Barcelona

Hola Barcelona

What makes a relatively contented middle-aged woman with a satisfactory life leave home and go live abroad? I had excellent friends, a sweet little house in one of the most beautiful places on earth (northern Idaho in the United States), a sweet little dog, a bountiful garden, praise and admiration from the community for my talents as a performer, clean air, clean water and excellent health. It's true that I had no mate and hadn't had one for quite a long time, but I don't think that this is what sent my feet tripping down this path. My life just felt so.....predictable. I felt too young at heart to be so damn settled. I hadn't seen much of the world and I wanted to, before I ran out of time. So, I sold almost all of my household belongings, sold my car, my truck, found homes for my cats (my dog died the winter before), made my goodbyes to friends and family, my son, packed my bags and headed for Barcelona and a TEFL certificate.
Barcelona, or rather my reaction to Barcelona, was a shock. A place I had fully expected to adore, full of passionate people and beautiful buildings, i found myself hating initially. It was frightfully hot and humid, difficult for a girl with northern blood to take. The city was as beautiful as I had expected; stunning and unusual architecture, public art, free concerts, picturesque parks and magnificent churches, but terribly dirty and reeking of garbage and dogshit. Every other person in Barcelona keeps a dog and in the evening they all get walked and they all relieve themselves. Well, who can blame them? They live their days in cramped, hot apartments (very few people in Barcelona have air-conditioning), hanging their furry heads over the balconies along with the bougainvillea, waiting for the stroll and a bit of air at the end of the day.
Catalunyans love their dogs and their children, but one thing they do not love is visitors who speak neither Spanish or Catalan. I was not prepared for how rude people would be to me, having lived for the last 18 years in a backwater where everyone behaves with civility towards friends and strangers alike. On my first foray into the subway I was yelled at by the ticket taker for not being able to figure out how to get through the turnstile. Yeah, I was behaving pretty stupidly (there's something that happens to me when I don't speak the language; my IQ actually gets lower), but still....she came flying out of her little booth, angry catalan spitting out of her mouth and hands waving at me....I was quite undone. The first time that a person actually smiled back at me in the street felt like a personal victory against the pervasive contempt most Catalans feel for anyone not fortunate enough to have been born into this elite group. Plus, Barcelonans don't believe in customer service. They'll get to you when they're good and ready, and if you're in a visible rush you can expect to be kept waiting even a little longer. Spaniards don't hurry and they don't kow-tow, a quality I came to admire eventually, but at first mistook for unfriendliness. What with the demeanor of the natives and the unbearable humidity, i felt for the first few weeks that I had made a dreadful mistake in leaving home, that I wasn't cut out for this nomadic life at all. Most days saw me reduced to tears at some point, usually having to do with some technological or linguistic dilemma that I found myself unable to sort out. My cell phone, for instance, was in Spanish and I simply could not get the damn thing to work for me. My computer also caused me to weep and when I shrunk all my clothing in the washer I was about ready to get on a plane home. Only, that's right, i no longer had a home, I'd rented it out, and oh yeah, I no longer had my job at the bookstore, and oh yeah, i'd sent all my massage clients to another masseuse....
Seven weeks later Barcelona had metamorphosed into everything I had originally envisioned, an enchanted and elegant falling down, vibrant city of marble and red tile, of crooked streets and narrow ill-lit stairwells that go up forever, of whirring fans and good cheap red wine and late nights with friends on roof-tops, of music, art and festivals, celebration, danger and dionysian revelry. Barcelona is like an aging beautiful courtesan who is showing the ravages of time and hard living, but who hasn't lost her looks or her ability to charm and mesmerize.
I left Barcelona reluctantly, having fallen thoroughly under her spell and that in spite of having been robbed in the street, something that happens eventually to everyone in that city. But I couldn't work there legally and wasn't willing at my age to live hand to mouth on private lessons and illegitimate school posts. I know how to get by on little, but didn't feel like living so uncertainly at this point in my life, and so, I bid Barcelona adios and set my sights on Asia. I hope to go back to Spain and perhaps will return to tour Catalonia with an English educational acting troupe in a year's time. For that experience i would happily beggar myself for a while.