Expatiperro

My receipt from a recent trip to the produce market:

2 packs of lettuce
1 bunch of asparagus
2 nectarines
2 big apples
2 lbs of oranges
4 bananas
4 yellow plums

Total: €5.89

It's not just produce that's this cheap. At the grocery store, I can spend around €30 for enough food to last me the entire week. And at the neighborhood farmer's market, I can supply myself for even cheaper. It's been a while since I've gone grocery shopping in the US, but from what I remember, it would cost me almost double what I spend here to eat comparably back at home.

Despite being cheap, the food here, especially the produce, is GOOD. Like, perfectly ripe, bright colors, and keeps for a good amount of time. I guess that that's a result of the food being grown closer to the city- Barcelona is surrounded by farmland, and most fruits and veggies come from the province. A short supply chain means tastier, cheaper food. Makes you wonder why this hasn't caught on in the US, if just for economical reasons.

Another benefit: a consistently healthier diet. When food is this cheap, why would you even want to eat junk food?

This is pretty cool, too. An email I received a couple of days ago:

Hi Matt,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released sixth
edition of our Schmap Barcelona Guide:

Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA)
http://www.schmap.com/barcelona/sights_elraval/p=67627/i=67627_42.jpg

The backstory to this is brief. In October, I spent a day walking around the Raval (an old, formerly seedy, currently bohemian neighborhood) taking pictures of grafitti and interesting architecture. I posted the pictures on Flickr, and a few months later got a email saying that this particular one had been shortlisted for the guide. And then, voila, here it is.

After the Catalan TV appearance and the guidebook photo, what ridiculous thing could possibly happen next? Or maybe it's better to sit back and be surprised...

I've hit my stride over the past couple of weeks. Classes have gotten easier to plan and less stressful to teach; the hours I spend on the subway don't seem as substantial as they once were; my flatmates are more civil and open to making conversation; my laundry's even getting washed with more frequency. Granted, the latter's only occurring once every 10 days as opposed to the previous once a month, but every big change starts with a small step.

It's not that I wasn't in a groove before. I had a routine, a basic established pattern to my normal day, and I was fairly content with it. But there was something inherently stressful about the way I had been living, stressful in some way that I can't put my finger on. Lessons weren't planned with much foresight, and sometimes the thought of teaching gave me such anxiety that I dreaded going to class. This spilled over into my life outside of work, which could be easily seen in the overstuffed laundry basket, the bare pantry shelves, and the dust-bunny tumbleweeds that rolled across the floor of my room.

The thing is, nothing major in my life has changed. I'm still teaching the same amount of classes to the same students. I'm avoiding the gym as much as I always have. My recent clothing purchases aren't a good enough explanation for my recent mood change. (Though I must say that it's easier to look happy when you look good.)

But coinciding with my mood change has been the arrival of spring here in Barcelona. The weather here has been unbelievable over the last 2 weeks. Cloudless days; the temperature perfect for a slight sweater or long sleeve shirt, no jacket needed; mild nights that make you walk briskly, but that still allow you to linger outside to talk to friends or to stand alone, taking in the night scene. The sun here is bright, almost painful without sunglasses, but the path it takes is still low enough in the sky for the light to be flattering, even in midday. Barcelona is made for photographers, and at this time of year, walking around without a camera is a waste of energy.

I never cease to be amazed at the effect that the weather has on people's mood. Case-in-point: On Sunday, I joined some friends at a BBQ, held on a friend of a friend of a friend's (the most random, yet best way to make connections) terrace in the Gothic Quarter. Walking to the apartment, I was joined on the street by throngs of other people, tourists and locals, who all shared the same stupefied, this-is-too-good-to-be-true expression as me. It was as if we all shared the same thought, that we couldn't believe our luck for being in such a beautiful place, on such a beautiful day. The kind of day where anything seems possible, when opportunities are endless, when you feel lucky to be alive. (A type of day that happened all too infrequently to me in New York.)

The BBQ was fantastic- an assortment of people from all over the world, very few of them who knew each other before arriving, all eating hamburgers and chicken while looking out over the roofs and church towers of the old town. (Pictures would be posted, except that I broke my own rule and left my camera at home.) It was all a bit surreal- minus the satellite dishes, it was the same view one could have seen 500 years ago. That thought, along with the weather on the ups and the great company, made it was hard not to feel that we weren't in the best city on the planet, at the best possible time.

In the end, I guess that the weather has pushed me into a new equilibrium, a happy balance. The word is that it should stay like this until July, by which point I'll be back in the US. So if there's any change in my mood, I won't be able to chalk it up to the weather; it's all on me.