Very few people are going to care, but as I have nothing else to really talk about, here are some pictures from my latest hauls. Note: I still don't have a job, but I'm starting to get some kind of allowance from my parents (in cash) just so I can buy a few things I need (mostly clothes), and I also have a few gift cards that I need to use.
divendres, 17 de febrer del 2012
dimecres, 8 de febrer del 2012
B-b-b-broken record
Here I go again, talking about language issues in Spain, particularly dealing with Catalan --Basque is just not as big an issue--, but if you read my blog regularly this is kind of my "thing" and should surprise no one that I'm talking about this. And I'm actually kind of late with this one, like two weeks, but I've been out of the loop for a while. Don't mind me. Anyway, here's the topic.
I just finished reading a blog entry on the Ara.cat webpage (one of my favorite news sources, won't even lie) in the Sports section about the Chinese journalist who asks FC Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola questions in Catalan despite only being in the country since last summer and being able to communicate perfectly well in Spanish, and the Italian journalist who also asks questions in Catalan (by the way, all the links lead to Catalan articles) and was pointed out by Guardiola himself as an example of "linguistic immersion" as he's also been in Catalunya less than a year.
One of the points the author of the blog post makes that I find incredibly relevant is how in Italy, no one even bothered to ask Francesco Canale, the Italian journalist who asks questions in Catalan, to ask Guardiola the same questions again in Italian, which Guardiola does speak. And yet, in the rest of Spain, players who answer questions in Catalan are often asked to repeat their answers in Spanish. It's the idea that because the Catalans speak Spanish, they shouldn't need to translate anything in the broadcast. So besides the fact that there's a state of shock anytime a non-Catalan speaks Catalan, regardless of how much time they've been living in the region, there's also that element of "Why doesn't the rest of Spain get it?"
Honestly, I don't know. Catalan's not that difficult a language (though the verbs and certain parts of the grammatical structure are kind of a bitch, I give it that) and it's not like anyone's trying to convert anyone to another language. Speaking Catalan doesn't automatically make someone a Catalan nationalist/separatist (just ask Andrés Iniesta) who brings estelades to every meeting. If foreigners, many of whom already speak Spanish, and many of whom don't, can get it and learn the language, why does Madrid still treat it like the spoken version of the Spanish flu?
I just finished reading a blog entry on the Ara.cat webpage (one of my favorite news sources, won't even lie) in the Sports section about the Chinese journalist who asks FC Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola questions in Catalan despite only being in the country since last summer and being able to communicate perfectly well in Spanish, and the Italian journalist who also asks questions in Catalan (by the way, all the links lead to Catalan articles) and was pointed out by Guardiola himself as an example of "linguistic immersion" as he's also been in Catalunya less than a year.
One of the points the author of the blog post makes that I find incredibly relevant is how in Italy, no one even bothered to ask Francesco Canale, the Italian journalist who asks questions in Catalan, to ask Guardiola the same questions again in Italian, which Guardiola does speak. And yet, in the rest of Spain, players who answer questions in Catalan are often asked to repeat their answers in Spanish. It's the idea that because the Catalans speak Spanish, they shouldn't need to translate anything in the broadcast. So besides the fact that there's a state of shock anytime a non-Catalan speaks Catalan, regardless of how much time they've been living in the region, there's also that element of "Why doesn't the rest of Spain get it?"
Honestly, I don't know. Catalan's not that difficult a language (though the verbs and certain parts of the grammatical structure are kind of a bitch, I give it that) and it's not like anyone's trying to convert anyone to another language. Speaking Catalan doesn't automatically make someone a Catalan nationalist/separatist (just ask Andrés Iniesta) who brings estelades to every meeting. If foreigners, many of whom already speak Spanish, and many of whom don't, can get it and learn the language, why does Madrid still treat it like the spoken version of the Spanish flu?
dimarts, 7 de febrer del 2012
Nostalgia's going to kill me
About a month ago on Spotify I created a playlist called "Spain 1997-2000" for the sole purpose of archiving the songs I used to listen to all the time back then, when I would sit in my room with my tape recorder (how old school! xD) with Los 40 Principales on the radio and I would press "play/record" whenever a song I liked came on so I could stick the tape in my Walkman (gotta love the late '90s!) and listen to my favorite songs from the radio as I walked the twenty minutes to school and the twenty minutes back.
The truth is, I haven't really listened to the playlist until just last night when I decided to put it on again and put some more songs onto the playlist. I shuffled through it when I first made it but skipped each song after about thirty seconds so I knew which songs were in there. And it's crazy, because so many of these songs I literally haven't listened to in years, and by years I mean ten, eleven, twelve years. So naturally, because music is an incredibly powerful mnemonic device for me (personally, music works far better than scent for me; scent loses its memory powers after a while, while music...something always remains of those memories for years on), when I listen to songs like "Summer Son" by Texas or "Depende" by Jarabe de Palo, or "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz I can see myself sitting on the wood floor of my bedroom, looking out towards Artea and the highway running from Bilbao to Algorta. I can also still smell the Bilbao Metro when it was still virtually brand new: frosted metal, plastic, and faint velvet upholstery.
It's nuts. So many memories. Memories of walking to school at eight in the morning, memories of driving to Burgos to play in the snow (it rarely, if ever, snows in the Basque Country so we used to drive to the border with Burgos and the mountains to see it), memories of driving to Urkiola and other parks, memories of rainy days in Bermeo, memories of driving to Bermeo with a friend from camp because she was the only person besides one to be in town for my birthday and I was invited to spend some time with her family, and then being told "Oh by the way, just so you know, we usually speak Euskera at home but for you, we'll speak Spanish!" Memories of paying 500 pesetas to go the movies on Saturday nights with my friends at the Puerto Deportivo in Getxo and the trip to the Aquarium and beach in Donosti. Of walking from our school out into Berango and over the hills, getting muddy and enjoying the scenery on a Physical Education field trip and not feeling tired until I was on the final stretch home. Of youth retreats in Estella and hikes in the Sierra de Urbasa as well as trips into the city. Of how when my best friend would talk about going to her pueblo in León I decided Estella was going to be mine. Of sitting in the Brussels airport for five hours waiting for a flight to Oslo on a family vacation.
I honestly believe that some of the best years of my life were 1998-2000, and listening to music from back then confirms it. It's better than having pictures to look at, because as long as I still have something to jog my memory of crazy events from my childhood and remember things I did, places I went, friends I hung out with, and other random things that I probably wouldn't even think about unless I had something to remind me about all those things.
This is why music is my drug of choice. It keeps creating memories for me, and I'm going to keep creating playlists of my life. And I'm going to listen to them whenever I feel like I need to take a step back and remind myself of the good times I've had.
The truth is, I haven't really listened to the playlist until just last night when I decided to put it on again and put some more songs onto the playlist. I shuffled through it when I first made it but skipped each song after about thirty seconds so I knew which songs were in there. And it's crazy, because so many of these songs I literally haven't listened to in years, and by years I mean ten, eleven, twelve years. So naturally, because music is an incredibly powerful mnemonic device for me (personally, music works far better than scent for me; scent loses its memory powers after a while, while music...something always remains of those memories for years on), when I listen to songs like "Summer Son" by Texas or "Depende" by Jarabe de Palo, or "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz I can see myself sitting on the wood floor of my bedroom, looking out towards Artea and the highway running from Bilbao to Algorta. I can also still smell the Bilbao Metro when it was still virtually brand new: frosted metal, plastic, and faint velvet upholstery.
It's nuts. So many memories. Memories of walking to school at eight in the morning, memories of driving to Burgos to play in the snow (it rarely, if ever, snows in the Basque Country so we used to drive to the border with Burgos and the mountains to see it), memories of driving to Urkiola and other parks, memories of rainy days in Bermeo, memories of driving to Bermeo with a friend from camp because she was the only person besides one to be in town for my birthday and I was invited to spend some time with her family, and then being told "Oh by the way, just so you know, we usually speak Euskera at home but for you, we'll speak Spanish!" Memories of paying 500 pesetas to go the movies on Saturday nights with my friends at the Puerto Deportivo in Getxo and the trip to the Aquarium and beach in Donosti. Of walking from our school out into Berango and over the hills, getting muddy and enjoying the scenery on a Physical Education field trip and not feeling tired until I was on the final stretch home. Of youth retreats in Estella and hikes in the Sierra de Urbasa as well as trips into the city. Of how when my best friend would talk about going to her pueblo in León I decided Estella was going to be mine. Of sitting in the Brussels airport for five hours waiting for a flight to Oslo on a family vacation.
I honestly believe that some of the best years of my life were 1998-2000, and listening to music from back then confirms it. It's better than having pictures to look at, because as long as I still have something to jog my memory of crazy events from my childhood and remember things I did, places I went, friends I hung out with, and other random things that I probably wouldn't even think about unless I had something to remind me about all those things.
This is why music is my drug of choice. It keeps creating memories for me, and I'm going to keep creating playlists of my life. And I'm going to listen to them whenever I feel like I need to take a step back and remind myself of the good times I've had.
dilluns, 6 de febrer del 2012
El Meu País
I was looking up poetry last night and discovered this beautiful poem by Catalan poet Miquel Martí i Pol (1929-2003). Below is the original Catalan, and beneath the cut is an English translation.
El Meu País
Tots els anys que he hagut de viure
allunyat del meu país
han estat una nit fosca,
un camí ple de neguit.
Penso en tot allò que enrera
vaig deixar quan vaig partir
i amb els ulls de l’esperança
torno encara al meu país.
No estimo res com la dolcesa
del cel blau del meu país;
ara en sóc lluny,
però me’n recordo
dia i nit.
Si un dia hi torno, el vent que em rebi
esborrarà tots els neguits
i oblidaré els anys que he viscut
tan sol i trist.
No hi ha res que no em recordi
cada instant el meu país,
tot em fa pensar en els dies
que hi vaig viure tan feliç.
Quan camino el vent em porta
veus que el temps no ha pas marcit;
si m’adormo el que somio
és només el meu país.
No estimo res com la dolcesa
del cel blau del meu país;
ara en sóc lluny, però me’n recordo
dia i nit.
Si un dia hi torno, el vent que em rebi
esborrarà tots els neguits
i oblidaré els anys que he viscut
tan sol i trist.
Abans que la mort m’arribi
vull tornar al meu país;
trepitjar la terra amiga,
caminar pels vells camins.
Vull sentir les veus que estimo,
vull plorar pels vells amics
i morir quan sigui l’hora
sota el cel del meu país.
No estimo res com la dolcesa
del cel blau del meu país;
ara en sóc lluny, però me’n recordo
dia i nit.
Si un dia hi torno,
el vent que em rebi
esborrarà tots els neguits
i oblidaré els anys que he viscut
tan sol i trist.
El Meu País
Tots els anys que he hagut de viure
allunyat del meu país
han estat una nit fosca,
un camí ple de neguit.
Penso en tot allò que enrera
vaig deixar quan vaig partir
i amb els ulls de l’esperança
torno encara al meu país.
No estimo res com la dolcesa
del cel blau del meu país;
ara en sóc lluny,
però me’n recordo
dia i nit.
Si un dia hi torno, el vent que em rebi
esborrarà tots els neguits
i oblidaré els anys que he viscut
tan sol i trist.
No hi ha res que no em recordi
cada instant el meu país,
tot em fa pensar en els dies
que hi vaig viure tan feliç.
Quan camino el vent em porta
veus que el temps no ha pas marcit;
si m’adormo el que somio
és només el meu país.
No estimo res com la dolcesa
del cel blau del meu país;
ara en sóc lluny, però me’n recordo
dia i nit.
Si un dia hi torno, el vent que em rebi
esborrarà tots els neguits
i oblidaré els anys que he viscut
tan sol i trist.
Abans que la mort m’arribi
vull tornar al meu país;
trepitjar la terra amiga,
caminar pels vells camins.
Vull sentir les veus que estimo,
vull plorar pels vells amics
i morir quan sigui l’hora
sota el cel del meu país.
No estimo res com la dolcesa
del cel blau del meu país;
ara en sóc lluny, però me’n recordo
dia i nit.
Si un dia hi torno,
el vent que em rebi
esborrarà tots els neguits
i oblidaré els anys que he viscut
tan sol i trist.
dimecres, 1 de febrer del 2012
A Trip Down Memory Lane...
Google Street View is a fun way to relive memories. I recently looked up Leioa, the city where we lived when we first moved to Spain in 1997. There's a park on the mountain, Unbe, behind Loiu, where the Bilbao airport is, where we used to go with our church and once with my class at school (we walked up). It has some beautiful views of the Nervión valley, though they don't show up on GSV. Here's a little walk down memory lane, courtesy of Google Maps!
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