So, off today to Diyarbakir in south-eastern Turkey (or Kurdistan, depending on who you ask) to make some art with other folks from the DAI, alongside local artists. Quite excited about the whole thing, but still no idea about what is actually going to happen. We don’t arrive ’til pretty late tonight, so it will be a long journey indeed. No idea when I’ll next have an internet connection, so this could be the last post for a while.
Arriving back from Barcelona on Monday, there were two lovely things to welcome me home. Firstly, we have a brand new boiler. The hot water has been working on and off for about 2 months now, and when it finally stopped altogether last Thursday I decided that something needed to be done about it and confronted Benoît, our landlord. Result – new boiler. Only problem is that he expects a contribution towards its cost, which I find frankly outrageous, but that is another story.
New boiler
Internet!
Second thing is that after about 4 months of living here we FINALLY have an internet connection of our own (I’ve been using other people’s stray wireless signals that come and go inbetweentimes). Strange as it may sound, I am really enjoying the novelty of being able to sit at my own desk, in my own room, and write some stuff for this blog. Nice one!
A while back in the midst of winter it was decided that a trip to Barcelona was in order; sun was badly needed. It was originally myself and my pal Laura who were planning on going, but we ended up with a few extra bodies in the form of Dave L and CJ fae back home, which made a nice little group; not only that, but it made it worthwhile to rent an apartment, which is a bit nicer than staying in a hotel. A very nice apartment it was too, actually, in the middle of El Born (very close to the centre).
This was actually the sixth time that I have been in Barca, mostly on account of my sister living there, but it might be the last for a while since she is moving to Madrid. I always love it there, and I’ll definately miss having a connection.
Arrived about dinner time on Thursday evening and met up with the other three (who were arriving of course from Scotland), then after some dinner headed out for a few drinks, although after travelling none of us were really up for a very late night. At least where we were staying was walkable from plenty places.
Visited the zoo on Friday afternoon; not sure if I’m totally comfortable with the idea of such places (the poor wee monkeys at least looked pretty disturbed), and in any case it probably wasn’t worth €15. And didn’t see any meercats, always my favourite animal.
Friday evening ended up as a fairly drunken experience, of course, having hit the town quite early before spending ages trying to find some bar up in Gràcia where my sister was supposed to meet us. Both myself and Laura have at some point been not too bad at Spanish but as it happens we both appear to have forgotten almost all of it and even asking for directions was just about impossible.
Later in the evening CJ somehow managed to get separated from everyone else and ended up completely lost before getting mugged for his wallet and phone. Not good news at all but I suppose it could have been a lot worse; besides the items mentioned he seemed to be not in such a bad way except for a cut lip and a bit of bruising.
Spent Saturday on the beach before meeting up with Edu and Eva (with whom we had stayed the last time we were in Barcelona) and then a bar not far from our apartment, where things got a bit strange on account of some middle-aged Spaniard taking a dislike to Dave and almost starting a fight. Diplomacy saved the day, thankfully.
I was up quite early on Sunday because Catriona had decided to enter herself in the 10000m being run this weekend; I was quite surprised and impressed since no-one in my (immediate) family has before shown much of an interest in sporting events. She managed the course in something like 56 1/2 minutes; pretty good I would say.
Since Sunday was the sunniest day we had had since arriving it seemed like a good idea to lie around in the park, which we duly did, especially since by this point we were all pretty much out of money. A few more beers in the evening then home today, so I can say with some regret that I did not achieve one single useful thing whilst there; saw no galleries, museums, or in fact anything remotely educational. Needs to be done though, sometimes.
Oh, and one more thing. We ended up separated once again on Sunday night, and while myself and CJ ended up back at the apartment, Dave and Laura happened upon a bar which was closing down and which was allowing people to decorate it with spray paint. Results below!
As a strange sort of footnote, myself and CJ staged a series of pictures of CJ pointing at things in the style of a typical British tourist on holiday. We were trying to be ironic I suppose but in fact it probably suits our behaviour quite well.
Sometimes things happen that are so stupid that they are tragic, or so tragic they are funny, but this was all three. I was really stressed about a whole number of things yesterday evening (money, work, etc) and not at all in the mood to deal with unexpected disasters.
I was busy cooking dinner, and without thinking lifted a large pan of boiling rice by the wee handles on its side. They were of course extremely hot, and I instinctively dropped (in fact threw) the pan onto the floor. Somehow I then managed to slip on the sticky, starchy mess and ended up on my arse, in the process kicking the pan into the air so that before I knew it there was rice everywhere, I mean on the floor, walls (right up almost to the ceiling), cooker, sink, windows, really all over the shop. I also now have a huge bruise on my left arm, and worst of all there is a huge rip in my jeans: they were in fact the only non-ripped pair I owned.
I really could have sat down and cried, it was so awful, but when I think about it now it’s kind of funny. I wish I could have filmed it.
