Chapter 54: Slackerdom in Barcelona

Slackerdom and Museship
After I left Ibiza I landed with a plop in Barcelona. Thank goodness German and Sarah were here to scrape me up off the ground, and help me settle in. An my lovely friend Piotr kindly let me stay in his stunning pied-a-terre, overlooking a beautiful plaza in front of a church, while he has to slave away in crypto-fascist Russia. German is Peruvian and quite an inspiration to me. I’ve been slacking for 2 years but with more than a decade of practice under his belt, German seems to have perfected the art form. For example, he has entirely eradicated any slacker guilt from his psyche. Can you imagine? Whereas I suffer lashes of middle-class guilt, each and every day of my lazy life.

And when faced with a difficult choice in a sunglasses shop, German got me a 40% discount if I bought two pairs (which I did). Between Sarah and German they've made sure I've hit every hot shop in town. Shopping is like crack cocaine to me; I'm highly resistant, but once I've started I just can't stop.

As for Sarah, well, she's on her way back to Australia, but I know her soul is here in Barcelona and she’ll be back for good some day. How we have laughed! Sitting on the beach one day, I asked her what she wanted to be when she grows up, and she paused thoughtfully, stuffed a crisp into her mouth, and replied with conviction, “A Muse”. But in the 18 months she’s been single she’s gone all the way from Charlotte to Samantha, and thus she's already hit the heights of Musedom. Upon hearing a lengthy tale of sexual conquest from someone, Sarah clasped her hands together and said wistfully “Oh, I do love My Gays”. You could virtually hear the capitalization in her words.

Not that she was doing too badly herself, spending every day after Spanish class on Bogatell Beach, surreptitiously taking photos of all the hotties or guapos. Aided and abetted by the consumption of vast copas of sangria or clara (beer and lemonade), German, Sarah and I tried to define our perfect boyfriend. We decided that this mythical creature needs to be two notches above us on the hotness scale, but think that he’s a notch or two below. And although a little gratitude towards us for deigning to go out with him would not go amiss, he mustn’t be insecure. Instead he must be totally comfortable in his entirely false belief that he isn’t nearly as good looking as us. As Sarah said “Nothing is more offputting than when your partner pauses during sex to flex, pose and admire himself in the mirror.” I gather thus that she may have been dating Argentines (although she claims that the problem of self obsession amongst the hetero guapos is actually quite widespread and not restricted to any particular nationality).

Barcelona's got it all
And Barcelona is proving a good friend too. It’s a mix of the modern and the old, the parochial and the cosmopolitan. It’s easy and relaxed, and just the right size to get around on a bicycle. It has great shops, restaurants and bars, and a large array of beaches within easy reach. Unfortunately, though, these beaches are none too clean. French, Italians and Spanish love to smoke and they have yet to realize that the sand is not a giant ashtray. But I suppose this is one of the downsides of Barcelona’s incredible permissiveness, and on balance the permissiveness comes out as a good thing. The Catalans, despite their reputation for Swiss-like dourness, do not seem to have tied themselves up with rules and regulations and conventions. I find them uber-friendly and relaxed, leaving people to do just what they want, and yet the city seems to work very well - dirty beaches aside. It's not all a regulatory light hand though; I found out in class this morning that by law all shops must have signs in Catalan, rather than Spanish (Castilliano) and there is a law that prevents those lovely tourist souvenir shops from selling non Spanish souvenirs. Apparently five years ago you couldn't move for the proliferation of Mexican sombreros for sale on the streets of Barcelona, but now there's not one to be found anywhere, though you can buy any amount of tacky plastic hand fans and castanets.

Desnudo on Paseo de Gracia
But as for behaviour it seems to be anything goes. La Muse came up with the perfect motto: “It’s Spain! Whatever you want!” (Unless of course you’re in a shop and you want service. That is simply QUITE impossible!)
For example, you can with total impunity smoke a joint or have a drink on the beach, if that’s your thing. Each beach has at least one little restaurants (chiringuito) that makes lousy food and great cocktails. Their mojitos will literally cause the top of your skull to lift about 9.726549 inches off your brainpan. And you don’t have to drink your mojito in the chiringuito, either. You can take it back to your towel and drink it lying down, the only problem being that you won’t be able to get up afterwards for at least seven hours.

You can also go nude (desnudo) on the beach, if you wish, though I'd advise against it on aesthetic grounds. In fact, you can go desnudo anywhere you like. It is entirely legal to walk in the streets naked, and there are apparently a couple of dudes who stroll down Paseo de Gracia (equivalent to Oxford Street or Fifth Avenue) completely starkers. I haven’t seen either of them yet, but I live in hope. There's a certain quirkyness here. For example, this morning, cycling to school, a Harley Davidson pulled up beside me at a stop light. I glanced left to see an elderly woman, probably in her mid to late sixties, astride this colossal motorcycle. She wore a spiked leather wrist cuff. And she revved the engine eagerly while she waited for the light to change, before tearing off at great speed. Go Granny Go!

Chili chocolate icecream and lascivious statues
Barcelona has an artisanal ice cream shop on every street corner and each shop seems to proffer their unique mannas and ambrosias. The other day I had one scoop of chili chocolate and one of licorice. Licorice ice cream was my absolute favourite as a small child, and for the last 35 years I’ve searched in vain for it – until now. (Just as I write this, I realize it will be impossible to stop my feet walking to the corner gelateria in about 10 minutes.) And I love that you can use the pennies in vending machines here! Finally a use for the little copper buggers. Amongst Barcelona's other charms is the famous statue which appears to represent an act of fellatio being performed on one of the city fathers. Very popular amongst the tourists!

To bice is nice
Another reason I like Barcelona is bicing. No, I’m not a mad gibbering fool; I have not invented a new word. But the Catalans have, and that word is “bicing” - a system of public bicycles. There are racks of these red and white bikes everywhere. You pay 20 euros per annum for a little swipe card which allows you to take a bike out for up to 2 hours at a time, and you can leave the bike at any rack anywhere in the city. So that’s how I get around Barcelona. On a red and white bicing bike. Of course, it’s not quite that easy. You need to get a resident’s card to get a bicing card, which requires no small battle against Spanish bureaucracy. (La Muse reported it took her 3 days and visits to about 27 different municipal offices.) But all this was rendered moot for me when one of La Muse’s kind friends lent me his bicing card for the duration of my stay.

Unfortunately, there are some drawbacks to the bicing system that I’ve been unable to avoid. Like when I'm in a hurry but the bicing station nearest my destination is full, leaving me to cycle madly around the streets in a sweaty lather looking for an alternative depot (always the case at the beach between 3-6pm). Or the opposite: I'm in a hurry, but there are no bikes racked in the stations anywhere near my point of origin (always the case at the beach between 6-8pm). Or there are bikes, but for some reason they’re locked into the stand, or they have a flat tire, or the seat is irreparably loose, threatening my very manhood, or… Or say you and a certain Australian muse are in a terrible hurry to get to Cantina Machito for some superb authentic Mexican food, because a certain Peruvian read you the riot act that morning about being late, and he's already there waiting for you. If this is your situation then you will surely find that there is absolutely no bike rack whatsoever in the very spot where the official bicing map confidently asserts that one exists. (Needless to say, Barcelona’s bicing map is very helpful in giving neither the exact addresses of the bicing stands. Nor does it name even a quarter of the streets on its map.) As a result you are left trying to find most bicing stands by some form of telepathic extra-sensory perception.

But all in all bicing is cool. Bicing is the red and white icing on the Catalunyan cake of Barcelona. (Ok, I know this doesn't make much sense, but it's extremely euphonic, no?)

The flashers will get ya
For the moment we bicers (practioners of bicing) seem to be allowed to use roads, cycle paths and sidewalks! Again, total permissiveness of Barcelona: just do what you want. Though it may all come to tears in the end. There was a story in the paper the other day about a bicer who viciously assaulted two elderly pedestrians for failing to get out of his way. On the sidewalk, no less. And bicers as well as pedestrians must be on guard for flashers. For a Londoner, where the pedestrian is king, it’s very hard to remember that YOU MUST NOT CROSS THE ROAD ONCE THE GREEN MAN BEGINS TO FLASH. He will only flash between 1 and 3 times, and if you are caught in the cross walk when he turns red, well, in all probability you will die, perhaps under the wheels of a grandmother on a Harley Davidson.

My new favourite expressions: Me da rabia... and una tabletta de chocolate
So I’m loving studying Spanish again, at don Quijote school, stretching my rather slack 43 year old brain cells. Of course there are many obstacles to serious scholarship. More than a few students in my class appear to think they are studying Korean. And one student named Ana never loses any opportunity in class to steer the conversation to How Great Sweden Is In All Matters In Comparison To The Rest of the World. The other day, after 5 minutes of listening to her blather in faltering Spanish about how pizzas cost less in Sweden than in Italy, I was forced to intervene when I noticed the teacher had completely zoned out with a rictus of an encouraging smile on her face. I rapped my pen on the desk and snapped at her, "You're supposed to be using the subjunctive! That's what we're interested in. We've all heard more than enough about Sweden in the present tense".

But they are all so excessively young; I could have fathered most of them. Was I ever that dreary? Probably. And just when I've pretty much assumed the role of mature elder statesman in my class, I'm grotesquely undermined this morning by the arrival of a new student from San Diego, who introduced herself as Marla Worm, pitching me immediately into an sniggering fit, as I had a sudden and powerful vision of some vile tropical parasite. (I mean honestly. Marla Worm?) Of course, mocking other people in the privacy of my own twisted mind continues to be a source of great entertainment to me when I’m bored of the absolute thick-as-a-plankness of most of my fellow students, but I do try in general not to laugh in their faces.

But, in truth, my oh my, the challenge of remembering all those words, conjugations, and idiomatic expressions! And the subjunctive tense – ack! It’s so easy to learn the basics but so hard to elevate oneself to any reasonable fluency. It seems that every word I learn dislodges another from my brain. Although this morning I was tickled pink when I pulled the word vela (candle) out of my ass in response to a question from la profesora. I didn’t even know I knew this word, but I guess I must have learned it in Guatemala 7 years ago, and it’s quite thrilling to think that perhaps it’s ALL in there somewhere in the spongy pudding of my brain - if only I could figure out how to access it.

Of course, Barcelona is probably not the best place to learn Spanish, since Catalan is the dominant language of the street, so what one absorbs by osmosis outside the school is at best utterly useless and at worst utterly confusing. Still, such obstacles notwithstanding, I am learning lots, such as my new favourite phrase: “Me da rabia que…” It means to get infuriated, but literally it translates as “It gives me rabies that…” As in Me da rabia que se usen el subjunctivo en espanol.

And the other one which I love is the Spanish expression for a rock hard set of abs. What we would call a six-pack, they call una tabletta de chocolate. Which is amusing if you think about it, because if you have una tabletta de chocolate literally, you certainly won't have one figuratively.