Hanging Out in the 'Hood... Festa Major de Gracia 2012

Just about every night for the last 10 days, the kids and I have been taking an evening stroll around our neighborhood, Gracia.  You see every year, there is the Festa Major de Gracia, the biggest festival in our neighborhood.  This is a tradition that dates back around 200 years.  Streets are decorated in different themes, a project that runs the entire year and is painstakingly put together in the days leading up to the start of the Festa.  There are also tons of squares where bands ranging from folk to pop and all in between entertain people day in and day out.  And let's not forget the traditional entertainment made up of castellers (human towers), batucada (percussion parades) and gigantes.

The first year we lived here, the kids and I missed the entire Festa.  We actually didn't even know about it til Josh started sending us pictures of it.  We were in the States and Josh was here in Barcelona.  So last year, we knew it was happening but we were out of town up til the last day.  Which meant at least we got to see some of the streets decorated but after a week of wear and tear they definitely were not at their peak display and were looking a bit on the ragged side, but at least we got an idea of how elaborate the decorations had been.

This year, with Josh away, it was actually a nice excuse to get out every night and take a walk through Gracia to see how the decorations were coming along.  Each night we'd compare with the previous to see how much had changed from the day before.  And we would wonder, will they be done in time for the big start??  It's a wonderful thing to see a city neighborhood coming together to create something so elaborate to represent their street.  You would see both young and old sitting outside at tables on blocked off streets cutting out decorations, gluing pieces together and chatting away with friends and family alike.

You can see the Millenium Falcon being worked on in the distance

Construction of the Wild Wild West

Took a while to figure out what the picture on the right is, but I think based on the finished product that it is part of red rock canyon perhaps???

Medusas aka jellyfish... they are lit up at night

Liam got a Gracia shirt - they change the logo each year so it will be cool to wear it again next year and I say, yeah, I was there in 2012 ;)

Under the sea construction

Star Wars construction... see the changes in the Millenium Falcon?  They've added paint...

The Circus!!  Paper Maiche elephant under construction...

More Wild West construction

This is our square near our house - it's video games of the 70s/80s.  Not the best square but the kids liked it for the video game theme alone!

Death Star under construction

We attended the opening ceremonies, or at least a portion of it.  We were there with 6 kids and they didn't really have the patience to sit around and wait for everything to start and so we walked around to see if any of the streets were complete.  On opening night streets were still in the hustle and bustle of getting the last minute details completed.  Which leads me to believe that opening night is not actually opening night for the streets (many of them were completely blocked from pedestrians so that they could finish their work without interruption) but the following morning instead.  My guess is the official start was around 8AM on Wednesday morning which is when I heard several rounds of fireworks going off as I tried in vain to sleep in.  

The kids and their friends...at the opening ceremonies, for about 5 mins.

Wednesday was also a holiday so the perfect day to kick things off.  For the most part, people head out of town in August and a good chunk of shops are closed for the month - it gets pretty desolate here.  But then it's also tourist season.  And I think every tourist in Barcelona was in Gracia the opening day.  You could tell the tourists from the locals.  Locals here tend to go at a slower pace, there is no rush - you'll get to see everything, so why run people down?  The tourists on the other hand are pushy like they are in any country - needing to see everything and see it now!!!


The streets were beyond packed with people on opening day.  It felt like walking through the streets of New York and not a quiet little neighborhood like Gracia.  And if I thought the daytime was bad, the night was 1000x worse!!  I had debated not going out with the kids on that first night but I knew they were so excited about seeing everything - so we went sans scooters and Jake (and thank god we left him home, he never could have handled the crowds, he would have been stepped all over!).  And so off we went!!

From the Wild, Wild West to the Arctic North to jellyfish to video games and of course, to our favorite, Star Wars... it was an diverse and eclectic mix.

Giant Super Mario!!

Ice cream headache!!!

X-Wing Fighter - it's actually in a pool of water 

(it doesn't look like water in the pic but I assure you, it is).

Obi-Wan is actually hanging above the street... the Cantina band... 

Liam and R2-D2 and on the right is the Millenium Falcon hanging above the street - Awesome!!

Battleship

Nooses from the Wild West... I don't think that would actually fly very well in the US... ahhh Spain you are so not PC...

Our square again 

Up close with Mario

You can see the jellyfish lit up from blocks away...

Getting closer!

More Star Wars... lit up this time!

Darth Vader...and Liam... 

Tie fighter... also all lit up

You can't see the Death Star well in this picture but you can see the laser on it lit up ready to fire!

Storm troopers lined the way...

More Millenium Falcon

The kids with a storm trooper and Jabba

Aidan says, "hey mom, isn't this the thing that eats people from under the desert"?  He's making a face like he's about to be eaten...

Bobba Fett

Boys doing a balancing act with their new friend, Eitan

North Pole

More North Pole

And some more...

Jellyfish lit up and up close!

Along the under the sea street were also paintings that people on the street had done that were representative of their theme.  Absolutely beautiful!!

No toca!!!!

More paintings

Under the sea

Under the sea

Flowers made from recycled goods (I should mention that technically everything is supposed to come from recycled materials) 

More flowers 

The moon

This is the "night" side

And then the day side

With the "sun"

Liam under the sun and next to a giant rubiks cube!

Huge gramophone 

Close up 

Rubiks street

There was a solid Rubiks cube and then this more translucent one

We LOVE Star Wars!! (despite Liam's forced smile)

Yoda!

Sagrada Familia... in miniature

 

All these dresses were made from recycled materials - the one on the right was made from squished nespresso cups

Dress made of candy wrappers

Dress made of, yup, you guessed it, toilet paper

More Star Wars (are you sick of it yet?)

How cool is this mom????

Getting in between Han and the bounty hunter...

These are made of paper maiche, pretty awesome isn't it??

Jawa, complete with lit up eyes 

Liam is keeping an eye on things...

The circus!

Trapeze artists and acrobats

It's hard to see but there were full size paper maiche lions in the cage 

along with a trainer outside the cage

While out and about during the week we also came across a store called Budda Bag - it's like a bean bag type store.  Full of bean bag chairs (only I think these are foam, not little beads).  The kids went beyond crazy for them and in the end, we made a purchase for Aidan that I picked up on Friday while they had a babysitter watching them.  He's rarely been seen away from it since!!

The one Aidan got was actually a bit smaller than this one... this one is just too big for his room (and too expensive!!)...

Imagine Liam as a teenager... not that much of a stretch...

As the week has progressed, we've met up with friends both old and new to walk around the streets and take in the sights.  We saw castellers one night, listened to batucada another.  And meandered around.  The sad thing is seeing the streets slowly deteriorating.  As we worked our way around last night, just 5 days into the weeklong festival, I was shocked and amazed at the destruction.  As our friend pointed out, Saturday night had just been the night before - so lots of drunk people out not thinking or caring about their actions and the repercussions of them and all the hard work that had gone into putting together these streets.  It's a shame to see because we saw how much work goes into them and that was just the work we saw over the week leading up to the festival, not the year of prep that we didn't witness!

The last day of the festival is Tuesday, tomorrow, and then Gracia goes back to it's normal, laidback self.  By Wednesday morning there will be no trace of any streets having been decorated.  Then it's off to prep for next year.... I wonder what the themes will be??

Besos,
Julie

The "Keys" to Success

Life is only as complicated as we make it.  Sure there are speedbumps along the way, but I like to believe that we are not given more than we can handle.  Life here has been filled with challenges.  Challenges to the point that I question if my life will be boring when I move back home and can just walk into a store and get what I need or to go to the doctor and explain in English exactly what my problem is and not just hope for the best result but actually understand what they say to me.  Every day life here presents me with a challenge - sure they've changed in their difficulty since we first moved here - it's no longer about where to buy a muffin pan or scotch tape (the hardware store and the stationary section of El Corte Ingles) but about other life things - like hopefully get a drivers license and then OMG a car....

But that doesn't mean I still don't have simple challenges that I'm faced with all the time.  That muffin pan took me weeks to find and now I know where to go.  It really comes down to that sometimes, just knowing where to go.  It's not like I live in a third world country here.  There are plenty of amenities if you know where to look.  It's just a matter of persistance and often times, trial and error.

You would think after 2 1/2 years that life would appear to be normal at this point.  And yes, it is... for the most part.  But that doesn't mean that there aren't times that no matter how hard you try to get something done, it's still way harder than it would be at home.  Case in point and the reason for this blog entry?  It just took me 2 months to get my house key copied.

What????  Yes, you read it correctly, 2 MONTHS to find somewhere that could copy my key.  Now I should note that my landlord did ask us at our closing if 4 keys was enough and since I was still living in slight fear of her ability to take the house away from us, I told her it was fine (knowing full well I would go out and get more made).  So I probably could have eliminated this problem had I just said, well, do you mind making 2-3 more for us???

I can't help but find this journey amusing.  Seriously, 2 months to get my keys copied??  How can you not find humor is this?  And this, my friends, is just the story of my life here.  Nothing that should be easy, ever is.

I started off simple enough, there is a hardware store less than a block from our new apartment.  I went in, took a ticket, waited in line for my turn and then asked for copies of my keys.  He took one look at my key and told me "muy dificil"... great.  That's awesome.  I asked him where I should go.  He told me to go to the corner of Mallorca and Roger de Lluria.  A metro stop and several blocks of walking away.  He didn't know the name of the locksmith, but said they could help me.

So I went in search of the unnamed locksmith.  I looked on every corner of that intersection and walked a block in each direction just in case I missed it.  No luck.  I have no idea what he was talking about but said locksmith was not there.  Fail.

Then one day as I was walking through Gracia (our neighborhood), I noticed a locksmith who was closed for siesta.  I made note of his address and that night after Josh came home, I went back hoping I'd find someone who could help me.  The gate was raised which meant he was open BUT (always a but isn't there?), the door was a solid white with no windows, was locked and didn't have a doorbell.  Hmm... good locksmith, no one can get in!!!  There were a lot of words painted on the door of which I had to google translate several as I stood there on the sidewalk.  I knocked on the door...no answer.  There was a sign above the store that said in an emergency to call the phone number listed.  So was not being able to get my key made an emergency or the fact that I was standing outside his store and couldn't get in?  I decided that my Spanish just wasn't up to par that day to try to make the phone call and so I called it a day and headed back home, once again sin llaves.  Fail.

I wasn't ready to give up yet though.  There is a store in Barcelona called Servei Estacio.  It's kind of like True Value meets Home Depot - 6 narrow floors of home improvement stuff.  One of those floors has a key copy area.  So once again I try my luck.  And my luck apparently is crap because he also told me that my key is muy dificil and to try somewhere on C/ Balmes which he said was closed for siesta.
Fail.

But don't worry, this story will eventually have a happy, albeit long, ending.  About two weeks ago, Liam and I went to go to the American store.  Though we live very close to our old apartment, we live a little higher up and therefore slightly closer to the store so we decided to take a new, different route.  And I'm so glad we did.  Well first we came across the Pole Dance Factory...hmmmm... interesting and added on some amusement to our lengthy walk.  Pole dancing classes anyone????  Then as we were walking down Guillem Tell, I saw it.  The locksmitht hat otherwise would not have stood out, but had the name of our key, Sidese, right on the sign.  Finally!!!  Success!!!!  Ok, not so much because it's Saturday so of course it's closed.  But with no note on the door proclaiming they were on holiday anytime soon, I made note of the address with the intent to go back that Monday with the kids to get our keys made.

And yes, on Monday she was there and for 20 euros each, she made me some new keys.  Patience and perseverance finally paid off!!  So yes, life is still a challenge here on a sometimes daily basis.  But how boring would it be if I could just run to Home Depot and be home in 5 minutes with new keys?  Ok, I take that back...that would be very nice, but it wouldn't be challenging!!!

Besos,
Julie

Serenity in the City

Last night as I was writing my entry about "Rough Seas Ahead", I was sitting outside on my balcony.  The balcony really hasn't been used since up til last week, I didn't have any furniture on it.  We have a great rooftop terrace that we are in the process of decking out and so our bedroom balcony wasn't a huge priority.

But I wish we'd made it one before.  You see in our old apartment, we were completely on top of each other, none of us with our own personal space.  In this new apartment we've been lucky to be able to spread out a little bit.  But I hadn't really thought of this tiny little balcony as much of a personal space before.

A few weeks ago, I was at Bauhaus (our answer to Home Depot) with a friend and I noticed this chair on sale that I was going to buy for the balcony.  My friend had one just like it and since she was moving said that I could take hers.  Sold!!  Aidan and I picked up the chair amongst a few other things last week and it's just been sitting there.  I haven't had any mornings to just sit out which is how I had anticipated using it - I figured it would wait til the fall when the kids would be back in school and I'd have some more time on my hands.

Yesterday, as you know, was a bit of a rough day.  So when I put the kids to bed around 8:30, I decided to head upstairs with my laptop and sit out on the balcony and just chill.  It was a beautiful night with a light breeze.  I threw on my playlist in my itunes and just started writing my blog.  As I typed, I couldn't help but notice just how serene our back "yard" is at night.  Yes, we live in the middle of the city, but our street is pretty quiet overall and the courtyard area (none of it shared, all private per building but overlooking each other) was completely silent.  By 10PM there was not a light on in any buildings surrounding the courtyard.  It was me, the laptop, my music and the stars.  Not a sound to be heard beyond my typing and some mellow music.

My hope was to type and to watch the Perseid meteor shower, but alas Mother Nature had other plans and around 11:15 it started to sprinkle out.  Regardless, I ended up with just about 3 hours of complete peace and quiet.  Such tranquility that for a few minutes I forgot that I was in Spain and could have easily have been on my back deck in Attleboro (ok missing the sound of the peepers and crickets but you have the idea, it didn't feel like the city).  It calmed me being out there.  It relaxed me.  It made me feel like everything is going to be ok.

And with Josh in the States until next Monday, guess where you'll be able to find me for the 7 nights??

My new favorite spot in my house... 

Our "courtyard" of buildings around us...

Besos,

Julie

Rough Seas Ahead

You are probably sick of hearing about many of our friends leaving but this blog is about our experiences and how they impact our lives here and this right now is a huge part of our lives here.   But I feel like this moment, in August, when essentially everyone escapes town for the month, this is the precursor for what my life is going to be like come fall.  Quiet.  Eerily quiet.  And it's starting to freak me out.  It's lonely.  I'm a social creature and having just 2 friends in town at the moment is indicative of  what the future holds for me - or at least the future that I'm seeing at the moment.  

Life meant to have ups and downs. Otherwise it would be boring. But what gets me is when all the downs happen at once. It's where I feel right now and it makes me want to just run away (something I actually suggested to Josh in between his 2 flights home today - hmmm perhaps should have bit my tongue on that one). People leaving, trying to figure out my place here, kids have been home the last few weeks (with 2 more to go before family vaca) with no activities or friends around and some stuff going on at home, trying to refocus on work, and so on and so on... you get the picture.  I'm overwhelmed.     

With a major chunk of my social and support network leaving, I have actually been questioning what went thru my head when I agreed to stay 3 more years. I know I will survive it but will I love it the same?  Or will it have lost some of it's charm because those that were here in the beginning with me are now going to be gone?  Yes, I have new friends, and while I adore each and every one of them, they haven't been with me from the start of this adventure.  To top things off, the other night Josh made an off handed joke about selling our house in the US, localizing here and setting up a residence more permanently here.  So while I know this was said in jest, Josh always chooses the most inopportune times to bring up things like staying longer especially because I know that there is a kernel of hope in his words. The first time he did this was after we'd lived here for just 6 weeks and I was still crying every day. I cried that night at dinner too.  And no, I didn't cry when he said it the other night, but I will admit to telling him to bite his tongue, that I can't possibly think that far into the future when my landscape is constantly evolving here right now.

So why is it rough seas ahead?  Because like when we moved here, I have no way to predict what my immediate future looks like.  And that scares me!  Yes, I suppose that's a bit of American style planning on my behalf, and maybe just maybe I need to think a little more Spanish-like about the future and let it happen a day at a time... but that's not me.  And as I sit here, I envision my fall looking like this... get up at 6:30, get kids ready for school, drop off at bus, go to gym, come home and work, get kids off bus at 4:40.  Essentially holing up in my house leaving only for the gym, food shopping and to drop off/pick up the kids.

Now those that work a 9-5 job might think this is not so bad.  After all, I'm incredibly lucky to have flexibility in my day... and I know that.  And at home, my day was really not all that different than what I described only I had a child home part time for 5 years, once school aged, their day started at 8 and even 9 depending on the school and ended by 3 leaving not a lot of time for myself to sit and stew.  By the time I'd get home from the gym, I'd only have about 3 hrs to do work and run errands before having to pick someone up.  Here I will drop them off at 7:45 and not return to the bus stop til 4:40.  That makes for a long day by myself.

And I think it's not just the amount of "free" time I have because as I said, I can focus on work during this "extra" time.  I think that it's also in part because the routine of my life changed so significantly while living here.  At home I had a few friends that stayed or worked at home, but for the most part, during the school day I didn't see them, and then we'd socialize when the kids got home from school or at the end of the work day.  I shopped a lot at home, which I think was my outlet to prevent loneliness.  Here, the majority of my friends haven't worked in my time living abroad.  Which means a significant change in my social life.  And while that social life has certainly interrupted my work life (which is not necessarily a good thing but not a bad thing either), it has also opened my eyes to a different lifestyle.  A lifestyle that I've tried to balance with home and work, sometimes successfully, other times, not so much.

Am I heading for depression?  Should everyone at home be worried like when we moved here and Josh kept getting emails and calls asking if I was going to make it even through one year, much less two?  No, I can assure you, I'm not depressed nor am I heading that way.  It's just change and I've never been a fan of change and my way of dealing is to avoid it in the best way possible - to find a different focus, which right now, will be work and relative solitude.  At least the bottom line of my business will be happier (as will hopefully, my customers!).  Maybe I'll learn to cook...ok, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves now!!!

Solitude is not necessarily a bad thing.  And before we moved to Barcelona, thinking back, a chunk of my day was in solitude.  That's the tradeoff when you work from home.  But in the last 2 1/2+ years, that has not been my life and so therefore, it's another big change ahead for me.  You would think by now I'd be accustomed to change, wouldn't you?  And the American in me feels the need to obsess about it before it all becomes a total reality.  Maybe it will prep me for what is going to happen in the next few weeks or maybe it won't, but my hope is that it doesn't prevent me from enjoying these last bits of time with those I adore.

However as we all know, there might be rough seas ahead right now, but once we pass through the storm, it will be smooth sailing ahead, I'm sure.  These next few weeks to months will be a test of my ability to cope, to try to go outside my comfort zone, and to not just bounce back but to flourish, embracing what the next 3 years has to offer.

Besos,
Julie

The Great Escape - Scaling Rooftops in Barcelona!

So our new apartment isn't perfect.  And I've got an entry in the hopper about renting here versus at home but just haven't gotten it up, maybe now will be the right time after the story I have to tell you.  We're really lucky to have a rooftop terrace all to ourselves - we just bought new furniture for up there so we can really enjoy the outdoor space.  The downstairs patio is for the kids and the roof is for the adults.  We've got a great outdoor couch, a bbq (still needs to be assembled), a swing (also needs to be assembled), table and chairs and some lounges.  The perfect getaway in the middle of the city.

Some of our new outdoor terrace furniture

But wait, I should backtrack to why the whole renting here versus at home applies.  Here, we are responsible for fixing most anything that goes wrong unless it's structural to the apartment.  We had 30 days (in which we weren't here for about 15 of them) to let the landlord know if there were any issues with the apartment and then it was all our responsibility.  Initially the door to the terrace worked, or worked well enough.  Then one day it didn't open so easily and then not at all.  A friend of mine managed to jimmie it open but then we closed it again.  A week or two later, Josh and I together (how many college educated people does it take to open a door???) managed to pry it open and agreed that until it was fixed, we would not close it all the way, just enough to make it appear to be closed. I should also mention that there is no handle on the outside of the door, so if it closes (hindsight now being 20/20) you should make sure you have a key since the only way in is thru using the keyhole.  Yes, this is a bit of foreshadowing for the evening ahead....

See, no handle on the outside...so how are you supposed to get back in the house????

Because we didn't have a lot of space in our old apartment we didn't do a lot of entertaining, but now that we have this great terrace, we plan to change that.  And last night was our inaugural night for the roof and well, like any inauguration, there were a few bumps along the way.  Everything started off smoothly - it was a bit more effort bringing up bottles of wine and food up several flights of stairs, but all was good.  But then one of us said something to Liam, god knows what, that upset him and he ran to the door to go inside, slamming the door closed.  He's on the inside and we are all on the outside.  And within a moment, you could tell he knew the consequence of what had just happened - and he became hysterical.  And while we didn't become hysterical like Liam, we definitely had an "oh fuck" moment of what in the world are we going to do?  The inside of the door doesn't work so Liam certainly couldn't just open the door for us - after all, it took 2 adults to pry open that door, how is a 5 year old going to do it???

Stuck on the roof???  Good thing we have a few bottles of wine to keep us occupied while we 

wait for rescue!!

The next thought was, who has our house key and can they come over to open the door???  Great thought except my phone was in the house and Josh doesn't have their phone numbers in his phone.  I will be fixing that today.  Ok, so what's the next option???  I see Shawn looking over at the neighbor's roof and then down to our balcony on the next floor down.  It's too far to jump to our balcony.  So what to do???  He scales over the neighbor's roof and then climbs over the 4 foot gap from their roof to my balcony and goes in the house.  Josh, of course, follows suit... and as Josh is climbing over, Cristy whispers to me - "a fall like that you don't recover from".  Gee, thanks for that one!  However, on the flip side, Josh is planning on doing some cliff jumping in Menorca later this month that I was ambivalent about...I'm now feeling a little better about that since he managed this with no incident!

A view from the roof... Shawn and Josh climbed over from the right (the building next to us) to our balcony on the left.  It's a pretty big drop and while it doesn't look far, it's actually a good 4 feet between buildings.

So now Shawn and Josh are inside trying in vain to open this door.  Aidan has now decided that he needs to pee and of course, there is no where for him to go.  Cristy hands him an empty wine bottle to which he says, "what do I do with this?".  Cristy explained...only perhaps she missed one part.  He seemed to think that his penis actually had to go into the bottle, not just aiming for the opening.  Thankfully he didn't try to hard to get it in or the night would have ended with an ER trip and us trying to explain why our 8 year old has a wine bottle stuck on his penis.  Whew, got off easy on that one!!

Aidan ready to go with his wine bottle... and no, he's not actually peeing into it in the second picture...this is after he realized that he couldn't actually put it in the bottle and is just being silly.

Somewhere along the way, there was made mention of, is there any key???  But I think Josh and I were focused on the fact that the key doesn't work on the inside of the door and so we said no.  However, we didn't think about the fact that it might work on the OUTSIDE of the door.  That is til Shawn had been working for a good 20 minutes trying to get this door open.  Cristy and I, of course, took pictures through the window.  We were also plotting on what we would do if they in fact, can't open the door.  Do we call the police?  Nope??  What we would do is exactly what Shawn and Josh did and scale our way down, hand Aidan over the gap (and hope for the best) and let ourselves in the house that way.  Thankfully we didn't have to do that!!!

The boys trying to break us out!!!  Can you tell it's hot at the top of the building????

We did eventually have that ah-ha moment of "hey why don't you pass me the keys thru the window and I'll try it on this lock out here and see what happens?"  And of course, it worked.  After all that stress and damage to the door, all it took was passing the keys out the window.  Figures!!  Regardless, we all found humor in the situation and we laughed...hard!!  

And the keys worked!!!!

When everyone left last night, I was extra careful closing the door, making sure it wasn't closed the entire way.  WRONG!!  Turns out when Shawn and Josh were trying to get us out, they bent the door frame (they also broke the hammer) and so what I thought was partially closed was in fact entirely closed.  At least this time we were in the house safely!!  Of course, the keys were outside which wasn't going to do us a whole lot of good!

The hammer didn't make it through the lock out...

Our lonely keys outside instead of inside....now we've wizened up and one key is inside and 

one key is outside.  

This morning I was all stressed about what to do about the door.  But then while checking my email I saw that Dominic, our handyman, who was supposed to be on vacation, happened to email late last night about some projects we were looking to do on the roof.  I immediately called him this morning and said, not only do I need a quote, but I need you to help me open the door to my terrace!!  And so he came this morning...and of course, he opened the door in less than 2.3 seconds.  Figures right???  Ahhhh Spain :)

To Chris and Elaine who are coming over next week...make sure to wear rooftop scaling footwear just in case...you never know what may happen when you come to dinner at the Marcus' ;)

Besos,
Julie