THE NEW YEAR - VISIT TO BARCELONA

Sometime in late November, 2010, I was at a friend's birthday party. It was being held at a bar-restaurant I'm not terribly fond of. First time I'd gone out in a while; we'd been going through a rough winter, the city being mostly unprepared for such relentless rainfall. Due to poor management and general negligence, the water accumulation caused serious damage to the road that communicated my home to the outside world, so leaving and coming back became a complicated task, especially without an SUV to at least give you a better chance while driving through the flooded roads. Since the flooding tended to time perfectly with Fridays and Saturdays, I ended up spending a few weekends stranded home, doing little else than drinking rum, listening to music, and pondering. As if the undesired seclusion wasn't enough, the flooding had ruined pipes and infrastructure, meaning various services, such as water, gas, electricity, and internet, would go out on any given day for seriously long periods of time (days, sometimes even an entire week). This would make coming home intensely frustrating, since not only had it become a hassle to do so, but now you didn't even know what awaited you when you'd get back. At this point I'm stressed and intensely frustrated, and all the rum-fueled pondering's led me to realize that my job is not I should really put my hopes on, nor should I really hold any illusions that I could get used to living here.

Usually when I'd end up at this bar-restaurant, I'd quickly and suddenly hit a saturation point, and would promptly start finding a moment to leave, courtesy be damned. This time, though, I extended my stay a bit, simply because I had to enjoy this rare opportunity to be out in civilization.

One of my good friends from many years back was there. He'd recently returned from a vacation of sorts in Barcelona. We got to talking about life plans. I was fairly curious as to what his were; he'd graduated recently, went bumming around in Barcelona for a while, and had returned some weeks back, yet did not seem to be angling for a big career move or anything of the sort. As it turns out, he was unconcerned. He told me was that he wanted to go live in Barcelona, and planned on working here for a while until he could afford leaving. Some years back, his sister and I had both been job-hunting in bogotá at around the same time, and were both staying at his place. Finding the job search futile, she ended up enrolling in a one-year program in Barcelona, and had managed to find some employment and extended her stay. At the time she'd recommended that i do the same, but I had no money and the program bore no relation to my field in any way, so I ended up forgetting about it (plus i did find a job, just not in bogotá).

But now my friend was insisting. This was, as he said, the easiest way to leave the country: Just enroll somewhere, anywhere, for the least amount of money possible, and then figure things out once you're there. I'm heading out in a year, he said. To do what in the long term, exactly? Not sure. Should I do the same? Well, it beats staying here. I certainly had no better plan. No plan at all, in fact. I was sending out resumes and applying to jobs but it appeared fruitless; this was riskier, but it actually managed to get you out. I'm risk-averse, but he is persistent. I don't know if he is just immune to my bullshit rationalizations, or just a relentless pain in the ass to everyone in general, but he does have a knack for cutting through my nonsense.



When I met up with him a month ago, to celebrate the new year, we couldn't help but bring up that conversation, and the Spain-related ones that followed. It had been a little over a year since we'd been daydreaming about Spain, and now we were both here, somewhat indefinitely. He'd moved earlier than planned, in early March 2011, and mostly worked and went to classes for the degree that he often referred to as 'total bullshit'. He'd recently extended his stay by enrolling in another course he had no intention of actually attending (a plan I'm writing down for future reference). I'd planned on waiting for the new year out on the streets, but after having spent the majority of the day walking, my friend's invitation to sit on a chair and eat food prepared by his visiting parents was too tempting, so I caved at around 11 pm.

We headed out afterwards to try and party, with no real resources besides five euros apiece and a tiny flask full of cheap rum I'd brought over. The night was predictable; cutre bars, conversations with strangers, drunken bartenders spilling the shots they were giving to us, relentless bouncing from one place to the next, alcohol of dubious quality, and some unexpected vomiting from my pal. Welcome to 2012, about as well planned as 2011.



My brother was with me at the beginning of the night, but he took off shortly before we headed out to the bars; hardly surprising, since he's not much of a party person. I stayed with him for the six days that I was in Barcelona. This ended up being the most interaction I've had with him since god knows when. We're neither close nor distant, simply not terribly talkative to each other or prone to keep in touch. This was a good opportunity to quiz him on his life, seeing as some of it didn't quite go according to plan for him and i've been curious to see where he ends up now. He seemed to be doing fine in Barcelona, which was a relief.

December in Madrid was a bit much, and by the end of it, it started to dawn on me how ridiculous it was that I'd neglected all the tourism and sightseeing in the city I've been living in for months. That feeling of wasted opportunity, and the feeling of 'wow, I really have no money for the month', made me decide to spend the majority of this Barcelona trip doing the exact opposite of what I'd do in Madrid. No drinking or partying or slacking off, just cultural/pretentious activity. Exhibits at MACBA and CCCB, trips to MNAC and Miró, water show at Montjuic, strolls down las Ramblas, Barrio Gótico, and the pier/Barceloneta, oddities at Fundación Tápies, Gaudítourism at La Pedrera, Park Guell, and Sagrada Familia, food at Quatre Gats...

2012 resolution: Stop slacking off and get to see Madrid, the city I live in, in more detail than I've seen Barcelona, the one I just went to for a week.