The first was a restaurant misadventure.
On Monday, August 29, I forgot to pick up a bocadillo (sandwich, meaning a piece of bread with tomato smear and a piece of cheese) so my two friends and I decided to go out for a real Spanish lunch. The day before everyone in my program had stayed up insanely late because we forgot that we were students and had homework to do. Oops. So, we were all struggling to stay awake the next day.
The plan was to eat a great lunch (the Spanish normally have bigger lunches and smaller dinners) and then take a beautiful siesta.
After wandering around near the residencia in a zombie-like daze, we found a restaurant that had a menú del día (usually the cheapest combo plate) for only €8. We spoke in Spanish and the waiter explained to us the different plates before taking our order. I was feeling adventurous (be proud, Mom) and ordered a paella-esque rice plate with a seafood broth, then chicken for the second plate, a Coca-Cola (so much better in every country except the US), and crema catalana for dessert. I didn’t much like the paella dish but I ate it all like a good girl and the crema catalana is a cross between crème brûleé and a pudding... ¡súper rico!
Even though the waiter explained to us the menú del día twice and I had two Latina native-speakers with me, we all somehow missed the fact that the €8 deal came with one plate, a drink, and dessert while the €12 deal came with two plates, a drink, and dessert. So when the bill rolled around, it sort of killed the mood. We paid and went home full, but feeling rather duped. However, my siesta was a thing of beauty because I desperately needed sleep and was stuffed.
Not stellar, but inescapable thing, part 2: everyone got sick.
Essentially, it was like being in the dorms as a freshman all over again. New people, new germs, new country, new time zone, new routine, new food… by the beginning of the second week, everyone began to get sick. We’re talking from bothersome head colds to full on fevers and vomiting. A handful of people even needed antibiotics and number of people ended up with pharyngitis. One poor girl missed most of her ILP classes because she was so sick.
My roommate didn’t go to class one morning, but I managed to avoid getting sick and only had a tickle in my throat on the last day of ILP.
Not stellar, but inescapable thing, part 3: cita de empadronamiento.
First of all, empadronamiento is one of the hardest words to say in Spanish and we all had to say the word so slow that we sounded retarded. What it is a cita de empadronamiento? An appointment to get our empadrón. What’s an empadrón? I’m not quite sure. We were just told to take our appointment number and show up at some government building with our passport. However, I do know that it is part of the process to get our residency card and NIE (número de indentificación de extranjero, or foreigner identification number). So, it’s not something you want to mess up.
The government office where we had to go reminded me of being at the DMV. No one wants to be there, everyone is cranking, there is such a bothersome bureaucracy, there are screaming babies, a little yip-yap dogs outside, and French girls who decide that it’s a really good idea to carry on a phone conversation in the waiting room while everyone is already on edge… yeah, I pretty much thought I was going to have a mental breakdown.
My appointment was scheduled for Thursday, September 1 from 12:20 to 12:40 and I showed up ten minutes early, put in my appointment number, got my ticket with the number they would use to call me, and I waited. And then I waited. And then I waited some more. 12:50 rolled around and I decided that even if they were running late, they were running beyond late and I needed to say something. I walked up to the front desk and told them that I didn’t want to be a bother, but I had a pre-scheduled appointment at 12:20 and I had been waiting for over a half-hour… so I got a new number and was told that I would be called up next. I was and I literally got what I needed in five minutes. Waiting over a half hour for something that only takes five minutes is one of those things that universally puts everyone in a good mood, so I got back on the bus feeling quite chipper (sarcasm), chipper enough to not bother going to class because it would end ten minutes after I got there. Needless to say, I had an excellent siesta that day as well.
Less than stellar, but inescapable thing, part 4: pick-pocketing.
Before everyone freaks out, it wasn’t me who got pick-pocketed.
My second week at the residencia was rather dull, the only exciting things being my lunch misadventure, my empadronamiento, going to the Fuente Mágica (next post!), and my beach misadventure.
On Friday, September 2, we had a meeting at the UB (la Universitat de Barcelona) to discuss classes and internships. It was a helpful and informative meeting, but everyone was exceptionally restless during the meeting. My mind certainly lingered to the beach a few times, so once the meeting was concluded, everyone all but leapt out of the classroom. We got on the metro and went to the Ciutadella/Port Olímpic stop and settled down on the beach. Things were fine and dandy until one of my Illinois friends noticed that her camera was missing.
We searched and asked her questions, hoping that she had just left it somewhere until she also realized that her 50/30 metro pass (50 trips in 30 days, costs about €30) and her €15 in cash were also gone. Then, it sank in: she was robbed. She had been robbed at the beach, even though we had been watching our stuff the entire time. I personally felt terrible, considering I was the only person watching everything at one point during our stay. She took it quite well, but after everything sunk in, she put on her sunglasses and I saw her chin tremble. Feeling guilty, I stood up from my towel and suggested to her that we go for a walk.
She was upset, but explained that she got the camera for free because it was refurbished, so there was no point reporting it to the police. She didn’t blame anyone and said that these things just happen… which is true, but it doesn’t make it right and it doesn’t make it suck any less. It rather put a damper on the day, but she cheered up quite quickly.
Moral of the story? Don’t take anything valuable to the beach. The pick-pockets are super sneaky… you take your eyes off of your stuff for a moment and it can be gone in the next.
The truth is that this sort of thing is common. Chances are that everyone will know someone or be that someone who has been robbed by the end of the year. Probably even before Christmas. We had been lectured repeatedly and thought we had been doing rather well until we had our wake up call. Hopefully, never again.
As I said
before, it’s a learning process. We are bound to make hundreds of mistakes, but
that’s just part of life. I think as long as I handle it with a level head and
a decent sense of humor, I’ll probably be fine. J
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