mi segundo cuidad
My second city, a city with soul.
It was the spring of 2000. I was worn out from three and half years of going part-time to graduate school, working weekends, changing careers, going through divorce, not dating, getting fat an not doing too much of anything. I was fatigued and it showed.
I was a wonderful srping day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and i was walking with a neighborhood friend Simon. He's English and well travelled and when we cam upon a particular flyer posted on the window of the local health food store his eyes lit up, "You need to do whatever you can to do this!"
The flyer advertised a proposed apartment swap, a summer along La Rambla for a chance to stay in Williamsburg for that time. Within two months it was a done deal. I got my passport and tickets and was to leave in early July and not see New York City until the end of August while some woman who I didn't know would live in my apartment during that time. It turned out to be one of the best things I've done for myself.
So you're saying to yourself, 'Ken, you were 35 and you didn't have a passport yet?' Yep and i was going to get on a plane by myself too and go somewhere I hadn't been before.
I signed up for a language immersion class for the first weeks I was in Barcelona and befriended a group of college-aged people from a variety of European countries. I drank and danced nearly every night. Swam in the Mediterranean naked, lost 30 pounds, got tanned in a heart beat, learned enough Spanish in a week to go out and get my hair cut and buy new clothes and meet people.
Soon I began to fit in. People woudl ask me for directions or for drugs when I was at clubs.
Just yesterday my wife and I begun to long to go on a vacation to somewhere tropical and different and I began to think about my time in Barcelona. a time when I re-created somewhere far away and came back into my own world anew.
It was the spring of 2000. I was worn out from three and half years of going part-time to graduate school, working weekends, changing careers, going through divorce, not dating, getting fat an not doing too much of anything. I was fatigued and it showed.I was a wonderful srping day in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and i was walking with a neighborhood friend Simon. He's English and well travelled and when we cam upon a particular flyer posted on the window of the local health food store his eyes lit up, "You need to do whatever you can to do this!"
The flyer advertised a proposed apartment swap, a summer along La Rambla for a chance to stay in Williamsburg for that time. Within two months it was a done deal. I got my passport and tickets and was to leave in early July and not see New York City until the end of August while some woman who I didn't know would live in my apartment during that time. It turned out to be one of the best things I've done for myself.
So you're saying to yourself, 'Ken, you were 35 and you didn't have a passport yet?' Yep and i was going to get on a plane by myself too and go somewhere I hadn't been before.
I signed up for a language immersion class for the first weeks I was in Barcelona and befriended a group of college-aged people from a variety of European countries. I drank and danced nearly every night. Swam in the Mediterranean naked, lost 30 pounds, got tanned in a heart beat, learned enough Spanish in a week to go out and get my hair cut and buy new clothes and meet people.
Soon I began to fit in. People woudl ask me for directions or for drugs when I was at clubs.
Just yesterday my wife and I begun to long to go on a vacation to somewhere tropical and different and I began to think about my time in Barcelona. a time when I re-created somewhere far away and came back into my own world anew.
posted by Runs With Scissors at 9:28 AM
1 Comments:
I spent a semester in Madrid during college, and I went to Barcelona and fell in love with that city. I'd love to go back some day.
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