Ok so there's the deal, its been far too long since I commented on this blog and as time goes by it becomes harder and harder to remember the things that I wanted to talk about. Its now been a year (7th Jan 2008) since I first arrived in Barcelona and decided to keep a record of thoughts and feelings as the time went by. Clearly somewhere around the middle of the year something happened...
Although it looks like I had nothing more to say, in fact the opposite was true, there was so much to say that the process of editing and selection became of overwhelming that torpor set in...ah well
The themes that affected me most in the past, language, culture and observation are still dominant but they have become over time simply part of life here and that makes them all far less egdy! (valiente o atrevido). However they still all impact on a day to day level.
One of the new themes is the difference between public and private spaces. After a year here, I have still to inside another Spanish or Catalan home. It appears that this is something that just does not happen and that the home is reserved for family and very close friends. The climate and the culture here mean that when you meet with people you find them in the street or a bar or a restaurant and that these are the places where you pass time with your friends. This is in complete contrast to the UK where we live in very private spaces - individual houses with often front and back gardens. Here people live in flats and apartments and so the public spaces - plaza's, parks and streets become an extension of that space. A kind of shared communal garden.
The result is that these places become genuinely 'public spaces' rather than the 'no-man's land' that they are in the UK.
For example, cycling home at night I will often pedal through neighbourhoods where elderly people, couples with families and young people are all out on the street, on benches, chatting, snacking and just hanging out. The young people are like young people everywhere, obsessed with mobile phones and with faces full of metal, but there is no war between them and the jubliados. They share the space that they have always shared and they all value and protect it equally.
You only have to walk though Nottingham Market Square to feel this difference between a public space and a no-man's land and it is just one other reason why I love the life here.
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