It is incredibly difficult to get work done in Barcelona. Honestly, it is nearly impossible to do anything at all here without an inordinate amount of incentive. The responsibilities of schoolwork lose their concreteness and fade into something insubstantial and ghostlike, simply because they don't fit with the atmosphere of this place. Barcelona is vibrant and a little seedy, jangly and slow, and absolutely not conducive to focus. I've never lived in the moment so much before...how am I supposed to think ahead in this state? It's all I can do just to keep still and watch everything moving around me.
Lately the only thinking ahead I've really done involves travel. I spent last weekend in Toulouse, with Pauline, in her family home. Her house isn't really in Toulouse, but in a little village about 40 minutes away, whose name I can neither pronounce nor spell. If Barcelona is a place of movement, Toulouse was refreshing, soothing calm. Land of violets and poppies, rolling hills everywhere, green wheat waving in the wind, bright sunlight saturating everything with color. Neon yellow fields of mustard flowers, apparently only used for animal feed and oil. Trees planted in the neat rows on either side of the road, creating a sort of corridor, everything very neat and orderly and French. Pauline's family were unbelievably sweet to me, introducing me to their friends, showing me around Toulouse, and feeding me some of the best food I've had in awhile. The cheese course comes after the main dish but before dessert, and really makes me wonder how the French keep their reputation for slender figures. I also tried real Parisian macarons thanks to Pauline's dad's work travels, as well as a couple duck meat creations that looked odd but tasted amazing. Toulouse is all pink and faded blue, slender bricks and painted wooden shutters, spring flowerbeds and fountains. I had fun trying to learn French from everyone... they flattered me and said I was a natural. I could have stayed forever.
But instead I rode the bus back to Barcelona, only to hop back on a day later for a spur-of-the-moment trip to Tossa de Mar with Logan. Everyone needs a break from Barcelona's fastslow, inefficiently headlong rush sometimes, and we wanted to clear our heads with some ocean air. So up Costa Brava we went, to stay in a cheap but clean little hotel and wander through the nearly abandoned streets of this still off-season little beach town.
I will never get used to all the older-than-my-entire-country stuff they have here. A citadel with crenelated towers crowning a hill that thrusts out into the aquamarine ocean like a fist. And further inland, the foundations of a Roman villa, sunken into a grassy hill. Is it the fact that I grew up looking at pictures of castles and reading about princesses and dragons that thrills me when I look at old rocks piled up this way? Or is it something else? All I know is that it feels like magic and makes me wonder. It's not old paint and old rock and old wood that's thrilling, but intent, and what's left of it. Also the unintended stuff, the natural surroundings, yellow cliffs and cypresses and the way that the cathedral eroded to look like a cracked eggshell overlooking the bay.
Also magic were the beaches. Logan and I found a small pebbly cove between cliffs, right below one of the citadel towers, and spent most of two days there, collecting sea glass, listening to the water, and soaking up some sun. We ate bad Spanish seafood dishes (too much mayonnaise, cheese, garlic...why, Spain? WHY?) and good pizza... and just took it real slow.
Now I'm back and hoping to take the train to Figueres tomorrow, to see the legendary Dalí museum, designed by the master himself. I'll also be heading to the MNAC soon, hoping for some information and inspiration with which to write a 15 page paper due by the end of my semester here. I could also use some help with my oil painting... I might need to leave some offerings near the works by Casas and Rusiñol, maybe their spirits will aid me. What might they like? I should have brought them something from Toulouse, they loved France so much... some violet infused mustard or absinthe or macarons. Oh well.
adieu mes aimes!
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