More random observations about Barcalona

Like in Seattle, there are pigeons here. Unlike in Seattle, there are no Laundromats. Or clothes dryers for that matter. For someone coming from a damp climate, this is completely and utterly alien to me. Everyone has a washer, but then just hang their clothes up outside to dry. Dustin and Esther have about half a dozen different ways to hang up wet clothes: there are the crisscrossing clotheslines on both verandas, the portable stand that you can whip out if it starts raining or you have a lot of clothes, the set up by which you can extend a series of metal rods from an apparatus in the shower (my personal favorite)...it’s pretty amazing.

I was reminded when I went to the Barca-Chelsea match the other night that the drinking age here is like 9. Okay, maybe it’s 18. But as a 32 year old American, it sure felt like there were a bunch of toddlers hanging out in the bar. Pretty disconcerting. It hadn’t really come up before because when we’ve gone out we’ve traveled to the city center, and as I said before this neighborhood (Sant Andreu) has more families. Lots of teenagers and grandparents. Anyways, it felt like I was watching the match at a daycare, only the kids could drink beer and smoke.

Dustin explains the insanity associated with trying to find a room in Barca: there are roughly 50 million people in Spain, and two major city centers. Let's do the math: that's 1/6th the population of the US (18%)...and what, 1/100th (1%) the number of cities? So all the kids who live in the country stream to Madrid and Barca in droves every day, looking for places to stay. Some of them live in apartments owned by their grandparents and make money renting out the spare rooms for a fat profit. Buying is not an option (unless you have E300,000 lying around for a two bedroom flat). I'll probably end up in the Barcelona equivilent to Burien.

Final thought: these Spaniards have a different word for freakin’ everything.

Ciao.