My own personal eloquence.

As I begin thinking about my first week here in Barcelona, I try to decide how to eloquently describe all that has happened and all that I have observed. I have now completed my 3rd day of class at Alhombra Instituto which is an interesting feat in and of itself. The entire class is in Spanish which means when I don’t understand a word and I must ask the definition, the definition is given in Spanish. This is different than straight translation. It also means that we spend time reading articles and having discussions. I am positive I won the award for eloquence while debating today as we discussed gay marriage and adoption and whether or not homosexuality is genetic, definitely not words taught in Spanish class at D’Evelyn.
Just about every word was followed with the use of a dictionary and me making up Spanish words from the words in English. Yep, pure eloquence.

In my first email I tried to quickly describe my surroundings and my apartment. Now I wish to take a moment to describe the less than appetizing aspects of the city. There are dogs everywhere. This not necessarily a bad thing, I love dogs. What I don’t love is the dog poop everywhere in the streets and the sidewalks. Only about half the dog owners I have noticed try to clean up after their dogs and those that do, still usually leave behind a lovely streak of brown on the sidewalk for passerbyers to step in. Luckily there are street cleaners constantly sweeping and cleaning the sidewalks and walkways so one pile of dog poop will only exist for 24 hours. At least there are usually colorful designs decorating the street as an innocent person has stepped in a pile and left multiple shoe marks pointing the direction of his or her travels. Smells. The smells here are. . interesting. Closer to the sea there is a strong salty sea water smell. This is mixed with the hundreds of restaurants littering the streets. Wafts of sewage float around as well, mixing with the salty sea air and cooked food. It is lovely. Finally, the way people walk. Barcelona is a large city with thousands of people walking everywhere. My good home manners require me to say Pardoname (excuse me) when I get in someone’s way, or when they are in mine. This is not effective here. They could really care less if I am in their way, and they could especially care less if they were in mine. They simply continue walking, usually at a slightly slower pace than I prefer, I suppose I will continue using my polite phrases through it all.

Now please do not let this affect all of the wonderful attributes I will be describing in the future, but I felt I needed a touch of reality mixed in with my idealized stories and ideas which will no doubt litter my future posts.