From KK: Money, Money, Money, Ain't it funny.

The Van Wies (and Roses and Haglers)

OK, I've been waiting for Doug to write a blog, but he is slow as Christmas comes, so I'll just have to fill in.

We have been taking a break from the deathly lentils, just so everyone quits worrying that we aren't eating enough. Doug may be skinny, but I can disprove all of that. Being broke has become like a game. We try to see how little we can survive on. Yeah, OK, it doesn't sound like the most fun game, but we're trying. Our goal is to live off 50 euros a week, which sounds insane, but we are doing it and still have enough for a 40 oz. San Miguel at the end of the week. It's also convenient that's it's trendy to be poor and stress about the crisis all the time, so we fit right in.

As for teaching, things are going well. I have about 10 classes now. With my kids, we are doing a story board. I drew a map of a castle, a lake, a forest, mountains, and a palace at the end. They are each creating their own stories about why their hero (all of them named Jordi, after the patron saint of Barcelona. Good little Catalans.) is going to the Palace of Diamonds. You have to say it like the PALACE of DIIIIAMONDS and throw in a hand gesture or two so that it sounds really cool and mysterious. The stories are fun, so I'll have to post them once we are finished.

The Irenes and I were practicing beach vocabulary the other day. When I speak, I really try to enunciate and drop my accent, but obviously I was not as successful as I had hoped. One of the Irenes repeated after me, "saaayund caaastle" in a Southern accent thick enough to spread on toast. Maybe I should keep it up, come to think of it. Nothing better than a Southern accent.

I have also decided to abandon all lesson planning and just watch High School Musical 1, 2 and 3 if I want to be successful with these kids. I need to think Troy is the cutest to fit in and that I want to be like Gabriela. I also should own some High School Musical trading cards (what happened to baseball cards? geez) and a backpack. Then maybe I'll fit in.

My newest lesson is with a 50-ish year old attorney. She is also in an 8 year program studying to be a psychologist and desperately needs a vacation. She's really cool and I like her a lot, but when I asked what her hobbies were she replied, "ahh working." "Yeah, but what do you do when you aren't working?" "Well, I read about work or I study." Boo. Not me. But I really enjoy our classes.

It's hard to go from teaching the kids things like bird or flowers or War Eagle and then to her who, this week, needed help understanding In Vitro. Needless to say, it's shifting gears slightly. I have been trying to talk Doug into teaching some lessons for extra money, but when I told him about the In Vitro converstation, he decided the game of living off 50 euros a week isn't so bad.

Tama and Paul, Doug's parents, and Greg and Caroline, his brother and brother's girlfriend, were here for a few days and left last Tuesday. We had great fun with them, just wished it could have been for longer. With all six of us in this apartment, it was a little snug, but we managed quite nicely, aside from a broken bed and half-flat air matress. Some might say it was half full, but I'm going to guess Greg and Caroline weren't that optimistic about it.

Paul was a much better swim fan than the rest of us as he woke up to go to practice with Doug, while we all grumbled excuses to sleep in late. We did the regular touristy stuff and I had to run off and teach classes in the middle of the tours, but it didn't take up too much time. We did all the museums, like Picasso, Miro, Catalan Art Museum, etc., AND got to go to Figueres.

I just opened our guide book to make sure I spelled Figueres right and found chocolate smushed into the pages. Usually any clue of chocolate would leave Doug as the obvious culprit, but between Greg, Doug and Paul, there's no telling.

Anyway, so Figueres is about two hours outside of Barcelona and is where the Dali museum is. As Dali is my favorite artist, it was extra fun for me. He designed the whole museum, so it's just like a big Surrealist fantasy land. Some of the pieces are even coined-operated. For instance, there is a car that you put a coin in and it plays music and rains inside the car. Why? We don't know either, but it sure is fun.

The Mae West Room has a sofa shaped like lips, the fireplace makes the nostrils, the painting is her eyes and the drapes are her hair. I loved it. We didn't have much time in the museum, but it's definitely one you could spend hours wandering around in. And yes, there were some drippy clocks too.

For Doug and me, we often talk about the seemingly crazies of art, like Dali and Picasso, and how sometimes when you see some 'caddyywampus' things you think, I could do that and I have no artistic talent whatsoever. But what's amazing is to see their progress from incredible Realism pieces they did during their studies to their seemingly childlike things and you are able to see their incredible talent.

We had a really fun visit with them and even got some home cookin' from Tama. We had mac-n-cheese and okra and tomatoes. It was a really nice taste of home.

Before the Van Wie's came, Dave Cromwell, who is training in Madrid, came up for a swim meet and stayed with us. It was fun to have him here. We went out for tapas one night and something that had a hummus-y consistency looked good to us. When we ordered it they told us it was tripa, which clearly translates to tripe, but they wanted it, so we went with it. If you don't know what it is, google it, because I don't want to explain it or think about it ever again. This was the worst mistake of the new Millenium. I do not say that jokingly. I like to think I can handle most things and wouldn't think I would ever spit something out in a napkin, until this moment. Dave's eyes were watering until he finally spit his out too.

We looked at Doug for a similar reaction, with none to be found. He just kept saying "mmm" and scooping more up. We kept looking at each other, then at him. And Doug, in perfect Doug style, just said "Whatever. More for me. I don't like it, but it's food." Then I broke up with him. The end.

Dave and Doug-pre-tripe- up on Montjuic

Kelley came to stay with us last weekend. We spent all Saturday walking around the city shopping. Kelley had been to St. George's Church before up on Mount Tibidabo, and heard they were having Saturday night services during Lent. We went, got lost, found it, and walked in on the preacher and his wife in a prayer session. Just the preacher and his wife. It was kind of embarrassing to interrupt them, but they invited us in and we had a nice little prayer session. We will go back when we aren't the only people there....but we were really glad we went.

Tibidabo is the mountain with the castle-like cathedral I put a picture of up last blog. Tibidabo comes from the Latin for "to thee I shall give," which are the words the devil used when he was tempting Christ. As Rick Steves says, it's still as inticing. And it makes for a beautiful backdrop for the church.

Kaki and her boyfriend, Chris, arrived this morning and are napping off their jet-lag and Doug is, of course, at practice. Tonight we are going out with Kelley and some of her friends salsa-ing. If you know any of the group here, you will know how entertaining this will be to watch. Although I can't speak for Chris. Maybe he has some better moves than Kaki, Doug or I do.