From KK: The Million Member Mark

Today visitors #21 and #22 arrive. Courtney and Ellen. It's been such a revolving door here, I feel like we've reached the Million Member Mark and we should be giving out free pot holders or a coffee thermos to the first 100 guests.



We've had such quick turnover, that as soon as one group is out the door, we strip the beds, wash the towels and get them outside on the line. Everyone has had to deal with some damp towels, but at least they are clean.



Kaki and Chris were here two weeks ago and they got engaged while they were here! I was really excited, but wasn't allowed to say anything for a while, so here it is now. We had a lot of fun celebrating and just having them here. Kaki and I were actually in the hospital nursery together, so it's been since day one. By the way, the salsa dancing night went fantastically. Doug brought out his most impressive moves.



The day after they left, Regina and Richard came for the weekend. I met Gina at a high school leadership conference and we've stayed really close ever since. Yes, you heard me right, I was that kid who went to the D.C. leadership conferences. Gina, encompassing much of the percentage of normal people there, was luckily my roommate as well.



Over the past eight or so years, she's come to Alabama twice, including an Auburn game, complete with Tiger Walk. I've been to Maryland to see her at Johns Hopkins, Ohio for her wedding and New York to visit. It was fun getting to add Barcelona to our rendevouz list.



Once they saw our living situation and heard about all the people staying here, they decided to get a hotel near our house. Their hotel happened to have a big jacuzzi bath tub. Doug told them to be careful or I would come take advantage of it, and he was exactly right. I could have stayed in there for days, but when you actually start to feel soggy and your feet start getting pruny, it's time to call it quits. I have never been so thankful for a bath in my life.



The next afternoon, Megan Jensen and four of her friends came to visit. It was really crowded, even more so for the guys who decided they would all sleep in our teeeeny tiny guest room. They were prepared, though. They brought rafts to sleep on and any other nifty travel gear you could think of. Doug and I didn't get to hang out with them too much becuase, unfortunately, it wasn't our spring break and we still had to get up early and go to "work."



They left yesterday and Doug and I got to go on a date to get Chinese food and go to the movies. Now, I'm going to meet a friend from Auburn for coffee in a few minutes then go get Courtney and Ellen and the train station. They will be here until Friday.



Tuesday we have to move out of our apartment so I'm moving in with Kelley in Llavaneres for a few days. We are off to Malaga for the Spanish Open on Thursday. Sunday we return to Barcelona and catch the train out to Switerland early Monday morning.



To be continued...

From KK: Homeward Bound!

We were looking online for tickets home and "Homeward Bound" came on on our blog playlist. Coincidence? I think not. It could be because I incessantly listen to Simon and Garfunkel, but we'd like to think it was a sign. It's time for us to come home!

Homeward bound,
I wish I was,
Homeward bound,
Home where my
thought's escaping,
Home where my music's playing,
Home where my love
lies waiting
Silently for me.

Every day's an endless stream
Of
cigarettes and magazines.
And each town looks the same to me,
the movies
and the factories
And every stranger's face I see
reminds me that I long
to be,
Homeward bound

We are coming home on April 30, which happens to be the greatest day of the year, my dad's birthday. AND it just so happens I was born on his birthday=my birthday too! Feel free to bring gifts. We get in at 3:15 pm, so there is still plenty of time to celebrate and I get a 31 hour birthday!

We fly into Charlotte then head to the beach for Mother's day with my family. And Hunter will be a mom by then! So, it will be really nice to be there.

We will likely be living at the beach for the summer and maybe Birmingham some too!

Now we are just stressing about coming back to real life from our pretend life here. If you happened to come in our apartment at any point, Doug would be walking in circles talking about all the things he has to do, but never actually doing them. I would be making to-do lists on every napkin, receipt or evelope. The thing about these lists is that I write things I have already completed, just so I can check them off and feel good about myself.

Blog. Check.

New iTunes Playlist. Check.

That's about as far as that goes.

Off to class. Have a happy day! Can't wait to see you all!

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.

From KK: Me Encanta la Barcelona.

After a run in the Parc de la Ciutadella, I sat to stretch and tried to absorb the scene around me. 

The park is full of typical Spanish 20 and 30-somethings. Groups of guys are playing soccer, jugglers and baton twirlers perform, young lovers are kissing on a blanket, ten dogs are running around together provoking each other, a group is swaying to a guy playing bad guitar with a missing string, a couple is taking pictures of each other laying in the grass, the hippies twirling their dreads are smoking pot, and picnickers are eating on the bench. 

All the guys are bearded, all the dogs unleashed, all the girls with leggings, Converse All-Stars and crazy hair-dye jobs. The groups of people slowly riding through on bicing, the city's public bike system, dodging the droves of dogs. You can see Tibidabo on the mountain in the distance.
The Aladdin-looking pants are in style-something we don't understand. 

Doug and I are sitting with our backs together while I write and he reads a Barcelona history book and spits out historical facts every so often. We move quickly to dodge a stay soccer ball just as a group of gypsies lays out their guitar case for donations and start playing some sort of wind flute.

We kept waiting for someone to be shot out of a cannon or jump through a fiery hoop. We finally just look at each other and start laughing because this is such a bizarre scene and somehow so normal here. 

Me encanta la Barcelona.

 

From KK: A Big Week (for everyone else)

So, this weekend was eventful for everyone at home! 

This weekend was the Addy Awards and my oldest sister, Brook, got "Best in Show," along with 15 other awards. She is a graphic designer in Birmingham at Big Communications and they did the "IN" Birmingham campaign. Check it out. She's amazing.

Saturday was Hunter, my middle sister's, baby shower. And they decided on a name for their baby, who is due in March. 

Meet Robert Sims Chapman:

at 27 weeks

We'll call him Sims. I can't WAIT to meet him! There are so many things that are making it hard to stay much longer.

Hunter and Tom at Christmas at my house in Dothan

Also, my oldest friend in the world, Caroline Shaw, got engaged! Caroline was that friend. You know what I mean...that friend. This is the friend whose family was my family and clothes were my clothes. This is the friend I learned how to roller skate with down the driveway of the house in between our houses and built awesome tents with in her basement. This is the friend I played baby dolls with until we were too old to play baby dolls. This is the friend who cried with me the day we realized/her little sister, Julie, told us we were too old to play baby dolls. 
Caroline and I putting on a Christmas Story play. I had to be Joseph.

This is the friend I bought matching clothes with and tried to confused people into thinking we were twins. This is the friend I wanted to be so much like, I tried to copy her handwriting and got caught when I wrote "Caroline" on my own paper instead of my own name. This was the friend I spent Christmas and all other major holidays with, as soon as I could leave my house. This is the friend I got in all the trouble with and always got out of trouble with. This is the friend I cried with when we had to go to different one-week camp session because it was the longest we had ever been apart. At 9 months and one day older than me, she was an inch taller and a foot cooler than me. Well, she got engaged and I couldn't be happier for her.

Well, I just had to write about all the good stuff that is going on back home! I am so happy for my loved-people and all of their big news!

From Doug and KK: A Book Report

Our friend, Steve Segerlin, asked us to list the books we have read since we have been here, so here goes:

Both of us:

-Home to Barcelona: A Foreigner's Story by Richard Manchester

An American recounts moving to Barcelona, being an unqualified English teacher, and the ensuing alcohol fueled adventures.

-Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky 

Historical and cultural account of our neighboring autonomous region of Spain

-Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

Social satire of American life in the 70's that is surprisingly relevant today

-Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Vivid account of his time serving as a volunteer in the Spanish Civil War that helped shape his view on Communism and Stalinism

From our attempts at a nightly Bible study we have finished:

-The Gospels according to Luke and Matthew

-Romans

-Acts

-Proverbs

-Psalms

-Song of Songs

KK:

-Bless Your Heart, Tramp by Celia Rivenbark

A humorous discourse on Southern stereotypes.

-The Pirate's Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson

A daughter coming to terms with her mother and estranged father in Jamaica.

-The Outcast by Sadie Jones

A British family reconnecting after the father returns from WWII.

-Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

A theological work taking major, intricate religious themes and making them understandable and even practical. I wrote an entire blog on this book before, so I'll leave you with that.

-Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

The story of how a wealthy Texan art dealer and a homeless man meet and change each other's lives.

Doug:

-Barcelona by Robert Hughes

Historical account of the city written by an art critic who focuses on factors that led to the rise of Catalan Modernisme.

-Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

Fantastical tale of the coming of a golden age in New York City.

-Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Set in post Spanish Civil War Barcelona, a boy discovers a mysterious book and unlocks deeper secrets as he searches for its origin.

Guide books of which we have sadly read every word:

-Rick Steves' books on the following places

Spain

France, Belgium & The Netherlands

Europe Through the Back Door

-Le Cool Changed My Life: A Weird and Wonderful Guide to Barcelona

-Barcelona Wallpaper Guide

We are looking forward to reading Lonely Planet's Europe on Shoestring and Rick Steves' Best of Europe in preparation for our train trip. 

From KK: Peter Peter No-Longer-A Lentil Eater

We survived the winds and a near death-by-lentil dinner. We heard the news of the wind storms made it home. It was scary, in a Wizard of Oz with the flying monkeys kind of way. We of course haven't had internet since then because it was so rigged that if someone would have sneezed, it would have destroyed the connection. Shutters were ripped off, balconies fell off the buildings, the roof of Doug's pool was ripped off while they were in the middle of practice. Instead of getting everyone out of the pool, they just told them not to swim all the way to end and to flip-turn in the middle of the pool. Not the best of ideas. It really was a pretty scary storm, and strangely sunny the whole time. We were really really lucky too. Ten minutes later they had to cancel practice and the pool is now closed for two months, which really means until 2056.

On that note, we got another 15 días call from the internet people and after about 18 days they said they will come in five or 10 days. We have just written off having internet in our apartment.

As far as the death-by-lentils, Kelley was staying with us last weekend and we were heating up a can of Eroski lentils, of course, and found a bolt in it. And by bolt I mean big silver thing that belongs in a tool box or on heavy machinery. A bolt is just my best guess at a word for it.

The most unappetizing site I've ever seen. Doug still wanted to eat it.

On Monday, I walked into Comprabo, our grocery, and waved a lady working there over to me and showed her my lead-filled lentils. She looked at me for an awkward solid 11 seconds and said, "pues, what do you want me to do about it?" I thought in my mind how in America I would have been given 50 shares of stock and a years worth of free groceries, but ahhhh Spain. She took the can from me, threw it away, and check the next lady in line out. I waited, confused, and finally said, "Well, can I at least get a new can of soup?" So, that was it. Quite anticlimactic.  

Doug and I are enjoying the calm before the storm that is coming and going to some of the free events in Barcelona. It's a good storm though. Starting next weekend, we have someone staying with us practically the rest of February and the entirety of March.

Here is the schedule:
2/13-17:- David Cromwell, a swimmer-friend of Doug's
2/18-24: Doug's dad and Tama, and his brother, Greg, and his girlfriend, Caroline Rose
2/27-3/1: possible trip to Madrid to see friends there
3/5-12: my friend from Dothan, Kaki Wright, and her boyfriend
3/13-16: my friend in NY, Gina, and her husband, Richard
3/17-22: Megan Jensen, a friend from Dothan, and four(?) of her friends
3/23-27: Courtney Brennan, a friend from Dothan, and Ellen Bean
3/31: our lease ends
4/2-5: Doug to Málaga for the Spanish Open
4/6: We depart from Barcelona for our month-long Eurail Global trip
4/7: Switzerland to visit a friend from Dothan, Rachel Hendrix
4/10: Amsterdam to visit another Dothan friend, Damion Heersink
to be continued...

Needless to say, we are going to have to find some more towels and pillows and might have to make Doug sleep in the hallway, BUT we are so excited to have all of these friends coming!

While Doug was in France training, I went to Llavaneres to stay with Kelley and the family for whom she is au pair-ing. It was fun to get my baby fix for a few hours. Ricard is like 18 months old and precious. The day I was there, he discovered his bellybutton. It was hilarious. It makes me excited to get home and play with Kara and Hunter's baby boys!

Kelley and Ricard, post-bellybutton discovering

Last weekend we went to the Cant Vells market in Poble Nou and walked the entire city from there shopping and not buying anything. There was so much stuff at this market, it was overwhelming, and all Doug was interested in was where the kids were getting the churros they were walking around with. There was some weird stuff at the market, which makes it so fun. For example, a Moroccan man gave me-correction, tried to give me- a free pair of underpants.

Encants Vells Mercat

There are some cool things to be found in the markets here because the history is so recent. Their Civil War wasn't until the 1930s and Franco's dictatorship didn't end until his death in 1975, so they are still so far behind the rest of the Western world, which is really interesting. Sorry, I am reading George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and Doug is reading Robert Hughes' Barcelona, so many of our conversations have started to revolve around Spanish history. This means it's time for me to get back reading Emily Giffin books I think.

We also went out to eat with some friends from all over the place. It's fun to have to find a common language at the dinner table. Mireia, our Catalan friend, invited us out to dinner with some of her friends from Texas and Italy and Spain. It was fun to meet new people here.

Well, the joggers are out running on the beach and making me feel like a bum, so I think I'll go join them!

Oh! and I gave Doug another haircut today! haha...oops. I guess it's not so bad...hmm... We will post pictures soon.