You’ll be lucky to play arena football in Barcelona!

Three points to whoever gets what movie the title is from – on visual recognition alone.

Barcelona was definitely worth it, although the weather spoiled how good it could have been. It’s been so long now since these trips that I’m having to look at the pictures in chronological order to spark my memory about just what I did.

First, many thanks to Lizzie and Sheetal for letting me crash for a whole week at their piso, perfectly located in the north Eixample. You are forever in my debt.

The only day it was nice was Sunday, the day I arrived. I should have gone to the beach or to Parc Güell, but instead I accidentally wound up taking a super-long siesta. Sunday down.

Nikolai and Cinzia were in town, since Nikolai was taking another intensive language course for two weeks in Barcelona. While Nikolai was at class, Cinzia and I would go and do some tourist stuff. First we hit up Sagrada Familia, early on Monday. In my opinion it’s a cool concept to see in action, but I’ve seen so many churches now, and it’s still not finished. Now I’m at the point where when I see one of these massive churches or some ridiculous amount of worldly glory like gold crosses or papal crowns or marble tombs or blue-eyed Jesuses, I can only think of how many schools could have been built with the work, time, money, and material involved. Frankly, as sure as I can be of such a thing, I think God would agree.

Walking along Les Rambles that night, we came upon the Cafe Moka, which I had just finished reading something about in Orwell‘s Homage to Catalonia, which I had finished a day earlier. In the book he describes at length how, during the Barcelona May Days, he and his POUM unit holed up in a building and trained their sights on the building across the road which the police had fortified – the very same Cafe Moka. Hence, a picture was in order for P. Rhea.


I think it was that same night that I went to some pub with Lizzie and Sheetal, and it became clear that the pub was 90% full of Americans and Canadians. It was the closest thing to cultural shock I’d experienced in Spain – no situation like this could possibly occur in Valencia with any ethnic group (except Spanish people of course), so that was unusual.

Tuesday: Cinzia and I go to Casa Batlló, a particularly famous Gaudi house. It was really cool, the audio guide was informative. We also randomly ran into Cornelia from Austria, who was in our intensive language class in Gandia. Later, in the afternoon, Nikolai and I go walking around the Ciutat Vella. I make note of the Museu de la Ciutat, which is offering an exhibition called La Primavera Republicana (Republican Spring) about the Second Spanish Republic, a subject I had just finished reading about in the Orwell book.

The next day, the weather is even more shite, so I decide to go to the Museu de la Ciutat. €4.50, as a student (thanks ISIC card!) nets me entry into the main part of the museum and the Republican exhibition, complete with audioguide, which always makes these things twice as cool. Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed inside, because the main part was AMAZING. After some pretty informative stuff about the Iberian and Roman past, you take an elevator underground and for like an hour you walk around the actual Roman ruins of ancient Barcelona. It was way, way cool. They even still have garum and wine vats embedded in the ground in the old food houses. Then I went up into the Republican exhibition, which was meant to invoke a sense of the gains and unfair losses of that time. At the end there is a place where they have newspaper articles and books from the time, and a wall to write testimony. The testimonies were really cool, and there was an old woman with her children and grandchildren in there. As she looked at them, she began to tear up, and said to her family (in Catalan) “I’m getting a little emotional.” It was a strong moment for me, and I left a message on the wall. There were even messages of solidarity and anti-fascism in Basque.

That evening was a “CEOs and Secretary Ho’s” style party at Sutton Club which Lizzie and Sheetal were going to. Lack of alternatives drove me there as well. It was actually surprisingly good, even though the music was not quite my type the DJ was pretty talented and so kept the fuel going. I even met someone who went to high school with Thomas – crazy.

There was not a significant amount of tourist action over the next days because the weather was bad and the next cool things to see – Parc Güell and Montjuïc – certainly relied on agreeable weather. This did, however, leave me with some good time to work on my Congress Committee application for AIESEC International Congress 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey (fingers crossed on that one). On Saturday I washed my clothes, which came out dripping wet – not a good thing, since I needed to pack them to fly out to Bucharest on midnight of Sunday. That night someone who has a curse on their head stole my jacket at a club. Sunday was spent working on my application and putting my clothes on the space-heater to dry them in time to leave. I did venture out to Parc Güell on Sunday, although it started raining lightly. It’s quite a nice place.


I was unable to dry my Guinness jersey in time to leave, so I just wore it and it dried as I made the trip to the airport to begin Phase 2 of April: Bucharest and, with it, AIESEC International Trainers Congress 2007.

Plain Talk

I told to my mother several months ago that Tiffany was applying for the MC of AIESEC in Pakistan. Not being updated on the situation after Tiffany did not get the position, my mother relayed to me a conversation she had with some kind of foreign government diplomat that she described was half-likely to be a member of the CIA, who had worked in Pakistan. The foreign agent became concerned when my mother relayed Tiffany’s interest, and the agent implored her to relay that Tiffany should stay away from Pakistan, that there were high instances of Western female kidnappings and all of these kinds of things. Despite my statement that the current (maybe past now) MCP of Pakistan, Tori, is a white Australian female, my mother stated in the old-world fashion, “I wouldn’t want my daughter going to Pakistan.”

These two heroes have stated, with their particular eloquence, why Tiffany should go to Pakistan, or Kenya, or Iran, or any such place where my mother does not want her daughter to go.

In the Dam, for the weekend…

Amsterdam was a great time. I flew in and met Jeremy and Mischa at Schiopol airport at about six in the evening on Thursday, and Mischa in his extremely hospitable way bought our train tickets and gave us a large, well-worn map and showed us exactly how to get to his flat in the Jordaan district. This didn’t keep us from going too far and making it to the Central Station, but with our handy-dandy map we were able to make it to Best Thai restaurant, where we enjoyed quality Thai food in the company of AIESECers and trainees alike. Jeremy made it to his hotel smack-dab in the middle of the Red Light District, well-located indeed.

The next day Jeremy and I did the tourist thing in the Dam, going to the Rijksmuseum (disappointing because they are renovating the main hall until 2010 – at Jeremy’s suggestion we would have just stood and waited until 2010 came), experienced gezelligheid at a cozy koffe huis with a canal view (what DOESN’T have a canal view in the right part of the Dam?), and wandering the Red Light District both during the night and the day. What an odd piece of the world it is. I support the purpose of the Dutch policy on the Red Light Districts (which are not just in Amsterdam) and it is very interesting to see the actuality of nearly-naked women (slightly over half of whom are attractive) tapping their all-glass window and enticing you to pay their rent. But there are also the many prostitutes who sit at their stools, bored and unsmiling, which quickly washes away the novelty and boyish grinning one would associate with such a place and replaces it with a feeling of mixed sympathy, slight discomfort, and a sincere understanding of the phrase “Not In My Backyard.” Add in the fast-walking immigrants who mutter “coke, ecstasy” as you pass by, and De Wallen is not exactly the headiest district in town.

The next day was the excellent AIESEC Amsterdam reception weekend. We started the day off adventurously touring the city on a contraption called a “Stepbike,” which is essentially a scooter but with the wheel orientation and size of a bicycle – so you stand in the middle and use one foot to push off. Since it’s closer to a bicycle’s construction, the stepbikes allow you to go about two-thirds as fast as you could on a bicycle, making for hilarious hijinks along the canals as we zipped around in masses of twenty, imploring me to hum “The Ride of the Valkyries.” We stopped in the middle for a gezellig time having a beer on the corner of a canal. That night they pulled out the big guns as we had a dinner and a few hours of pre-party in the upstairs room of Café Heffer, where the LC has their meetings. That is amazing. Then it was off to the crown jewel – a boat party. Best reception weekend _planning_ ever (Mountain Mayhem still struggles for best event ever). And as a major cool bonus, I met their LCP Jaan – based on the fact that he went to high school in Guntersville for a year. Really nice guy, and he appreciates and knows North Alabama.

On Sunday we went to the Heineken Museum, which is a cool experience, but we were unable to go to the Van Gogh museum due to time constraints. I’ll definitely return to Amsterdam sometime in the future though, so there’s always then.

The most important thing I learned, though, was after I’d been back in Spain for a couple hours. I had the mentality, due to my long weekends and the fact that being in Europe is far from being in the US, that I should see as much of Europe as I can. However, a minor culture shock upon my return to Spain led to a small amount of regret that I had left at all. I saw and did some cool things in Amsterdam for a few days, but the value of what I experience in Spain is so much heavier and important than jetsetting and not being really a part of that culture. As Pepe’s girlfriend Davinia said, “Puedes ver mucho, pero conocer nada (You can see a lot, but understand nothing).” That’s the concise truth, and it’s one that I will commit to with a new appreciation. With the exception of next weekend’s trip to Roma to visit my mother and sister, and my trip to Romania for ITC (Hooray!), P. Rhea will be sticking around Spain to savor the culture that abounds. At least until June opens up.

He asegurado un piso!

Finalmente! I have found and secured an allsome apartment. More amazing than finding that such a place actually exists is that out of 20 people I was chosen as the rightful inhabitant. Here’s a google-mappage of where it is. Yes, it’s across the street from the football stadium. And it’s also right where all the fan-bars are, three minutes from the metro, and ten minutes walk to the university, and five to ten to the “river park” and beyond to the old city. Which is nice.

Ah, the things which have and have not occurred since my last blizz-ogging. Notable in my own personal vision and development in the medium-term I shall relay in this anecdotal story.

Friday evening was the Erasmus dinner, which was to celebrate the end of the two-week intensive language course (which I passed, gracias por Dios!) at the slightly early time of 9:30. In an interestingly AIESEC-like fashion, everyone was to bring a dish from their own country and complete a banquet of international tastiness (complete with two provided barrels of sangria and “agua de valencia.”) Now I cannot cook, and there is not even an oven in the apartment in Gandia, but I had a great and simple idea to bring these Europeans the taste of the South: I would fix up some sweet tea.
So I checked a recipe online and I got the necessary ingredients from the store (sugar and tea). And I followed the instructions as they were written (or so I thought – realize that there are no measuring instruments in these apartments): I put about three or four cups of water on to boil and I put a cup and a half of sugar in as well. Threw in ten teabags, left it to boil for an hour (like I thought the directions said) and went to someone else’s apartment.
How the apartment smelled and was hazy when I returned an hour later. Smelling of burnt glucose. When I opened the pot of boiling sugar water/tea, it was no longer boiling. I was reminded of the scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day in which Sarah Connor visualizes the nuclear attack on Los Angeles, and sees the parents and children at the playground turn into black casts of themselves from the heat before the blast blows them away like so much ash. Well, that’s what the pot looked like. Everything was blacker than Mordor, and burnt sugar was all that was left. It even overtook the teabags, which crumpled to the touch. That pot is still not wholly clean after three washings with boiling water.
I was extremely frustrated and disappointed after that, but I just realized that I had to take the pot off the heat when I threw the teabags in and let it steep for an hour. I still had an hour and a half and ten more teabags, so this was easy. I just did it again with the crucial step of removing from heat. After an hour, I poured the syrup into a container and poured in a right amount of water (just like the recipe said!) and got barely, barely sweet tea. Not even worth bringing to represent Arkansas, much less Alabama. So I didn’t bring it.
And on the walk to the university, I came to the conclusion that one of my great challenges will be to become a “master” chef by the time I return to the land of the free. I’ll have to start out slow – my first victory will be successfully completing a pot of sweet tea – but by the end I’ll be able to cook for eight guests so well that they will all have to remark about it in between mouthfuls. Of food.

The other thing I will challenge myself with is starting AIESEC in Valencia. This way I can meet Spanish people, stay involved in AIESEC, and keep challenging myself, as well as bring AIESEC to this amazing corner of the world.

The other day in the metro I saw someone reading a book with the title La conjura de los necios and then I saw this picture on the cover:


The glory of A Confederacy of Dunces has been brought to Spain! I doubt that all the linguistic jokes can translate well, however.

I’ve been meaning to type this for some time, but I always lose time, but now I have time. A week before this past Friday in the language class, our professor was asking for adjectives that were negative about things or people. I proffered “fascista,” the professor said, “SI! SI!” and threw it up on the blackboard. A few minutes later, one of the Finnish dudes said, “comunista,” and she looked confused and said, “por que es mal?” I experienced a few thoughts and emotions at this time. Of course I was glad at her appreciation of the real meaning and good things of socialism, and more so that she would be able to counter that it was not a bad thing at all. Almost immediately afterward, I thought about how that could never, ever be uttered in the United States – yet our societies are both Western European derived societies. Why is it universally hated in the United States while it is taken seriously and debated seriously in Spain?

The answers lie in several places, most of which do not include the Cold War (which is the most recent reason for U.S. outright dismissal of that kind of society). One of the most interesting and influential clashes of ideology ever was the Spanish Civil War, in which the left fought the right. The right won. But during the war (especially in Catalunya) the left proved that its system worked for real. Which is glorious. The point here is that after the dictatorship of Franco, the people of Spain recognize a socialist society as both the democratic alternative to Franco and as the thing to achieve after what they have experienced under dictatorship.

Anyway, tomorrow is the day of matriculation and settlement. Cheers to all from Valencia.