ThomasJeremyBarcelona

Well, I am back for a second year of teaching, traveling, and trying to figure out Austria. I have been back since September 1st, and after a nice relaxing summer spent making my way up and down the East Coast, I am looking forward to settling into a schedule again. I start teaching next week. The first thing I did after arriving in Vienna was… go to Barcelona. I shared my first time in Iberia with Tom, an Austrian friend of mine who I met last year. After the dude who agreed to let us rent a room in his apartment disappeared on the night we arrived, we found a hostel right on one of the main streets of the city. The highlights were the Sagrada Familia cathedral, the beach on the Mediterranean with thousands of people and pristine, imported sand, the view from atop the grandstand at the Olympic swimming pool, as well as the obligatory football match at Camp Nou. All of this and more can be seen in the pictures below. Although Catalan is the main language in the region surrounding Barcelona, Spanish is the language that Barcelonans use when they speak to tourists. If that fails, they have a go at English and after that, Nada. I was actually surprised at how much Spanish I got (had) to use during our time there. Thank you Univision. We did hear a fair amount of German there, but all of it was from other tourists. This situation provided me a unique opportunity – to speak a language that 99.9% of the people around me could not understand. This is unique for me because here in Austria, when I speak either German or English, chances are that people can understand me, and when I am at home in the States, I just don't have anyone to speak German with. We did speak a fair amount of English in Barcelona, but most of the time Tom and I spoke German together. We weren’t particularly mean very often, but when we did decide to discuss something or someone that was close by, we spoke in German, and it was a great feeling knowing that our conversation was impenetrable to potential eavesdroppers. Discretion and manners simply took a back seat to what we wanted to say. It was quite liberating. I realize that, as you are reading, this may come across as though I am basically admitting to being a closet jackass, but I’m really not. Trust me. Back to the FC Barcelona match. This was only the second game of the club’s La Liga season, and they played host to Racing Santander. A player that first peaked my interest in European soccer, and currently atop the payroll in Barcelona, Frenchman Thierry Henry, did not suit up that night due to ‘technical reasons’. At least that is what I read the day after. Even so, the match, although soaked by a freak rainstorm in the first half, was thrilling. At least most of the time. Barcelona had a lion’s share of the chances and had several flurries with four or five shots apiece from in front of the goalmouth. In the end, Barcelona’s superstars looked hapless. Racing was able to defend and clear all of those chances, and Barcelona could only convert on a questionable penalty by Argentine Lionel Messi. Racing were able to put one in on a deflected free kick shortly thereafter. They had a few great chances coming down the stretch, but the finishing touch was not there for either team. It ended in a draw.