A Journal

April 2007

I go by taxi to the flat I am going to rent for at least a month and the taxi driver says “here it is, Baixada De Briz”. I can see big houses, blocks of flats, all in white bricks and cement, so typically beautifully Spanish. It’s quiet and peaceful. I don’t know what I had expected – I remember the website from which I booked the Spanish course and the flat in one, and I picture it being a chaotic place of students running around in bikinis, annoying Americans, a table filled with Smirnoff Ice and Sangria, maybe even a banderol welcoming me to Barcelona, but it’s nothing like that. It’s warm, maybe 30 degrees and I drag my heavy suitcase around for a while, not sure what to do.

Well, I found the right place at last. A girl from Greece, Annesse, one of my flatmates, greets me by saying “Hola! Que tal?” and I reply in English, my head completely washed out from 3 years of Spanish lessons. Realising now, that all of my flatmates talks Spanish, I don’t feel very clever. “But you here to learn!” they tell me, reassuring. I am not so certain that is the reason I am here.

We got a massive roof terrace. It’s wide and huge. I sit here at night, drinking San Miguel and listening to my Mp3-player, the lights of various telephone masts reflecting my eyes. I listen to Neighbourhood with Arcade Fire on repeat and sometimes I get some company, Irina from Switzerland is coming to join me. She looks like a model, skinny and well exercised, perfect brown coloured skin and thick shiny hair. Sometimes we meet in the kitchen, each preparing our own lunch and she gives me a worried glance. I eat an oven ready pizza and she makes a healthy broccoli quiche. The flat is large, cement floor and without a radiator. We got a housekeeper. She yells at me in Spanish, she’s very fat and her sweaty forehead is shining as she approaches me, speaking in a language I desire to know.
  
In my class there is an especially forward and organized girl from the Netherlands who tries to get everybody to go for a drink one night after school. “We will meet at 9.30 pm at the very top of Plaza Cataluña’s tube exit!” she declares loudly and hands her phone number out to everybody. I am there on time and we’re all going to Lovella Negra. After ordering beer and sitting down on a big table with room for us all, we try chatting to the person sitting next to us, mixing all sorts of European languages. It amuses me; I love to hate it, feeling like an “International Language Student”. A guy from Israel asks me to play pool with him, and so we do. I am neither concentrating nor feeling committed or interested in the game. He takes this as I am in need for being taught all the rules and gives me a never-ending lesson in How to Play Pool. Looking back I can sense myself behaving like a snob, but right then I abandon him and walk over to the smoking area on my own.

June 2007

I met a French guy in Pasha Nightclub. I went there in a taxi with Emanuel; but lost him immediately after paying the entrance fee. It’s huge in there, they play some kind of hard techno (or so it’s sounds to me) and a beer is €8. As I looked out on the ocean of people, their bodies so close to each other, dancing, touching and looking euphoric I felt nothing but tired and decided to make my way back home. I dived into the crowded floor, trying to reach the entrance door when suddenly someone grabbed my arm. I turned around and stood face to face with him. The music was so loud and noisy. I didn’t recognize him; in fact I had never seen him before. He embraced me and I let him.

His name is Guillaume. It’s been a few weeks now and we’ve been hanging out almost every day since then. He lives by the tube station Paral-el in Raval and what I enjoy the most is just giving in for this, not knowing anything. He speaks English, Spanish and French and he lives with a guy from Plymouth, Andrew. Their landlord has got a huge dog that I am slightly scared of and one morning when I wake up in his room and he has gone to work (that’s the other thing – I don’t really know what he is doing here. It’s some sort of internship for his Business school in Bordeaux but I am not sure in what area really) I find love letters from his girlfriend in France. He claims he hasn’t got one but I thought he did, and it just dawns on me that it doesn’t make me sad. I walk Raval up, passing the statue of a bull, passing the streets that are the home to many prostitutes at night. Summer has arrived and the Irish pubs are still looking for staff. It almost scares me how easy life is now.
 
I walk along the beach with Chris one day and he says “This is just like Gothenburg, but with palms.” We eat at the same place several times a week, it’s a kebab place called “Bishmilla Kebabish”, €4 for a plate with Chicken Tikka Masala, rice, Nan bread and salad. Chris, who can make friends with absolutely anyone, shakes the staff’s hands when we arrive as well as when we leave, and they smile and laugh. Ever since I came here, I haven’t been sure when I am going back. I walk around feeling so immensely free because of this.

But then all of a sudden I realise I have to go. My Spanish course ended a month ago, another student is due to move into my room in Vallcarca and Chris has already left. It’s still only the beginning of the summer, but I can feel it sneaking up on me now – The End.
I book a single ticket with Ryan Air a week before departure and I spend a few days with Guillaume without telling him about it. I am flying on a Saturday and it so happens that Annesse and Ina are moving out as well and on the Friday we are all cooking together and then setting up a huge buffet at the roof terrace. It’s about 7’oclock in the evening and I walk the few meters from my doorstep to a pay phone and I call Guillaume. I tell him I am leaving tomorrow and I can hear a lot of noise in the background – the dog barking and Andrew chatting with his girlfriend – the ever so loud Skye from Truro. “What!” he shouts and I can’t help but feeling... happy in an odd way. He is not the only one who can keep secrets. We were not a real couple anyway; this truly was “messing around”. I say I am sorry and I feel both blasé and dramatic.

We spend one last night together and he is coming with me in the taxi that drops me off right where I first started – Arc de triomf on the red tube. This is where I take the bus to the airport. He is wearing my tie-dye t-shirt from H&M and that’s cool, he can keep it. I do really think he is sad because I am leaving. I don’t think he is faking it. But he would have gone back to France soon anyway. To his life and his business school and his girlfriend. I love the way this ends. It is not sentimental, no strings attached. And as the bus drives off, I can see him waving and looking spoiled and sad and just a bit french.

I can’t help but laugh. Good things will happen to me.

Mathilda Larssonm 2010, PI: B4862264.