Work, As Usual

Many of you will have grown weary of repeatedly reading through the old postings during the past month-and-ten-days' hiatus, so I have finally decided to post a new blog entry. I should point out immediately that there is no way I can cram all of the nothing of the past few weeks into a short posting, so I'm planning to make two, maybe three. That being the case, today's entry will serve as an introductory briefing, which you can read to decide whether you want to read the ones that will (eventually) serve as the body of this very long series of entries. Boring goring zoring loring doring noring foring....

Ok, so here's the deal: Alicia and I did our usual thing in early March - she competed in a talent show at our church, we attended about 500 hours of services and events associated with that "gran concurso de talento joven," and, as always, we plugged away at our various work- and research-related activities. I don't have to tell you how much fun all of that was, so I won't. You can try to imagine it. It will be better for everyone that way. So much for early March. Oh, I also gave a nice chapter portion to my adviser. Turn, turn, turn.

When later March arrived, so did our friend Safa from America (that's the United States of America, as opposed to all of the Americas, which some people think they can refer to as America, even though that makes literally no sense at all. At the very least, they should say "the Americas" or something similar. But I digress...). Actually, he didn't so much "arrive" in the classical sense, since we were in fact forced to meet him in Madrid. So he arrived in Spain and we met him in Madrid. Whereupon we all decided that, while Madrid is a fun and interesting and nice and pleasant city (if you can avoid Madrileños, which is easier than you'd think), Barcelona must be infinitely more interesting, fun, and adventure-laden, if perhaps not nicer or more pleasant than Madrid. After this decision had been made by us, our friend's family rushed us hearts-in-throats to the airport, because I wasn't about to pay 100 euros for a one-way train ride when I could pay half that to fly in half the time. So airport, airplane, Barcelona. We had things perfectly planned so that, by great coincidence (my "planning"), FC Barcelona would be hosting some team (let's call them "Small-Towners In The Wrong League" or "Impish Upstarts 2008-2009") only 2 hours after our arrival in Barcelona. This would, in theory, give us enough time to get settled into our friend's apartment and then take the metro back to the Nou Camp, all before the game even had a chance to begin. MacGyver seems to be the origin of my use of the phrase "in theory." But Homer also gets some credit for asserting that, "in theory, communism works. In theory."

Where were I. Ah, so if things went according to coincidence, then we'd be able to show up at the stadium where one of the great footballing powers performs in time to actually watch them destroy some sorry team that probably won't even be in the first division next season. Right, so as you may be expecting by now, the plane that was supposed to get us there in half the time of a train ride ended up leaving an hour and a half late, meaning we left when we were supposed to arrive, meaning, eventually, that, while we arrived less than an hour after we departed, we also arrived in Barcelona a half hour before the match started. If not for our suitcases and sundries, perhaps we could have adventured it. But I'm not that adventurous, and besides, I had a strong feeling that we might be sleeping on the street that first night, as I hadn't actually been able to properly confirm our lodgings with our host-friend. This could go on and on, but we didn't get to the Barcelona game, we did have a nice place to sleep (ask Safa how awesome it was!), and we eventually had a decent meal for a decent price in what is anything but a decent neighborhood of Barcelona.

We decided to masquerade as silly tourists the following day, and so we purchased the two-day ride-the-open-top-buses-all-day pass to be able to see all these much-hyped Gaudí sights throughout the city without destroying our legs trying to hike it all. I got the idea of doing these open-top-bus tours from my brother, who is usually humiliated by anything that might draw any sort of attention to him, so I decided that if he's willing to do it in Madrid and in Paris, I can break down and ride the trap bus in Barcelona. It was kind of pricey, but I'm not sure I would have made the effort to go to all these different sites in Barcelona without the bus to tote me around (and guilt me into touring even when I didn't really feel like it!).

Let's see. SO, Barcelona at night. If you're interested in what goes on on the street known as Ramblas or in the nooks and crannies leading this way and that through the Gothic district and so on, you'll have to ask elsewhere. It's not my scene, and I'm not really up for those kinds of adventures anymore - maybe I really AM getting old.

Well, that's the first installment. I left all the really exciting things for next time. Or the time after that. It's called "building the suspense," and successful writers use this tool to actually increase their audience as the installments are periodically released. The rest of us use it to drive our readers away by murdering their interest gradually over long periods (Dickens taught me how...)