Febrero: Barcelona (and pictures of food)

I have decamped to Barcelona for the next few months, working in libraries by day and trolling bookstores and catching up on Spanish movies by night.  There are three things that have proven to be indispensable for this particular stay: slippers for cold floors in an unheated apartment; my laptop cable lock to thwart anyone who wants to steal my life's work; and my tea infuser, which I should probably never leave home without.

Here's what else I've been up to:

Days #260-265: Quick trip down to Madrid for an international conference of young Hispanists.  Gave my first paper in Spanish in a room that looked like it was preparing for the arrival of a UN delegation.

Plaza Mayor at daybreak

Day #263: I love running in different places, even places where no one else is running.  Today's route: through the Plaza Mayor, past the Royal Palace and around the Campo del Moro.  Chilly morning in Madrid, pretty sure everyone who saw me thought I was nuts.  Didn't see the King.

Day #264: Saw the Basque author Bernardo Atxaga speak.  When I was asked later what he talked about, the best I could come up with was that euskera is an asteroid in the linguistic solar system and translating a novel simultaneously into Spain's four national languages is tricky.

Day #266: I may be missing the Oscars this year, but for once I got to see Spain's equivalent Goya awards, in their mind-numbing entirety, on TV.  Javier Bardem won best actor for Biutiful. He now has more Goya awards than anyone else.  I wonder if he wishes he could give back that one for Huevos de oro?

Biblioteca de Catalunya

 Day #267: My days in the Biblioteca de Catalunya begin, as does the humiliation of trying to use my rusty Catalan with the librarians.


Day #272: Saw Biutiful, and Bardem definitely deserved that Goya.

Day #276: Working on a project about Mauthausen, and was able to meet a historian and the president of the Amical of Mauthausen today.  Making plans to be at the camp for the 66th anniversary of its liberation.

Day #279: Thrilled to have been in Spain on the 30th anniversary of the attempted coup of February 23, 1981 to nerd out on the retrospective articles and TV shows.  Culmination: saw the movie 23-F, in which all of the bad guys have mustaches, and now I know all of the inside jokes, coño!  ¡Quieto todo el mundo!

Day #280: Three more running routes in Barcelona: 1) Down the Diagonal, 2) To the Sants train station and 3) Along the Barceloneta by the ocean, to the Peix (a big fish designed by Frank Gehry, of course)

Day #281: Back to the library...

February Appendix: Pictures of Food

Lentils with chorizo, crusty bread and a nice Rioja.

Goat and sheep's cheese.  This is what the fridge smells like right now.

Berberechos.  Oh! Cockles.  That's why the woman at the market told me they weren't clams.

The berberecho aftermath.