Two weeks ago, a million people marched through Barcelona to protest the impending war with Iraq. If you wander through the streets, you can still see evidence of the city’s unmistakably unanimous stance on this issue. Apartments, bakeries, and schools alike have signs reading, simply, “No a la guerra.” Some have these odd pictures of bombs like you might see in old cartoons, crossed out.

It is hard for us to discern what drives this. Blaming anti-Americanism seems both too simplistic and something of an insult to the Spaniards and other Europeans who have firmly made up their minds. Why, just this morning I heard the Muzak versions of Cecilia, The Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B, and, for whatever reason, Auld Lang Syne, while waiting for the subway. Nobody seemed the least bit caliente around the collar. More substantively, not one person has expressed the slightest bit of hostility towards us – at least nothing we’ve noticed. Ok, well, one guy from Iran in my new Spanish class did say, in response to a bit of idle chatter about Bush, Iraq, and matters related, “Sharon is a butcher who kills children and women.” Even though we had not been talking expressly about Israel, I won’t count that as anti-Americanism.

Most of what does exist here is disdain for George Bush, Tony Blair, and Jose Aznar, Spain’s President. People have told us that the biggest reason why this war is drawing such a huge response is because it is embarrassing to see European leaders ignoring the wishes of their own constituents to back Mr. Bush. Indeed, many of the signs in the Barcelona anti-war demonstration featured Aznar applying his tongue to a part of Bush’s anatomy where even the Crawford, TX, sun don’t shine. A sort of crude Esperanto.

It is sort of amazing to us, too, that Aznar is willing to buck the tide, because it seems pretty darn strong. Can you imagine a public school in the US right now hanging out a “No War” banner? While one small-college basketball player makes headlines for turning ninety degrees to the left? While demonstrations are ridiculed, and the most heralded political statement in the land seems to be the renaming of French Fries? With many economic issues being decided by the EU, even if only de facto, it seems hard to imagine anyone forgetting about this slap in the proverbial face and voting for the Partido Popular again. (In Spain, voters choose a party and the party then selects the president).

Of course, some of this unanimity leads, as it always does, to foolishness. One bit of graffiti proclaimed that while the USA uses you, Osama loves you. Not too many people would agree with this particular statement, but there is certainly an element, at least among those predisposed to make their statements with spray paint, that is finding this war-to-be more an amusing diversion from general rants against the Euro, the rich, or the fact that Catalonia still has to answer to Spain’s government than a real concern.

The fact is, quite simply, than just about everyone here is Catalonia and grew up in Barcelona. They share a strong common culture, forged by centuries of history, as well as surviving the reign of a dictator and fighting to preserve their language. It is only in the past ten years or so, in fact, that Spain has experienced any immigration at all, unless you count a swarm of pickpockets from all over Europe that spends summers and holidays on La Rambla. There are many South Americans, North Africans, and Arabic people here, as well as a growing Pakistani community. The novelty of all this means that as bad as we thought Americans were at talking about race, it’s even tougher here.

A Chinese-American woman in my Spanish class reports that people openly stare at her on the subway. She’s often propositioned, asked about Japanese food, and asked, without other pleasantries (like, “Hola”) where she’s from. Her answer, “Chicago,” hasn’t been cutting it – “No, I mean where are you from?” While we have been explaining these types of things (“Ohhhhh…you’re Jewish? Wait here – I know another Jew. I’ll get him.”) away with the idea that it was simply a lack of experience and the absence of suitably subtle language, she’s not having any of it. She said, “I took my fiancé (who is from Barcelona) on a trip to China, and no one propositioned him.”

Very well. It remains hard for us to tell where it all comes from. Just last week, I went out for a beer with Albert for my birthday. He is still meandering through his 25th year, looking for a purpose. Recently, for example, we signed up to allow him to demonstrate a 3000 Euro vacuum cleaner on our apartment, which could use it. This was a required part of his door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman training. He quit before we could get the free vacuuming, which is a shame for all of you who are coming to visit. Gloria has assigned me to help him find a career path, though I am not, you could imagine, the best role model at this time. The day he claimed to have started writing his life story, she almost throttled me.

Anyway, so there we were, talking about his future, in Spanish. I was not understanding everything, a fact I attribute more to his flakiness than my comprehension. He asked why I don’t like to do out drinking every day. I told him that it cost money, and that I have to get up for class and work every day, anyway. He told me I was conservative. “Not like your brother,” he said. “He has adventures. He went to Italy, Brazil….”

“What do you think this is?” I said. “This is an adventure. Think me. Believe me. Now my brother works in an office of lawyers. He wants to turn into a lawyer, I think.”

“Is it because you’re Jewish?” he said. “I have heard that Jews are very careful with saving money.” Since we live (in the building, Mom, not in the apartment) with a couple of guys from Israel whose weekly cocaine budget could keep Leah and me in ham for weeks, I would think he would have at least had a different prejudice than that one.

“No,” I said. I tried to explain it in a way that wouldn’t sound defensive, but clearly it did, because the next thing I knew he was saying, “No pasa nada, perdona, perdona,” and changing the subject. We moved on to chat about something else. While I don’t think he had his mind changed in the two-minute exchange about how not all Jews believe the same things about money, he definitely saw that he had better kick this one under the rug, and fast. Perhaps that’s the first lesson in better cross-cultural relations. Soon after, he paid for all the beer, which I suppose is the second lesson.

Last week we were back home in sweet New Jersey, helping some people do some things. Everyone is A-OK now; thanks for asking. I thought about posting regularly during the week while we were in the US, but I think I am discovering that I am just not going to be one of those blog people who tries to get everything from real life onto the internet. Who really wants to know all that stuff?

A lot of people asked if it was going to be weird to return to America, as if the we had gone through some kind of awkward breakup with the US and were now about to be seated next to John Negroponte, the Ambassador to the UN, at a mutual friends’ wedding.

Us: Oh. Hello, John.
US Ambassador John Negroponte: Hi. On behalf of the American people, you’re looking well. Did you lose weight?
Us: Yeah, you too. So, it’s…uh…been awhile.
USAJN: Yeah. Four months. Uh…I mean, I think four months. Or whatever. I haven’t been counting.
Us: Right. So…are you seeing anyone? I mean, did you know that your name means Black Bridge in Spain?
USAJN: It’s Italian. Don’t you pay attention to anything? Um, listen…I have to go talk to that guy over there. But great to run into you.

But it wasn’t odd at all. Maybe we had to think a little to decide what language to speak to the flight attendants in on the KLM flight from Barcelona to Amsterdam to Newark. When we’re here, we sort of try to speak Spanish even if English is possible, you know, to learn it. But when Dutch flight attendants speak English and Spanish, and we’re in, for example, Iceland’s airspace, then what? Mostly we slept, making this wholly uninteresting debate academic as well.

The time in the hospital was, thankfully, very boring after a few edgy hours in the beginning of the week. At about noon on Monday, the heart surgeon came into the hall. He used the exact same tone of voice and affect as the guys who run the service department at the Subaru dealer in Arlington to explain that he had done this and that, and that everything was fine. He was so mellow that I half expected him to say that he had replaced the spark plugs while he was at it.

This trademark surgeon’s calm has been popping up all week as numerous well-wishers have shared what they tried to make sound like their big secret about choosing a good person to cut you open and fiddle around with your innards: “That’s what you want,” they all said, in the same sideways tone of voice used to pass on stock tips. “Someone who does this 700 times a year. Someone who thinks it’s routine.” Uh, thanks. Is there a debate about this? What’s the other side of the argument – that maybe an inexperienced surgeon is better because she’ll be more excited to see what’s going on: “Ooh! Look! It really is heart-shaped! Like a big Valentine! I better buckle down.”?

One thing that did strike us about being back on our home turf, aside from how frigging cold it gets in New Jersey (but not inside houses), was how much TV there is to watch and how many magazines there are to read. We brought home one suitcase with a few clothes and a bunch of gifts and were excited to travel light coming back to Barcelona. We returned with two suitcases: one with clothes and another with books and New Yorkers. I had been promising myself that even if my Spanish never gets very good, at least I would have finished Middlemarch by the time we go home, since we had so little to read. Now, I’m not so sure of either. We are also left with one more suitcase than airlines actually allow you to check, so someone will be taking it home after their visit.

We also crammed in the entire fourth season of the Sopranos, thanks to Derek’s dedicated taping efforts and a few three-hour stints in front of the TV. Actually, we got in nearly all of them. We left ourselves only an hour to watch the season finale, but, alas, it was 75 minutes long. Tony and AJ were having a heart-to-heart in the guest house when we realized we would miss our plane if we waited any longer. Why the world can’t come up with a universal VCR is beyond me. And the same goes for electrical outlets. What point are we trying to prove? Is there something cultural tied up in the voltage and Hertz requirements for world’s electronics?

Anyhow, we fled to the airport, where five million people were trying to beat the super-blizzard. The ticket-checker for Northwest asked to see our return tickets, marking the first time anyone, aside from friends and relatives, had registered the slightest bit of interest in whether we would ever be leaving Spain, a country we are really only allowed to live in for six months. And now we’re back. Spain, for its part, was not offended that we went to see our old flame. The Europeans understand these things.

By the way, our phone works again.

From the Someone Get This Man a Thesaurus Department..
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin announced his take on the impending war with Iraq. The verdict? Not nice.

Now, onto more things from Spain. Today I went for a delightful walk - it's getting warm here - to buy my brother a soccer jersey. He had requested a Ronaldo jersey, but Ronaldo plays for Real Madrid, and looking for such a jersey here is like trying to buy your Official Derek Jeter Duvet - Dust Ruffle Set on Landsdowne Street. It makes people a little annoyed and they charge you more.

The proprietor asked if I spoke English. On La Rambla, that really means, "Would you like to be gouged on this official-looking knockoff jersey?" I told him, no, that I hablo-ed the Español, and we haggled the price of a jersey down from a remarkably unreasonable number to a less unreasonable one. I told him I would come back after looking some more, and he knocked another 30 bills off the price. Rivaldo, Ronaldo, who knows the difference? I asked him what the price would have been if I only spoke English. He said that I didn't want to know.

Perhaps some of you have been trying to call us. You can't, because our phone is broken. We still have the cell phone. But the broken phone led to my calling our local phone company. And as faithful readers have no doubt guessed by now ("Christ, will you just go on another honeymoon or have lunch with the Israelis again. Utilities are bor-ing."), it was fun for so many reasons. Actually, there's not a whole story to this one, only one point: I yelled at the operator, who gave me two toll-call numbers to call, one to get a technician, the other to adjust my bill so we don't pay for the days when the phone was broken, in Spanish for about ten minutes. I think he might have even understood what I wanted. Either way, the phone doesn't work.

In a related item, Leah spoke Spanish in her sleep the other day. Predictably, she was dreaming about being served some sort of food, saying, "No, solo un poco mas." Maybe it was pig's ear.

We think these things represent breakthroughs for us.

A while ago, I think we told some people that we would try to post more often. Clearly, we've failed so far. Here's a little something from regular old life in Spain. No fancy onions or Superbowl fiestas. It's about noises.

If you had been sitting where I've been all day - working at my desk in the apartment, here's what you would have heard:

• The woman downstairs yelling at her husband in Catalan,
  
• Hammering. So much hammering. They're rehabbing the apartment next door,
  
• Or maybe above us. They are now doing something that sounds like pouring nails all over the floor,
  
• A toy car, belonging to the baby in 5-2, that played "London Bridge," over and over, for half an hour,
  
• Thai music, and some chatting, also in Thai, from downstairs,
  
• The elevator opening, closing, starting to move, stopping, opening, closing. Each of these steps, quiet in a modern elevator, is very noisy here in this building,
  
• Drilling, also,
  
• Chairs, constantly moving around,
  
• A machine I cannot identify. It might be to cut into the plaster to install new wiring,
  
• Bells,
  
• Recess at the Colegi Sagrat Cor, across the street. This school looks like the freaking Taj Mahal compared to schools at home,
  
• and they're still hammering.