B-log

What a day today was…

First off I thought I snoozed my alarm clock and it turns out I turned it off so my mom woke us up late…got up quickly, and what greeted me upstairs at the table (we eat outside on the balcony every meal) was a happy singing Alvaro (my bro in law), and a table spread bought by him comprised of: chocolate croissants- regular sized, and mini ones –chocolate, plain, and cream filled, ensaymadas (a really nice sweet light bread with powdered sugar—like the pinoy ensaymada but sans the cheese and salted egg) and a whole other plate full of goodies (all sweet). Wow. It was a good breakfast in the bad for you kind of way. We headed off as quickly as we could as it was going to be a long way. (An hour and a half long drive)

We were off to Figueres (pronounced fee-geh-ras) where the Dali Museum is. Dali was a weird sort; the facade of the museum (which itself is a converted theatre thus the name “teatro musee Dali”) was made up of giant eggs atop castle-like spires. I’ve been before, when I was here in the year 2000, its really a wonderful site, and the museum houses some wonderful artwork. What a strange and sort of mind Dali had. My favourite room is the Mae West Room which is a room which you enter from the side and you see a pink couch, a weird nose-like structure, and two paintings that look like eyes…. and then you climb up a flight of stairs and look through a reverse magnifying lens and the room becomes clear…its a representation of Mae West, the couch is her lips, the nose finally make sense and there is even a bunch of hair that frames this odd face. awesome. Since I had been here before it was interesting to see and note that some of the artwork had been moved around and the ones I wanted to see most were not there…a pity, but it was good all the same.

Then we were off to have lunch in a place called Empuriabrava, which is on the coast, and is described as the Venice of Spain for its canals. We got pretty lost on the way there, as we didn’t have a map, and finally two information centres later we found our way. What a cute little town this is! After a seafood lunch with a wonderful “gauffre” (Belgian waffle) dessert, complete with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and two dollops of strawberry topped whipped cream, we walked around and hired an electric boat (NO LICENCE NEEDED!!!) to tour the canals. I tried to drive the stupid thing but I couldn’t get it to go straight (hey, give me a Topper and I’ll be fine—wind over power anyday, baby!)…Everyone kept yelling and making me more nervous (and cracking jokes about my having “Sydney moments” driving on the other side of the street) so I handed the wheel over to Alvaro, who was able to do a much better job than me (or probably everyone else who was yelling for that matter who didn’t even want to give driving the boat a go….sigh. Oh well…I’m sure I could do it with less panicky passengers, and less traffic behind me…big ass boats on your tail aren’t any fun.

The houses on the canals were SO beautiful. I now know where I want to build or buy a summer house!! In Empuriabrava! I took a million photos of houses that I liked…they all had their own boat docks and their own equally impressive boats (ok, some were ugly boats…)
It was a really nice little place.

After that, we went to meet up with a friend of my sister’s named Didac, and his wife Belen. Didac is Chinese but born here, and his wife is 3 months
pregnant and is a Spanish girl. They have a beautiful house in Figueres with a very large movie screen and a projector…the have the works in audio, and to add to that, they have a massage couch!! I tried it and it
was very very (VERY) good. He is planning to build an indoor pool with his room right beside it separated by a wall of glass. He is very very smart and good with business (as Chinese people are) we met his mom too,
And she showed us the nice garden with apple trees, pear trees, peach trees, lemon trees, and various other flowering and fruiting plants…oh and a bunch of tomato shrubs (which have to go when Didac builds his pool–he lives in the flat next door to his parents and they share a nice BIG yard). He took us to dinner where the main fare is various “Jamones” and “Embutidos” which are hams and sausage like meats. The place was quaint little tavern, with stone floors and arched stone doorways, really nice but it would have been a vegetarian’s nightmare—there were hams hanging from the ceiling (good thing none of us are vegetarian). All we had was a plate of “Pan con tomate” (the Catalan way is to cut the tomato in half crosswise, and rub it on a piece of bread, then drizzle with olive oil) and a mixed plate of Jamon Iberico and other goodies (fuets, etc) the ham was absolutely smooth and melted in my mouth…it was soooo good, the best ham I’ve ever tasted…I’ve never eaten this much ham in my life. It was really yum yum.

I was able to practice my Spanish and realized that I am pretty good at expressing myself, it just takes me a while to find the right words, but I always manage to…oh, and another thing I noticed is that when I drink, the words are found quicker, and I am not as embarrassed to speak. (go the alcohol!)

I’m having fun here, and everyday it seems like I fall more into the pattern of the lifestyle, the waking up late because you slept late the night before, because, well you ate dinner late and couldn’t sleep right away for the heavy-ness in the belly…and you eat dinner late (10PM) because you eat lunch late (3PM) because you just had breakfast at 11…. because you woke up late.
A vicious vicious cycle…for this I can’t wait to get back into the Sydney schedule…up for work at 5:30, and home at 3:30…gym at 5, dinner at 7, bed by 10. (a bit square, but hey, it works for me)
Tomorrow I help Alvaro hopefully finish the wall he is building. Last week I helped him, and I must say, it is good to get dirty…it is good to sweat in the sun, it is good to carry cement, and hollow blocks (two at a time because dammit if Alvaro can, so can I—never mind that he is 6’4), it builds character, dare I say (especially for one so sheltered as myself).
So yes, we build a wall tomorrow…that is if my sister doesn’t start having contractions. I must say that when before I was pretty excited to get pregnant, now it seems a little scary and daunting. She is incredibly big (but just her belly–the rest of her is fine!) and the sudden thought of the pain of contractions and a head popping out of a little hole down there…its a little much. don’t get me wrong though, i still want a baby one day soon…its just really scary to think.

So ends this very long blog.

too harsh on my view of Barcelona. Sure the city is crowded (du-uh, its summer), sure there are lots of tourists, and when i said that the apartments were awful to look at, i meant the ones on the outskirts of the city. Barcelona itself, i mean the inner city (central business district?!) itself is still beautiful…still hip, and god, still so cool. everywhere you look there is something different to see…whether it be the strange architecture (and not only Gaudi’s), the random statues and pieces of art in the middle of the streets, or the people…it fills the senses, but not in a suffocating kind of way (which is what Paris did to me). it took me wandering around for a little bit to get to know the city again…still its not what it entirely used to be…but then again, nothing ever is…and that is good.

i didn’t wimp out on calling that friend of mine. and we did make plans to meet up.

more travelling to come, and life is good.

Barcelona is not as i remember. for many things…
the last time i was here was in the year 2000. i lived here for a few months with my sister whom i probably drove batty because i was so young…and well…care-free (other people would call it worse)

the last time i was here i made friends…good ones…of the same care-free mentality as me. perhaps part of the reason why the city is lessened in charm to me is because all i have are those memories. i have one friend still here who in all honesty i have been wimping out on calling because, well…what if she’s changed? or worse…what if i have changed and she hasn’t? its just a matter of getting my bearings, tho…and also i have been spending time with my family, which is after all the reason why i am here.

sydney has ruined my impression of the land here in barcelona–and maybe for the better. here the houses are built too close together, the apartments utterly disgusting to look at…too tall, and, too cramped looking. i miss sydney’s space, i miss the vast sky…being so far away from it really makes me want to call it home…its not what i remember it to be, in all honesty. even the city is less enchanting than before…there are more people milling about here than i remember it…at one point i wanted them all to disappear so that i could be alone with the city…the city i remembered i once loved like no other.

randomly as i drive around the city, i remember places for what happened in them…that railing where i met my german classmate who took me to a ska concert, that bar where a suitor took me for drinks after seeing ‘tap dogs’, that old apartment where stina used to live, where we would sip wine and smoke cigarettes on the balcony floor, that road where i nearly got myself killed on my skateboard at 3 in the morning…that beach where we went after partying so hard i couldn’t feel the cold wet sand beneath my bare feet…

people change…our impressions change…cities change. when memories are all we have, how much more special they become.

I’m where I need to be. It wasn’t easy to get here, but I’m here.

The following is an account of what happened to me on my (long haul) flight from Sydney to Barcelona.

I left Sydney on a Wednesday…the first leg of the flight was to KL, flying Malaysian Air, which is a partner of KLM (the carrier from which I bought my ticket from. The man behind the check in counter asked me if I had booked the last leg of the flight (Amsterdam-Barcelona) Business class…I giggled and told him “I wish I could say yes, but the answer is an honest no…” to which he said that he was more than happy to leave my boarding pass (which strangely printed business class) as it was. Woo Hoo…I was looking forward to the last leg of the flight being business class. The first leg was 8 hours…and the plane was great, it wasn’t a full flight so there was an empty seat between my window seat and the really nice Malaysian girl sitting at the aisle. The seats were comfy (as economy goes) and each seat had its own little screen, with a wide selection of movies, tv, games and music at your own control…during that flight I was able to watch an episode of friends, a couple of everybody loves raymonds, and two movies…the food was pretty good too, and the service was great…the flight attendants would pass by and offer us water and coffee and what not every 30 odd minutes or so (it seemed). It was a comfortable flight. By the time we arrived in KL, I was mentally prepared for the next leg of the flight, which was a 12 hour air commute from KL to Ams. But it turns out, it was not to be. The plane, we were told as we all arrived at the transfer desk, was delayed due to technical problems…it would not be till 10 AM the next day that we would be able to fly out. GREAT. The good thing about that was that we were put up in the Pan Pacific Hotel (which is connected to the airport) for the night, with free dinner, and breakfast. The hotel was nice, (it would have been nicer if I had had a change of clothes in my hand carry luggage but all I had was an extra shirt) the food was awesome…their buffet spread was really spectacular, and the sucker for asian cuisine that I am needed more eyes, (and more stomachs) to be able to taste everything…which I did not cos, well, I wasn’t all that hungry…and I didn’t want to be full on a plane ride. Breakfast was equally wonderful…I had some surprisingly good coffee (maybe it was really good because of the chocolate muffin I had with it?!) and I took advantage of the fact that there were bananas (for those of you who don’t know, Sydney bananas cost a lot now, and they don’t taste as good as the ones from the good old Pilipins). So anyway, continuing on with my story. I made my way back to the airport, with some girls relatively my age whom I met after breakfast. I took longer than them at the check in counter (to get our new boarding passes) and one of the girls asked me, “do they always take that long with you?” I sighed heavily and said “yes”.
The flight was full, the plane was not as comfy…the food was awful, and there were no individual screens so we were at the mercy of the programmed entertainment…and the service was incomparable to the Malaysian air staff. Good thing I had a good book (Jodi Picoult’s The Tenth Circle). Incidentally I finished this halfway through the 12 hour flight.
Arriving in Amsterdam I was getting more and more excited about getting to Spain…I bought some last minute gifts for my mom and sister, and brother in law, and stood in line for Amsterdam immigration and passport control behind one of the girls I met. She was processed in 30 seconds flat. I on the other hand had to wait a long time while the guy scrutinised my passport…and my visa with a magnifying lens thingy. The girl looked through the glass for me, but saw that I was taking long…she went on ahead. The man behind the counter said “Well I’m sure that everything is alright, but I would like to check your passport…anyway you have time”. Again the heavy sigh of resignation as I said, “do what you need to do”. I was whisked away, and told to wait behind this counter with other unfortunate third world country passport holding souls such as myself…my passport and boarding pass were whisked away into the office. They took long. I was getting nervous as the plane was to board in 20 minutes…then 10 minutes…then 5…I was almost shitting myself. Finally 20 minutes after boarding time my passport came out and the guy was still dragging his feet…I told him that I had a flight to catch and if it was possible could I please have my passport, I asked him what if I missed my flight…I implied that it would be his fault. Turns out I did miss my flight. I was pissed, frustrated, tired and angry. Oh and my phone was out of battery so I had to find a way to call my mom and sister and tell them I would be late. But first I had to rebook my flight. Good thing I didn’t have to pay anything or I would have been fuming. I was waitlisted on the next flight out. Fuuuck…will it never end?! I managed to buy a phone card and called my mom and sister and told them that I missed my flight and blah blah blah. So I had some time to kill in Amsterdam…not enough time to hit the city and relax in a coffee shop with a big fat purple haze spliff, damn!
Finally close to boarding time, I talk to the woman, and she is able to find a seat for poor waitlisted me, and I board the plane.
Finally I make it to Barcelona…and since I thought that my luggage had gone ahead of me (because I thought it was in the plane that left me behind) I went to a baggage claim counter and asked if my luggage was there ahead of me…she clickedy clacked on her computer and told me that my bag was still in Amsterdam. Yahoo. Brilliant…wonderful. So I arranged to have it delivered to my brother in laws shop in Barcelona. It arrived after the shop had closed so it ended up that we had to go get it in the airport! My poor brother in law had to drive to and fro just for lil ole me.
I’m happy now…I have my own clothes on my back, and I was able to charge my electronics.
My sister is looking really well…its only her tummy that is big and round…the rest of her is healthy (not fat!!) My mom is her camera happy self…(I’ve been making faces in most of the photos…heheheheh!) my brother in law is his cheerful self, the three labs are entertaining, and my little nephew is right about to come and show himself in two weeks or so. My other sister arrives next week and all is well.
My sisters house is great, there is a pool and I’m working on my tan. its also nice and hilly and fun to jog in…there is a football field nearby where I do my sprints. Its an hour away from the city, and as yet I still haven’t gone…I’m sure I’ll have lots of time to do that as I’m only a few days into this long holiday.