Catalan

Here's a little Catalan joy for you...

Devia donar-se un cop ell mateix.

Devia = he probably had

donar = given

-se = himself

un cop = a hit

ell mateix = himself.

So we have.....He probably gave himself a hit, himself.

Què???????

This sentence is actually in my workbook and I have to restate it in two different ways starting with:

potser = maybe or probably
and
I si = and if

Maybe he hit himself, himself

and if he hit himself himself....but this is an incomplete sentence.?????

I will have to ask about this one.

OMG

revenge of the beasts

Here we have living proof that Chuck is a bad dog and gets on the couch when I am not paying attention.



Eldest is experimenting with tree decorations...so far she has tried out a mystery creature, sorry no photo, it fell in seconds...too heavy.

Then she tried out the skunk....



T'was the stink before Christmas and all through the house, the children were sleeping with closed pegs on their noses.

Did you notice the Halloween decorations in the background??? So sad.

Now we have a squirrel...which has a certain logic to it anyway....




What do you think?

this and that.

The apartment is cold, and there is no hot water...AGAIN. Yes indeed the caldera is fotuda again. No HEAT! Good thing this is Spain not Canada.

Sitges had been the plan today, but youngest was up most of the night sick...stomach ache and nausea...including some vomiting. Sorry folks, but that's the facts.

She spent the day on the couch and has crept back into bed, having eaten a bit. Hope it stays down.

Given the day spent hovering around the couch I

- found Picasa 3, which I love,

- sorted the massed snowdrifts of photos that had been accumulating in the computer through lack of time.

- Finished reading "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas" in Catalan. Hadn't read it in any language...what a fabulous book. Though uncomfortable too. You know it can't end well. There were times I just had to put it down and walk away. Glad I read it, glad it's done. No I won't see the movie. It couldn't keep up with the book, even read in Catalan.

I have to recommend Herve Tullet's "The Five Senses". He apparently was in advertising (?!?!?!) and now makes a living with children's books including "The Scribble Book"....which my kids were not that excited about, but some of the artwork in "The Five Senses" is fabulous. I adore it. Bright, colourful, lively and interesting.

The computer cord that brings juice to the machine has also decided - today - that it is not going to work anymore, thankyouverymuch.

Of all the nerve. In the interest of my dying battery...I leave you here.

Cheers!

O

Loooog winded...but there's photos at the end?!?

I just ADORE Barcelona...even when it is insanely busy and filled up with people EVERYWHERE!

Christmas shopping? More finished...not all yet though.

Pizza in BCN, be careful, be very very careful. Some decidedly mediocre pizza...the kids were happy though.

Then we went off to see this exhibit at the always amazing, and frequently alarming and perennially mind bending CCCB...the Centrede Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (I think). Now I had read about this exhibit...and I had talked to people about this exhibit, and indeed it made it onto the local news. It was all about bringing statistics to an understandable level..using rice. Work with me here...they used 2000 kilos of rice to illustrate everything from how many people in BCN use solar power to how many Doctors and soldiers there are. I was entranced. I was also too late. One thing I did not find out was that it was only on for four days.

Poop.

Strangely when we were in the CCCB today trying to see it, and I asked them about the exhibit with all the rice, they had no idea what I was talking about. None. My Catalan is not that bad. But ladies and gentlemen, the exhibit took place in the foyer...you know, the entrance, right where the lovely ticket ladies sit EVERY SINGLE DAY. How could they have no idea what I was talking about??? Honestly.

ANYwhoooo,

We decided to skip the world press photos exhibit...way disturbing...especially with the kids,

Headed into another show...it was pretty disturbing too....though I want to go back to that one without the girls,

So instead we settled for the exhibit on Chinese cities, which frankly, I thought was going to be a bore...another of those semi-promotional, "isn't China great" things that have been everywhere leading up to the Olympics, put together by the Chinese ministry of who-knows-what.

BUT NO!!!

It was amazing, and we didn't have NEARLY enough time....here's the link...it was organised around several overlapping themes....the six cities they are focusing on, but also things like water, work, feng shui, strength...they also had six movies created by Chinese directors in each of these cities and the city was to be the main character....they were all estranged and unhappy people, what I saw of it...fruit for thought...I HAVE to go back. The movies were neat...and subtitled in Catalan which was great too.....

Now a strange collection of photos I have been too busy/disorganised/tired/lazy/forgetful to post.....

So...lets see what I found on the camera....

First up...this was a REALLY huge snail that must have come in on some produce and we found him/her - did you know that about snails? They lead most interesting lives. Anyway, he/she was in the sink with the clean dishes. I love it that my groceries actually have living animals with them. Seriously. He is a Spanish snail though...climbed right up the wine jug!



We got invited to a friend's for dinner yesterday, and she has an OVEN!! so guess what we made...pumpkin pie...Love it but we had to render the pumpkins....this is our homemade steamer basket...worked just fine too!



These mannequins are used in quite a bit of BCN...I find them, to say the least freaky! Weird weird weird...so I thought I'd share the weirdness with you...



Finally, a typical view down one of the streets near the Cathedral...so lovely.


I love the texture of the walls more than anything else, and the glimpses and rays of light. And that it doesn't stink the way it must have for centuries. Really, it must have been terrible.

The semi-colon

We were at a friend's house for dinner, and got debating punctuation...this is what you happens when enough multi-lingual people, and people who are studying languages get together. (I am not in the multi-lingual group by the way)

Anywhoo....

The man and I got debating. The semi-colon is a non-obligatory bit of punctuation, and has become a bit of an individual thing. Now me? I like them, a lot...as regular readers may have noticed. The man? Not so much. Indeed he actively dislikes them outside of technical writing, where they presumably hold a specific role.

In the interest of continued nerdy punctuation discussion, I have posted a poll over there on the right to find out how you feel about the humble, but I think useful, semi-colon.

I never even used one in this whole post; poor things. Whoops! There's one now.

OUCH!!

I can now explain with confidence the reason for the outrageous number of podiatrists in this place. Every single pair of apparently comfy looking boots that I tried on were not just uncomfortable, but downright painful

OUCH.

going shopping....

BOOTS!

Going into BCN tomorrow...

Doing a bunch of shopping, and well, shopping...but all by myself thankyouverymuch.

Bad Chuck just ate a chunk off my slipper! He ate it!!!

BAD DOG!!!


He has retreated with a doggie bone...better than my slipper...

here's hoping that I'll find some boots.

If I get some...there'll be pictures...

promise...

One of those days.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with a Catalan literature course and a Spanish literature course that reads only English books in translation? WTF?????

Do you have days when you really seem to notice the crappy, dreary, depressing, scary parts of life, and you have to consciously notice all the good stuff?

Yup.

OK...

Here I go. Noticing:

The man
The girls
Family
Friends
The heat and hot water

Forget that, clean water
clean readily available food
Health all around
Chuck
Decent work
Decent brain
(normally) optimistic outlook.

help me out here,

What should I add?

Canadian politics! Fascinating. You would have thought that a contradiction in terms, but not this week.

My longest title ever.

I have to say that this post has a great early opener on what is going on in Canadian politics (hint...hopefully they will toss that misogynist SOB environmental nightmare that we have mysteriously had as PM for too shudderingly long) *nb...at least you know where I stand anyway*

I love the opening line on this blog wherein he describes in a nutshell what has happened so far.

My bet is that Harper thought that he could do anything he wanted as it would be impossible for the Liberals to get out from under the leadership mess. Worse, he could not help poking a stick in the eye of all the other parties.

Such a stupid selfish thing to do Harper....stupid and selfish.

Lord I really cannot abide that man. He hates women, hates anything that has the temerity to grow and live on this planet without personally serving him directly or at least bringing him profit.

Shudder.

*whew*

Stepped right up on the band wagon there.

It was SO unfortunate that Ignatieff didn't win the head of the liberal party. Mr. Rae...shame on you. I used to respect you...but you are revealing yourself as power-hungry to the point of idiocy and untrustworthyness. Cause you know what?

Dion????

Lordy lordy lordy.

GO GREENS!!!!

On a more timeless and universal note...you could hop over here for a really lovely photo of the Moon, Jupiter and Venus which are all lined up right now and they are really spectacular. If you have a chance, even better, go outside and look up! A lovely change from politics.

Books and boots

The BOOK IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!
I have GRAMMAR to study.

El LIBRE és AQUI!!!!!!!!!!
DM DM DM DM DM DM !
Tinc gramer que puc estudiar.

Is that not totally pathetic. OMG how low I have sunk.
No és completament patètic. DM, quin horor.

On another note, I think I might have found THE boots. There are two different pairs. I tried one on, but it was the wrong size and they were really busy and my bus was coming in three minutes, so I will have to go back. Let's hope they are comfy. I tried on one other pair the other day and they hurt. I have never met flats that actually hurt your arches before. A Spanish brand. No wonder they have so many podiatrists here.

Un altre cosa, em sembla que potser he trobat ELS botes. Hi han dos tìpus. He probat un, però no era la talle correcta i la boutiga tenia molta gentada i el meu autbús va estar arribant en tres minutes, aixì, hi tournaré. Eseperem que siguin còmodes. He probat un altre parelle de botes l'altre dia i em fa mal. Mai he trobat botes sense talons que, de debó, fa mal. Un marc Espanyol. Potser és per això hi ha tan podiatristes aqui.

Off to study something obscure.

I SO want to actually pass this exam. I even bought a book for working on pronunciation, compete with CD cause my pronunciation is so terrible.

Estic anant per estudiar alguna cosa ben desconegut.

Voldria probar aquesta examin MOLT. Mira, he comprat un llibre per ajudar'me amb pronunciació, amb CD, perquè el meu pronunciacion és terrible.