Journal 27 Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving to me! How did you spend your Thanksgiving John? Well, I was thousands of miles away from home...in a city who's native language I don't speak... I woke up around 7 or so, and kept trying to go back to sleep since I didn't really sleep too well in my bunk. I finally climbed out of bed around 8:30 I think to go take a shower. GREAT... they have the damn Italian style showers... where you have to hold the shower head instead of it being attached to the wall for you. I also had to keep from getting water on my clothes, since they were hanging right next to me while I showered; there was no where for us to put them. They had breakfast here for us, a choice of a couple different cereals and fruits, also juice and toast. I had a small breakfast then mapped out what I wanted to see that day. I walked all around to places I couldn't remember the names of if I had to. I went through part of Las Ramblas, and then down to the pier. I walked around the docks and looked at the boats. They have a whole shopping area on one of the docks, I walked through there. I passed the IMAX theatre, so I stopped to see what movie they had. Oh my god was this stuff old. They're showing Alien Adventure... we had that at Great America in 2001, and even then it was left over from the year before, and it was still a few years old at that point. They're also showing Ghosts of the Abyss, Pulse: A Stomp Odessy, and The Human Body; all VERY old movies. Though they do have The Polar Express. I continued around town, basically just going to everything I saw on the map that looked cool. I walked all the way to Vila Olympica, the Olympic Village. It was cool and sad all at the same time. From far away it still looks really amazing, the building still look nice and you think "Wow, this is pretty cool. The Champions all lived here... off of Calle de Champions", haha. But when you walk through there in graffiti on most of the walls, and stuff is falling apart. I walked through the strip where they must have had at least 100 flagpoles for all the different nation's flags. That was almost sad to see too. After that I slowly made my way back toward my hostel. I was gettin a little hungry. I stopped off about a block down the road at a small cafe/bar. They spoke English, which helped. I had a ham and cheese sandwich as my Thanksgiving meal. As I'm typing this, at 11pm Spanish time, it's 2pm back home... which means everyone is having turkey right now. After lunch I went back to the hostel where I was able to check email again and relax a moment before heading across town to meet Paquita. I walked for about 40 minutes or so to get to 66 Londres, and then figure out how I was going to introduce myself. Well, I arrived early, so I walked around to find a supermarket where I could buy a soda since I was really thirsty. I sat and drank my soda and watched the cars and people go by. I then headed back to Calle de Londres and realized I couldn't find the right number. It took about 10 minutes before I could figure out the building. I pressed the button to call up to her and waited. "Hola?" came the response. "Hola. Me llamo John Remus..." "Que?" "eh... My llamo John Remus. Mi abuela es Dolores Torik..." I replied. Shit, that's about the extent of my conversational Spanish I thought. "ah.. John Remus, si, si." I could hear Paquita talking to here grand daughter who was telling her what to say in English. They buzzed me in and I made my way up the stairs. I said hello and answered the first few questions best I could. Paquita was shocked at my height, as I towered over both her and her granddaughter. We sat and talked, I gave her the cookies that I brought for them, and I really wished I hadn't forgotten all my Spanish. Both her granddaughter and I sat with our Spanish/English dictionaries and talked. Paquita asked if I spoke any Spanish, or possibly Italian, and was dissapointed that I didn't. "She has a lot to say" Nireia said. "She's used to always talking". "Yeah, my grandmother is chatty too, I think it's a family thing" I said. They were surprised when I was able to understand a couple words of Spanish, and also use a few words of my own when Nireia didn't understand what I was saying. "Si...hablas espanol!" was Paquita's response. "Haha, ah... no... hablo espanol muy muy poco.." "Pequino" Nireia said. "Si, pequeno. Uh... Mi estudi....espanol... en mi collegio... tres o cuatro anos... a.....<points backwards>". "atras" "Si! Atras!" "Cuantos anos?" said Paquita. "haha....cinco anos..." "CINCO ANOS!" "Si....cinco anos... but I've forgotten." We went on like this for quite a while, between dictionaries and hand signals we got by just fine. Nireia and I made plans to go to Las Ramblas and look around. We decided to take her moto, or, her scooter. You know, I think riding on the back of a scooter in Barcelona is about a thousand times scarier than riding my motorcyle in rush hour back in California. Holy shit I was freaking out, the scooter just felt so tiny and... yeah... tiny. We went to Las Ramblas and walked around the market there. I had a Kiwi smoothie thing, it was damn good. We walked up and down the street. Unfortunately Nireia struggled more with her English rather then me work on my Spanish. After Las Ramblas we got back on the scooter and went to the Ghoudi Cathedral... there's a different name for it, but yeah. Unfortunately, like everywhere in Europe, there is scaffolding covering everything since they're working on cleaning it. We went inside where we got to look around. I talked to a few people in there, one from Iowa and the other from Canada. They're now living in Italy with their kids though. After that we got back on the scooter....ugh....and Nireia took me back toward my hostel. She had to drop me off a few blocks away since a few roads were closed for some reason. I made lunch plans with her for tomorrow, with Paquita, and then set on my way. I walked back to Gothic Point, check my email, and considered going to bed. I walked around outside a bit, and then came back. I talked with an older man name Jim here in our dorm rooom. He's from Liverpool and here trying to buy a camper van to travel around this winter and escape the English cold. He's actually got a cold, ironically, and is "killing it with beer" he says. I've since met a few other people in the dorm as I've been sitting here typing these journals out. But, it's about midnight, so it's about time to crash. |