Portrait on the Street
Hey all--
This is only my second morning waking up in Barcelona, but it feels like I´ve already been here a week.
Yesterday, I spent all day walking around, looking at things, trying to find my school that I will start attending on Monday (A school to get my TEFL certificate--Teaching English as a Foreign Language). I found the school, and walked forever to a bookstore to buy my books, a cell phone, find an outlet converter, and buy some bread and fruit, etc.
But things got interesting when I was sitting on a bench in a plaza, resting my feet, listening to my ipod and picking the seeds out of some very sweet, red grapes. A guy sat down next to me and asked to paint my portrait. Well, I know this money making scam, so I said I couldn´t pay anything. He told me (this was all happening in Spanish, mind you) that he was an art student and if I couldn´t pay, that was ok, he would just do it for practice and keep the drawing. So I agreed. We talked while he drew (charcoal portrait) and he was very nice. My spanish is broken, but we understood eachother. Before he left, he said he was going out that night with some of his friends from Ireland and asked if i wanted to go. Well, I don´t know what else I was going to do but continue to wander around alone, so we made plans to meet again at 9pm.
At 9:00, he was right there where he said he´d be. Now, just so you can be in the moment with me, he was wearing the same dirty jean, black t-shirt and backpack as that day, and he has a mullet, as does just about every young woman in this city. (What is with the serious layering of hair and thinning cuts?) We walked around and he showed me various plazas. We ate dinner on the patio at his art school and he was so patient with my spanish. I felt more confident every hour and was understanding more and more of what he said, when he spoke slowly.
We went to a bar called ¨"The Black Sheep" where we were supposed to meet his friends. Only one of them was there, and he was a riot, this guy. He kept trying to spout things off in English, as he told me about his 22 yr old girlfriend and her baby, and about the history of this and that.
We got on the metro and went to the outskirts of town to a smokey bar. Ok, so Irish or not,his friends were all a bunch of heavy metal kids, wearing dark clothes, black eye-liner and all the guys had long hair. They were drinking cheap beer and smoking and listening to ACDC and Metalica, and no one had an irish accent or even spoke English! I was amazed as I looked around and many of the surrounding tables had at least one member who would stand up and play their air guitar, mouth all the words and shake their hair around like a head-banger. I didn´t have the heart to tell them that was so uncool in most circles in the states.
Well, they all spoke Catalán, not Spanish, and definitely not english, so i was totally as a loss between the languages and the noise. Finally, the smoke was making my eyes water, and this guy I was with, Carlos, was very nice and took me outside. He asked if I was tired, and they all walked me the long walk back to my hotel.
It apparently was an early night for around here, as I was back to my hotel before 3am.
I am very appreciative for the tour and how kind and accepting they all were, especially with my poor communication skills in Spanish, but I am not quite sure if that was really my crowd of choice. Interesting, though.
Until tonight´s adventures, I am off to study for Monday´s classes, now that i finally have my books.
This is only my second morning waking up in Barcelona, but it feels like I´ve already been here a week.
Yesterday, I spent all day walking around, looking at things, trying to find my school that I will start attending on Monday (A school to get my TEFL certificate--Teaching English as a Foreign Language). I found the school, and walked forever to a bookstore to buy my books, a cell phone, find an outlet converter, and buy some bread and fruit, etc.
But things got interesting when I was sitting on a bench in a plaza, resting my feet, listening to my ipod and picking the seeds out of some very sweet, red grapes. A guy sat down next to me and asked to paint my portrait. Well, I know this money making scam, so I said I couldn´t pay anything. He told me (this was all happening in Spanish, mind you) that he was an art student and if I couldn´t pay, that was ok, he would just do it for practice and keep the drawing. So I agreed. We talked while he drew (charcoal portrait) and he was very nice. My spanish is broken, but we understood eachother. Before he left, he said he was going out that night with some of his friends from Ireland and asked if i wanted to go. Well, I don´t know what else I was going to do but continue to wander around alone, so we made plans to meet again at 9pm.
At 9:00, he was right there where he said he´d be. Now, just so you can be in the moment with me, he was wearing the same dirty jean, black t-shirt and backpack as that day, and he has a mullet, as does just about every young woman in this city. (What is with the serious layering of hair and thinning cuts?) We walked around and he showed me various plazas. We ate dinner on the patio at his art school and he was so patient with my spanish. I felt more confident every hour and was understanding more and more of what he said, when he spoke slowly.
We went to a bar called ¨"The Black Sheep" where we were supposed to meet his friends. Only one of them was there, and he was a riot, this guy. He kept trying to spout things off in English, as he told me about his 22 yr old girlfriend and her baby, and about the history of this and that.
We got on the metro and went to the outskirts of town to a smokey bar. Ok, so Irish or not,his friends were all a bunch of heavy metal kids, wearing dark clothes, black eye-liner and all the guys had long hair. They were drinking cheap beer and smoking and listening to ACDC and Metalica, and no one had an irish accent or even spoke English! I was amazed as I looked around and many of the surrounding tables had at least one member who would stand up and play their air guitar, mouth all the words and shake their hair around like a head-banger. I didn´t have the heart to tell them that was so uncool in most circles in the states.
Well, they all spoke Catalán, not Spanish, and definitely not english, so i was totally as a loss between the languages and the noise. Finally, the smoke was making my eyes water, and this guy I was with, Carlos, was very nice and took me outside. He asked if I was tired, and they all walked me the long walk back to my hotel.
It apparently was an early night for around here, as I was back to my hotel before 3am.
I am very appreciative for the tour and how kind and accepting they all were, especially with my poor communication skills in Spanish, but I am not quite sure if that was really my crowd of choice. Interesting, though.
Until tonight´s adventures, I am off to study for Monday´s classes, now that i finally have my books.
posted by Louise Lovelle @ 4:28 AM
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