How to beat the post-holiday blues

1) Immerse yourself in work/study - no time to think about the absence of sun/signficant other/mojitos/beach.
2) Make sure you have jet lag - makes the days go by faster when you have no idea what time of day it is.
3) Watch a lot of mind-numbing re-runs of 90s TV shows on the internet, in bed, under your covers - also helpful for sleeping your jet lag away.
4) Break/lose your phone or don't pay the previous month's bill - you have to be more creative in getting touch with your friends and loved ones to moan about how dreary your life is.
5) Make all those appointments with the doctor, dentist and psychologist that you were supposed to have arranged 3 months ago - sure to keep you busy and your mind occupied.
6) Select and edit the top 200 of all your 500 holiday photos - you'll soon start wishing you hadn't gone on holiday in the first place.


Definitely wish I hadn't gone there...


...or there...


...or there...

-SIGH-

Sardegna May 2009

Narrow roads winding up and down coastal hills, old women dressed in black, bad Italian radio stations, wine, hungover walks to the supermarket, the sea, pizza, chats with Charlie...

Rrroma

I felt very spoilt when Juan Pablo gave me a trip to Rome for the Easter holidays as a birthday present this year. I had been in Catalonia for 7 months without leaving it except for a daytrip to France and a weekend in Madrid. Those 7 months had taken their toll on me and I was desperately in need of a break. I was very touched by the present, and thrilled by the prospect of going to a country and a city I had never been to before - and in excellent company.

I had certain expectations of Italy - delicious food and stereotypes of energetic, smiley, loud, possibly somewhat brash Italians, just to name a couple. As for Rome - I envisaged a polluted, chaotic city embellished with pickpockets and ancient ruins.
The morning we left for Rome, I was in extremely high spirits despite the early start. We had plenty of time to have a bit of breakfast at Girona airport before hitting the clouds and arriving in Italy a bit over an hour later.

The sun shone in Rome. I couldn't have been more delighted at the first Italian encounter that I witnessed - an ecstatic "Amore mio!" followed by hugs and kisses as an elderly woman came to pick up her husband from the bus stop outside the airport. To me the way it happened, the gestures, the facial expressions and the wife's perfect hair and designer bag were just as I thought those of an elderly Italian couple should have been. After the affectionate greetings, the wife dutifully let his husband take the front seat as she accompanied her chihuaua in the backseat of the car. Just as a dutiful wife should have.

We stayed in a stuck-in-the-seventies hotel near Termini, the main train station. It was so ridiculously tacky and overpriced that we couldn't help but laugh about it.

Getting around Rome wasn't as complicated as I thought. The metro system was a bit limited due to only two lines, but it did the trick for us tourists, anyway. One of my first rides on the metro was to the Vatican. I was a little bit sceptical about going there, afraid of being stuck in a crowd of fanatic pilgrims, but I decided I want to see what I had heard talked about ever since Mr. Embling's art class at the age of 8 - the Sistine Chapel. It was all a bit too much to take in, and thinking about how all the non-Italian works of art ended up in Rome made me shudder. But after a good two or three hours of wandering through the halls of the Vatican museum, reaching the Sistine Chapel was worth it, even with the ridiculous amount of tourists you had to elbow your way through.

What impressed me most about Rome was that, not having done my research or looked up photographs on the internet, I was blown away by the fact that around pretty much every corner of a Roman street there is some breathtaking Roman ruin in the midst of office buildings and clothes shops and ice-cream parlours (which, may I add, served amazing ice-cream flavours like limoncello and nocciola). I was also surprised by the tranquility of the city - you could easily find a quiet neighbourhood right in the middle of the city. After 2,5 years of Barcelonian racket, the Roman buzz and the stereotyped image I had of Italians arguing over nothing with the loudest of voices truly became a myth.

My intention was to write in more detail about Rome, but it has been a couple of months now since our trip...so this will have to suffice...*sigh*

Notes of a Delirious Woman - 21 of February 2009

Madrid.

Mental note: never go travelling alone while still recovering from tonsillitis.

Got to my incredulously luxurious hotel, had a shower, rested a little (very little) and decided to go and check out Saturday night in Sol.

Saw people dressed up as pirates, wheres waldos and other delightful creatures. Felt dizzy, failed to gobble down a hot dog and took the metro back to the hotel.

Disappointing.

Not disappointed, however, by the efficient metro system. The bigger the city, the narrower the trains.

Also not disappointed by people keeping the door open for the other person at the metro exit/entrance.

And most touched by the woman in the grocery store who would have chatted to me all evening about "breakfast biscuits" had I let her.

Ah, Madrid.

Important dates and learning experiences

It´s been three years today since 11-M, the bomb attacks on the commuter trains in Madrid. It was all over the news today, obviously. They´ve also put up a monument para no olvidar. I probably would have forgotten all about it had I not bought the Sunday paper. But I do remember seeing it all over the news when it happened. I was still in Scotland and at that point toying with the possibility of going to Spain.
It was also International Women´s Day on Thursday. I completely forgot about it until the evening when my friend Katja reminded me.
Another less significant day on the grand scale of things was on Saturday - Barcelona and Real Madrid played in Camp Nou here in Barcelona. The last time they played was in the autumn sometime, and I went to see it at a little bar near Arc de Triomf with Leandro and Federico. This time Leandro, Valeria and I watched it on Leandro´s TV. 3-3. I´ve noticed myself becoming less of a Barcelona supporter living here. If you read the papers you´d think Barça and Madrid were the only two football teams in Spain. When I was still in school, I used to watch the Champions League with Kata and support both Barça and Madrid - the unthinkable, ignorant as I was. Now if I had to choose a team, I´d go for Villareal. Let´s face it - they have the best uniform. And they have some nice-looking players. If Raisa ever reads this she´ll roll her eyes and say that there´s more to football than the men. And she´s right. There´s the game. And the money. And the politics. And the money. And...did I mention money? Still, I enjoy watching a good game of football. In December I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Barça play. It was nice, and our seats were quite good. But the passion that I´d expected to feel and the chanting and singing crowds were almost non-existent. Silly me - we weren´t in England. Or in a Barça-Real Madrid game. Is that what it takes to heat up the crowds - an ancient rivalry? Of course there is the fact that Franco was a Real Madrid "supporter" while doing all sorts of horrible things to the Catalans. And the two biggest cities-rivalry is evident just about everywhere in the world.
I have been trying to educate myself in more than just Spanish football. I´ve been in Barcelona for a bit over six months now and it hasn´t been the easiest six months of my life. I don´t know why I thought it would be easier. After all, I´d lived in Spain before. Something that has helped me articulate my confusion and clarify a few things, as well as give me a better understanding of the history and culture of Spain is a book called The Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country´s Hidden Past. It´s a book by a British journalist, Giles Tremlett, who has lived in Spain a good wee while. I´m usually a bit sceptical when it comes to books like that, "history made accessible and somewhat entertaining with personal anecdotes". I don´t know why. This book, though, I´ve enjoyed.
Maybe little by little I´m accepting some of the more infuriating things about Barcelona (and Catalonia, Spain, whatever suits your idea of being politically correct). There are a lot of things I like about Barcelona. The weather. The coffee and croissant you can get for under 2 euros. Reading El País outside (although I confess I´m not always very patient with myself when reading the paper in Spanish). There are various lovely, interesting parts in the city. There are lots of little boutiques for the times you´re feeling rich. The "Chinese shops" that sell everything are open till late. Actually, a lot of things are...but the Chinese shops have a special something. There are a great deal of other things that I appreciate about the city. But the things that drive me mad are people pushing, not queuing, shouting...maybe living in quieter places for too long has made me forget that it´s actually not a crime to sit next to a stranger at the metro stop when there´s plenty of room on the bench, but I´m still not used to it. Still, there are things that I´m learning to accept and appreciate little by little. And I quite like Julio Iglesias now, so that´s definitely something!
Back to learning - a couple of weeks ago Leandro and I had the opportunity to delve into European history when we visited Berlin. Well, we didn´t quite delve, but it was another learning experience even during the brief 4 days we spent there. The city has so much history it´s overwhelming. The Wall, The Holocaust Memorial...On a lighter note, though, another overwhelming fact was the tranquility of the city. After Barcelona, Berlin felt almost eery with it peaceful streets. It was refreshing. The sovietic feel of East Berlin still lingered, and I would have liked to have seen even more. Maybe I´ll go there again one day, but in the summer, as it´s bound to be even more interesting then.