Barcelona for Beginners

July 10th, 1986

Fergie sits at a café on Las Ramblas with a café con leche in front of her. She is writing her first letter home. Home is a variable feast now. This letter is to her ex-boyfriend Mike in Texas.

“I’ve made it to Barcelona. The train trip across France was interesting. I could see the architecture changing each day, from the tall gray narrow buildings in the north to the colorful relaxed architecture of the south. Each night I left the train and stayed at the hotel by the station, having good French food at each stop. Thank God I only brought two cases with me – dragging them around and up steps was hard work!

“My first day in Barcelona, I found a room in a cheap pension in the Barri Gòtic (see address at the top of the page). I’m trying to limit myself to $25 a day in overall spending. That means I’m doing a lot of walking around the city, getting to know it. So far, it’s very interesting and varied. I am close to Las Ramblas, which is a big tourist thoroughfare with cafés and street entertainers. I’m sitting there now, people-watching as I drink a coffee. There are tourists walking up and down taking in the sights, and locals using it to get from A to B, and nefarious characters wandering about, mingling with the crowds.

“Did the transfer of the house and mortgage go OK? Sorry I couldn’t wait around to sign it over myself, but it should have been straightforward. Jeff just had to sign the papers under my Power of Attorney. Sorry I didn’t clear all my stuff out for you before I left.”

She chews on her pen as she stares at the completed letter. She wishes she could pick up a phone and speak to people. But payphones are awkward and very expensive. She sighs and turns her attention to the Guardian crossword. It was a significant part of her daily budget, but the link to her own language and culture has assumed a new importance.

July 13th, 1986

Fergie sits at a different café, closer to the waterfront. She has gained confidence in her knowledge of the area. Today, her daily letter home is to her brother in Virginia.

“I’m getting used to living on very little. My big extravagances are a newspaper once a week and a coffee each day. I keep pretty busy. My library consists of a tourist guide to Spain, a pocket-sized Spanish-English dictionary, a Spanish translation of Stephen King’s ‘Firestarter,’ and a Spanish grammar book. Progress is slow. Reading Stephen King in Spanish is tough. He makes up a lot of words, I think.

“When I was looking for a room to rent, I was walking in and asking in Spanish. That bit was easy; but understanding the response was hard. One woman said ‘Quieres berla?’ I was rifling through the dictionary looking for berla while she tried to mime the question to me. It turns out that she was saying ‘Do you want to see it?’ The word was ‘ver’ with the Spanish pronunciation turning the v to a b, followed by ‘la’ for it (the room).

“I write letters each day. It makes up for not being able to talk to anyone. The original plan had me coming here with two friends (it was Ralph’s idea originally, not mine) but they both dropped out, so here I am. It would have been easier to travel with someone else. Not for safety or anything. Just to have someone to talk to in a language I’m fluent in.”

July 17th, 1986

She is sitting in a park. This time, she writes to her best friend Wilma in London.

“I’m getting by in Spanish, as long as I stay in the present tense, and stick to easy subjects. I couldn’t argue philosophy or explain architectural principles, but I can ask directions and order food and buy bottled water. Buying a douche was a problem. The Spanish word for douche, according to my trusty dictionary, is ‘ducha,’ which is a word that also means shower. A lot of to and fro with the shop assistant followed by her producing a rubber bottle that looked like an instrument of torture.

“I did manage to buy soap and laundry detergent. I wash out my clothes in the bathroom sink, then hang them out to dry outside my window. There is a step outside with a railing. Too small to be considered a balcony, but big enough to string a washing line across.

“The room in the pension is cleaned regularly and it has a small bathroom with a shower and toilet. They serve a workman’s lunch downstairs at a very cheap price, no choices, just whatever they cooked today. I’ve bought bread and jamón Serrano at the market to make my own bocadillos, and I’ve found a stand that sells shawarma kebabs. I order them ‘sin nadie, y con çebolla’. Spanish double negative – without nothing, with onions. It sounds wrong to me, but I get what I wanted.

“Today I traveled by bus to Parc Güell, masterminded by Antoni Gaudí. There is a lot of his work around Barcelona, and I find it interesting and playful. Of course, the centerpiece is the still-unfinished Sagrada Familia, which I plan to get to in a couple of weeks. This park is extraordinary, almost an Alice in Wonderland fantasy.”

July 22nd, 1986

Fergie has lost a few pounds in weight. Her efforts to make her money last longer are taking their toll. The dress she is wearing is wrinkled and stiff from her laundry routine. She is back on Las Ramblas, at another café, one where the waiter now recognizes her. Occasionally they converse in her limited Spanish. He’s probably planning to take advantage of a lonely woman, and at this point she might let him. Today’s letter goes to her other best friend Helen in Texas.

“So, I have made some errors in judgement. The idea, now that Ralph and Jeff have bailed on me, was to learn Spanish by immersion, and pay my bills by teaching English to adults. There are several flaws in this plan.

“I should have done more research.

“The dominant language in Barcelona is Catalan (suppressed by the late Generalissimo Francisco Franco, but still the language of the local people). The Spanish accent here is similar to neither Castilian nor Mexican. And I can’t tell which language they’re speaking at any given time.

“I have no qualifications for teaching English as a foreign language, so I can’t get a real teaching job.

“I came here with three thousand US dollars in cash, credit cards for emergencies, and my EU passport. I’m trying to reinvent myself (again!) but not sure what I will become.

“I wrote to Mike but haven’t heard back from him. Do you know how the property transfer went? Jeff was supposed to sign on my behalf. I’ll write to Jeff soon, but I doubt that he’ll write back.

“I’d really like a letter, if you get time to write one. Feeling a bit isolated here.”

July 23rd, 1986

Fergie is in her room at the pension, lying flat on her back to try to ease the pain in her lower spine. The walking is good, but her body is not used to walking so many miles each day, and yesterday she walked around the Parc de la Ciutadellla, which was too much. She is excited to read a letter from her brother’s wife.

“Glad to hear you’ve settled in. Are you doing all right? It sounds as if you’re having problems with money. Do you have any friends there yet?”

She smiles. It’s good to know that someone cares, that somewhere, someone is thinking about her. It makes her feel like a real person again, not just a shadow from a former life.

July 25th, 1986

Fergie takes her shawarma kebab and sits on a bench on Las Ramblas, reading ‘Firestarter.’ Her jeans had fit when she left Texas, but now she has taken her belt in by three notches. She has a bottle of water to drink from, and she responds to anyone who comes to talk to her. Quite a few are creepy old men and she gets up and moves away when that happens. Some are tourists, and she exchanges war stories with them. A few are pleasant locals who notice that she is reading a book in Spanish. One of these has suggested meeting again so she can help him improve his English. She keeps a hand on her bag at all times – there are many thieves and pickpockets in this area who prey on tourists.

Once her lunch is finished (every other day is a food day), she walks around El Raval, the southwestern side of Las Ramblas. Every few blocks she feels a change in temperature and humidity as she walks into a square with a small fountain. Sometimes the fountain is just the size of a water fountain in a wall, sometimes it sits like an oasis in the center of the square. If there is a bench, she sits and rests in the shade of the trees and reads a few more pages of the book. Progress is very slow as she ponders over each sentence and frequently reaches for the dictionary in her bag.

Finally, in late afternoon she returns to a café table on Las Ramblas for a coffee and to write her daily letter. One passer-by quietly invites her to buy drugs from him. Another tries to sell her a poem he has written. She feels that she is no longer invisible in this city.

Today’s letter is back to her sister-in-law in Virginia.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to panic you. I was just a bit nervous getting used to a new place. Part of my difficulty with the language problem came from the fact that there are two different languages spoken here. Spanish is well known, of course, but Catalan is different. A bit like a mix of Spanish with French and Portuguese, with something older mixed in. I finally realized why I was so confused when I read a restaurant menu written in both languages and saw how different they were. One of the main streets here is called Parallel. A ridiculous word in Spanish, because double L should make a Y sound (but doesn’t in this one case). But I guess it’s fine in Catalan.

“Why did I come here by myself? Well, my friend Ralph had this idea that the three of us – Ralph, me, and our mutual friend Jeff – could travel to Spain and explore and have fun. He got us excited about the idea, and it became a reality. Jeff changed his mind because he was the least financially stable and really couldn’t afford to drop everything and leave. Then as the time approached and I had already quit my job and therefore lost the visa that kept me in the States, Ralph conveniently ‘fell in love’ and had a reason not to leave. But I was already on course to come here, and I didn’t have a reason not to. So here I am. Alone.

“I’ve been thinking about what home means. I am at home in London and in Texas. Eventually I’ll be at home here too. When I write home I write to family and friends in different places. All these people represent home to me, in different ways. And I miss you all. I haven’t made friends here as such, but I do have a few acquaintances – two waiters, a stranger who wants me to help him with his English, and Lamin, a recent immigrant to Europe from Sierra Leone, who has asked me on a date.

“I’m OK. This will work out.”