Exotic Seattlite in Cosmopolitan Barcelona
Trip Start
Apr 18, 2007
1
52
54
Trip End
Ongoing
Barcelona,
Spain
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Since then, I have had several address changes. On Wednesday I met a swing dancer that Calle connected me with named Paca. We met for Coffee at Starbuck's (a truly cultural experience for me) to talk about what I needed and what she might be able to help me with. She turned out to be very nice and fun and helpful. She left me saying that she would ask her roommate if they could host me and give me a ride to the Lindy Hop workshop dances being held in Sitges a city a half hour drive out of town.
After our meeting I went back up to the hostel to look on Loquo (the Barcelonian Craig's List) for a job and an apartment. At 8 I dragged my luggage down the mountain onto the metro and across town to drop it off at the apartment of a french guy named Patrice's, who I had met on CouchSurfing.com and had agreed to host me for 2 nights.
It was a quick exchange, a brief: bonjour, tour of the house and bequeathing of the keys then he was out the door to meet his girlfriend for dinner. This was no problem for me because I had plans with another couch surfer, an Italian named Gabrielle, who had invited me to his end of job party.
I arrived late at the Pizzeria, where the party was being held, thinking it was was a Pizza Hut type of joint where people would be casually dropping in to give their congratulations. Turns out it was a classy sit down dinner with a bunch of 'Suits' in suits from HP where he formerly worked. It was rather embarrassing, but Gabrielle was ever so gracious and made me feel comfortable right away, introducing me to everyone and sitting me next to him. I hadn't been there five minutes, when Paca and her X-boyfriend Jordi breezed in (Gabrielle had invited Paca earlier). I spent an embarrassing 5 minutes discussing my future housing arrangement at the door to this fancy restaurant under the bewildered stare of the other party guests. It turned out that Jordi's roommate was about to leave for Portugal for 2 weeks and had offered me her room while she was gone. Paca had also spoken with her roommate Marta and gotten the go ahead for me to stay with them for the weekend in order to carpool to dances out of town then move to Jordi's on Monday. Gabrielle once again came to the rescue and broke the awkward moment by inviting them to join the party. They accepted and we discussed the details over pizza in a mixture of Spanish and English.
After dinner Paca and Jordi left and Gabrielle, the party and I walked down the street to a Bar, half of which had been reserved for his party. I mingled with the mostly Italian HPers and met a guy who had just returned from living out his dream of visiting Seattle. His enthusiasm for my city made me miss home tremendously. After an hour, Ellen a Swede going to University in Barcelona, another Calle introduction, arrived with a German friend named David in tow. Ellen, David, Gabrielle had a blast making terrible stereotypes about each other's cultures until it was time to go out dancing.
Now, having followed this story I want you to guess what time it probably was at this point...... do you have your guess in your head? In The States it would probably be between 11 and 12 right?. Not here! Here in Spain, it was 3AM a completely normal time to be heading out for a night of dancing. Not to mention Ellen had received a flyer for a party starting at 6AM! I tell you the Spaniards know how to party.
After a little confusion about which club was best to go to, we arrived at your average European techno/house club and hung out and danced for about an hour until I had had enough of that intolerable noise. I said goodbye to Ellen and my new HP friends and in the interest of easy late night/early morning transportation opted to stay on Gabrielle's couch rather than attepmt to find a way back to my French Host's couch.
In the morning, or more accurately, mid-afternoon, Gabrielle returned me to my French Hosts on his way to pick up some family from the airport then pack for his 10PM flight to Romania for the long weekend. Its a four day weekend here. I tell you Spainairds find any excuse for a holiday. When I returned to the French house I met the other occupants of the house, Patrice's roommates, Joel and Christophe. They fed me steak and home made 'freedom fries' as they put it. They were very nice and hospitable and I was in heaven listening to their French accents.
After lunch the guys headed out and I spent the rest of the day sleeping until 7:30PM, when I had to get up to get ready to go dancing at 8:30. I arrived at Bilibal, the local dance studio, uncharactersitically on time only to discover that I had, once again, done the math for the 24 hour clock wrong and was 2 hours early. Still tired, I returned home to the French house to find Patrice with 3 more American girls in the living room. Patrice introduced us all and then ran out the door on another important arrand. This is the last I saw of my host. The girls sat and chatted on the couch/my bed, so I traded it for the temprory use of their bed to take a nap for 45 minutes until it was time to go again.
This time, I woke up late and dashed to the metro to catch the 2 trains to get to the studio. I was kicking myself for being late until I got there and saw that no one was on the floor yet. Like everything else, Lindy dances also start late in Spain. It was pretty slim pickings so I asked someone where all the dancers were and found out that there was a better dance going on in Sitges that night which had taken most of the dancers. Soon Ellen arrived and we comiserated over our fate and danced a little until it was time to catch the 1AM night bus. On the way out I talked to the owner of the studio about getting a job there and we agreed to discuss it at next week's dance. I am going to email him now though to get the ball rolling. On the way home Ellen invited me to an outing to el Parque de Labarinto, a beautiful green park of fountains and statues with a maze in the center.
Then next morning, I said goobye to my friendly French hosts and lugged my luggage to Paca's apartment, which was conviently located only a few blocks away. After a quick tour and another key bequithment, I headed out to meet Ellen at the park.
I met her and her two friends, a German and a Carribian and explored the park for a few hours taking loads of photos as usual. Then went home and napped until it was time to get up to get ready to go to the dance in Sitges.
Ellen, who had also had been promised a ride, arrived at 9 and we spent an anxious half hour teetering on the edge of not being able to go due to lack of car space. There was a lot of phone calls back and forth between the dancers and finally just when Ellen and I had given up and were saying thank you for trying, a car became available and we were off to Sitges. We got there at midnight, only and hour late, and spent the next 3 hours dancing or complaining that there weren't enough leads. Oddly enough I found another Lindy Hopper from Seattle who was a Western Student there. This really made me feel less exotic. But she was just up for the weekend from Cadiz so soon my exotic sole Seattlite status will be returned to me.
After a long night of dancing and mingling, we got home at about 4:30 had a quick snack went to bed.
This morning I slept in and got up to meet a Brazilian friend I had made at the HP party at 1PM to go for a walk in the Parque Olimpico. The beautiful day was hightend by the magnificient views of the sprawling city and the surrounging hills and seaside. We had a nice walk and a good conversation, then I went home to eat lunch, shower and work on my future plans, which is what you find me doing now. Tonight is another dance in Sitges and tomorrow I move to Jordi's and perhaps meet up Barbara another person I met though CouchSurfing.
Good to hear you had a good Halloween. Maggies coustume sounds hilarious. That is so her! Hope this message finds you well and to hear from you soon.
Love always,
Sandra
