The biggest culture shock I've experienced so far probably has more to do with the fact that I'm in a city than anything else. The most exciting thing about my day was that I managed to find my way all the way from the Placa Catalunya to my señora's apartment that's so far north it's not on the map thing my dad gave me. I've actually been able to orient myself alarmingly well, in spite of a few minor panic attacks.
Streets in Barcelona generally run in blocks (except the Avenguda Diagonal) and instead of north-south and east-west they're arriba-abajo and Besos-some other river I can't remember the name of right now. Arriba-abajo comes from the fact that the Mediterranean Sea is abajo and the mountains are arriba, so the streets have a pretty pronounced gradient to them. All of the blocks have diagonal sides instead of corners and they have benches and things, and a lot of people meet there but instead of just saying the corner ('cause there are four, you see) you'd say Passeig de Gracia-Aragó-abajo-Besos.
Even though it's comparably easy to navigate here, I'm not used to cities at all and Barcelona is famous for pickpockets so I'm being super careful/paranoid (the same thing, right?) and my señora walks to work in the morning so I went with her and I had no idea where the metro was when I was coming back home and the map I have is apparently mierda.
A note on my señora, Angela - she's crazy. She drove me all around Barcelona after she picked me up (when I was falling asleep) to show me all the neighborhoods that I shouldn't go to because there are "árabes y negros, y no son los negros buenos de la universidad. Son negros malos." She also wasted no time in telling me that Catalonians are crazy and the idea of Catalunya as an autonomous nation is "locura" and Spain should be unified. She lives with her dog Maxi - short for Máxima, because she's approximately eight inches long - and an entire room for her clothes. She also has some of her daughter's clothes because her daughter lives in a small apartment without a lot of closet space. Her entire apartment is filled with pictures of her daughter, Melisa, and she talks about her all the time. It's really cute. She's going to teach me how to cook Spanish food and she goes to the cine every week. She's taking me tonight! She's also addicted to chocolate and wants me to ask her questions about everything even though I end up staring at her and being confused most of the time. She walks to work every morning to keep up her figure and she told that did I know that salt is really bad for you? And she has four or five huge bottles of water in her fridge at all time.
The Oberlin in me is going crazy with all this bottled water. I have no idea why it's such a thing here, but they don't do tap water at all. Angela has a Brita filter but she doesn't use it and she just keeps lots of bottled water around. It's killing me a little bit. Also I had a placement test today for my language class and it was proctored and it felt so oppressive.
The other noticeable cultural difference I've found so far is this whole siesta thing. My ever-present desire to take a mid-afternoon nap is culturally embraced. I love it. So, siesta time.
Besitos! and I'm sure I'll stop updating so much when classes start and I know the city better.
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