Poco a Poco

little by little; Bit by bit.
This seems to be my mantra for developing life in Spain.

It's really time to update about life here... which is slowly but surely coming into focus.

wednesday I move into a real flat. Thank god for that, what I've been living in for the past month is a shade under hellish nightmare. from the serface it looks like quite a decent place, but after all of the scandal, murder and intrigue... it has to end.

What I'm staying in now is what's known as "self accomodating short-term apartment" which, basically, is a cross between an apartment and a hostel.

Everday there are maids and handymen that come in to fix the place up, so on the positive: it's always clean.
And the negatives...well the negatives are abundant. I have no privacy, all my shit is constantly moved around. anything I leave outside of my tent are thrown back onto my bed, half the time, so is my bicycle.

There are also people constantly in and out. two days ago after a night of heavy drinking on the onset of a cold, I woke up and was dying was death. I poked my head outside my curtain because I swore I heard a jabberwocky gyring and gimbling in the wabe, though nay, it was a family of Japanese! Mimsy were not the borogoves! it was breakfast time.

I felt like a zoo animal, as all of them stared at me like I was a dread wizard from planet Zebes. False, I say FALSE! I'm sure I did look a touch frightening... A half drunk american who pops his head head into your breakfast isn't an everyday occurance in the life of the Japónesa, I would guess anyway. That though is no reason to stare, it was them that were intruding into my campsite with their breakfast. I don't come and eat sushi on their sleeping mats do I? NO!

The Japanese are not the only interlopers into my sacred hunting grounds, also there be transvestites! One morning around 4:30 or 5:00 I was startled awake by someone something shaking my foot. As I managed to open my eyes, I noticed A MAN IN A DRESS AND MAKEUP STANDING OVER TOP OF ME! This devil uttered it's incatations in the ancient language of magic (or spanish--couldn't tell I was asleep) and I was dumbstruck by the evil curse. All I was able to reply was "no se, no entido, lo siento...yo duermo" [I don't know, I don't understand. I'm sorry I'm sleep] I don't know much spanish, but I've been in barcelona long enough to know how to cast away a transvestite. There are a few of thoes, mostly west african. Quite a bit of the..."vibrant street fixtures" are african emigrants.
The west Africans usual settle as two different breeds. The men, as sellers of knock off purses and sunglasses. These men travel in packs and lay there wares on blankets with reigns attached. when the fuzz drives by, it quite a spectacle to see the stampede of black santas take off like olympic runners. The west African women come in the form of prostitutes. also, in packs. What I've learned: never make eye contact with a west African hooker. Just trust me on this one.
The North Africans are mostly venders of "cervezaBEER Cocoa-Cola HASHISH". Now don't paint me a racist, they can't all be that way. But it's the case of a square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle not always a square.



further more about the flat, because of the constant influx of people within the flat the ownership--more on that further down-- has stated that we are no longer allowed to keep the dishes in the kitchen because someone, at sometime may not wash them. In their infinite wisdom have all bestowed upon us boxes of the finest plastic in which we are also gifted one of each of the following: plate,bowl, cutlery set, coffe cup, glas, wine glass, champange glass.
After seeing this, I summarily put all of it back into the kitchen, and day after day it is placed back by my bed; more wizardry! This game of give and take continued until they just stop giving me my dishes back. After a week or so of this, the other "lifers" in the flat and I had a pow-wow: this could not continue. We drafted a letter and things reverted back to normal. By normal, I really mean that nothing changed. That was two weeks ago.
Also, the management turns out is either loons or a con artists, who uses three different names. And won't let any of the hired help use their real names either. As tenants we aren't allowed to use the washer either, we have to have the cleaning ladies do our laundry.

On to something better: I hate bitch-fests.

Spanish class is excellent, and my teacher is a brilliant beautiful lady. I will marry her one day of that I'm sure. It makes it much easier to play spaniard when you have that kind of motivation.

Work is excellent as well. In addition to the internly duties such as organizing and running errands I've been working with the website writing CSS code for some of our social networking sites, and playing on facebook making pages for all of our channels that run from here as well as working with XML, making a podcast for the same website and channels. EXCELLENT. I am an internet wizard.

--Edit: Just finished the XML script and added to Itunes. that's right, I have a published podcast, almost.