Maite zaitut, Euskal Herria

Bay of Biscay, looking towards Sopelana and Urduliz

It should be no surprise to anyone, at least to anybody who knows me well enough and follows me on various blogging platforms: previously LiveJournal, Tumblr, here on Blogspot... that I have incontrovertible, biased pro-Basque tendencies and opinions.  I may have only spent two and a half years living in the Basque Country, but everything I experienced, learned, and saw has affected me forever.  When my family moved to Andalusia in 2001, just after I started school in Germany, they came face-to-face with the opinions and beliefs of those from outside the Basque Country.  My parents have stories of talking to people in Málaga who, when explained that they'd just moved there from Bilbao, asked "How in the world could you have lived with those terrorists?"  Another time, my dad was yelled at by a police officer at the parking lot of the Rosaleda stadium, home of Málaga CF, where he was doing repairs on our van, which still boasted Bilbao license plates.  After that, he applied to get new ones, which eliminated any regional association as the new Spanish plates had nothing denominating them from a certain province as the old ones had.

Yes, I am still stuck in 2010, what of it?

I just discovered the photo editing software on Google+ (damn it, Google, I love you) and had a little fun this afternoon.  Don't mind me.

Las Arenas & Algorta, Getxo, Bizkaia

Playa de Arrigunaga, Punta Galea, Algorta

Punta Galea, Bizkaia

Camp Nou, Barcelona

Masia Freixa, Parc de Sant Jordi, Terrassa

Masia Freixa, Parc de Sant Jordi, Terrassa

Masia Freixa, Parc de Sant Jordi, Ca n'Aurell, Terrassa

Barcelona 

Downtown Toronto

Rogers Centre, CN Tower, Downtown Toronto

Expatriation at its Worst

Mijas

The problem [of money issues in Costa del Sol cities] is made worse by British and other expatriate residents.  Most cannot be bothered to register as citizens of their new home towns, robbing the area of other funds awarded on the basis of how many people live there. Some 300,000 Britons are estimated to live [on the Costa del Sol].  That makes this Britain's fourteenth-largest "city", larger than, for example, Cardiff, Belfast, Southampton or Bradford.  However, fewer than one in ten British residents are registered.  Costa corruption is as much the result of those who came here, enjoy the Spanish weather and hospitality but refuse to accept any responsibility for the place they live in, as it is of crooked politicians and construction companies.

Ghosts of Spain, Giles Tremlett

Playa de Arrigunaga, Algorta (Getxo). 8 June, 2010.

"Estamos en Cataluña, y aquí el catalán es idioma oficial"

Prof: Molt bé, bon dia a tothom.  Avui parlarem del futur del sistema capitalista global.
Very well, good morning, everyone.  Today we’ll talk about the future of the global capitalist system.
Isabelle: Por favor, ¿señor?
Please, sir?
Prof: ¿Sí?
Yes?
Isabelle: Perdone, ¿pero podría dar la clase en castellano?
Excuse me, but could you give the class in Spanish?
Prof: Lo siento, señorita, pero no podrá ser.  La mayoría de estudiantes son catalanes, o sea que no creo que tenga que cambiar de idioma.
I’m sorry, miss, but that can’t be.  Most students are Catalan, so I don’t think I should have to change languages.
Isabelle: Somos más de 15 estudiantes de Erasmus que no hablamos catalán.  Y para usted no es un problema hablar español.
We’re more than 15 Erasmus students who don’t speak Catalan.  And it’s not a problem for you to speak Spanish.
Prof: Mire, yo la entiendo perfectamente, señorita.  De verdad.  Perfectamente.  Pero usted me tendría que entender a mí también.  Estamos en Cataluña, y aquí el catalán es idioma oficial.  Si usted quiere hablar español, ¡se va a Madrid, o se va a Sudamérica!
Look, I understand you perfectly, miss.  Honestly.  Perfectly.  But you’d have to understand me too.  We’re in Catalonia, and Catalan is the official language here.  If you want to speak Spanish, you go to Madrid, or you go to South America!

L'Auberge Espagnole (France), d. Cédric Klapisch, 2002.

I decided to look up what Spanish/Catalan law has to say about this topic, which is incredibly controversial.

Catedral de Salamanca. 13 June, 2010.

I want to go

Sant Llorenç del Munt, Serra de l'Obac, from Matadepera.
Photo by Marc Sellarès

Every once in a while (not as often as I like, but things are what they are) I sit and watch videos on the TV3 website all day just to work on my Catalan and to learn about what's going on over in Catalunya.  The other day, for some reason or other, I started looking at houses in the Terrassa area, out of curiosity.  Turns out the really really nice houses (i.e. freestanding, 2+ floors, pool and garden) are in a small town just north of Terrassa called Matadepera.  And it turns out that most of those really really nice houses cost under a million euros.  Which, in the Spanish housing market and overall economic downturn in the country and throughout Europe, is really good.  And yes, I did check to make sure it was a Matadepera thing and not a housing bubble crash thing, because you can still get a smaller house in Barcelona for four million.  I'm also 90% sure that Xavi Hernández's family, and Xavi himself, lives in Matadepera but shhhhhhhhh because that information really makes me sound like a total creeper.  Which I kind of am but in the best possible way.

El Cavall Bernat.  Photo by Roc Garcia-Elias Cos

So anyway.  Just last night when I was on TV3 I discovered that on one of their daily "actuality" shows (a program that spends an hour or more discussing national and local issues, news, and other random topics of cultural interest) has a segment where they go to various towns throughout Catalunya and talk about colloquialisms inherent to the town.  This week, well, Sunday, they went to Matadepera, which is also having their weekly festes, and I'm fascinated.  There was also a segment on the Sant Llorenç de Munt mountain, also called La Mola, which is part of the Serra de l'Obac, which borders on the Montseny, the mountain range which houses the monastery of Montserrat.  Apparently the air on this mountain is unique in that the mountain range forms the border between the continental and Mediterranean climates, resulting in a perfect mix of humidity and dryness.  And climbing La Mola itself is therapeutic, being used by footballers from all around the world (mostly Barça players, but there are other players who've used it) when recovering from knee surgery because while it's a rocky trail, it's gentle.  Really, really cool.

I really can't explain what it is that I find so fascinating about this little corner of the world, but I do.  And I am going to try my damndest to find a way to move out there and make a living.  In fact, I may have some ideas....

Castell Cartoixa, Parc del Vallparadís, Terrassa. 30 May, 2010.

Now I remember why I never watch reality TV

Last night, for the first time ever, and because there was nothing else on TV of interest (yes, I realize it was Golden Globes night, but awards shows bore me), we watched a 3-episode marathon of the Kardashians (Kourtney and Kim Take New York).  I’d heard of it, and I’m an active user of the internet and am also familiar with the lives of the three sisters.  My thoughts:

1. Kris Humphries has absolutely no personality, no redeeming qualities.  Are people sure Kim wasn’t set up by the producers of the show to date and marry him just so they could divorce?  Because really.  Zero personality, zero redeeming qualities.  I liked the idea of someone with money marrying someone who doesn’t have as much (come on, he plays for the New Jersey Nets), but this…there’s nothing at all endearing about him.
2. Then again, it’s not like Kim has any redeeming qualities either.  Except for the fact that she’s gorgeous.  She just has the IQ of a turtle.
3. Kourtney’s boyfriend Scott seemed to be the only remotely decent person, the only person I didn’t mind seeing onscreen.  He has his issues, but he at least seemed genuine.  Although I don’t mind Khloe either.  She was one of the only people who gave decent advice to Kim when she was feeling all depressed at how her marriage was turning out.  As opposed to the mother, who had nothing at all substantial to say.
4. I really really really want to go to Dubai.
5. Why in the world do these people have fans?  They don’t do anything.  Nothing of significance anyway.  Do people really just like watching rich people act like idiots on TV?  I don’t get it.  Because there’s nothing I get out of them that makes me say “I’m a fan!”  They’re not singers, actresses, or have any discernable talents besides how good they are with a credit card.
6. I actually kind of feel sorry for them though, but only in the sense that they have to go through crap that the rest of us have to go through with relationships.  Just not anything else.  It’s not like they have to worry about being unemployed.
7. Oh, wait.  [Okay, so they are I guess in a way employed.  They can just afford to sit around all day and not have to worry about where they’re going to get money.  Unlike most of the world in this economy.]

And then my brother turned on the other trainwreck show 16 and Pregnant.  Though to be fair, I do feel sorry for those girls.  Genuinely.  Though my pity (and compassion) tends to run out when their friends talk about how they’ve always been planners, and then the pregnant girl says “Oh yeah, I can’t make a decision without planning it out!”  Uh…and you didn’t consider birth control?  And your mother is a single mom and doesn’t like your boyfriend because he’s kind of unstable?  GEE.

Conclusion: even though I am not rich like a Kardashian, things in my life really could be much worse.  And to be honest, even though I’m still trying to work through the myriad issues I have which prohibit me from being the person I should be, I have a supportive family and haven’t made any life-alteringly stupid decisions.  And while at the same time I shouldn’t judge someone based solely on reality TV, it’s their lives that have been made accessible by the public and not mine.  And honestly, while they are people, reality shows like that are good for one thing: evaluating and reevaluating your life and learning from other people’s mistakes.

Guggenheim Bilbao. June 4, 2010.

I love this man

I just need to dedicate a post to this man.  The man who should win the FIFA Ballon d'Or even though the player who keeps beating him out for it is inarguably the best player in the world.  The man who makes the best player in the world so great.  The man who makes the best team in the world so great.

The man who makes this sport so great.

(I know I'm like a week late with this, but eh.  Who cares.)

"The next time you’re in Barcelona, stay at the W!"

"If you haven't lived at the W, you haven't lived at all!"

Where do I start.

No, really, where do I start.

Let me just start off by saying I haven nothing against tourist blogs, the tourism industry, or luxury hotels.  Lord knows I'd love to be able to live in the lap of luxury for even just one day out of my entire life.  Lord knows I'd love to be pampered, even if it's for the last time ever.  Lord knows I would love to stay at the W in Barcelona.  That's clearly not the issue.

Barcelona. Barcelona? Barcelona!

Passeig de Colom, Port Vell.  April 29, 2008.

 It's really no secret that I'm obsessed with Barcelona.  I've never tried to hide it, I've never tried to ignore it.  It's just one of those things I feel defines me for some reason or other.  I'm not really sure when it became my "schtick", but ever since it did, I've had tons of people say to me "So-and-so has been talking about Barcelona and I thought of you!" or "They showed Barcelona on Such-and-such TV show and I thought of you!"  Barcelona, and my love and adoration for FC Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernández (it's borderline creepy is what it is), are the two things that people who know me really well define me with.

It's all a compliment, obviously.  One friend took a trip to Spain and Italy shortly after I got back from Spain (she left the US the day I left Spain, actually) and after visiting Barcelona she said "Now I know why Elizabeth loves Barcelona so much."  It's contagious.  Add that onto the amount of times other friends who haven't been there have told me "Okay, so if I ever go to Barcelona, I'm taking you with me to show me everything!"  Of course, then I always feel bad because every single time I've been to Barcelona there's always something I don't end up seeing or doing for some reason or other.  Like I still haven't taken the tram up to Tibidabo, and it's been on my list since before I went the last time.  And I haven't been inside any of Gaudí's buildings either, but that's mostly because I didn't want to spend the money to get in.  And considering the last time I went I nearly emptied my bank account doing cheap things, I'm really glad the only splurge I made was visiting the Palau de la Música Catalana.

Sagrada Família.  May 1, 2008.

The other day on Spotify I did a search for all songs with "Barcelona" in the title and created a playlist.  Due to the amount of songs that only mentioned Barcelona once with no context of the actual city (I guess the name Barcelona just sounds nice or something...) I ended up deleting the playlist, but the fact that I actually did that search says enough.  I just can't stop.  Anytime I hear someone mention "Barcelona" in a sentence I feel my nose start to itch and my eyes start to water and I want to bust into the conversation and say "Oh my gosh, I adore Barcelona!"  Anytime it appears on a TV show or movie I'm watching I want to pause it and just repeat the person saying "Barcelona" over and over again to take it all in.

I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it until I die.  Barcelona is magical.  And I don't care at all that I'm obsessed with it.  Because of my obsession with Barcelona I've met some wonderful people, learned another language, discovered amazing literature, amazing music.  Barcelona és, senzillament, màgica.

Castillo de Peñafiel, Valladolid. February 4, 2008.

5th Avenue, NYC. 22 May, 2010

The Good Ol' Days?

My mom asked me today for the umpteenth time about high school.  If I thought that I'd felt abandoned when they sent me off to boarding school.  I think she was feeling a bit convicted when an MK/TCK blog she was reading about boarding school mentioned how a lot of kids felt abandoned by their parents when they went.  I never felt abandoned.  It didn't bother me that I was in Germany while my parents were in Spain and that I'd only see them every couple months for a couple of weeks.  When my mom left that January morning in 2001, leaving me in the bleachers of my new school, she was the one who was crying.  Not me.

I did have a lot of issues in high school.  I never really made friends, some of the friends I'd made abandoned me.  The world I thought I knew literally blew up one afternoon in September 2001.  I thought I was thousands of miles away from my real "home" and struggled to feel like I fit in.  I never did.  I still don't really talk to people from high school, unlike my brother and sister.  I have some of them on Facebook, and I'm still a bit ambivalent.  If I miss anything about high school now, in retrospect, it's the fact that living on the border of France and Switzerland, in Germany, and being able to fly to Spain every couple weeks was something that at the time I didn't unappreciate, I just didn't quite appreciate as much as I do now.  I miss Herbstmesse in Basel and the tradition of meeting at the bumper cars at 7:30 in the Münsterplatz to overrun it with English speakers duking it out.  I miss wandering the streets of Basel and camping out at Starbucks, begrudgingly making it back to the Klaraplatz or the SBB station to get back to the dorms and sleep.  I miss French field trips to Colmar and Strasbourg.  I miss History field trips to Paris and Normandy.  I miss Senior Trip to Florence, Rome, and Venice.  I miss hopping on a flight every two, three months to Málaga (it's cheaper to fly into Málaga than Sevilla because of all the Germans who fly down for the beach; it has a bigger airport too) with a layover in Zurich (to which we'd take a train out of Basel instead of a plane), Geneva, Barcelona...  I miss shopping days in Freiburg, shopping trips to Carrefour in Mulhouse.  I miss school weekend trips to the Swiss Alps and Lake Constance.

I miss the time a friend from school and I got together one weekend in August to spend some time at the town feria and then heading down to the beach in Marbella the next day, staying up half the night on the marble floor in the living room in the sweltering heat and spying geckos in the cracks in the wall and ceiling.  It's funny because looking back on my period of high school, when I thought I had everything all figured out, being convinced that I was "American" and couldn't be anything but, and then realizing sometime in 2006 that where I really should be was Spain and when I went back two years later realizing how right I was and how wrong I'd been in high school.

I was convinced that the United States I'd left behind was the real United States, and when we went back more permanently in 2004 after I graduated and had to move on with life, I realized that it wasn't like the way I'd always thought it was, and I think I've been living with that disillusionment ever since.  What's worse is that when I went back to Spain in 2008 for my study abroad program I saw the Spain I thought I'd left behind in 2008.  I wasn't disillusioned, in fact, my feelings were accurate.

And I sometimes still have to keep asking myself, the pessimist that I am, is if that Spain that I still have high expectations is just an illusion, like the United States I was convinced existed back in high school.

Yonge-Dundas Square, Toronto. 4 November, 2010

In which I ramble pointlessly about sports

I've always had a love-hate relationship with American football.  That sport that hardly anyone outside North America follows unless they're American, drawing ridicule from hardcore rugby fans and Association Football fans who can't figure out why it's called "football" when it's not even played with feet (hint: it's because the "ball" is a foot long), much less a ball.  And rugby fans think it's a wussy version of their sport, simply because the players actually wear padding.  Being a big fan of Association Football myself, it almost feels like the two sports have to mutually exclusive, as per the whole "football" vs. "soccer" nonsense (FYI, both are valid: "soccer" is a shortened form of "association football", and the term was coined in, yup, England).