Denniblog

It’s all over, but during the past two weeks we’ve barely had time to eat. So on this last day I went back to our old haunt: Tasca i Vins near the school where you can get a 3-course lunch with water, wine and bread for € 7.60.

My course mates weren’t there, but that didn’t matter. It’s common to lunch on your own on weekdays in Barca and I had my trusty dictionary in my pocket.

For starters I decided on something light. baby courgettes stuffed with Bacalhau perhaps?

If these were ‘baby’ cougettes, I don’t know what they consider the adult version to be. Full-grown marrows perhaps. They arrived in a pool of guey white sauce, crusted with cheese.

Now you have to eat up, or the kitchen staff will be offended!

To follow, I had decided on something richer, namely Ossobuco—marrow bone and all.

This had to be followed by a postre, the lightest of which were pears in red wine. Seeing that I’d already had a quarter litre of red table wine with my lunch, I decided on an icecream which was swimming in a puddle of whisky 😉

I hope I can meet some of my friends there next week in a final attempt to re-live past times, but a lot of them have already left. Suddenly I find myself alone in Barcelona, at the start of a new career (or not, as it may be).

It is daunting and my ties to London remain strong. I must find a way to go back.

Damnit, it’s a lot of work.

But here is what I like;

You’re supposed to crib.

They taught us a heap of Spanish vocabulary yesterday night. The class was adequately titled ‘Survival Spanish’.

The daily rhythm is different here. Night is the same as morning, mid-day lasts until four and ‘tarde’ encompasses both the afternoon and most of the evening. I don’t think there is any time left for sleep in this schedule:

Mañana: 24h-12h,
Mediodía: 12h-16h,
Tarde: 16h-20/21h,
Noche: 20/21h-24h.

There are 14 of us on the course—including a painter, a Mexican-Californian who speaks fluent university-level German and a Kenyan who works as an IT instructor in Oxford and knows several famous Reggae musicians. A good half of them left before the optional evening class because they already speak enough Spanish.

“Me llamo Denni. Soy de Londres. Vivo en Barcelona.”

Adrian hesitated when it was his turn. “Soy de Oxford. Vivo en… ”

“En Barcelona ,” our instructor said firmly. “You have lived in Oxford, but where are you now? You are in Barcelona. So? ”

“Vivo en… Barcelona. ”

Some of my course mates already have flats lined up Some are wondering what to do next summer: hit the local beach or take the ferry to Ibiza? It’s becoming apparent–very quickly–that my stay in Barcelona may be indefinite.

I’ve left tourist-fantasy land behind and moved into the residential areas. Eight floors up to be precise, and it wasn’t until I got all the way to the top (with my backpack, my daypack and my books) that I found out that the lift works after all as my host pushed open the doors. You don’t slide them, and they are sticky.

“It’s 35 minutes to walk to the school,” my host said. No worries, I thought, I walk fast.

I had to walk faster, arriving out of breath and a little puffy-faced on this incongruously warm January morning. At least I made it to the class on time,otherwise I might get a reputation. I passed a stationer’s on the way and bought a notebook the title page of which just jumped out at me:

‘You’ve got to fight
for your right
to paaarty!’

It brings back memories of my student days, but the pairing with my red and black Totally Wicked pen with the smoking devil face might just give the wrong impression.

Anyway, the honeymoon will soon be over. On Wednesday (the day after tomorrow) I will be standing in front of a class to teach. College will be from 10:00-18:00 with 3-odd hours of lesson planning and journal writing on top of that.

I only hope that my new friends won’t knacker me out over the weekend!

I didn’t want to go. I had to drag myself away from London kicking and screaming, quite literally. But fuck me if Barcelona doesn’t just quietly take over your heart.

It does so quite without pretence. Yesterday we met in a park for a picnic. Parrots flew overhead (yeah, I know they are a pest here). And Gaudí is all over this town.

From the top of a hill we could see all the way across to the Balearics. It’s sunny in January. People sit outdoors and have wine with their lunch.

But that would not have been enough.

FC Barcelona is fan-owned and the players display UNICEF logos on their kit. The club doesn’t get paid for it, it donates. And it is sticking it to its richest rivals.

The place is crawling with tourists, but the locals don’t mind. The Catalan language and sense of identity are strong here, yet Barcelona is international. Closer to Europe than to Spain, closer to the Continent than to London it has the heart of a world city.

I’ve said before that Cash is King and I stick by it in as far as it’s got to be better than going with the exchange rate offered by UK banks, or even airport bureaux de change (€1.08 to the sterling on Friday) on top of which you’ve got to pay commission. Commission and other hidden fees soon add up. A lot of people don’t seem to understand percentages, but basically they want anything up to 3 quid for every hundred quid you change and when it comes to paying a month’s rent these figures cease to look trivial. It is all in the percentages.

Basically nothing beats a good pre-paid cashcard (and I’m talking either FairFX or Caxton here), but you’ve got to remember to top it up. I hit a snag with the thing and in either case I couldn’t take out more than 150 € a day, which is how I like it.

So, armed with a bulging moneybelt, I went in search of exchange facilities as soon as I stepped off the plane. If you work in a bank you should consider learning a European language and relocating to the continent. Not only is there no Saturday opening, but working hours are from around 8 am to 2 pm most weekdays and the rest of the time is your glorious own.

But no fear: a few minutes of Googling told me that there is an exchange office which offers good rates in the basement of El Corte Inglés, the imposing department store that looms fortress-like over the Playa Catalunya.

So on Saturday morning, the second day of the sale (‘50% rebajas!’), I spent a few surreal hours weaving zombie-like through the crowds that filled the cavernous mazes of one of the world’s biggest department stores. I looked everywhere, from underground supermarkets and drug stores to upper-level designer outlets, and—after consulting the big table next to the lifts—patrolled the third floor where the mysterious ‘foreign money’ was allegedly located. For all its formidable size I felt oddly reminded of my home-town’s shabby department store with its worn fixtures. I’ve never seen the point of sales (I’m a discerning Oxfam shopper with a sideline in Marie Curie).

Eventually I asked a shop assistant in tentative Spanglish and, from what understood, ‘foreign money’ could only be used for buying, not for exchange. There was nothing left but hitting the nearby tourist runway of Las Ramblas.

The first place I passed displayed a rate of around 1.16, almost as much as the Caxton card. But the interbank rate had been nudging 1.20, so I decided to investigate, thinking that I could do better. —And came down to Earth with a bump.

If I understand the small print, they were going to hit me with 18 cents ‘tax’ for every Euro I bought. Some places were overtly quoting rates of less than an Euro per Pound Sterling, a drop of more than 20 percent from what I’d got on my card.

Once again it would seem that I have to pay for the vainglorious British sense of head-up-arsedness. And all the money that I’ve put up over the years so as to uphold the currency of the realm does not pay for hospitals and schools or even for Olympic show-off projects designed to swell national pride, but goes straight into the pockets of the money-changers.

However, it pays to do the footwork (if only a little). Ria Change offered a rate of 1.1045, a good 4% above their nearest competitors. But if you can wait (and I couldn’t) it will be well worth to check out the rates offered by the banks. And if your home-bank is as greedy as mine, dynamic currency exchange may not be something to be sniffed at after all. One ATM offered 1.16 and 2.5% commission, which is miles better than the Bank of Scotland (who would presumably get to charge the £1.50 overseas ATM fee but not also the conversion fee and commission on top of their shitty rates).

I started my TEFL adventure in tried & tired fashion…by getting lost.

At least it gave me an introduction to the Barcelona metro system (oddly bijou) and to speaking Spanish.

I addressed some women waiting on the platform. “Perdone. ¿Es este el trein para Catalunya?” (A subway station.)

Thank you, Paul Nobel!

Of course they didn’t understand me so I said “para Catalunya?” and they nodded. For once I was moving in the right direction.

They don’t speak Spanish here but Catalan, so I think I’ll end up with some sort of Spanish/English/French pidgin, or ‘Fraspanglish’ as Alexandria calls it.

The metro would be a relative bargain, at about 16 € per ten 2-zone rides*, were it not that I end up paying double for everything. It began when I inadvertently bought a return ticket from the airport. Then I got to the station at 01:40 yesterday night (I know, my new friends are tiring me out) to see that the next train was 40 minutes away. So instead I chose to get lost on my way home. This morning I went into the wrong entrance and had to enter through the gates again.

But I made it to our picnic and we enjoyed some spectacular views and a sunny afternoon. Short sleeves in January!

Early night today. My friends have succeeded in tiring me out.

* Still paying double here: the whole of Barcelona is in zone 1!

Barcelona gets as much sunshine in January as London gets in September.

Last September I thought the sun was shining down on my new life in London. Perhaps it is symbolic that I’m going to Barcelona at the end of the first week of the new year.

But the first week of the new year feels oh so very far away from where I am now, just past the wrong side of Christmas. This season creates its own hell and it feels as if it will never end. It feels as if the sun has set over London for good.

The damp cold creeps through my coat and up my bum from where it rests on a wet wooden bench in Finsbury Park. The morning fog brightens as if someone has turned up a dimmer switch. There is no visible light source, yet the effect is sudden. Dark one moment, bleak daylight the next.

It’s not yet eight, already 7:49. Too early, and too late.

*

8:06 and this weird milky day doesn’t have the decency to end, even though mornings and evenings look exactly alike.

By now the sun will be shining brightly over Barcelona: 3 hours and change more of it each day than London gets.

I have written about and documented my travels since 2004 and penned a few novels. I’ve had close to 100 rejections for various short stories, tried and failed to run a sandwich shop and ditto to train as a chef. None of this means that I contribute. I therefore do not belong in this twilight zone.

My early memories are sunnier, all the way back to when I was young and fresh-faced and took on the challenge to live in another country, and another culture, for the second time in my life. That was back in 1987, 23 years ago and change.

Teachers have to be good at explaining things. I never was—I’ve never had the patience—but I’ve learned how to speak slowly once, into a microphone, in front of an audience.

As my Sensei put it, twenty years later: “It’s all theatre.”

That’s all it is.

I should be just fine.

I’ve just booked my flight (January 7th) and accommodation for the course is sorted. All that remains is to complete the pre-course task and to pack.

I keep telling myself that I’m not going to a Gulag. I’m going to the world’s top beach city. Barcelona gets a hundred hours more sunshine per month than London, year round. In January, it will be as sunny there as it is here in September.

I should be thrilled. I love to travel, to explore other countries, and nothing rejuvenates the mind more than learning another language and adapt to another culture. I would be over the Moon—if John was coming with me.

But John is not coming. This isn’t an adventure, a couple of months or years in the sun until we return home, full of tales and ready to face a contented future together. John is already home, but I am not.

I’ve lived in the UK for twenty-three years—exactly half my life—but in all this time I’ve never asked whether I could stay. I was already here when we met and got married and kind of … just settled in.

It never occured to me that I couldn’t just do that. Thankfully it’s not too late. My sister, married to a Brit, is applying for her ‘voluntary’ permit to remain, and eventually ILR and citizenship, while she is still working, and before she finds herself back in Germany sans her husband, because she has fallen on mis-fortune, ill-health or old age.

I do not have that option because six years in Tadley mean that I haven’t been working and therefore cannot apply for a permit. I’ll have to start all over again. And since I will have to retrain—and with the job market being what it is—I may as well go down the TEFL route. Perhaps there is work in Spain. I hope so. If John finds work in Barcelona or Madrid for a couple of months we could then apply to return to the UK in an orderly fashion, with me as the duly declared spouse of a returning EU national.

But this won’t happen for a while. I’ll have to go first. I’ll have to hope that I can find enough work in Spain to cover national insurance and qualify as a resident, at least for the time being.

This isn’t a trip.

This is exile.

Cross-posted from my LJ.

Parliament Square, 9th December 2010.

We are surrounded.

Just half an hour ago the sun was setting behind Big Ben, coating it with gold. A Japanese tourist stopped to take a photograph of my banner. Back then—after the initial push into Parliament Square—the atmosphere had been relaxed, people smiling in the winter sunshine. When the police took off their fluorescent jackets and raised their shields I’d drifted around the crowd, keeping to the fringes but not yet alarmed.

Now the cops stand shoulder to shoulder across Parliament Street, where not so long ago people had been walking up-and-down freely. They are clad in black, their helmets glinting in the evening light. The crowds have thinned and I wonder if the Japanese tourist is still among them, caught up—bewildered—along with the other sight-seers who at first couldn’t believe their luck.

The stench of solvent creeps up my nostrils as I lean against the sandstone, scribbling into my notebook. Some guys are spraying graffiti onto the walls.

I take out my phone and try to call John. At first the call fails to connect and then all I can hear is sirens.

Someone walks past with a banner that reads ‘This Is Not A Good Sign’.

*

I don’t get any information from the officers. It is clear that they’re letting nobody out. Bizarrely, the entrance to Westminster Station is in front of the line. I walk down the stairs and come to a set of shutters. Of course the station is closed, as are the streets above, the traffic lights changing eerily from red to green to amber.

“Don’t you think it is against the law not to provide toilets if there is a public gathering?”

The woman who says this is petite and dressed in a flimsy cardigan and thin overcoat. She looks annoyed. If we’re lucky it will be against the law to let people freeze to death or to crack open their skulls with batons, but I think we are on our own now.
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