Golliver's Travels (Part Three)

I know, two long blogs in a day is excessive posting but the last one was behind the times. Although things have moved on a bit, I'm quite pleased that I can stick to my initial impressions; I'm in a good place.

I think in Russia I posted a blog called something like "Up and Running" after a couple of weeks and I could well have said the same again here. When I wrote (most of) that last spiel, things were not up and they were not running. I had barely moved in to my new flat, I didn't know my flatmates, I was still getting used to things at work, I didn't know my way around or where I'd be spending most of my time, I had no internet, TV, football, gym.. Now, though, things are a bit more like normal life. I'm becoming quite used to this whole situation of settling in to a new place after this year abroad. I suppose that's a good thing.

So, of those things what has changed the most? Well the flat situation is a lot more normal now. I live with an Argentinian man Mauro, an Argentinian lady called either Natasha or Natalia (it isn't a rubbish effort that I don't know - she's universally known as Nati so it could be either) and two Spanish ladies, Carla and Sarah. They're all perfectly pleasant and I probably spend more time with Mauro and Carla than the other two, mainly because they're closer to my age. TV and Internet are in, as is my newly-purchased fan (everyone knows I don't go long without one of those). As living arrangements go this is very acceptable and the only minor negative is just that knowing you have to speak Spanish at work, out and about and at home is a little bit intense.

Work fluctuates between being very entertaining and very boring depending on the day. Today, for example, I just uploaded properties to various property sites and translated descriptions and captions on photos into both English and Russian. Luckily, that's not one of the very entertaining days. Four hours of that is more than enough of that. Yesterday, par contre, was a lot more fun. Being the only English speaker and Russian speaker in the building means I do sometimes get some extra bits of work, for example mediating deals about listing properties on sites in return for X Y Z (just a little bit of Z after I've finished negotiating...) and other such things, sometimes by phone and sometimes just email. That's kind of more fun because it's people based and so on. But the best yet was yesterday morning when, for the first time, I had to speak with a genuine property buyer. I guess I'm not meant to say too much about customers but it was a lot of fun talking to someone about what luxury properties they might be able to get within their (very substantial) budget. Hopefully this will repeat itself because it does beat photo captions.

Enough on work, because in truth that's 20 out of 168 hours in my week. Afternoons are fairly rigidly gym / swim time because my membership (20 euros per month, strong) only lets me in between 3-5. After that, though, I've been fairly free to enjoy the offerings of Barcelona. That includes a bit of tapas and bar time, as well as extensive World Cup watching and plenty of visits to Ed and Sarah and Juan and co.

Weekends are quite special, almost entirely because you can just pop to the beach. Just like that. It is delightful. You take some food and drink and a ball, forget your suncream and then lounge on the sand / in the sea for several hours. Later, you return home very content and a very bright shade of red. It'll be tan by tomorrow...

In the evenings you can go to the bars and clubs of the city, which are relatively good although, as I might've mentioned before, a little tainted by the night-time grime and crime (nice rhyme) on La Rambla in the later hours. On that note, I think I accidentally accepted a drug deal the other day. A man said something to me from a dark corner, I didn't hear and being polite and English I just gave the old casual nod of the head back and then when he said "you do?" I somehow clocked what he had said before and realised that I was on the verge of taking his offer.

This blog is getting rather long but a story definitely worth telling is from our stroll the other day along Gran Via, when we witnessed a genuinely shocking situation. I'll set the scene. The central part of the street is pedestrianised and wide enough for many people. However at one point there were indeed many people and therefore only quite a small gap between two groups through which anyone faster-moving could fit. With unfortunate timing, two such faster-moving people (a jogger of around 50 and a skateboarder of around half that), heading in opposite directions, saw the gap and aimed for it. Luckily it widened enough that there was very, very minimal contact. No issue. The jogger didn't even flinch and carried on his merry way. The skateboarder wobbled slightly (because that's what skateboards do) but did not carry on his merry way in any sense. He turned, looking more angry than any man ever has, and started chasing after this innocent jogger. We immediately agreed it was going to be funny to watch and we should wait for a minute. We did wait for a minute, but it was less funny that we had hoped. Instead of remonstrating a bit like a normal person, this skater ran skated up behind the jogger, who was waiting to cross the road at a red light, and punched him, closed fisted, in the back of the head, knocking him to the floor. Once he was on the floor, he proceeded to hit him repeatedly with his board. The reaction of both the jogger and the Barcelonians was seriously impressive, though. The jogger, passers-by, people on their balconies, people in cars and so on all started shouting "policía", whistling, beeping horns and whatever they could think of to get help. I fear they may have done too much. With no exaggeration whatsoever, 4 police motorbikes, 3 police cars and one foot patrol were called in to deal with this one angry man. It may have been bad, but that was a bit of an overreaction. That's the end of the story.

Anyway, I have to say that with the hot and sunny weather, perfectly acceptable work, pleasant people around me and plenty of ways and time to enjoy myself, as well as a couple of necessary trips planned to France in August, I stick to my last line from my last blog. There aren't many better ways to spend a summer than this.

Hasta luego

The Very Latest News from a Long Way in the Past

I’m just rereading this blog before posting and it’s all a bit strange because I wrote it two weeks ago but had no internet to post it until now.       Maybe I will complement it with a second blog at the same time. Even so, here is the "latest" as it was many, many days ago:

I’ve spent years cockily going on about how lucky I am with planes and travel. I think it would be fair to say that after my journey here and thanks to French air traffic control, the balance has been well and truly restored. My 14.40 plane was postponed to 19.30 and then moved back to 15.30, meaning a dash to the airport without Gatwick Expresses because someone had jumped under one. When I arrived, security and check-in took several decades, there were a few billion people in the airport and my flight was nowhere to be seen.

At this point I treated myself to the pleasure of the airport lounge, which I really recommend. You pay £20 and you’ll eat that back in about 14 seconds with all the free food there is. Several promises of new information went unfulfilled and I started to wonder if I would actually get away at all, especially hearing that Ed, who was going to Barcelona from Manchester, had had his flight cancelled. Anyway, that was effectively home between 15.00 and 20.00, fully equipped with living room / cinema, kitchen / buffet, bathroom and sofa-bed (/ it was just a sofa but no one was stopping me). At 20.00 a gate was finally announced. I don’t know why, though. There was no plane, no staff and no point at all in being there. There was just a mass of angry, angry people. So I went back home, where they were showing Goldfinger.

                Enough, long story short the plane didn’t show up for a long, long time. Eventually we were told it would leave at 23.00. At 00.00 we were still at Gatwick. At 00.30 we were actually unbelievably in the sky. At 4.30am I was in Barcelona. With nowhere to stay. I didn’t imagine my first night in Barcelona would involve a slightly suspect cash-in-hand deal with the night guy for a room in an edge-of-town Travelodge but there you have it. Four hours later I sneaked out, without so much as a key to give back. So, after a hugely tiring, aggravating, hot-and-sticky making, stressful and difficult journey, the Barcelona adventure was finally underway.

                It’s now 1^st July (happy birthday, mum) so I have a few days to report back on. Until last night, I was living with my friend Kwei, and his friends Ed, Sarah, Juan, Andres, Jacqueline and Steve. Having that flat as a place to stay was enjoyable and useful in equal measure. Lots of barbecue food was eaten and lots of football was watched. We went out a few times and they even offered an airbed for me to sleep on. I obliged for five days, which is almost certainly outstaying my welcome. Thanks, guys.

                During this time, three things happened. The first was that I had a chance to explore Barcelona again after a few years away and I do just love it. It has everything we tend to appreciate. Every single street is tree-lined and wide and open and flanked by smart shops and cafes and terraces, every building is perfect and has impressive balcony-covered façades, there are plenty of parks, it’s sunny, there’s a laid-back atmosphere, there are incredible monuments, the seaside is never too far away... I really hardly have a bad word to say about it. It must be one of the world’s greatest cities.

                The second thing is that I was able to start work. For anyone who doesn’t know but does care, it’s in a luxury real estate firm and I basically translate all of their property descriptions, website information, keywords and whatever else from Spanish into Russian. It’s relatively difficult but I feel I’m already improving a bit. I just need to improve enough before they realise I’m totally incapable. The office is a bit hot but otherwise it’s all good - they’re friendly enough and my four hour days are an absolute treat, meaning I have a lot of free time which I can only assume I’ll use productively.

                The third thing was the flat search. That’s a big word for contacting some people from a flat-share website, visiting one and taking it but I guess that says good things about this flat. The location is good – roughly equidistant between Kwei’s pad and work – and the flatmates are fine from what I can tell so far. It’s all newly furnished and kitted out and looking good. I only arrived and unpacked last night but I’m already delighted with it.

                The settling in process always feels a bit strange but with a flat I’m happy to be living in, work I’m happy to be doing, a city I’m happy to be spending time in and friends I’m happy to be spending time with, I really can’t see many better ways that one could spend 3 summer months.