The Mediterranean, Simón, and El Corte Ingles

Today I was supposed to meet up with other students from Metafora, but I was late. This will come as a great shock to those of you who have ever had a class with me, scheduled work, or anything to which I was supposed to be on time. Anyway, we were going to go to the beach, but I underestimated how long it would take to get there on the metro.

I can't explain how much I love the ocean. When I was a little girl, I believed that I was a mermaid, and I once told my mother on a vacation at the beach that I was going to go home to my real family. The last time I saw the ocean was well over a year ago, in Hawaii. Before that, it was in Barcelona in March 2006, when the sea blue and beautiful and FAR too cold to even think about getting in. Today, the beach at Barceloneta, near the Ciudad Olímpica, was packed. I stashed my stuff where I could keep an eye on it while swimming, strategically placing it near some other folks so it looked like it was with their stuff, and gratefully got into the water. It was hot today, and by that time I already knew I was getting sunburned. The water was clear and cool, the bottom was clear of shells and other things that cut one's feet, and there weren't very many critters, just some small minnows. It was incredibly lovely. There's a beach that's closer to my house than school – tough decision.

I wasn't swimming long before I spotted a Spanish guy on a pink raft giving me the eye. Oh great, I thought, and cracked up in spite of myself. He took that as an invitation and paddled over to me, introducing himself as Simón. He was very friendly, and flirted with me in a not obnoxious way, so I talked to him for a while. He didn't speak much English, so the conversation was pretty simple. He tried very hard to persuade me to go dancing with him tonight, but I politely declined, several times, until he got the picture. When he finally realized I wasn't single, he said, “But do you have a boyfriend in Barcelona?” “No,” I replied. “Well that's me!” Yes, exactly what I was looking for my third day in Barcelona. (Is it my third day? I'm having a hard time keeping track of what day of the week it is.)

Yesterday after I went to the library, I stopped at a Vodafone store to see about getting more minutes on my phone – this has been an epic struggle. I have a prepaid British phone that my dad gave me, that came with a card that was supposed to be used to add more minutes, but apparently it doesn't work for adding minutes unless you're IN England, and it took forever to establish that. Anyway, in the store, I went round and round with this friendly woman who didn't speak a word of English to establish that she couldn't do anything with a prepaid phone like I had and I had to go to El Corte Ingles to get what I needed, which was to switch it to the Spanish Vodafone network and get more time put on the card.

El Corte Ingles is a huge high-end Spanish department store, it's a chain and they have them all over the country. The thought of it kind of leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth; I had a a bad experience there when I was in Sevilla last time I travelled in Spain, over spring break during my semester abroad. Somehow, I wandered off the map after getting groceries, and got horribly lost in the dark in this city with winding streets. I'm the type to navigate by landmarks, and I kept seeing this huge green sign for El Corte Ingles. Then I would walk a little bit, and see it again, so I would turn around and then see it again after a minute – it was like being in the twilight zone, and I couldn't find my way. I was exhausted, and starting to feel panicky. Finally, somehow I escaped, and the next day I realized there were like FIVE separate buildings with that same sign, which I couldn't tell in the dark.

I knew there was a branch in Plaça Catalunya, a major square in Barcelona, which is at the beginning of La Rambla, the big touristy pedestrian walkway with flower sellers and El Mercat de la Boquéria, the famous Barcelona market. Some of the fruit vendors there have more items I can't identify than ones I recognize.

So the store there is absolutely enormous. I was a little unsure if they would really have what I needed, and my doubt increased as I went up the escalators. I kept going up and nothing on any of the floors I came to had anything to do with cell phones. Finally, on the 7th (and not the top!) floor, I found the cell phones. It was so crowded you had to take a number and wait for them to call you. The first counter I waited at was the wrong thing, so I went to the right one, took a number and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally about half an hour, they called my number, and I told them what I needed. Immediately I asked if they spoke English, because I'd been in the store an hour already, and rather than educate myself I wanted to expedite the process. The woman helping me did speak English, of course, and got me a new SIM card. I was so relieved! I grabbed a charger for the phone, since I had a charger with a British plug, and a car charger, neither of which were doing me any good. I paid, and decided to put the new SIM card in right then and there. And what else but... SIM Card Not Valid. So I got another number, back in line. Instead of sitting around, I went down a couple of floors, found an adapter for my computer plug, and came back. Still 8 people in front of me, so I went down all nine floors to the basement and got a snack (a peach – lots of lush, locally grown peaches in the stores around here), and came back. I'd missed my turn, of course, so I took another number, and thank goodness, only had to wait a little bit to discover that before I could use the new card, my phone needed to be “liberated,” which she couldn't do, but I could have it done “at the Pakistani places, you know what I mean?” Luckily I did, there's one near my house. They're these places that have international phones, internet, phone cards, etc; but after catching the train back to Sant Boi, I found out that for whatever reason, they can't do it until Monday.

I'm in cell phone purgatory.

Next entry: The Puking Guy and Gladys Kravitz (both featured across the street) and soon, pictures!