Congratulations to Abram

Hey, we just wanted to tell Abram congratulations on passing the bar. Not that we had any doubts, but it's nice to be able to make it official. Now since you're an official full fledged practicing lawyer, we all expect some nice Christmas presents ;)

No, seriously, I don't know if Abram even reads this blog. I know Michelle and Holly do and that's my audience, so I guess more than anything I'm just letting them know.

Shooting Myself in the Foot

Andrew and I joined a gym here a little while ago. We were pretty excited about the fact that they give you towels when you come in, which just goes to show how ghetto we are at heart. Another one of the gym's perks is a free personal training session when you join. You can do the training session on the weights, in the pool, on the Pilates machines (which look like fancy torture devices), or however else you can think of. Since I am no good at swimming, I decided to do my session in the pool.

My thinking went something like, "If I do my training session in the pool maybe I will get some good pointers on how to swim better. Maybe I'll learn how to actually put my face in the water when I freestyle." My brain should have been saying something more along the lines of, "If I do my training session in the pool I will have to wear a bathing suit in front of the whole gym (the pool area is lined by glass walls that face the cafe and entrance area) and my trainer will probably get more than frustrated at having to teach me like a little kid to hold my face under water for more than 2 seconds at a time."

Since my brain doesn't think like it should, I went ahead and scheduled my session with Alex. Since Alex speaks Spanish and French and very little English, I offered to do the session in French. I was actually surprised at how much I understood him, but quite embarrassed at how little I could respond to him. Being able to understand him would have been very encouraging if it weren't for the fact that the next two weeks I kept thinking French whenever I was trying to think Spanish.

At least Alex was patient with me while I tried to swim without hyperventilating. Oh, and did I mention the horrible acne and pink eye I had that day? I still cringe at the thought that I let someone see me that way. For the last 10 minutes of the session the trainers have you lay down and relax while they stretch you out and give you a massage. That would have been nice but it is pretty awkward to have someone push on your leg to stretch your hamstring while you're in your bathing suit in front of strangers. For all the new things I learned and the progress I made with Alex, though, I am now even more aware of what a poor swimmer I am and even more embarrassed to go back and practice. And I still get French in my head.

Why I was never good at playground games...

Michelle "tagged" me a while ago and I have never fulfilled my duties as "it", but I am prepared to do so now.

Who tagged you?
My sister-in-law

What is her name?
Michelle Michi Okabe Petersen (but we just call her Michelle or Meech)

How long have you been together?
Well, Michelle and I were in Young Women together in Concord, CA a long long time ago. I borrowed her black velvet dress for my eight grade graduation dance but then she moved away and we lost touch. Until Lauritz brought her back into my life, for which I am grateful. But maybe that question is supposed to refer to my spouse, Andrew, who I have known for about 8 1/2 years. I haven't lost touch with him yet.

How long did you date?
Michelle and I never really dated, but Andrew and I did. It's not really clear when our first date was but we first kissed in December and then were married the following November, almost a year.

How old is he?
Not sure Michi wants me to tell, but Andrew is 28.

Who eats more?
I never see Michelle eat, which is too bad because I usually make a pig of myself at her house. Good stuff there. I usually eat small bits throughout the day while Andrew forgets to eat and then is able to put down just about anything in any amount that he wants. Not sure who comes out ahead in the end.

Who said I love you first?
I think I told Michelle I loved her first. I have this fear of those I love not knowing that I love them because my actions certainly don't show it. So I blurt it out and make people feel uncomfortable. However Andrew says he was the first to mention the "l" word on our kind-of first date, but he qualified it by mentioning the "platonic" word as well.

Who is taller?
Than Michelle? I think the question is who isn't. But Andrew is taller than me.

Who sings better?
I can't remember Michelle's singing voice but if she has any of her father's genes she definitely sings better than me. Andrew does as well.

Who is smarter?
Michelle is definitely smarter than me and so is Andrew. At least he likes to use bigger words and have political discussions that make him look quite intelligent. He's got me fooled into thinking he's smarter.

Whose temper is worse?
I don't think I've ever seen Michelle mad. Frustrated, yes, but even then she is fun to be around. I frighten Andrew with my temper sometimes, but I find a secret pleasure in getting really upset every once in a while. Very cathartic.

Who does the laundry?
Me, but I just do Andrew and my laundry, not Michelle's.

Who does the dishes?
Me, but I do have to fight Andrew off of them sometimes, remember my temper. He's a good man that one.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?
If you're facing the bed, Andrew does. If not, I do. I have to make sure he has the side that doesn't get seen when people walk in the room. His bed stand isn't the neatest thing.

Who pays the bills?
Andrew, he's the only one making money and the only one who can keep it straight between all the countries our accounts are in.

Who mows the lawn?
Usually Dad, since that's the last place we lived that had a lawn. It would be nice to see some grass here every once in a while.

Who cooks dinner?
I wish Michelle cooked for us. Unfortunately Andrew has to put up with my cooking except for when he does his brilliant curries or yummy fajitas.

Who drives when you are together?
We walk and walk and walk and walk. We're like the pioneer children with less singing as we walk.

Who is more stubborn?
I think Michelle has to be pretty stubborn to be able to stand up to Lauritz. I'm probably more stubborn about stupid things, and now that I think about it probably on everything. Andrew is a much better person than me. Much.

Who is the first to admit when they are wrong?
I can't think of a time Michelle has ever been wrong. Andrew is usually always right so he doesn't need to admit anything. I'm usually wrong but too proud to admit it.

Whose parents do you see the most?
If we're talking quantity of parents, Andrew's since he has two to my one. But quantity of time it just depends on whose parents we are living with while we try to figure out where we'll be living next.

Who kissed who first?
I think I kissed Michelle first but it was just on the cheek. I think it took her a little while to get used to the kisses we spread in our family. But Andrew kissed me first. He did ask if it would ruin our friendship if he kissed me. When I said I didn't know he just dove right in. The friendship was ruined but we prefer what came out of it.

Who asked who out?
Andrew asked me if I wanted to hang out but I don't think he intended it as a date.

Who proposed?
No one really. Andrew asked if I was ready to tell people we were engaged and again I said I didn't know (we had broken up the week before). Then we went and bought a ring. For something I was never really sure of it's turned out really well.

Who is more sensitive?
To the other person? Or who gets hurt most? I'd say Andrew is more sensitive to me and I get more offended because I don't want him to think he's too perfect. he makes me look like a bad person, which I know but I'd rather not admit it.

Who has more friends?
I think Andrew has more friends in general but I have more close friends.

Who has more siblings?
Definitely Andrew.

Who wears the pants in the family?
Andrew does despite the fact that I keep trying to put them on. In the end I know they work better on him, though.

And now I pass the tag on to Holly who has a blog but doesn't post anything. Here's something you can post, Holly. Or actually, it might be funny to hear Andrew's answers so I'll tag you both and whoever posts first is a better player than I was.

Conference Weekend

This tells you how behind I am in writing. I'm bring it all back to the first weekend in October. Conference weekend wasn't too exciting here. We decided to honor General Conference by staying in our pajamas all morning and eating hootenannies on Sunday morning (any Petersen's out there know the correct spelling of that word? Anyone else out there even know what I'm talking about?) Staying in our pj's all morning was pretty easy since I believe we woke up around noon. I think there had been some noisy people outside our window late the night before, or we were just that lazy.

Conference didn't start until 6pm here which meant it ended at midnight. On Sunday night we decided to go for a walk between the sessions. As soon as we closed the front door Andrew turned to me with a very panicked look on his face and asked if I'd left the keys in the other side of the door. This is something he lives in fear of daily. If you leave keys in the door on the inside of the apartment then you can't use your keys on the outside of the door to get in, and you have to turn the key to open the door. I had noticed keys in the door as we were walking out but I figured that Andrew would grab them and carry them with us on the walk. I was wrong.

Our quick little walk turned into a four hour quest to get back into our apartment which was not locked but just inaccessible. After staring at the door, kicking the door, cussing at the door, trying to yell at Cat through the door to pull the keys out of the lock, and doing anything else we could think of to get the keys out of the lock, we walked up to Andrew's office to get the number for our landlord. He wasn't even sure he'd have it there but somewhere in an old email he found it . We tried calling him and then walked home with some paperclips we were hoping to use to push the keys out of the lock from the outside of the door. Surprisingly that didn't work. Around this time we could hear Cat inside the door meowing to be let out.

We finally gave up and called a Spanish friend and asked him to call a locksmith for us. We couldn't even do that on our own, not speaking the language. He found a guy who said he'd do it for 120 Euros max but he'd be another hour before he could get here. That was our cheapest options so we went with him and tried to get a little sleep on the steps outside our door until he came. At around 12.30am he showed up, took a look at the door and told us it would be 167 Euros. That's $250 to open a door that wasn't even locked. I had to run downstairs to the ATM to grab more cash for him and before I'd hit the bottom step he'd opened the door. $250 for 3 minutes of work. By my calculations he makes about $5000/hr.

And then when he got the door open he poked his head in the apartment and asked Andrew how much we paid for rent. He kind of screwed up his face when Andrew told him and made some gesture indicating we were paying too much. He asked where we were from and indicated that's why we were getting screwed. He should know since that's why he'd charged us 50 Euros more than his highest quote for a job that could have only been easier if we'd left the door open a crack.

A Little More Normalcy

I doubt anyone still checks this blog after my rambling about La Merce and then my long periods of not posting. I'd really meant for this blog to be a place to write regularly about all the silly little things that best describe what it's like here for anyone who has asked. It seemed like Merce was such a big weekend that it was a chore writing about it and I'm sure more than a chore reading about it. Thank you and I'm sorry to anyone who read through it.

Andrew and I had been bugging Mushtaq and his girlfriend Justine (they're in the picture we posted earlier) to take us clubbing. Neither of us have ever really been out on a real European clubbing night since Andrew doesn't count his and Aaron's attempt at Bulgarian salsa night. The weekend after Merce we decided it was time to bust out our dance moves. After spending the night with friends we headed out to the club around 3am. Mushtaq and Justine kept warning us that the real clubbers didn't come out until around 4am so we were prepared for some down time. Unfortunately that's all the night was. Our great clubbing adventure consisted of us running up and down the stairs to see which of the two dance floors was the least boring. Justine gave up at one point and stood in the middle of the dance floor glaring at the DJ. At times she was the only one on the floor so you'd think he'd have understood something was wrong. It was kind of like a church dance with more alcohol and less Village People.

We finally gave up after an hour of dancing just like we did at church dances only with a lot more self-consciousness. You know the dancing where you just step from side to side, the calling card of those of us who have never really danced outside of an LDS cultural hall. It only looks worse the older you are because at some point before you're able to frequent clubs you are expected to learn some other moves which I clearly have not.

The Next Weekend- Monday

This was the final day of La Merce. We decided to celebrate by consuming unholy amounts of churros and watching the best fireworks show ever.

By our apartment there was a little carnival set up that had a churro stand filled with every kind of churro you could imagine. There were churros dipped in chocolate, mini churros, giant chocolate churros stuffed with custard, giant regular churros stuffed with chocolate cream, churros stuffed with strawberry cream, churros dipped in chocolate with strawberry cream. You get the picture. My arteries are clogging just thinking about that night. Andrew went plain and simple with a quarter kilogram of plain churros while I decided on the chocolate dipped churro stuffed with custard.

As we walked over to the fireworks, I actually found myself eating some of Andrew's plain churros to alleviate the heaviness of my churro. What does that tell you? I don't know why I thought dough deep fried in cheap oil and then coated with waxy chocolate before being stuffed with custard that has been sitting out in the sun all day would be a good idea. Andrew ended up debating if giving the rest of his churros to a homeless man would be seen as an act of mercy or an act of cruelty given the health problems they would be sure to incur.

The only thing that took our minds off of the grease coating our digestive systems was the best fireworks show ever. I'm still debating if it really was the best fireworks show ever because Andrew and I did see a really good one over San Francisco Bay which was the best fireworks show ever up until that point. I'm not sure if this one trumps it or ties it. The show took place at the Magic Fountain, a giant fountain by the National Palace that puts on a water show set to music every weekend. I put up the photo above because you can see the palace and the fountain below the fireworks. The street surrounding the fountain was absolutely filled with people and speakers all along the street blasted the music that the fireworks were set to during the show.

My ability to describe fireworks is pretty lacking so I won't even try. There were a ton and they were almost always perfectly timed to the music. At the end of the show they just let loose with the loudest fireworks they had for quite a while. It looked like a war zone. With so many people in the plaza it took us nearly forty minutes just to walk a block or so but it was well worth it. And so ended La Merce. Now I can actually post normal blog entries about all the other boring stuff that makes up our life here, aren't you excited?

The Next Weekend- Sunday

Welcome to the wonderful world of stacking. Sunday afternoon was the Mati Casteller, or Human Castles Morning. I think it says something about the culture here that the Human Castles Morning began at about 1pm.

Sorry to drag this weekend on. I'm not a huge fan of my own writing and so I tend to avoid it if I can. Back to La Merce (the festival this was all a part of), on Sunday we were pretty excited to have a chance to see "stacking", as Andrew and I call it. This involves a huge group of people pushing against each other and getting as close as they can to form a base for the rest of the group to create human towers on. You can't tell from this photo, but the layer just below where the photo cuts off consists of a group two or three times the size of that bottom group you can see. I'm sure there about a hundred people in each stacking group.

We're not exactly sure if this is a competitive sport or just something to do. What we do know is that there are different formations that they try and we've seen them get as high as nine layers, if you count each of the little kids on top as a layer. The biggest and brawniest guys are in the second layer and then the people get smaller as you go up until at the very end one or two little kids wearing some frighteningly inadequate helmets shimmy up everyone to the top. As soon as they get up there they raise their hand and then start shimmying down everyone. The whole tower collapses by people crawling down each other until they're done. From what we've heard, stacking is something unique to Catalonia. No one else in Spain seems to be willing to put their smallest children atop a rather shaky tower of people about 40 ft high.

Later that night Andrew and I walked around the city and caught a few more concerts. The biggest one was a group from the UK called Travis which we'd first heard while we were in Cambridge. Apparently thousands of other people had heard them too because it was crowded enough to make even the most sane person quite claustrophobic.

The Next Weekend- Saturday

I don't know if you can tell what is going on in this picture-- I'll explain.

Saturday during the day we walked around the city and caught just a few of the things going on. Down at the harbor there was a large wine festival and market that we walked around. nothing terribly interesting until the Correfoc began.

The Correfoc, or Fire Run, is what you see in that picture there. It was described in the festival guide as consisting of "forty groups of 'devils' from in and around the city, as well as dragons and other fire beasts." Not terribly clear, but there was also a warning that mentioned wearing clothes that cover you head to toe, damp towels on your head, special goggles, and that there would be ambulances parked up and down the street, presumably well stocked with burn ointment.

We didn't really take this warning too seriously, having grown up in a society guided by Smokey the Bear and laws against reckless use of fire. Surely they wouldn't be so careless with fire as to endanger hundreds of people, right? Andrew and I got to the street where the Correfoc was taking place and tried to get us a fairly safe vantage point. We couldn't help but notice that there were several people who actually were covered head to toe. In fact most everyone was wrapping something around their hair to protect it. The street was absolutely filled with people so we found a spot on the sidewalk next to a building. We figured as the parade started the people in the street would clear off the street and onto the sidewalks and so it would get incredibly cramped.

As the parade started, that didn't happen. People stayed in the streets despite the fact that fire wielding performers were headed straight for them. I'm not quite sure how to describe it other than to refer you to the picture. There were people carrying wands that shot those sparks out over everyone. As they passed you on the street they would turn and spray the crowds on the sidewalk, just in case you thought you were safe. The braver people actually walked amongst the center of the fireworks. There were also some pretty cool dragons that came through breathing fire on everyone as well. One little girl standing next to us was so terrified she kept hiding under me and Andrew. She even pulled him back when he started to step away.

All the excitement was too much for Andrew to just stand by and watch so despite his lack of preventative clothing [edit by Andrew: I was wearing a hoodie that I pulled tight over my head, but my beard was probably still quite flamable], he got out amids the fireworks. I'm posting a video he took. All you can really see is that some guy runs straight for him with the fireworks and sprays him. The unfortunate thing is that you did hear the ambulances heading off to the hospital but the street was so crowded they couldn't get too far. After being sprayed with sparks several times we decided we'd taken our chances quite enough and headed out to catch some of the other concerts and things going on that night.

The Next Weekend-Friday

Wow, you must really actually care if you've read the other posts and are still reading. I'm sorry to throw so much on the blog at once-- there was just so much going on this month. The next weekend, the 21-24 September, was the Festival de la Merce, Barcelona's biggest festival of the year which made the other celebrations we'd seen look pretty paltry.

The festival has something to do with Barcelona's patron saint, Merce, saving the city from some form of devastation. In gratitude, the city spends four or five days doing everything it can to party non-stop. I don't think the natives actually even know why the festival is held other than because you need to do something fun at the end of summer.

There were thirteen large stages set up throughout the city center with concerts going until about 1am every night. If you ventured out to the Forum, a little outside of the city center, there were three or four more stages with concerts going from 8pm to 5am every night. In addition to the concerts other events throughout the city included circus acts, wine tasting, carnival rides, boat rides, parades, dance performances, and free open museums. And that's not any of the really cool stuff.

Every night at the marina they had fireworks shows done by groups from different countries. We caught France's show on Friday night. Fireworks here are much better than in the States because they don't worry so much about things like safety. There were times that the firework sparks were going off right down to the ground. But as it turned out Friday's fireworks were nothing in comparison to Monday's. More on that later.

The rest of the night we wandered from concert to concert. One thing I've noticed around here (for those of you who want to know what the culture is like) is that people don't let things like having children stop them from partying. There were people out with their strollers until we went home around 1am. I'm just so used to people being anxious to put their children on a schedule and not disrupt it but I can't see how that would even be possible in some places here with so much going on outside. It's hard enough for Andrew and I to gind a regular s leep schedule.

And then on Thursday

So that last post describes Tuesday of a few weeks ago. The following Thursday we began hearing a lot of construction outside our apartment during the day. Towards the afternoon I began hearing some very loud music coming from outside or windows. And then that night when we went for our evening walk we discovered that a stage had been built in the walkway outside our apartment and some type of music festival was being held there.

The party never stops here in the Born, our neighborhood. There were concerts Thursday through Sunday nights. Fortunately they realized that some people needed to work on Friday so they stopped the Thursday concert at about midnight. Of course on Friday they kept it going until about 1.30am. We figured there was just no chance of getting sleep so we decided to party like the natives. It's easy enough to do here. You eat dinner around 9 or 10pm (that's actually a little early by native standards). Then you grab your gelato or gofre (a belgian waffle with whatever topping you want) and walk for a few hours before heading to a bar to hang out with friends. At least that's our version of partying like the natives. We plan on going clubbing this weekend to find out how it's really done.

The nice thing is that one of Andrew's friends from work, Lizzie, and her partner, Rafa, own a small neighborhood bar and there's always someone we know there after midnight. Rafa is the gentleman in the middle. On the left are Mushtaq, who works with Andrew, and his girlfriend Justine. We won't be telling Mushtaq that we put this photo up since it's not his best work. The bar is like our very own Cheers. Dad, don't worry, we're not drinking and everyone knows it. Bars are just where you go when you want to be with friends and we still make it to church on time the next day. We haven't been late yet (I'll pause for stunned sighs from anyone who knows me). Of course it doesn't hurt that we don't have to be there until about 1pm.

The Inspiration

This is what made me think that a blog might be a good idea. Andrew and I were sitting down to dinner one quiet evening when we heard some rather loud chanting and drum beating. We looked out our balcony to find a mob marching down the street past our apartment. Yes, those are torches in their hands. Having no idea what they were saying, we tried to listen closely for anything that sounded like, "Kill the Americans." Thankfully it was just a pre-holiday party for the next day, Catalonia Day.

A little background might be helpful. Catalunya is the region of Spain that we live in. From what we've heard, Catalunyans have a strong independent streak in them and there are more than a few of them who believe they should form their own nation. They have their own language, catalan, which is not to be confused with spanish, or castillan. Most people here grow up learning both languages so you can hardly blame them for not wanting to learn English like the rest of Europe. Of course it makes it very difficult to learn Spanish (castillan) when you're never sure if what you're hearing or reading is castillan or catalan. The flag the torch mob is carrying in the picture is Catalunya's flag. We probably should have bought one to hang on our balcony so that we could feel a little safer that night. Fortunately the mob was more concerned with getting drunk than with defending Catalunya from invading foreigners.

The next day, 11 September, we took a walk after dinner to see if we could find where the party was at. It turned out to be about a five minute walk from our apartment. There was a huge stage set up on which a very loud band was playing. We left there about midnight and they were still going. I think I jinxed us when I said something about feeling sorry for the people whose apartments bordered the street where the stage was set up because the party moved to our street a few nights later.

Let's start at the very beginning...

... a very good place to start. That there is Greenland and surrounding ice. Because we flew direct from San Francisco to Amsterdam, we got to fly over some pretty desolate but beautiful areas of Canada and Greenland.

And here is our dining table and air conditioner. A lot of people have been asking about our place and so here it is. Hopefully, if you click here you can see more pictures of the apartment including one view off our balcony. Our kitchen is pretty small, but that doesn't stop it from needing three doorways into it. Maybe some day when we actually have a little furniture in here we'll take some more pictures and have a real unveiling of the apartment.

Unfortunately the building next to us is covered in scaffolding which blocks our view of Santa Maria del Mar. Our apartment is at the very tip of a block shaped like a V that ends on a popular walkway, Passeig del Born. The walkway is pretty short and ends at the cathedral Santa Maria del Mar. It's a beautiful area. Slightly younger, hipper, and less touristy than the Gothic area we were going to live in. However, part of being a "young" and "hip" area is being a loud area. We are right at the convergence of three very popular bars that are open very late. And for those who want to carry on the party after 3am when the bars close, there are some wide steps right outside our bedroom window that are perfect for gathering on and singing drunken songs or having a drunken argument. But really, everyone should come visit (the guest bedroom borders our quiet street).