The Catalan Diaries: 19/02

Well the weekend was a funny one. Apart from being extremely tired from the week preceding - I slept till 11am on the saturday, straight through - it was nice; I was in some sort of sleep-deprived hangover where everything was kinda dreamlike and being in a fairytale city such as Barcelona, well, it only intensified the feeling... Nevertheless it was nice. I've already recounted Saturday's activities, and in brief the pissup with the language assistants on friday night - not much of a pissup, I only had 2 beers then had to amble home - again in desperate need for sleep. Anyway, I'm all recovered now and that's the main thing. So on Sunday, I missed the castell's, who are similar to the Falcon's except with more grandeur, people and pizazz or so I've been told. Never fear though, because I saw the delightful spectacle of Leeds United verses Manchester City. I knew we were going to loose so I had no expectations... but in the first 5 minutes.. really boys. Plus, it didn't help matters when the referee awarded a dubious penalty on the 15 minute mark. And there it was, I can't remember which overpaid twat hammered it home, but the game was over within 15minutes! Sam Street informed me that the never-ending pain of the Leeds fans was taken light-heartedly; apparently they were chanting "You're nothing special, cos Watford scored 6!" Lol. Say what you will about Leeds fans, racist hooligans yes maybe there are a few, but still, they never fail to let their sense of humour prevail. Well just when I was settling down to get depressed from the scoreline by chugging my Guinness and demanding ten more; I was assaulted by a chap from Aylesbury. Well not physically assaulted, but orally anyway. He was alright to be fair. A chelsea fan, at least that's what he said. But he just started ranting on about the Catalan people being dicks, especially the women. It's funny isn't it, the men who all hate women seem to have one thing in common, they haven't been with many (sometimes any). I asked what he was doing here; he'd been in Barcelona for ten years, Amsterdam the ten immediately preceding, he hated England and all his mates because they'd left and gone back to England where they spent their time getting wasted on Cocaine - a "snuffle" I think was the word he used - getting brain-washed by adverts so they became a "neo-battery plugged into the matrix" - a nice phrase I must admit - and generally being "tossers". He hated the Catalans because they are rude, don't invite strangers to share a pint with them - and if it was this bloke I can see why - and the women don't give him a chance because he's got too much energy for them and they don't have a sense of humour. He's also a former DJ, loves house music but said they're not into it in Spain, another thing he lamented. Well he was funny enough, but his rant did get worse, especially when I went against him and said that all the Catalan people I'd met had been lovely to me. He put this down to me being too young, he was about 40 bless him and went to all these single meet-ups, "gorgeous birds, ain't got nothing going on up there though". Anyway, luckily he left after the first half. The second was just as insufferable even without him though. Poor game from leeds all round, and there you have it - 4-0.

So I forgot about the football, took a stroll. I'm kind of learning how this City is pieced together. I went down a road off Via Laetana and found the beautiful Santa Marie Church, which was open to the public as it was a sunday. Lovely building, I've got some photos of the interior which you'll find at the end of the post. All the stained glass was traditional apart from one section which was like some sort of neo-sci-fi, psychedelic nightmare - well, it wasn't that bad, but it did look like something out of that film, A.I. I have a picture, so draw your own conclusions. After the church I took a stroll down a random alley and found myself coming out at Barceloneta. To my left I saw a park with great statues by the entrance, so I went. I saw a zoo, instantly thought to take case, if she ever comes.... and carried on past, round to the right where the place opened up and there were lovely hedgerows and patches of well-cut grass, even more exotic palm trees lined the avenues. And then it hit me, I was in Ciutadella Park, my favourite park, right near my work, just beyond the Arc de Triomf. I love coming here, its a lovely spot, especially in the sun. I went my first weekend and saw a school of dancers gracefully dancing the afternoon away on one of those raised platform type things with columns - I really have no idea what they're called. Well they were graceful but also care-free as many onlookers stopped to watch and children dived into the dance, which swelled like a great water balloon, with the sun making them dizzy and the music heady in their reverie. I do believe that rhymed!
Anyho, I was happy in the park so I lay about in the dying sun for a little before heading back on the well-travelled route via home - I do this to work each morning. Oh and before I forget I saw these lovely little green parakeet-looking things, which I saw again today. I got some photos, so check it out.

So today at school, the ESO - the secondary school - put on a short 40min play for the Primary school. They scared the little buggers shitless! They were scared out of their wits. The ESO had made these amazing masks in their art classes, and many were Frankenstein, Halloween-type things - think Goosebumps The Haunted Mask - and they had all this terrifying music - the sound of thunder etc, with flashing lights; and then they only came into the audience to scare them! The kids were screaming, terrified, the sound was like death to my ears. I have a video and you can hear their inconsolable screams; luckily the one I have on video was light-hearted and the zombies started body-popping to hip-hop or some such tune. After this, it turned nice and there were appearances from the teletubbies - really great authentic masks - and then the Angry Birds came out to play. All in all a feast of fun, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those kids have nightmares tonight. Infact one little girl was so frightened she had to get escorted out of the theatre room.
Anyways check out the video and see what you think, until next time, Adeu!!