Spain is crazy. Oh and I'm not going back to UVM.

Well. Now that the Thanksgiving rush is over... not that Spain celebrates it, its CHRISTMAS TIME! Like any normal person, I of course love Christmas, but the time leading up to that chaotic day of traveling, eating, and gift giving is my favorite. I love getting a tree and decorating it, I love Christmas music (Katherine and I have been playing it non-stop on Pandora), I love snow and playing with the pups outside, I love warm fires and hot chocolate... Christmas is the best! Everything smells like cinnamon and joy. It's my favorite.

WELL. Enter the Barcelona Christmas spirit. These people are mildly insane. Its a Western cultural thing to have a tree so they don't do that (some do, but it's not too popular), so Spaniards usually put up an elaborate nativity scene. There's a cute little Christmas market downtown in Barcelona that has about 100 stands all selling cool stuff to add to a nativity scene. It's a little out of hand. BUT... get this, Barcelona is a bunch of perverts. Catalans actually. They believe it is important to put a "Caganer" in the nativity scene. Caganer is directly translated into "shitter". Its literally a little figurine of a man (or for the creative, a George Bush, Spongebob Squarepants, or a member of FC Barca) taking a dump. These statues are pretty vile. They show everything. And I mean everything. The little Christmas market is FULL of them. Any famous celebrity can be made into one. Obama is pretty popular actually. The tradition is apparently because they believe it "fertilizes" the next year with luck and happiness. Not exactly what I would associate either of those things with.

Oh and it gets better. There's a tradition for CHILDREN where they take a tree log with a face painted on it (it's actually kindof cute), and children get to beat the living daylights out of it with a cane or a hammer and sing a song asking for it to literally "shit out presents" for them. The quote in the song translates into those exact words. I'm not kidding. I think inside the trunk is little toys for the kids. When they're done they throw the log in the fire. This is absolutely ridiculous, I don't care who you are.

Spain does a bunch of other G rated stuff for Christmas too but that is completely irrelevant after hearing about this Caganer business. Spain is wild.


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COMPLETELY FORGOT to mention the rest of Vicky's stay in Barca, post food poisoning. First of all, one day we found the most adorable little puppy sitting on the metro. I'm being serious, his owner let him have his own seat. He clearly knew Vick and I were oggling over the little nugget, probably from the smiles and squeals of delight coming from the seats across the metro-car. The guy let us pet him, then when the metro stopped he put the little pup back in (literally) a shopping bag that looked like it came from a fancy shoe store. It had bedding it in and a few toys, so he seemed to enjoy himself... but it was awkward. The dog store gives you your new pup in a shopping bag? What?

The same day Vicky and I accidentally stumbled upon the 4Cats, this really really old cafe in Barcelona. It was really popular during the turn of the modernist movement in Spain for art. Picasso actually started there, getting inspiration from the likes of Ramon Casas, etc, etc. It has this great painting of two men on a bicycle, Casas and Romeu actually, then after a few years they painted themselves again in a car instead to symbolize the modernization of Spain. It's truly a cool experience to be in a cafe where these artists once hung out and put on presentations of art, music, poetry, and theater. So excited we found it! The rest of our week was pretty relaxed... lots of shopping around and stumbling on cool places. We went to some really cool vintage shops in Raval with Mel, then we took Vicky to La Boqueria (that wild market). I already miss her :(

Also... I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm just going to move to Ireland. I don't want to live in Barcelona, that's for sure, Spaniards make me feel too unwanted. Ireland though... nicest people I've ever met. Best country ever. I want to go back to Connecticut and steal Tory and Ginger, my family, my CT friends... then just move them all to Ireland. I'm too scared to go back to Burlington and try to pick up the pieces of what my life used to be. I can picture myself there, like a lost little puppy, bundled up in my bright blue parka and snow boots, wondering what the hell I am doing there. I'm going to freeze to death, first of all. Its still regularly above 60 degrees here. How do I go back to -15 degrees with snow and ice? The classes I'm enrolled in are jokes... thank you UVM server for crashing right as I was supposed to register for classes. Oh and I'm unemployed. Awesome. Ireland here I come. I'll put up with the cold if it means I get to be surrounded by thick Guinness and thick accents. I'll bartend in one of their cute little pubs and spend every night dancing to Irish jams. I could live like that.