible intelligence and therefore will make the same mistake a million times and never think to RTFM. This technically makes them insane. Octopuses however are clever creatures who will (instead of beating their mollusk heads to a exoskeletal pulp on plan A(nt)) go to plan B. They can come up with complex solutions to problems (particularly involving food) and in one case, sneak from tank to tank eating fish when zookeepers go home for the night (I know... I thought they lived there too).
I like science museums, even in languages I have middling grasp of.
Speaking of languages, allow me to complain.
My spelling has gone out the door. Particularly with days of the week, months and place names, I confuse myself into a tiny ball of nuanced words and accents. España, Espagne, Spain, or sabado, samedi, Saturday. Mars, Marzo, March, and heaven forbid, onomatopoeia, onomatopeya, and onomatopée. Madre mia.
I also mix/mistranslate words, phrases and sayings, make silly and basic mistakes and have dreams in multilingual garble. I've been informed that my predilection for parenthetical statements is not appreciated in spanish, and there is a long list of mistakes I make every sentence (particularly when I try to exaggerate, things get out of hand and into foot + mouth territory). HOWEVER, I did have my first dream in spanish this week, which was boring compared to my french nightmares about misplacing my squirrel.
Heaven forbid.
Today I exploded my glass of milk in very strange circumstances. I'd heated it up (for hot chocolate purposes) and took it out in the pre-boiling stage (I've overboiled four glasses now...). When I put my cold spoon in the glass, it suddenly exploded and milk went everywhere. I got a chance to use my extensive vocabulaire and live in fear of this happening again. My host family has coined the term "Mariellada," or a tonteria that only I can manage. Torpe...
Sleepy time.
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