February 5th

I feel like I have now settled into a comfortable rhythm. For the past week I have been attending Spanish classes every morning, and I have been at the same hostel for a while now. My days are repeating patterns of going out to explore with my little green backpack and coming back to the nest to read or nibble on bread and avocado. It´s been very nice, although tomorrow I am leaving this hostel for a free couch belonging to a friend of a friend, and in nine days I am leaving Barcelona.
As I am already half way through my Spanish courses, I am beginning to panic over still not being able to hold anything close to a real conversation. It´s remarkable the way that a foreign language can take over your brain. It´s like a little Spanish speaking parrot is lurking in the back of my mind. I think to myself, "Hm, I need to go to the post office today," and the parrot chimes in, "Hm, necesito ir al correos hoy." Every thought is repeated in Spanish, or a mental note is taken that I need to learn how to say whatever it is that I was thinking. It is exhausting. And even though in class I feel like I can communicate most of what I want to say, and understand my teacher´s response, once I am out in the real world of Barcelona people tend to speak a lot faster than my teacher.
Anyways, on a totally different subject, last night I was planning to write a blog entry but the power at my hostel kept going out. I had a headlamp in my pack so I got it out and went to assist the manger and his wife in attempting to fix the problem. The manager is this tiny old Indian man who putters around the place all hunched over, anytime I walk past he looks at me and says, (more to himself than to me) "La señorita de Oregon," then follows that by naming off all the states of the U.S. that begin with an O, "Oklahoma, Ohio..." and then complains to me, "¡Hace frio!" So after the power finally seemed to decide to remain permanently on, I was too tired to write, and went to sleep. "¡Vale! Me acuesto ahora,"
Today I walked all the way down the beach to a neighborhood called Poble Nou which I hadn´t been to before, but it is definitely my new favorite area of Barcelona. It´s lovely and old, but much more open than the Barrio Gotico, where I am staying, and have spent most of my time. The narrow winding streets of the Barrio Gotico are intriquing and also beautiful, but they are dark and cold and dirty, which gets old. When I come back to Barcelona before I leave in the summer, it is my first goal that I find a place to stay in Poble Nou.
I have been offered a position as an Au Pair in Murcia for the months of April and May, and though nothing is yet final, I plan to take it. I´ll save a lot of money this way and I am hoping to stay a few weeks longer than orginally planned. Plus the family sounds rad.
Alas, I am all out of words, but I will be sure to write again before I leave Barcelona.
Saludos y abrazos.