Night Life, City Lights

I love living here in Sabadell, love the people I'm surrounded with... but... I have already explored all the local waterholes, and gotta tell you, there isn't much to do around here! Not my cup of tea, anyway!


With the exception of The Green House, the Argentinian owned Irish Pub, and one afterhours downtown Sabadell, El Barro that only opens Fridays and Saturdays after 3 am, there's nothing worth a second look around here.


Barcelona, on the other hand, is full of places yet to be discovered! And I just realized I'll soon have to move to the city, otherwise I am gonna become chronically depress!


I miss hanging around a bar until the wee hours of the morning, moving or dragging myself to an afterhours just before sunrise... as if the sun's first rays of light would turn me into dust! I miss meeting new characters every night, drinking somebody under the table, snorting the world if I feel like it, partying until I drop (which is never the case though) or until everybody around me checks out... I miss the darkness of the night interrupted by city lights, I miss its reflection on a starless sky... I miss the asphalt, the noise of garbage trucks at 3 am, and drunks on the sideways! And I miss doing all that on every ordinary day!




I miss the musicals on Broadway, the live jazz on St. John Coltrane Church in San Francisco. Dancing in the streets or going to a show in China, London and Paris discos... and concerts on the beach in PR. Going to the opera with Max, Sylvia and Zory. The film festivals! And I never thought I would say that, but I even miss city's cockroaches! Getting up and out around the same time I do!



Fuck! I miss the fast paced life of the city! Shanghai, San Francisco, London, New York, Miami, Paris...


For that matter, and even though San Juan isn't a big city at all, I miss so much all my friends over there! The locals and the adopted ones! The permanent residents and the visitors alike! The endless nights at El Batey, the gramys, and the after parties at Tee Jay's & Co. I guess I still am looking for that kinda thing here... Just that Sabadell it ain't the place to find it!


Hey guys! Why don't you all come see me before summer is over???? We could have a blast here! After all, it is always the people that make the place, not the other way around!

I Finally Made it Home!

It was a midsummer's morning, yet too early to know if it was gonna be a beautiful one, or not. The sky was gray, but then again, it was too early. The sun had barely started to make way behind the black shadows, chasing them by the second, eating them alive. And the air was still cold, crisp and cold.

I approached the window and looked toward the mountains. I could see the roughed silhouette of Montserrat defining the horizon. I inhaled deeply, the chill of the morning air hurt my lungs, or at least that's what I chose to believe. The chain smoking from the night before, as an alternative to my poignant cough, was not a thought for early morning. Not one I cared for anyway.

I thought about going back to bed and wait a few more hours to get up. Wait and see if the day was gonna be filled with the colors of the rainbow, or just another black and white page in a calendar. But I have never been able to fall asleep once I'm up, not even before sunrise, and I hate sunrise. The first lights of the new day always depress me, and as the thought crossed my mind, I knew I was doomed. A gust of Levanter made me shiver all over and I was depressed.

I sat down on my desk, and started organizing my day. I would first brush my teeth, then get a shower and some breakfast. When I get depress I tend to stray. Therefore, organizing, having a plan and writing down the list of things to do it always helps. I checked my closet, and chose two different possible outfits. A white linen sundress splashed with bright yellow flowers if the day turned out to be a sunny one, and another more severe in tone if the gray persisted. I then started writing down all I had to get done during the day. First, there was an interview at the employment placement office downtown Sabadell. Then, and depending on the time left, a trip to my old neighborhood in Barcelona, a visit to the migratory services office and the nice lady who doesn't want to accept my letter signed by the Spanish consul in Puerto Rico. For the afternoon, I had nothing planned, not yet. I will play by ear, I said to myself.

By the time I was finished with the hygiene part of my morning, the sky was a deep intense blue, not a single cloud crowned its royal presence, and the birds were chirping joyously. They were always chirping, only today it was more noticeable. Unbearable. Probably because I had nothing to chirp about!

The interview went as expected, it was good, very good indeed. Then again, I have this gift for wining people's favor. But something as expected as this doesn't really cheer you up. It ends up been just another ordinary boring thing!

On my way to the station I walked past Casal Pere IV, and went in to get information on an advanced Catalan course. I grew up during Franco's dictatorship, and Catalan was a forbidden language. The only Catalan my generation ever knew, were the ill patched colloquial phrases exchanged between family members. A once glorious past forgotten under the fascist reign of terror! I couldn't even understand completely the many official forms I now had to fulfill on a daily basis, and it was really getting to my nerves. It was all in vain though, fucking summer schedule! I would probably feel otherwise if I had a full time job, but it ain't the case.

As I was exiting the Casal, I glanced at my watch... too early to go home, too lonesome to go home... yet too late to do anything else.

I walked down the station anyway, and for a moment there I hesitated on which way to go... North, where home was, or south to nowhere? I headed nowhere.

As the train left the insides of Sabadell and made its way into the open, the bright sunlight made my jeweled thongs glisten all over the compartment, turning the fiberglass walls into an early 80's disco. Hundreds of miniature rainbows sparkled over my peaceful reading. If it had not been for that, I would have never started to pay attention to the running landscape outside my window.

It was right there when I saw, I mean, I really saw them for the first time... the pine trees of my childhood. Spreading their rounded canopies against the bluest of skies like a thousand pregnant bellies, like the fertile womb of an expecting mother... my mother. And I knew. It stroke me with the kind of certainty that only visits you once or twice in a lifetime... All I'd ever done, everything I'd lived for up until that moment, came down to the realization... I had finally come home.

Looking for Pita bread leered me naked!

I am a sybarite. I admit it. When it comes to food, and for that matter everything else, I'm always up for anything new and exotic.

In my travels I've had the opportunity to savor all kinds of delicacies, but like everyone else I do have my favorites. Among which Lebanese, Arabic, Middle Eastern or whatever whatchamacallit... takes a privileged position in my ranking palate.

Yesterday I was in the mood for some good braised lamb, with a side of roasted eggplant and red peppers, and caramelized onions to pour on top of the meat... Then I thought, and since I was preparing a bigger amount than usual, cold lamb sandwiches with sliced apples would make a perfect treat for next day's beach outing! But as we all know, sandwiches main ingredient is bread, right? Since these were not to be ordinary sandwiches, the only suitable bread would be Pita bread!

I walked my neighborhood up and down. For more than two hours I visited every little shop that could remotely be connected with food... with no luck, I may add.

Until that day, the majority never even heard of Pita bread! And I gotta tell you, it was a big surprise to me! Barcelona is full of Arabs, they come from every Arab speaking country there is! Yet, no Pita bread... anywhere!

Finally some light was thrown at my quest! Mohamed, the butcher from who I bought the lamb, told me to go into that small Moroccan cafeteria across Plaza de Espana... He said "tell the owner I sent you" to see if he could sell me some Pita from the restaurant's own stock.

Mohamed saved my feast, indeed! The owner of the Moroccan cafeteria was really nice about it, and even offered to order me half a box of the bread in question the next time he does an order for himself. So far so good!

Now, there's another thing I needed to comment on. When I approached the Moroccan place, I noticed the tables outside. Neatly placed under umbrellas, invitingly set to enjoy the long summer days "al fresco" and filled to capacity with Middle Eastern looking fellas... Walking through them to get inside the restaurant was a hard thing to do. I still am missing a few buttons of my dress, and that is how fast they leered me naked!

Therefore, I couldn't help thinking what kind of burka will they like to see me with... Until I found the right one, browse shopping online...

Made out of karakul, is one of the finest in its kind, and the perfect example for how I felt while buying Pita bread from a Moroccan place!

I am too nice for a Catalan!

Today I was fetching more papers and documents, as I told you before, this has been my life for the past 3 weeks... not too many results though... Anyway, I went to this office to get my birth certificate, and when I told the lady what I needed, the first thing she asks is if I was born in Barcelona... to what I responded in the affirmative... And guess what?.... She looked at me kinda confused, and then said "You are so nice, your voice is so nice and polite I didn't think you were from around here... not a Catalan anyway"

What did I tell you! I am an immigrant in my own land! Too nice to be a Catalan! Hahahaha.... and you know what????? I like it just fine!

Adventures & misadventures in Immigrantland!

I must be the youngest 49 yrs old I know, cause completely moving to another country and at my age, I know it is something very few would do willingly!

Considerations for not doing it vary from "will I find all I like over there?", "will they have my favorite toothpaste, or the pastrami I like?" to "I am too old to make new friends" passing through "I will never find a job that pays me well enough, or what will I do with all my worldly possessions?"... and so on! None of it mattered to me! Cause the truth is, once I put my mind into something... it is just a matter of when, a very short when! So, in that sense, I think I must be around 12 yrs old! There are no impossibles to me, just the lack of imagination!

Being a gypsy at heart, I wouldn't lie to you, has helped a lot! The only concern I really had all the time was, how would I feel been an immigrant in my own country? ... Of course it was a fear I overcame on my first week here... Specially after noticing it was among other immigrants that I felt the best! And to that respect I have to say that it has been immigrants whom have made me feel more welcome!

This is a country of fucking bureaucrats! Remember the other day when I wrote something about it while in rage? Well, I've gotta tell you, I had all the right to feel that way! First they tell me that the official stamp of the Spanish consulate in PR and the consul's signature is worth nothing if not accompanied by another letter, also signed by the same consul, certifying the signature on the first one! ??????? NUTS! TOTAL, COMPLETE, UNDENIABLY NUTS!!!!

All that just to prove that I have lived abroad, right? And all that, just after having performed a miraculous resurrection from the land of the dead... cause that's where they had me. Filed and all, in an obscure office of the central government in Madrid! Meanwhile, at the consulates, in PR and elsewhere, they've issued me a new passport every time the previous one expired! Do they work for the same government at all????? Besides, since when do ghosts need a passport to move around?????

And the last one is even better! First they pressed upon me the burden of the proof I've lived all these years abroad... now they wanted proof I've lived in Spain at all. That is... before I went on living elsewhere!!!!!

Tell me I am not going bananas, cause I can't make any sense at all of all this! If they now ask for me to prove living here before I left... doesn't that mean they are implicitly admitting that I lived abroad?

In the meantime, my feet hurt with blisters from running up and down streets and buildings all over the city. I am thinking on a new reason why not to move AT ANY AGE AT ALL to Spain. But at the same time, I am making new friends as I go...

Still, many more things have to happen before I am to decide where does the scale tilts... worth or not worth it?

Summer fair... A blessing for an overpriced country!

During summertime, and every Sunday morning the local fair gathers near Sabadell South train station.

I had been wanting to go there for a while, and las Sunday I finally did. Laura and Roberto accompanied me on my field trip.

Laura was in the market for some wedge heeled "alpargatas", Roberto just wanted the company, and I was there to bare witness and take pics for you!

Laura didn't find her heels... but Roberto treated us to "chistorra" sandwiches for breaky, and I got plenty of images to complete my portrait of the place!

We got there very early, we wanted to beat the mid morning crowds!


For many, the fair is the way to beat the economic crisis! I bought here some AAA batteries I needed for my electronic gadgets... after negotiating the 3 Euros I was asked down to 1,5 Euros... I closed the deal!
Outside here, they were asking me 8 Euros for the same exact kind and amount of batteries!


Anything and everything you could need... if it has been invented you'll find it there, but at affordable prices!


One of my favorite stands... the flower growers! It gives such a festive and colorful look to the fair! But my personal favorite, my number one... BALLOONS! Love them! These shining foil figures filled with helium... just fill me with joy!


Everything! Pots and pans too!

My friend Farnaz would have a ball here! lol



It is funny... most of the vendors are illegals from elsewhere, and the police keeps a close watch on the activities going on at the fair... yet I didn't witness any arrests or trouble for the immigrants trying to make a living in an overpriced country!








There is something for everybody, even the little ones!


This one kills me! They accept all major credit cards?????? HAHAHA Obviously got their papers alright!

Roberto was coaching Laura on how to negotiate



Some of the most colorful vendors will shout incessantly "3 Euros... everything at 3 Euros!!!" and so on!

I love cactus! Silvia's Proof!



Peruvian Indians performing their folkloric tunes


He works with his parents at this mobile cafeteria... He handed the soft drinks and received payment... but his father did the "chistorra" sandwiches!

When I told him what the pics were for... he insisted that I take one of his pirate's earring! "Hey America, look what can I do with canned soda rings!"



A Brazilian custom, or Roberto's flavor?????? Ketchup over "chistorra chorizos"?????.... No comments!

The Typical Spanish store!


More typical Spanish!


Here, the ones selling the imitations are, surprisingly enough for me, NOT Chinese! They are from all the republics of Africa, and they all work for their fathers! lol


Balloons! I wanna balloooooon!!!!


"A 2 euro, bonita, todo a 2 euro! Ole!"


"This isn't mine, it is my sick father's business"



Can you see the strings pulling from the corners of the cloth??? Well, when the police closes in, these modern prestidigitators in less than a second and a trick with the hand, turn the cloth in some sort of back pack... and just like that, a blink of an eye is all it takes, and you could never tell they ever were there at all!