Final Thoughts on Barcelona, Part II (Spain)

I like lists so without further ado...

Things we do not miss about Barcelona:

- High cost of living + low (and unstable) wages. Most people in major cities feel this pinch, but “El Crisis” surely puts this into a whole other category. In consulting, contracts that were ending were not getting renewed, and at the university, every couple months seemed to bring further pay cuts or more layoffs. Money was pretty tight for our tiny, sixth floor walk-up apartment, not to mention the obligatory surcharges we got for being suspicious foreigners. Try also wrapping your head around numbers like 25% overall unemployment in Spain and over 50% for younger folks. Most of the lucky  survive either with as many flatmates as they can find or staying much longer with their parents - a cultural norm turned absolute necessity. We suspected this culture of strong family ties (as well as the social support structure) was the main reason you didn't see as much anarchy in the streets you'd expect anywhere else with those kinds of stats.

- Difficulty level of just doing things. Bureaucracy always sucks. Trying to get any business or anything official done requires multiple trips, multiple offices, and multiple copies… and Spaniards/Catalans fiercely guard photocopier/printer usage. Only brought 1 copy? Even if there is a copier right on the desk of the clerk speaking to you, you will need to: leave the line, possibly even exit the building, find a print shop around the corner, pay for extra copies, and join the queue you've been waiting in all morning at the end with a new number... and most of the government offices/banks close for lunch and will not reopen again.

-Alienation. A common complaint for expats. Catalans have a reputation for being a little closed. When someone still referred to her colleague Señor so-and-so after working together everyday for 40 years,  you realize learning Catalan is only one of the barriers to face socially. It was our own fault, too. Many expats get around the isolation by clinging to others of their home country, but we didn't move to Barcelona to stay in all-Brit or all-American enclaves and so avoided them assiduously. The city's got a fantastic nightlife, too, so doubtless, we could have made more friends had not our hard partying, late night clubbing days been behind us. Lastly, people don't often invite others into their homes either so it can be tough socializing on a strict budget.


Things we miss about Barcelona:

- The city. I personally think it's the most beautiful city in Europe, possibly the world. We've always been drawn to bright colors, mosaics, and wrought ironwork, and Catalan Modernisme brings these elements together in intricate detail and with the finest craftsmanship. These architectural gems are sprinkled all over so that walking around Barcelona feels like visiting an open air art gallery. Should these man-made creations not stir or inspire you, the city is book-ended by the sea and mountains. Even though we're always a little too ADD for sun-bathing, our regular strolls along the beach and port (25 minute walk from our door) were weekend favorites. The pleasant alternative was hiking in Parc de Collserola, where a scant 15 minutes on the commuter train would bring you to the trail head on the mountain.

- The neighborhood. Even though Barcelona is a big city, you feel like you live in a little village within it. We lived in the barrio of Sant Pere, or as Rich first described the narrow streets and old buildings, "like in The Bourne Identity." We got to know the people in our neighborhood - our bread guys, the super nice vet, the pet store lady, the bodega man, all the dog owners in the park, the man from the theatre, etc. - at least in a friendly nodding and chitchat way.

- The weather. Barcelona is almost always sunny with something like 300 days/year. The perfect blue skies made hanging the laundry out to dry off our balcony my favorite chore. While it can get unbearable in the summers, the temperature can also be mild in the winters. We sat drinking coffees outside one day in February in t-shirts. Beware though that too much of this makes one's sense of bad weather get grossly out of whack. Any day it rains in the city (usually about two weeks total in the spring) is the equivalent of a blizzard hitting the Midwest. Classes get cancelled, traffic gets ridiculous, and people come into work late, or not at all.

- The food. There is the obvious. Michelin stars have been awarded to quite a few Catalan chefs, and while we never got into the world's best restaurant El Bulli, we had the best meal of our lives at Cinc Sentits. But even beyond that, we miss even the basics. What Spain may lack in variety, they make up for in freshness and quality of ingredients. A pair of tea-drinkers really miss the excellent and cheap coffee. Ah, the perfection of the cortado (1 shot of espresso: 1 warm milk) mid-morning or after a meal! Then there is the unifying lament of every European moving to the U.S.- the bread. For less than a euro, we picked up our crusty barra natural (like a baguette but wider) newly baked everyday. Even the cheap cheese for our sandwiches was fancy - the generic store brand was still a mild blend of cow, sheep, and goat's milk. In the U.S., everyone's big on eating local or with the seasons. As a concept, this might seem strange in Spain since it's just how people have always eaten. My favorite seasons were  clementine/satsuma (I had to stop a 4/day habit because my stomach acids were churning), strawberry, fig, wild mushroom, chestnut, and jamón (ok, the last one isn't quite but most people buy one around the holidays). It helps that the country grows much of the produce for the rest of Europe. Still, it never ceased to amaze me how much more affordable fruits and vegetables are there. I could go into the greengrocer and come out with a stuffed shopping bag for less than 5 euros! For one thing, within the stores, produce appears to be graded (and priced) at different levels, ranging from the cosmetically perfect apple Americans have come to expect down to sad-looking apple that got a little beat up in transit but is still edible inside and probably half the price. But I digress. Oh, the seafood! the butchers! the 3 course menu del días that are 10 euros! the sausages! the cava! I could go on and on...


All in all, while there are a few other things we don't miss about our lives in Barcelona, there are many more we are nostalgic for. It was a great and rewarding experience to live there and absolutely the best decision for us. Though we're calling this post "Final Thoughts...," we can hope that we haven't seen the last of Barcelona. 

Final Thoughts on Barcelona, Part I (Spain)

This week marks 3 months since Rich turned in the keys to our Barcelona apartment. With some time and distance between us and the city, it's a fitting moment for us to reflect on our grand adventure there.

I had originally intended to blog about many aspects of settling into our lives there. But I held my tongue for a variety of reasons. It was really hard, especially that first year. Pinching our pennies  because we had grossly underestimated the cost of living. Sending out hundreds of resumes, and yes, pounding the pavement old school, searching for employment in the midst of the world's worst economic crisis in one of the hardest hit countries. Struggling with the languages, spending a fortune on Spanish classes, and ever struggling in Catalan. Knowing our families - and particularly my immigrant parents - would be our main and possibly only audience for the blog, I didn't want to worry them even more. And we were exhausted. Battling all day with a foreign bureaucracy (I'm pointing a finger at you, too, British consulate!) or bank or service provider, you come home confused, humbled, shaken, and possibly crying. Sometimes it was all we could do to muster our energies and try again the next day. So forgive the blog for only accentuating the positive.

As time went on, our situation improved, and we also just got the hang of things... It's ok if we forget to write our meter reading down on the sheet appearing on the front door to the building (or, as in one case, if I accidentally write down a number several orders of magnitude different!)... This is the corner shop that doesn't overcharge for fresh milk (since most people seem to prefer the horrific UHT milk)... Being able to sleep through the hourly ringing of the bells from the 4 surrounding churches, the relentless clanging call of the butano men one must hail to deliver orange gas tanks to your door (we dodged a bullet renting a place with piped gas), or worse, the drunk French tourists on the balcony of the illegal vacation apartment just outside our bedroom window... There were other aspects of everyday life I could have commented on. But Barcelona seems like the world's most popular place for attracting expats and there are even more Catalans. To presume my foreigner's observations would contribute anything different smacked a little of implied judgement of local norms or conceit, which, as an American abroad, I am conscious of the stereotype. So I stuck to a mostly tourist's perspective.

My further reflections will continue in the next post...

Hopscotch Music Festival 2013 (Raleigh, NC, U.S.)

The Triangle (the Raleigh - Durham - Chapel Hill area in North Carolina, aka "home" for most of our adult lives) has always been a surprisingly fantastic place for music. There's a vibrant local music scene, and sitting roughly midway between D.C. to the north and Atlanta to the south(east), bands doing the whole East Coast tour thing often put in an appearance... in smaller venues and for much more reasonable prices than you'd catch them for in the big cities. Coming back to the Triangle, we were thrilled to find that, in our absence, the collective interest in live shows has amassed into an eclectic music festival called Hopscotch.

Over 3 days in September, venues all over downtown Raleigh host nearly 200 bands of all shapes and colors and styles. Nathan Bowles's banjo pickin' brought us back to the land of bluegrass, a fitting homecoming for our first stop. Checking in with longtime local rockers The Kingsbury Manx next door was soured by the poor acoustics and the distracting media. Photographers from various news outlets and websites (do 'zines even exist anymore?) flitted about the open pit obnoxiously, angling for up-the-nose close ups and then abruptly turning their backs on the band when they got the shot. Smaller outfits gave us the opportunity to peek into venues that have sprung up since we moved out of the capital city, er, *cough* 7 years ago. From the Bon Jovi tributes on the wall, it's doubtful we'll be back at Deep South Bar, but we were eager to visit the old indie hangout Kings Barcade, risen from the ashes (aka the city demolished it for a parking lot) and reborn in Martin Street Music Hall's old digs. Unfortunately, the wall-of-sound-or-is-it-just-noise? act Merzbow had us high-tailing it out of there. In contrast, Angel Olsen's strange vocal stylings (I thought war-time radio/Edith Piaf, Rich thought female Johnny Cash) were pure enjoyment, and Local Natives's exuberant and super-tight set was one of the festival's highlights.

The main stage in City Plaza also had some great moments. I was thrilled for my old neighbors in their new band Gross Ghost as the opening act (and hearing them promote the show on the NPR station earlier in the day). N.C.-boys-made-good Future Islands played a synthpop set that got everyone in the crowd to boooogie, even with the lead singer's weird crooner-turned-demonic voice. The dance party continued with Holy Ghost! and A-Trak, who Rich thought looked familiar from his Duck Sauce video Barbra Streisand. As a connoisseur of electronica, Rich had a few bones to pick with him, but I couldn't tell if he was just playing to the audience's slightly more mainstream expectations. At any rate, there will be plenty of time for that sort of critique if we end up at one of the other North Carolina festivals - Mountain Oasis Electronic Music Summit or Moogfest!

Quepos, Rio Savegre, and Manuel Antonio (Costa Rica)

We jumped into Jimny 2 and headed out of the mountains. The views were really quite beautiful with rolling green landscapes dotted with the occasional livestock, reminiscent of the South Downs in England or parts of the North Island in New Zealand. Our journey continued down the Pan-American Highway along the Pacific Coast, where plenty of parking attendants beckoned hungry truckers with their come-hither motions to roadside restaurants.

Quepos may be on the doorstep to one of the more popular stops on the Gringo Trail, but other than a street of souvenir shops, the town retains a strong local vibe. We hunted down a real ferretería (a catch-all store with hardware and other odds and ends) to pick up our own souvenir: a good machete! A quick survey of Costa Rican farmers would indicate the handy tool/weapon to be as essential an accoutrement as the ubiquitous rubber boots. The specimen we found was of a hefty steel for 4000 colónes (~ 8 USD), far superior to the sad excuse we got from our local Lowe's that got a chip in the edge at first use.

Avoiding the afternoon downpour, we had one of the best meals at a hole in the wall in Quepos. Their version of tacos were crunchy rolls filled with slow-cooked, shredded pork hidden under a heaping helping of cabbage slaw. With one of the fresh fruit juices, they made for a delicious meal and probably our only reasonably priced one in the country.

Whitewater rafting on the Rio Savegre was not quite as extreme as they had sold it to us. However, our guide was much more knowledgeable about the flora and fauna than the one in Monteverde, even elaborating on the booming palm oil industry in the region as we passed plantations and processing facilities. Our transport to the river was a yellow school bus, delighting Rich who had never ridden in one. The trip included plenty of opportunities to stop and swim under waterfalls - helmets strongly advised! The last set of rapids were so gentle that we all floated down sans raft... although keeping your head above water is still a bit of a challenge.

Manuel Antonio National Park was the reason why we and everyone else were there. From Quepos, drivers must navigate the gauntlet of unofficial parking with touts insisting their lot really is the last one before the entrance. It was very quiet when we arrived, but the rains seemed to have driven away much of the famed wildlife of the park. Our early arrival did mean we got first pick on the gorgeous mangrove-lined Manuel Antonio beach. This also made for prime viewing of the only wildlife we did see: a couple of sneaky raccoons making off with a beach bag... and the hilarious attempts of the owners to pursue the thieves!

Monteverde and San Luis (Costa Rica)

The Monteverde cloud forest is one of Costa Rica's most popular tourist destinations, and our digs were distinctly off the beaten path. The University of Georgia has a campus-turned-ecolodge outside the village of nearby San Luis. Populated with mostly study abroad students and professors teaching special summer sessions, visitors can also pay to stay, space permitting. Our visit began with a brief orientation with one of the resident naturalists asking about our interests and outlining a personalized schedule for us. We started off on one of the night hikes in the area, where our guide catered to my interest in creepy crawlies and shined her flashlight into the den of a particularly burly tarantula. Lest we missed out on any specimens, they also were kind enough to arrange a viewing of their insect collections back in the lab. Our natural history day hike in the transitional forest was also very informative, and we lost track of time discussing biodiversity, conservation, and agriculture with our guide. The campus also maintains an on-site farm focused on sustainability and providing a substantial proportion of the food for the 3 square meals included daily in the lodge stay. We tried our hands at milking the campus cows, a first for Rich, despite growing up on dairy farms. It's a lot harder than it looks... especially aiming into the bucket.

Off campus, we did make it into the official Monteverde Reserve, but after our one-on-one time with UGA guides, the tour was a bit of a letdown. Most visitors are rabid to spot the iconic quetzal bird ("Beautiful plummage!"). After a couple of 15 minute stops spent peering forlornly into the misty canopies, our reserve guide clearly felt the whole trip was a wash and high-tailed us back in the dismal rain to the entrance. 

A far superior experience was ziplining. Costa Rica was one of the places that popularized it, and even if it is a tourist trap, we do have a weakness for adrenaline sports. There were 15 proper cables: fast enough to need to brake hard at the end, without much of a delay between rides, and the longest was a whopping 1 kilometer ride! The best part was the giddy drop-off (maybe 50 feet?) as a human pendulum in the Tarzan Swing. Stopping was a bit tricky as two of the guides had to either grab for your feet (I nearly lost a shoe) or quickly loop a giant rubber band around your midsection to catch you like some Wile E. Coyote move.

The last Monteverde mention must be a shout out to the cheese factory. We didn't end up taking the tour, but we finally understood the fuss about the best milkshakes ever. They make the ice cream on-site with local flavors like cas (a type of guava), soursop, and some fantastic combination involving sweetened condensed milk and fig... AND they use whole cow's milk (i.e. with floating cream) for these concoctions. Mmm, mmm, good!