Settling in

We have all time-shifted and are doing okay with jet lag, except Cassie. She got flip-flopped by the travel and is now utterly messed up. Luckily, the exhausted-zoned-out-teen-girl thing is within her usual personality range anyway.

We spent the morning hunting for groceries and key supplies, such as trash cans and wheeled grocery bags. The grocery store was a big bummer, much like an old IGA back home. Only true city dwellers can appreciate grocery stores that are so tiny and cramped.  But the produce shops, bakeries and other little treasure troves made up for that and so much more. 

I was looking for a wheeled grocery bag, which is so common around here that I figured they must be for sale everywhere...but not in a bakery, and not in a produce shop or grocery store (where they might actually be useful). Hmmm. My hunting instincts kicked in -- those same hunting instincts that always told me where bathrooms and concession stands would be at sporting events -- and we ended up in a totally weird little shop. I told the owner I needed una bolsa con ruedas, which I had sensibly looked up before we went on our mission. It was then that I realized that he didn't speak much Spanish, either. He was Chinese. Our only common language was a truly pathetic Spanish and a pantomime show. But we figured it out, and we left his jumble of a store with our wheeled bag, three trash cans, four kitchen glasses, and a little mini-purse that is safer for carrying money than my giant backpack. I could also have purchased from him a variety of craft supplies, luggage, any size bra, some FC Barcelona swag, cleaning supplies, hand tools, a couple of toys, hair accessories, cell phone gear...it was like having half a wal-mart packed into maybe a thousand square feet. If you can't find something in there, you don't need it.

We stopped at a produce stand for the Required Nicky Sustenance of berries, and then found the fourth or fifth bakery and picked up delicious sandwiches, and then wandered home.  All of this happened within four blocks.

All over town are flags supporting one side or another of the current political stew in Barcelona, related to the abdication of the King and a continued call for Catalan independence to one degree or another. Or maybe it's all about soccer. It's hard to say.  If you think it's hard to speak a foreign language, try understanding political rants and chants in that language.  

And now it is time to wake up the slumbering teen and wander off to see some parks and gardens near the university where Greg is teaching.  I will be taking a city bus for the first time since I was in high school. We aren't headed into the fray of tourist Barcelona yet...just getting a feel for where we live. That is the beauty of having a month to spend here, though we are off to Rome in a few days.

Oh no. That means I have to pack again.