The cost of freedom

I depart for Chicago via Munich today at 7:55am (It's 5:50 right now). I've spent the last two days cooking, buying gifts, cleaning and writing instructions for Oli regarding Lily's school routines. Here you see some unappetizing photos of:

Roast chicken (good for sandwich making or slathering with mashed potato);


Sweet potato and pork stew (A Hartrich Family Cookbook find) in an unappealing plastic container;


At the end of the two days I have left a fridge o' food: In addition to the above, includes Minestrone soup (Best with crusty bread and butter. Mm. Had some tonight.), mince for shepherd's pie, mountains of Greek yogurts (for Oli) and fruit puree cups (Lily), serrano and cooked hams for sandwiches, peach juice boxes for after school. There's also some warm apple/carrot cake on the counter.


Notey McNotersons.


Gifts and things to share at parties, comprised of Spanish/Catalan cava, wines, canned seafoods, and baked goods, as well as Kinder chocolates.



Thusly, through household preparation, I buy myself 5 days in Chicago celebrating Brian's wedding with the rest of the extended Taylor Street crew.

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Lily got some new clay today when we went to this learning toys shop Abacus with another mom and kid from school (Arlene and Gerard, we've been spending our afternoons with them regularly). Here she is 'cooking' it while wearing an improvised apron of bib and tea towel.




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Went for a nice cycle ride to Plaza Tripi on Sunday on the Bicing bikes.

My child, the genius.

Lily and I were just brushing our teeth when she said, "Mom, I speak Catalan at school. And I speak Spanish." And after a few more brush strokes and a thoughtful look, "Hm. I speak English."

Happy parent sigh.

runaways!

Thanks, Yaya.

My mom sent Lily a cool Halloween card in an envelope filled with tons of random stickers her house has collected over the years.

Halloween

Halloween isn't really celebrated in Spain, although notably, there was a special aisle of decorations and costumes added to our supermarket in the last couple weeks. In any case, All Saints Day is much more celebrated here in Catalunya with the traditional preparation of roast chestnuts (castanyas), sweet potatoes (moniatos) and small marzapan balls rolled in pine nuts (panellets), all eaten at chestnut parties (castanyadas) - all high-energy foods for staying up into the night with spirits, though most people don't practice this part of the tradition any more. For weeks Lily's been learning about autumn (tardor) and castanyas and how they are often carried in a basket with handkerchief by an old lady (la castanyera!). Almost every day they've sung chestnut and autumn songs and they recently sent the words home, so I've been trying to coax the melodies that go with the lyrics out of Lil, to little avail. Consider that your Catalan lesson for the day.

So as not to completely forsake Halloween, Lily and I decided at the last minute to attend a Halloween party thrown at the Hard Rock Cafe in the center by some American social league of sorts. Lily, of course, went as a ballerina, a costume we threw together from her play clothes. It is not much to boast about as far as costumes go (we'll go all out next year!!!), but the kid was thrilled to be able to wear such a combination of things, especially play jewellery, out into the world. (Look, Mrs. Hughes, I'm wearing the tutu you sent Lily!)



There was an all-you-can eat breakfast buffet, adults dressed up leading activities and enough multilingual semi-American children in costumes to make your head spin. Due to the loud music, general mayhem, and witch that greeted us as we entered, Lily wouldn't let me put her down for the first hour. Even before the event I knew there would be a cling risk since things like this can be overwhelming for little ones, especially Lil. But I decided to risk it, even without Oli (who was away all day Fri, Sat and Sun competing in an international Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Castelldefels), because if she did like the party, it would totally be worth the gamble.

In any case, I made it through a buffet line somehow managing to get us food and drink with only one arm available. After food time, the two adult leaders (the ladies in costumes in the photos) started teaching the kids a dance to Thriller. There was one dad dressed in drag and he pretty much became one of the leaders as well. Watching the older kids lightened Lil up, and when it was free dance time, we got down.

Balloon animals helped her even more, and when there was only half of an hour left, we made our way to the foyer where various children were chasing and beating each other with the balloon creations the ladies had made them. Lily and a cheetah boy proceeded to chase one another gleefully around the Hard Rock Cafe, the cheetah attacking with a balloon sword and Lily alternately with a balloon flower and her magic wand.


From there, we poured out into the sunny midday havoc of Plaza Catalunya (the centermost plaza of Barcelona) on a Saturday. It rained almost constantly this entire week right through today, so there were massive puddles everywhere. We ballerinas proceeded to splash in them, since we cleverly wore boots, as ballerinas do. This became wildly more fun as we grew bolder and bolder in our splashing, until thirty minutes later the smaller of us was soaked from bottom to toes. I had extra clothes but she declined to change, so we grabbed the metro home. When Lil sat with her feet up on the seat, giant rivers poured out of her boots filling the seat with water. It was pretty funny. We laughed.


Once back in our hood we stopped in the frutería where it was very funny so see a small wet blonde ballerina wandering around with this celery she insisted on holding for me.


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Last night Matty babysat for Lil while Oli and I attended our friend Eddie's (aka Edwin, Eddie-san, Eddie Wong, Eddie Chang) goodbye party. We know Eddie in a roundabout way: We once lived with Timo in Barcelona who once went to high school with Eddie back in Bristol and later reconnected with him by accident in Barcelona and ended up living with him. Eddie's Chinese by heritage but grew up in the Barcelona area and went to high school and college in the UK, so he speaks Spanish and Catalan like he's one of them and English as if he were British. It's funny. Alas, though, his Mandarin ain't what it ought to be and he's bored here, so off to Hong Kong he goes tomorrow where he'll live with his older sister for a bit before breaking out on his own in the China (That's right, the China.). It was sad to say goodbye to Eddie, especially since he cooks really well. He made so much food last night (with help from others): rolls of all kinds, tempura, dumplings, ahhhhh. People pitched in and got him a journal that we all wrote in and when it was presented to him, we all laughed about what a crappy journal it was, being made in China and all. (Ha.)

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Today Lil and I attempted to go to a castanyada and kids' play at Poble Espanyol, this replica Spanish village about a 25-minute walk from our house. Many events, particularly for kids, are held there so it is nice being close to it. We made it out the house just in time and it wasn't even raining, so I ran pushing Lily in the stroller all the way there, uphill! Just as we arrived I realized Lil had dozed, so I talked to her to see if she would reawaken. She did and smiled so paid my entrance fee and got into the village with 2 minutes to spare. But, Lil was once again out and this time for good. After several useless attempts to elecit a response from her, I got my money back and began walking home in torrential downpour. Thank goodness for massive umbrellas and stroller rain covers. Both walks, to and from, were really nice so I didn't mind the change in plans, although it was disappointing that Lil wouldn't get to see the performance. Of course she woke up just as we arrived at out building, rather than staying asleep for a decent amount of time, and was instantly shocked that we were home (last she remembers we were about to see the performance). Angry tears were shed in a way that broke my heart for the poor kid, but it was nothing that couldn't be put right by cuddling in bed with a cup of warm milk. Thankfully it's theatre season and there's plenty more on next weekend.

What we're doing

Living without a computer for one thing. I left Lily in my room for one minute while I went to the bathroom before we headed out to shop. When we came home I opened the computer to find the keyboard moist. 'Why is this wet?' I said aloud. 'Because I cleaned it!' came the joyful reply from Lily. She later divulged that she had poured a bit of water on the keyboard, which no longer worked at this point. Computer has been in the shop for a few days and will be fixed tomorrow.

This all came two days after I took on a web maintenance job at Oxford House, one in which I can work from home on my computer. It's a nice job which seems like it will develop into a larger position doing marketing for the in-center and in-company classes. I'm excited because the position will let me do lots of things I like: redesign and maintain websites, come up with activities and on-line attractions to promote the school, and generally help foster the nice community spririt at OHC. Nerdy organizer meets technogeek meets social butterfly. Plus I get to use Spanish.

Our VW is en-route to Barcelona, being driven by Oli's brother Dave and his girlfriend Laura. Only problem is the van broke down in Versailles and has been there since Saturday. Here's hoping Fergy makes it to BCN.

Lots of things are breaking: computer, van, refrigerator door (fell off on me - fixed with hot glue gun), electric kettle, glass jar we keep tea in (later gashed my finger open on one of the shards in the trash - probably should have gotten stiches; will likely have massive scar).

Lily is in to everything. She picks things up from around the house, puts them in various bags she owns and takes them to cupboards or drawers in other locations in the house. Also likes using scissors, glue and stickers.

Lily is also speaking lots more Spanish and mixing the languages. She peppers her English with Spanish nouns and inserts English into her Spanish responses to people. She wanted some water at the park yesterday (we stay in the park after school 2-3 days a week with a boy from her class and his mom) and I wanted to know if it was for playing in the sand or for drinking. I asked, 'Para beber o para jugar?' and she replied, 'For jugar.' I love it.

I start free government Catalan classes tomorrow. Language normalization, here I come (The department that runs the courses is the Consorci per a la Normalització Lingüística).

Oli has an ultimate frisbee tournament this weekend. He can tell you more about this.

Had an OHC picnic over the weekend, organized by Matt (our flatmate!). Was good times playing rounders (fake baseball) in unseasonably warm weather. Lily pooped in a hole on the beach and buried it.

And yes, my family is coming to the UK for the holidays, so we won't be in America this year. I suppose I'll see most people for Brian's wedding, though.

Consider yourselves updated.

Mr Fish

Lily has a new roommate called Mr Fish.

Here she is getting to know him


and showing him the temporary tattoos on her hand.


Hopefully Mr Fish will be a good roommate and not leave wrinkled clothes and empty teacups all over the place. Meanwhile, we're working on teaching Lily not to shout into his bowl.

Bogging

More photos of recent visits here.

It seems like I'm all about back-log blogging (bogging?) these days. Here's a nice shot Oli coordinated while Megan and Marty were in town. Flatmate Matt and the rest of us are on the steps of a the Santa María church in the Born. We had a nice day just walking the streets, eating ice cream and eventually beaching.



More recently our former flatmates Matt and Morgane were about. They got a big kick out of seeing the child that was made in said former flat. Matt had met Lily before on our visits to the UK, but Morgane, being all French and living in Paris, hadn't.





We had a great weekend that started on Friday with us all going out to lunch with Lawson (another member of that infamous household) and later that same day, sharing a nice meal at our place. On Saturday we went up Tibidabo and rode some of the rides at the amusement park. Matt and Oli almost died of fright on the Ferris Wheel. Lily had to reassure them each time around, "It's ok, Dad. It's ok, Matt." To be fair, it did move very quickly and when on it, you were faced with the prospect of tumbling out of the swaying cart and down a mountain precipice to your death thousands of feet below. Morgane and I had a really good laugh at the whole scene. That night, Oli kindly stayed in and let me go out with Matt and Morgane. A night begun with all three of us at a tapas joint in the Born progressed into one of Morgane and I out dancing in Mix Bar, and later, in the wee hours of morning, dancing at a place called La Macarena in the old town. Sunday was dreadful.

Obama jokes about his identity

Here.

the bus is ready to rumble

She now has number plates and tax. Sweeeeeet.

Bicing

Stole this photo from Caleb's awesome blog post:

Oli has taken to biking Lily around on Bicing bikes when we're out paseando. Have no fear, they don't go in traffic, just on bike paths along the port or beach. Lil loves it and when not riding around, has taken to kissing and hugging all the Bicing bikes at each rack we walk past.

Happy belated birthday, me

I realize that I have some blogging catchup to play at. 

My birthday was almost a month ago and I was under the impression I had written about it somewhere. I might have mentioned it, but not properly.

In any case, Oli and Lily returned to Barcelona from England on the 16^th of September and my birthday was the 18^th. Amid pre-work and pre-school rituals and taking care of all the little odds and ends that come with returning to a place, the night before my birthday Oli suggested we just take off the next morning and go up the coast to Tossa de Mar. After some grumpy wondering about if this were a good idea in light of all the things we still had to take care of and Lily just beginning to settle in to BCN, I agreed.

We took a late morning train to a small town the name of which I now cannot recall,  and from there caught the wrong bus so then had to catch another and then another to finally end up in Tossa de Mar for mid afternoon. We went right for the beach, which was disappointingly pebbly and housed queues of German tourists waiting to go on a glass-bottom boat, but all the same was a beach with a view of the town’s castle and walled city upon a hill. I accidentally threw the Frisbee into the sea and had to strip to underwear and tank top in front of a boat filled with tourists waiting to embark upon a cave and grotto hunt in order to dive into the deep chilly water and retrieve it. Happy birthday, me. In any case, I adjusted to the temperature quickly and enjoyed a nice swim.

From there it was off to check into the hostal, where Lily was thrilled because we were given a room with a double bed and a small single bed all for her.

Then we made our way to a beachside greasy spoon café for classic Spanish and Catalan fried foods of the most average sort. We ate on guiri (white folks’) time so no one else was there and the head waiter gave us, particularly Lily, all his attention. Paper umbrellas and other drink stirrers abounded. Since everyone at the neighboring restaurant was bored as well, they kept tabs on Lil, and when she had a fall right before we left, a waiter from there ran into his café and came back out quickly with a chupa chup to make it all better, which it did.

After that it was dark and therefore, a perfect time to explore the castle. The lovely thing about Spain is that we are often surprised to find that things that would normally be closed to the public at certain hours or be highly regulated in the US or UK are not. ‘A castle on a hill overlooking the sea? A walled city where people still live? Heck yeah. Have a look around. Climb on it. We’ve put some lights in so no need to lock the doors at night. Have a good run!’ And we did. And it was fun. We met an Italian family with a girl Lily’s age and they chased cats around a little square in the walled city. That was fun, too.

The night rounded out with us sitting on the front porch of a local, sipping red wine with Lily asleep on me wrapped in her blanket, while we watched the night life slowly pick up around us. A waiter we had talked to earlier in passing, and who had given Lil a balloon, passed by on his way home and ended up chatting with us for ages. Turns out he lived in Barcelona as well and had a house in Tossa and runs a big company, but likes to come be a waiter in his friend’s café from time to time, you know, for kicks.

In the morning the old couple that ran the hostal made us breakfast and then we meandered through the town, past the ‘secret beach’ and back to the bus station to commence the journey home.

Guinbó

One week into her new nursery school year at Xip Xap (which she started two weeks late), we received a call from city hall saying that a place had opened up at the municipal nursery school we had applied to get Lily into back in the Spring. We hadn't gotten a place in the lottery back then but were next on the waiting list, and someone had just dropped out. All anyone can say now is how lucky we are and that such things never happen.

We had to weigh our options:

- Lily was comfortable at Xip Xap, had already started there and was into the groove of things.

- Xip Xap's director and teachers were all nice and liked Lily and she liked them.

- The municipal school was gorgeous, has larger classrooms and a huge play area in the school courtyard.

- The cost to send a child full-time with all meals included to the municipal school cost only slightly more than what we were paying to send Lily mornings only with no food included.

- The municipal school allows parents to drop kids off and pick up whenever they want BUT requires a 5-hour minimum stay a day (Lily only went 3.5 at Xip Xap).

After meeting with the municipal school director, the choice was pretty clear: send here there, to Guinbó (that's the name of the school; it's pronounced geen-bó, with a hard g). So the next day we took Lily, after a morning at Xip Xap, to Guinbó for a meeting with her new teacher. Actually, Oli and I spoke to the teacher while Lily took full advantage of the other kids being asleep to take over the playground. She was joined by Oli shortly thereafter.

We really love the school facilities: the classroom is huge and well equipped, the playground is lovely, and there's a large glass rotunda that doubles as a gym area and overlooks a pond. The head teacher Enriqueta (Henrietta) is also lovely. I want her to be my teacher. She's so calm and, well, just lovely. There's also a younger girl Sonia who's doing her teacher training, and even though she's no Enriqueta (who is?), I'm happy to have her in Lil's classroom.  A final positive is that the curriculum they do with the kids will lead up to what they will start with in real school next year at age 3. This is a benefit, in addition to Lily simply being around Catalan, but I'm not really bothered since the girl is only 2-and-a-half and curriculum is not really a major concern of mine at this point. But, we'll certainly take it since it's part of the deal.

Today marks Day 3 of her time at Guinbó. We're easing her into a schedule of 9-3 (they eat at 12:00 and nap from 1-3 and I didn't want to interrupt that, so she'll be going 6 hours in the end!!!) On Day 1 I went in as playtime was ending, so all the kids in her age group were running about. I spied her hogging a swing and checking out all the other kids from that vantage point. Since she did well on Day 1, Enriqueta and I decided to have her stay through lunch yesterday. She was psyched about this since on Monday as we left we watched the lunch ladies wheeling the carts of little glasses and plates into the classroom. She did well, and as we left she watched the kids taking their little mattresses out of the cupboard, and asked where hers was. Thus, today we brought her sheets and she's going to take a stab at staying the whole time. 

View of our local park from behind our building. The school is the orange and blue building at the back.

More of our park, the chiringuito/cafe and the school at the back.

The front of the school. You can see the glass rotunda and the lake that is usually full of water and ducks but hasn't been since the water restrictions went into effect in the Spring.

The lovely school courtyard.

Lily after her second day. She's all greasy and smells like children.

Go back in time

Follow the link and explore the internet January 2001 style.

De-bate! De-bate! De-bate!

At 1:27am we found out that the BBC would stream the Biden-Palin debate live at 2am, so we knew we'd be staying up later than usual. It's 1:53 and Oli's making tea.

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lily and daddy ballerina

Truuuuuu-cooooh!

After dropping Lily at school this morning, we adults went for pastries and coffee in the park. Soon thereafter, Marty and Megan had to catch a bus to the airport, so we said our goodbyes and they departed for Rome.

It was nice to have good friends here during this last week. It's always nice to share this city with people from our hometowns, knowing that they'll appreciate the things we do. Additionally, as we are all hammering out what the next phases of our lives will be like, it's nice to be around people who know who we once were and provide a personal check-up.

As previously mentioned, our flatmate Matt made a curry for us, Marty and Megan, and Claire and Paulo on Saturday night and we stayed up into the wee hours playing a card game named Truco.

Oli crashed out early and the rest of us battled it out on the dining table, me and Matt vs. Megan and Paulo vs. Claire and Marty.

It went down like this:

social butterfly season

Been really enjoying ourselves these last few days.

On Wednesday, Cassie and Caleb arrived. After settling in at their hotel, we shared a snack at our place, then all went to the center to walk around. We stopped at our favorite cafe in Plaza Tripi (Plaza George Orwell) for a real meal. We like it there because there's little traffic, good people watching and room for Lily to roam. It also made for a good place for Cass and Cal to recover from their transatlantic journey, and prepared them for a walk through the Born. From there, headed to Barceloneta, stopping in a plaza for Lily to play in a park and the big kids to play frisbee. Walked past the sea, then headed home for the night.

Met with them at the beach on Thursday evening and enjoyed watching the sea change color as the sun set behind us and the city.

Megamart arrived on Friday night so we had everyone over to ours for a hangout. On Saturday we all went to the Sagrada Familia, sat in the sun drinking coffee for a half hour squinting up at the face of the church, contemplating whether or not to go in, then decided to just walk through the city and get lunch. Lily made a friend in the park outside Sagrada Familia and we played 'bomba' with balloons.

Had a long leisure lunch in a plaza in the Born. Introduced our guests to the clara (a shandy-like drink made by mixing beer and lemon Fanta). Lily enjoyed dancing with her parents on a platform in the plaza. Then headed down to a chiringuito by the beach for warm milk (Lily), coffee and more beer.

After bidding Caleb and Cassie farewell (they were off to visit Cass' uncle in Paris) Megamart passed out and we did Lily's dinner and bed. Matt (our new roommate - been here a week and are loving having him around - from Shropshire and is fellow teacher at OHC) made a curry and we had our friends Claire and Paulo (Australian coarse director at OHC, her Brazilian man who's here doing his PhD) over to share it with all of us, including Megamart. We had a great night, eating Matt's curry, trying the champaign/vodka/lemon sorbet dessert drink Claire made using a really nice sparkling wine she recently got in Italy, and playing a Brazilian card game called Truco that Paulo taught us. We stayed up late.

On Sunday we ate a big breakfast then went with Matt, Megan and Marty to meet Timo in Plaza Tripi as he's moving back to London in a few days. From there it was off for ice cream, and then to the beach for burying Lego men and picnicing. We all passed out last night after watching The Prestige.

Lily's been doing really well in school, had fun walking, eating and beaching with friends this weekend, and in general is pretty funny right now. She's been telling us about school and told me the other day, "Mom, Eva says 'seieu'." Eva's her teacher and 'seieu' (say-oo) means 'sit' in Catalan. 'Yeah," Lily said," She says 'seieu' right here". I thought it was pretty funny that she said 'sit' in Catalan but translated the rest to English. She also has told me that Pau cries for his yaya (nana); she asks Nil, "Whatchyou crying 'bout?; and that she enjoys dancing with her jacket in class but sometimes Eva says 'No, Lily'.

Photos to come soon - have to get them off Matt's camera, but he needs to buy a card reader for his computer first.....


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?!@#$%!

So I've just finished showering and making myself look beautiful before I go pick Lily and Oli up at the airport.....and now I've just walked into an open cupboard while making soup. I had to be going at least 30 miles an hour. And now a gross vertical white line is rising out of my forehead.

The old ladies are going to love asking me about this tomorrow morning when I pass them on their bench.

Amy Poehler brings her A game

Shards of Americana

Okaaaaay. After weeks, I'm finally posting more details on our visit in America, and may even get to the British stuff eventually.

Thing is, I had uploaded the photos to blogger long ago and it has a funny habit of publishing posts in chronological order, so scroll down for a big dose of USA.....or click on the links below.

PS - There's a picture of Hooter's girls down there.

Little girls are weird and can be mean

Hartrich Alert

Friends

NAB

Wisconsin Dells: Chicago's French Riviera

Wisconsin: Land of beer, fish, frogs, sun and beer

Loser!

I know I always see movies eons after everyone else, but I'm here alone in BCN having a glass of red wine and crying at Juno. When the adoptive mom is holding the baby and Juno's step-mom is standing in the doorway I just lost it. Tears streaming down my face.

10:30 on a Saturday and I'm bawling in my living room.

More blogging to come soon as I've finally finished putting our house back together here. Four days, lots of bleach and one trip to IKEA later, it's a whole new world.

~

Liliana Ballerina

Dexter

So, we don't know if you seen it and rejected it or that you just haven't heard of it yet, but either way, we are loving Dexter. Serial killer, blood splatter forensic expert, empty on the inside. Classic.

Check it out. Season 3 comes out this fall.