Mussels and a white shirt, the Costa Brava and outlet malls…

I’ve been in Barcelona 1 week now and I am feeling less like a tourist and more like a local although I am trying to speak Spanish not Catalan. My Spanish is progressing slowly but not too badly for someone who has not had lessons. I speak it every day and learn new words every day. My first week has gone well; 8 students and I’ve given 3 lessons this week and will probably give 7 next week with another student starting in July and 2 in September. This is certainly better than I had expected.

Not only have the students of Barcelona embraced me but so have the locals I’ve met. I’ve had lunch with friends of friends, sisters of friends, aunts of friends etc. It has been lovely though I’ve eaten out more this week than I normally did in a month, thank god it is cheaper here to eat, the average cost per person has been 15 euros and it has been good.

Typical meal of Tapas for 2

Friday I ventured out of the city to accompany a friend to S’Agaro on the Costa Brava, we check on their summer apartment then spent 2 hours on the beach, it was sunny and 29c but windy, I tanned and exfoliated at the same time. The water was so clean and I cannot wait to go back there next month. En route we went to the local outlet mall, it was designed as a mock Spanish pueblo, but the local stores were replaced with Calvin Klein, Zegna, etc. It was nice but lacked the atmosphere of a real pueblo. There seemed something disjointed about a shopping mall in Catalonia with international brands and rich Russian and Chinese shoppers. Certainly interesting but give me the real Calle’s and Carrer’s of Spain over a sanitized version of Spain designed to incite me to shop. But, I did buy a lovely white shirt as I needed one. 

S'Arago, Costa Brava, June 14 2013

Friday night I had dinner with the Marti family, cousins, aunts, sisters etc. It was an epic meal, melon soup, mussels in tomato sauce, artichokes, frozen mojitos and strawberries, I was ready to explode but it would have been a happy explosion. One of the guests was a film actress, the sister of my friend. She was lovely, interesting and talked about preparing for her next role as if she had been an old friend telling me about her day at work, no pretentions at all and she even asked me to correct her English, which I did in as chivalrous a way as I know how. And I learnt not to wear a new white shirt for dinner, I am a messy eater and my shirt had a hint of polka dot when I left.

June 15, 2013