In the mood to lose my way

Yesterday I woke up around noon and wandered over to the university with Suki and Carina for our make-up photography class (we were making up a class that we’re missing because of a Spanish holiday in a few weeks), then wandered back towards the apartment by myself. I do a lot of wandering, and Leah said I can call it ‘andando sin rumbo’ to make it sound even cooler. I had my 35mm camera with me, and I wanted to use up its current roll of film, so I andando sin rumbo’d my way over to the market a few blocks away from where I live. This market is amazing—it is basically a huge farmers market that you would find on Sunday afternoons in the Old Market in Omaha or near Quincy Market in Boston, except it’s open every day! I know what you’re thinking, and yes, they even have what appears to be skinned chihuahuas with the eyes still in them. So I took a few pictures at the market and picked up a few basic necessities that I was basically necessitating.

I guess something that you wouldn’t know about me from knowing about me is that I really like running. Specifically, running to get to know new cities (also drunk running through the streets of Somerville, but that’s a horse of a different color altogether), because it helps me to keep some kind of rhythm in a new setting and is a great way to get accustomed to the layout of a city. So after returning from the market, I strapped on my New Balance sneakers and jogging gear and hit the street. I like to take different routes every time I go, but I usually wind up picking some form of water as a destination; this particular time I figured that if I ran east for awhile I would eventually hit a beach that I hadn’t seen yet.

Unfortunately Barcelona is not set up in a complete grid, so I wound up running straight into a zoo and a palace-type thing which I couldn’t get around and ended up twenty minutes later finding a dodgier beach that I’d been told to avoid after nightfall (Barceloneta, if you’re wondering), but luckily I made it just in time for the sunset. I sat there in the sand, Mediterranean breeze cooling my flushed cheeks, watching the sun sink down over the top of Montjuic, listening to my American, American music. Oh yeah, it turns out that I’ve decided that listening to my iPod is ok… Sorry Barcelona, I know you’d prefer I complement you with spicy flamenco rhythms, but this is MY perspective so it makes sense that I see you through my rose colored lenses and hear you through filters of Chris Brown and Rilo Kiley.

Anyway, after sunset I quickly booked it off the beach and managed my way back to the apartment, where housemate Kate was ready with a mom-like round of questions—she thinks it’s pretty bizarre that I slip off on my own sometimes. Todo esta bien. After I showered (ahh, I could take three paragraphs right here to describe my soap—maybe I’ll send a bar of it to Morgan so she can dedicate one of her blogs to it), I hung around with the girls for a bit, making dinner and listening to music and laughing, before we headed out on the town for the night. Nine hours later, I went to bed. Hello, Saturday.

T

mercado de la concepcio

sculpture on the beach