una americana en barcelona

Our hotel has free internet so here I am in Madrid, on the Calle de Chinchillas (I kid you not). Things are crazy here--not in an obvious way; the only concrete signs of the events of the last week are the numerous black ribbons or drawings thereof, pinned to Spanish flags (in Barcelona it was Catalan flags, I'm guessing because very few Barceloneses own Spanish flags) or, in one case, a Communist flag, in store windows, and on billboards. And the occasional graffiti--"Gracias a Aznar, fue Al Qaeda" or "Aznar Culpable", blaming the former government and it's pro-US stance in Iraq for motivating the attack. The BBC today said "Al-Qaeda appeared to have succeeded in changing the government of one European country through terror," and I guess that's one way of looking at it. Before the attacks it was almost certain that the Partido Popular (Aznar's party) was going to stay in power, and the new PM has announced that he's going to withdraw troops from Iraq unless the whole business is handed over to the UN. Is that a victory for terrorism or smart foreign policy? No se.

Anyway (de cualquier manera--sorry, trying to cram in as much Spanish as possible while I still have the excuse), enough waxing political. Madrid seems to be a really cool city. It's newer than Barcelona (although in this case "new" means 10th centure vs. 1st) and you can tell; even the older city center is more spacious, cleaner, and better organized. Also it seems less touristy, which is surprising since it's three times as big. Maybe because it's not a port city. But at any rate, there seems to be a tad less English (and not a Catalan word in sight). The weather has been a perfect 19 deg. C and sunny, as opposed to the cloudy Barcelona we left, and that of course always helps.

God. Loud French people in the lobby.

So today we went to the Reina Sofia museum and saw Picasso's Guernica, which I had really been dying to lay eyes on in person since we talked about the Spanish Civil War in class. He was commissioned to paint it for a world's exhibition after the bombing of Guernica, a little Basque town, by German planes allied with Franco. It's really powerful--totally different seeing the real thing than a replica because it's so big; takes up almost a whole wall. Especially moving in light of the last few days.

Okay, seeing as how I've stopped speaking in complete sentences and that the party in the lobby has moved, maybe it's time to head to bed. Buenas noches!

Well, you've all heard the news--Barcelona was pretty chaotic yesterday; ten minutes of silence at noon that had the entire city out on the sidewalks and then "Manifestaciones" at 7, packing the streets again and making it nigh to impossible for my family and I to meet up since they're staying in a hotel northwest of the city. All I could think as I braved the crowded subways and squeezed through the masses on the sidewalks was "The terrorists have already won..." It's an interesting phenomenon, this protest against terror. It's true that this show of solidarity felt like the right thing to be doing (of course, it wasn't all one big happy family out there--according to Karan, there were people walking around with signs blaming Bush, Blair, and Aznar--the current Prime Minister of Spain--for the act) but it definitely seems like a "we have to do this because we can't do anything else" kind of thing as well. I mean, there's no one to try to convince by a show of mass opinion; I doubt the terrorists thought that the public would support a random bombing of innocent subway riders, whatever the cause. Anyway, we're all a little shaken, especially those of us who are going to Madrid this week over break, including me and my family, but I don't think anyone's cancelled their trip.

On a brighter note, I'm done with the quarter! (Sorry to those of you Chicago-ites who are reading this in the midst of finals week.) Mom, Dad, Granella, and Elizabeth, who now has purplish hair to match my new "Euro Bitch"--as Eric put it--hairdo. This is what happens when you go into a Barcelona salon (a) not knowing exactly what you want and (b) not knowing how to say "something that will frame my face nicely and not scare away dogs and small children" in Spanish. Just kidding, it's really pretty chic and although I was shocked by the considerable decrease in the amount of hair I have, it's growing on me. So to speak. So, tomorrow off to Madrid and Valencia, Thursday back in BCN, Saturday to Greece and then next Thursday back to good ol' PA!

Adios guapos,
Lindsay

P.S. Anyone want to pick me up from O'Hare on Sunday?

So I have kind of managed to make Spanish friends, despite all attempts by the university to thwart me (I guess that's not entirely fair--if they had placed me with a family my "friends" may have ended up being a deaf anciana and a small scruffy Catalonian dog). Anyway, I've been meeting with Carol, this girl I met at Cafe Cafe, daily and we switch off between Spanish and English, (and let me tell you from the perspective of someone trying to teach English, thank your lucky stars you grew up speaking it, because it's pretty messed up). So last night I went with her to her friends' apartment (or "flat" as they've all learned British English) since they needed another person to play El Senor de los Anillos Risk. Not much Risk playing was actually accomplished (although I think our forces of "malo" were definitely winning) but we drank a lot of wine--there are stores here where you can just go get 1-liter plastic bottles filled up out of these big barrels--and then walked up to this "castle" behind their apt. afterwards. Barcelona sits in this kind of semi-circular flattish area on the coast surrounded by mountains, so the outskirts of the city--most of the lower-rent apartments--sit up on the hills and tend to have really great views. The castle wasn't actually a castle; it was a tower built at the end of the 19th century, supposedly by some rich guy whose daughter was asthmatic and thus was told by her doctor not to live down in the polluted city. "But the rich man died when the tower was completed and no one knows what happened to the daughter," so the legend goes according to Carol's friend Oriol, and occasionally her ghost is seen (possibly getting some dope from the drug addicts that apparently use the tower sometimes; the poorest neighboorhood in the city is right on the other side of the hill). Anyway, they were all "super-
guay" (this is not actually a Spanish expresssion but boy is it fun to say), and although I generally couldn't understand what they were saying when they were talking to each other, I could pick up words here and there and they would slow down when they talked to me. Also, everyone spoke at least a little English which they just loved trying out--for instance, "here you go" when handing me the dice, which when you think about it is a really strange expression. Lo pasamos muy bien!