Ah, that sound is magic…it’s pouring rain outside. It’s the first time we’ve had any serious rain since I arrived in Barcelona almost a month ago. The entire region (Catalunya) is suffering from a drought, the reservoirs are very low, and we are always reminded to conserve water. It’s really something that’s on people’s minds here; I’d say that, compared to Canada, there’s more consciousness in the general population of (water) conservation.

The city of Barcelona “proper” (not including those garden-waterers in outlying areas of the metropolitan region) has low water consumption per capita (for a major Western city): apparently around 110 litres per person. Catalunya’s average, on the other hand, is 272 litres per person, more in line with much of North America, I believe. (Yes, I know calculating a true water footprint is more complicated, due to indirect water usage such as the water needed to produce goods, fuel, etc. Indirectly, we consume thousands of virtual litres per day.)

Of course, this year’s Expo in Zaragoza (June 14 to September 14) is focused on the theme of “Water and Sustainable Development.” Very timely…but how hypocritical will it be if they go ahead and build the mega-casino complex in the dry steppe landscape of Aragón, not far from the expo site?

In Montreal, there aren’t even water meters in peoples’ homes, so household water usage is “free” (infrastructure costs are included in the property taxes). You don’t receive a regular utility bill, so you have no personal cost associated with your consumption of water. People run their showers for a half-hour, water their lawns without conscience, run the tap for ages while washing dishes. I used to be one of these people.

As for me, luckily my Spanish “tutor” has trained me, years ago, to shower in three phases: wet-lather-rinse. The middle phase (water turned off) can be as long and luxurious as you like! (ha ha) You’re not as likely to get cold here during that phase; nevertheless, I showered that way in Canada for the past couple of years without any grief… (Someone told me in the U.S. it’s referred to as a Navy shower.)

Every weekend, we’ve been going to art exhibitions. Not big ones at the major galleries, but smaller ones (that also tend to be free, perfect for us “cheapies”). Last Saturday we went to see one at Casa Amatller, called Dones d’aigua (”Water Women”), which featured water-related photos of women and girls in Africa, alongside short essays about the problems caused by the extreme amount of time they spend fetching water each day. Imagine spending between five and twelve hours, daily, on the basic necessity of getting water — not to mention carrying 20 or 30 kilogram jugs all the way back home! And with all your time spent on this necessity, there is no time for school, fun or anything else.

It was a sobering reminder — even in Catalunya, a drought isn’t really a drought, and we’re hardly suffering from it. You turn on the tap and water comes out. It may smell funny sometimes (the Brita filter takes care of that), but you can drink it without getting sick. And if there were a real water shortage, we could always just drink wine…

Last night, after 17 days in Barcelona, I dreamed of fútbol. Sure, I’m aware of the extreme passion people here feel for their (our) team, Barça — which includes meeting them with hate-filled protests at the airport and cursing them through the fence as they practice after another disappointing loss. But I, myself, am no sports fanatic. If I were to have any sporting thoughts right now, they’d likely be about my Montreal Canadiens, as they head into the playoffs after wrapping up their season triumphantly.

Yet, there I was, on the soccer (er, football) pitch. Argentina versus Brazil. It was never clear which side I was on (hidden meaning?), but I was with my Argentine friend from elementary school, so one might venture a guess. We weren’t doing well out there, and I in particular wasn’t very effective — but what would you expect? I’m no pro (besides, I don’t have the right hair to be a soccer star). What on earth was that coach thinking, putting me in?

So far this may sound like an anxiety dream, but I don’t think it was: I was really enjoying myself. It was exhilarating to run up- and down-field with all these soccer greats (even if we couldn’t seem to put the ball in the net). And everyone, on both teams, was very supportive of me. (Hmm, I should have realized I was dreaming, because it’s not like that would ever happen…least of all between those two nations!) Anyhow, what’s the message I’m supposed to take into my waking life from this? Perhaps: the ball is in my court…so what am I going to do with it? (Or perhaps, as a friend of mine would say, it was just random neurons firing.)

Question: is fútbol so much “in the air” here that you can’t help it seeping into your skin (and dreams), even if you try not to pay attention? More likely, the dream stemmed from a minor incident in real life: a kid’s ball bounced toward me the other day, and I actually managed to stop it in mid-air with my foot. While I didn’t subsequently “bend it” like anybody in particular, I did direct it back toward him in a reasonably competent way. He politely said gracias, then went back to the serious business of blasting it off the concrete wall, to the delight of all the gran gent out for a quiet “sit” in the park.

In other news: my crate of worldly possessions has finally left Canada (a week late). Actually, looking at the information from the shipping company, I was disappointed to see that it seems to have actually departed from Halifax (must have gone on a truck from Montreal; sigh). I had romantic notions of a port-city-to-port-city delivery. At any rate (or, more precisely, at an average rate of 19 knots against a strong headwind and 6m waves), it is now on voyage 14 of the ZIM Haifa, in the mid-Atlantic (track its position here!).

Dulcinea and I arrived at the Oficina de Extranjeros, near Estació de França train station, around 11h30. There was a milling and frustrated crowd of immigrants outside, wanting papeles and work permits. There was a metal gate with a guard checking the credentials of everyone wanting to enter. I stepped forward and showed him my documents. Luckily, I had an official printout indicating that no appointment was necessary for me, and the specific hours I should show up (between 12h and 14h, Wednesdays only). It was too early yet, so he didn’t let us in. We went to a nearby café for a hot drink, watched a gang of suspicious youths “almost” rob someone (but the smart girls, sitting at the same café, hugged their bags close to themselves and made it clear they were “onto” the boys’ tricks). Dulcinea and I went back to check out the (now-bigger) milling crowd shortly after 12.

There was a new guard, and he let us both in after checking my papers (I’d heard some people have the experience that their Spanish partner — even a spouse — sometimes isn’t allowed to go in with them). We went through a metal detector (inactive?) and followed the directions the guard had given us. We entered a miserable-looking waiting room full of hopeless people sitting on shoddy chairs. We walked in front of them, bypassed them all to open a door (all while being far from certain that we were doing the right thing). We found ourselves in a big office with three desks, and an official behind each one. We stood by the door until someone motioned us over. I did as much of the speaking as possible, but it was great to have Dulcinea there as an extra set of ears, and as a far better explainer than me, if things got confusing (in a couple of cases, I misunderstood an explanation completely). There was the usual document-showing, the nice woman made me a photocopy of a page I hadn’t brought (a grumpier official would have sent us packing, to make our own photocopies; lucky again!), and then off we were to the next place.

None of the government agencies accepts payment of fees (by any means); they give you a modelo para el pago de las tasas (basically, a bill), which you have to take to a bank and pay it there. You then need to bring this proof of payment to the next place in the bureaucracy chain. For example, you may have to pay a processing fee or a card-issuing fee. In Canada, you’d normally just pay it right there, to the official.

Another key concept here is the resguardo. In the Oficina de Extranjeros, they gave me a handy list of all the things I needed to present at the comisaría (police station), to apply for my TIE (foreigner’s identity card). One required item was a resguardo from my application. I asked the woman what this was, and she said it was the original form I submitted. “You mean, my application for the visa, at the Consulate?” “Yes, it’s whatever you had to submit.” Hmm. (In retrospect, it seems that my situation was not the normal one I’ve seen described on the web: I didn’t have to apply for a residence permit myself, but had it filed “internally” and approved before I actually got my visa, which saved me some complication here in Spain…but it kind of confuses the process since later, I didn’t have the resguardo de solicitud for the permit. Luckily (again — I suspect being blond and Canadian has something to do with this “luck”), at the police station I was allowed to continue on with my application for a residence card, even though I was lacking the appropriate resguardo.)

After paying the latest set of fees (typically 10€) at a nearby bank, we caught another bus, back up town to Gràcia, to a major police station closer to our neighbourhood. Arrived around 13h15, but were told they weren’t allowing anyone else for the day (the processing part is only open 9h-14h every day).

So, that was it for “officlal business” on Wednesday. Since Dulcinea took the day off work, we took a late-afternoon trip to IKEA to look at storage options for “my room” — the small place where all my crap from Montreal will have to be housed. Snacked on albóndigas suecas (Swedish meatballs), then returned home, somehow exhausted, from having actually done very little “work”.

[to be continued]

I arrived in Barcelona a week ago (in the famous Spanish novel our hero arrives there just before the end of his story, but (hopefully) it’s toward the beginning of mine!). Spent a nice four-day weekend with my “Dulcinea” (something DQ never managed). Tuesday was the first día laborable that I was here, so I went to work, too, at my current “job” — which is to introduce myself to the various bureaucracies of Spain and Catalunya.

On Tuesday (with Dulcinea back at work), I wanted to start things off properly, so of course I went for a haircut (one of the things that eluded me in my last busy weeks in Montreal). I hoped to avoid any communication problems, and especially the 80s-style “hockey hair” (aka “coupe Longueuil” aka “corte futbolista” — everyone has their name for it); also, the dreadlocks and other favourites of misguided Catalan and Spanish youths.

I managed to get a reasonable (and pleasantly mullet-free) cut at a salon just up the hill, a mere block from my new home. The hairdresser’s husband, it so turned out, was from Canada; no less, from Edmonton! She’d even visited his family there (and (sorry, but), hated it)…Dulcinea tells me the hairdresser is actually separated now (she didn’t mention this to me), so perhaps that adds to the bad associations? Anyhow, this seemed a pretty unlikely coincidence, since there are very few Canadians (let alone Edmontonians) here, especially in this neighbourhood.

I then went to try to open a bank account (something that continued all week, until I finally gave up for now). I discovered (should have remembered, since it has happened to me before) that the numbers on two sides of the street don’t necessarily “align”. I was on Diagonal, looking for number 538. I was on the odd side of the street, around 300-something, so I kept walking and walking as the number slowly grew. Another thing is that a block doesn’t guarantee you a fixed increase in street numbers, such as by 100. Instead, it was quite a hike and I was still far from 500. I decided to cross, and discovered that I’d overshot! I was now at 602, so I imagined it would be a short walk back…instead, it was quite another hike back to (more or less) where I’d started. I think this phenomenon is especially common on the big streets, like Diagonal, Passeig de Gràcia and so on.

In the end, I was lucky that the bank was still open, since it was now after 14h, and most other banks were closed for the day. After a 15- to 20-minute wait, the ING man told me I couldn’t open a “current” (what we’d call a “chequing”) account because I don’t have a job right now — they only had “nómina” accounts (into which your paycheque is deposited). So I tried Deutsche Bank (also open), and after considerable confusion and freaking out the security guard with my apparent loitering in the massive open lobby, I was told more or less the same thing: that I should try with one of the more “local” banks, such as La Caixa or Caixa Catalunya. No success there — the only real progress for the day was a fresh haircut and also a set of “carné”-sized photos I had taken for the TIE application (Tarjeta de Identificación de Extranjeros, aka foreigners’ identity card).

On Wednesday, Dulcinea took the day off work to go with me to get empadronado (registered with the Municipal Registry). This is a key first step to almost every other game in town. Because I am not renting or buying a place right now, and because I don’t have any (water, gas, electric) bills with my name on them that prove my address, she had to come with me to certify that I was living at the same address. This all went remarkably well — and in a beautiful community building that had something in common, design-wise, with the Alhambra. We took a number, sat amongst a crowd of forty or so in a bright hall and watched the red quickly numbers tick up to mine. In total, we waited maybe 30 minutes (como mucho), then we were in and chatting with a friendly administrative woman. There were no problems. She told me it was very important to go to the medical centre to get a health care card (la tarjeta sanitaria from CatSalut, the debt-laden Catalan health agency). I was a bit surprised, since I’d understood I’d not be covered by the public health system for now, since I’ve never worked in Spain and so was not registered (nor could I register) with the Social Security administration. In fact, I had to show proof of private insurance in order to get my visa, and I understood that this requirement would not change once I was in the country. More on this mystery later (though it’s only more mysterious to me — and to everyone I ask about it — at the moment).

After that, we took the bus to the health centre just off Maragall, and at the front desk (after a short wait among old folks getting drugs or cups for their urine samples) were told to go to the third floor and ask for the card there. Up we went (via the stairs, being the healthy folk that we are) and were helped right away by a nice girl who gave me a sheet explaining the three things one needs to get the health card. Two of them I had (passport or identity card, plus proof of empadronamiento, which I had hot off the press), but the third was lacking: a registration number from the Social Security administration. I asked if I could still get this number if I weren’t working, and she said, “yes, they’ll still give you a number you can use for this.” Fair enough (though again, I was surprised, from what I’d heard before). But the place to get this number was a fair ways away, and we had yet to fulfill our main objective for the day: a visit to the Oficina de Extranjeros (Foreigners’ Office) down on Marquès de l’Argentera near Barceloneta, in order to fulfill the obligations for my residence permit and card.

I had a printout telling me I had to go within 30 days of my arrival in Spain (so far so good, since it had been only 5 days so far). It indicated I had to go on a Wednesday, between 12h and 14h, and that no appointment woulld be needed. Hmmm…can you tell we planned ahead? (Yes, it was Wednesday, and just after 11h, so off we went.)

[to be continued]

I’m Barcelona-bound, at last. I had seven months of visa-waiting (almost to the day). Now, seven weeks after that (precisely to the day), my house is under new ownership, my worldly possessions have been redistributed, given away, sold, or are en route to Europe. I’m at Trudeau airport, waiting for the adventure to begin. To continue, really, because the last while has been quite an adventure in itself. Months, days… In seven hours I should be in Europe.

There have been (so far) many hiccups and stresses, coulda-gone-wrongs and did-go-wrongs-but-worked-out-anyways, late nights, record snowstorms, farewell dinners and pub visits with friends, delays, glitches and surprises (both good and bad), but now I’m truly on my way.

You can’t expect much better than what I got. I mean, an ex-Prime Minister of Canada came to the airport to see me off. Not Trudeau, obviously, though the airport may bear his name. No — there he was, none other than Jean Chrétien, causing me to do a double take as I walked right next to him. In spite of myself, I had to turn back once I was past and sneak another look. Even better, my closest friend decided to save me the hassle and unpredictability of the shuttle bus, and took it upon himself to drive me to the airport and see me off. I really couldn’t hope for much better.

It wasn’t just a move, because then you can just have movers stuff everything into boxes and cart it off to your new home. No, I wanted to take this opportunity to lighten my load, the sheer amount of stuff I had, to feel free. Also, there’s the fact that the apartment waiting for me on the other end doesn’t have a whole lot of space. I managed to get rid of at least half my stuff. I was scolded several times for being too “unsentimental” — too ruthless with my purging. That may be so, but there are still a surprising number of boxes in a crate in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be loaded on a ship that leaves Montreal next week. Port city to port city, not bad — assuming all works out fine (ha!), they should deliver my goods in a month.

Well, the plane awaits. Let’s see if this precious visa is all it’s cracked up to be! And what the Spanish customs folks make of my meticulous list of all my (remaining) earthly possessions…

What have I been doing for the last few hours, days, weeks? I’ve been writing letters and calling companies, governments, departments, divisions and issuing bodies, telling them to take me off their lists, to move me, to update or cancel me, to erase me. My life on one continent is shrinking, is being torn down, dusted off, shredded and recycled. All is being sold off, given away, chucked out, boxed in and loaded on a ship for ports unknown (or even better, if I pick the right shipping company: known).

I am busy, fully conscious of the passing days, the backward-ticking stopwatch, the anticipation and excitement building even as nostalgia and premature longing poke their noses from around the corner behind me. I feel lighter, unburdened and at times exhilarated by the rush of change. Sure, I do feel anxiety — a little, but not as much as you (or I) might think. It’s probably waiting for me on the other end, around some dark corner of the Barri Gòtic or in an eternal lineup at the Foreigner’s Office, but for now I’m too busy savouring my last moments in Montreal.

The weekend consisted of two beautiful sunny days, the reflecting snow and ice blinding me and burning a late-summer glow into my cheeks as I raced around a frozen lake, alone both days, free, gliding, flying. If my visa was so delayed, perhaps it was only to give me such a great gift: a perfect Montreal winter, one like we haven’t seen for years, maybe decades (before my time here, at any rate). So much snow, so little melting, such pleasant temperatures.

As of yesterday, I have a valid visa in my passport, aching for its duty to be fulfilled by an immigration officer’s stamp. The house sale is “in the bag”, the final handoff going down in a couple more weeks, so all else must be done by then. After that, I’ll take a deep breath, spend one homeless week here with friends and then it’s off over the ocean (flying 35,000 feet above my few remaining possessions as they slosh through the North Atlantic) to a new land, a new life, and a patiently-waiting love.

In Montreal, it never rains but it snows. (What do you know? It’s doing just that, right now.)

Note that I’m no longer talking about visas, or about my preparations to move, but rather about the AVE, the Spanish high-speed train, which today (February 20 when I started this post) made its first runs between Barcelona and Madrid. I can’t wait to get to Barcelona, and at some point to give this thing a try — I love zippy trains.

Today’s first-ever commercial departure, packed with more journalists and television crews than regular passengers, left Estació Sants on time (6am), and arrived at Madrid’s Estación Atocha early…a good start! And they run every hour until 9pm (with four per hour during peak hours!), so it’s really going to be moving a lot of people, and quickly. It takes under 2 hours and 40 minutes, moving (for most of the trip) at 300 km/h. The prices are not bad, either (I can only imagine how much such a thing would cost in Canada — just a regular Mtl-Ottawa train can be more expensive than a cheap AVE ticket Bcn-Madrid!). It will definitely shake up the domestic air market, with perhaps six million people expected to use this new route in 2008.

Unlike those ads that used to run on TV here, I can’t go point at the AVE and say: “That’s a Bombardier!” In fact, some of the AVE trains in the RENFE system are made by our Montreal friends, but the ones running on the Bcn-Madrid line are the S/103s, made by Siemens; a train that has the world record for fastest unmodified commercial service trainset (yes, faster than the Japanese Shinkansen, because their record was using a test model). Of course, for a whole range of comfort/maintenance/safety reasons, they won’t run it over 300km/h, even though they could technically go over 400km/h.

Now, if they can figure out a way to keep the Sagrada Familia or Casa Milà from collapsing into an underground tunnel, they hope to open new track all the way to the French border in 2009 (2010, anyone?). There’s been lots of controversy about where it should route under — or around — the city. Last year, many balconies in the Sagrada Familia area had big sheets hanging out, painted with: “AVE per litoral” or “AVE=Carmel”, indicating a few alternatives the locals would prefer (essentially, on one side or the other of the neighbourhood).

Time for a short but sweet quiz… What is 2008?

International Year of the Potato?
International Year of Sanitation?
International Year of Languages?
International Year of Planet Earth?
International Year of the Reef?
Chinese Year of the Rat (starting February 7)?
European Year of Intercultural Dialogue?

Well, yes, actually it’s all of those things. But, it also looks like it may be the International Year of Me Moving to Spain (pending official UNESCO designation). I found out a short time ago that — after all this waiting (more than seven months for something that’s supposed to take three or at most four) — my visa has been approved (in a spirit of Intercultural Dialogue, perhaps?).  I need to contact the consulate tomorrow to see what the details and timeline are, but basically…I guess I’m in the Spanish club.  Or will be, soon enough.  Por fin.

Of course, now that the stress of waiting is over, the stress of totally reorganizing my life begins.  A new adventure awaits!

But the best news of all is that, when people inevitably ask me: “So, have you heard anything about your visa?”, I can actually respond with an answer they haven’t heard before.  ”Yes!  And it’s: ‘Yes!’”

P.S. Interestingly enough, my first-ever trip to Spain was exactly three years ago…isn’t life funny, sometimes?

P.P.S. Also funny was that I was having my teeth cleaned at the dentist’s office, practically next door to the consulate, when they phoned and left the happy message on my machine. And, this afternoon (before I discovered the message), I was on the verge of booking a short trip to Spain for a visit…just as well I held off on clicking that tempting “buy” button.

I’m not talking about the TV show. Instead, I’m talking about the first edition of the Barcelona World Race. Nine teams, of two professional sailors each, are in a non-stop race around the world in 60-foot yachts. The race started on November 11 in Barcelona, and now the teams have cleared the Canary Islands and have caught the trade winds and are headed towards Brazil for a while (via the dreaded doldrums).

You can find out more and keep up with all the latest news here. (RSS feed here) They have daily blog-style reports, satellite video interviews with the racers, and you can follow and review the progress of the boats in special 2D and 3D viewers. You can even sign up to race along with them in a simulation game…

The race covers some 40,000km, and is expected to take a bit less than three months. That’s right, they actually are trying to go “around the world in 80 days…” (Actually, the record on this course, in this class of boat, is 87.5 days.) The usual route for sailing around the world goes through the Suez and Panama canals. Because this is a non-stop race, they more or less have to go the “clipper route,” which passes around the Cape of Good Hope off South Africa, across the Indian Ocean, south of Tasmania, threading between New Zealand’s islands, across the Pacific, then around Chile’s Cape Horn and back up to Barcelona. There is plenty of danger from very big and heavy seas in the southern seas, not to mention floating ice.

So, who to cheer for? Knowing little about the technical aspects, the technological advantages and disadvantages of the various boats, having only read the short sailor profiles on the website, I find my heart wanting to cheer for these three teams:

• Educación sin Fronteras, featuring a Barcelona native paired up with one of only two women in the event; at 26, she’s also the youngest person in the race.
• Estrella Damm, featuring another Bcn native, a very experienced circumnavigator paired up with an American (Olympic gold medalist).
• Temenos II has a six-time circumnavigator paired with the only other woman in the race, who of course is also a very experienced sailor (they all are, obviously!). Also, this boat’s name keeps making me think: “We have two,” (i.e. sailors) because I keep misreading it as tenemos dos, although the word is actually temenos, which means something like “the domain of kings” in Greek. Oh yeah, turns out it’s also a banking software company.

Hmm. Only problem is that these three are currently…in the last three positions! Well, not all hope is lost. There’s still the all-Spanish team to cheer for: Mutua Madrileña, featuring two guys who live in the Baleares. And they’re in…well, okay…so they’re in fourth-last place. Sigh. But anything can happen, right? — there’s still about 85% of the race to go…

Seriously: Go, everybody, and have a safe race. What an adventure!

Once again, the “birthday” of this blog passed without fanfare, without me even noticing until it had passed. Anyhow, two years and still going, though hardly “strong”: my frequency of posting seems to have tapered off in the last few months… So, here are a few random notes to stir things up again:

Hats off to Gabriela Montero. I just discovered her — she’s a classical pianist from Venezuela who is doing something “shocking” and “revolutionary” in the staid classical world: improvising. It’s what used to be done a lot more, by folks you may have heard of, like Mozart, Beethoven… Her latest album is Baroque (if it ain’t), and she has this to say about it:

It has taken a few years for people to understand and believe the inexplicable mystery of free improvisation, which is what I do and have always done since a very young child. I would like to make clear that every piece on this record was created on the spot, based on themes that are well known of the Baroque period, and every free improvisation was born without any influence of an external theme.

The CBC wrote a little article about her recently, because this past week she played at Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.

To take a 90 degree turn, and speaking of other “gifted” Latinas, yesterday I remembered why people aren’t handing out any hard-hitting news awards to news site 20 minutos. One of their top headlines yesterday was about los pechos milagrosos de Salma Hayek. Assuming she was not quoted out of context (or perhaps joking…please?), apparently in junior high she asked God for larger breasts, so kids would stop teasing her. She dipped her hand in the holy water at church and said: “God, give me breasts.” And then: “He gave them to me!” A few months later she developed a real pechonalidad (this does not translate to English; it’s a wordplay on “breasts” and “personality”). I guess a miracle is a miracle, but it’s really too bad she didn’t ask God for world peace, an end to poverty, or something…useful. (Though evidently those breasts are currently “useful” for her newborn daughter.)

Even bigger news in Spain this week — you know, besides Salma’s miraculous breasts — was the Spanish king’s comment to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, at the Ibero-American summit in Chile: “¿Por qué no te callas?” (”Why don’t you shut up?”) You can now buy this slogan on t-shirts; the internet domain is up for sale on eBay (latest bid: 10,000 Euros); someone invented a popular new tapa by that name (it’s topped with a Spanish flag). In the meeting, it’s obvious Zapatero was trying to stay respectful, even defending his politically-opposite predecessor Aznar, but the king had a shorter fuse, and just couldn’t take Chávez’s comments any more. My question: whatever happened to diplomacy in international politics? (Answer: Screw that! — we can make more money and bigger headlines with confrontation, patriotism and pride.)

Oh yeah, one more thing. I saw the movie “Once” on an airplane last week. Simple, authentic, moving. Yes, it’s a musical, but…I liked it a lot. Go figure. No, there are no “show tunes.” The actors actually composed and sang the songs. Now you can stop “figuring” and just go see it.