Student I Had Never Met Before: As a student at this university, can I study abroad in Barcelona?
PZ: We do not have a program there, but we can help you arrange to be there as a visiting student. We will accept transfer credit from the University of Barcelona. We do have programs in other Spanish cities.
Student: I think I need to go to Barcelona. In terms of both nature and culture, it is the kind of place I want to be. If I stay here I may end up addicted to something I would rather not be on. Of course I don’t mean that literally. I just mean it is not good for me to be here and I am sure it would be good for me to be there.
PZ: Is it that bad for you here? You are from here, so I would have expected you to be acclimated. Unless, of course, you are just ready to leave home.
Student: Being here is really rough. Well, it has been since I visited California. It was really beautiful there and I felt wonderful just being in the city of San Francisco. I have felt really corralled here ever since, and I have decided Barcelona is the foreign city that might best approximate San Francisco.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Hah. I totally hear where that student is coming from. For me it was visiting Washington DC that made me realize I needed to get out; I can only imagine how much worse it would have been if I had visited San Francisco!
Barcelona is a nice idea. I’d stow away in your student’s suitcase, for certain.
It’s a lot hotter in Barcelona than San Francisco. I’m just saying.
And in neither place can one afford to go out every night, as one can here. This is a good place to be from, but you need to get away.
I’m glad I started out in San Francisco (Berkeley, actually). And Barcelona is wonderful, although not a place I understand very well. It’s so crazy. The food’s great!
You go out every night?
I mean, that’s not meant as critical. I would just get tired.
This entry reminds me of Teena Marie’s song “Where’s California.”
Not necessarily the lyrics because I’m not sure what her lyrics are supposed to mean and to whom but the chorus does repeat the question “Where’s California.” It seems that the California in the song is a person and a place. Marie is from Venice, California and has stated numerous times her love for Venice, or specifically Venice-Harlem (as her part of town is referred to by the natives). Often Marie uses complicated allusions, some I suspect that lead to no concrete meaning for most. She seems to employ allusions that invoke feelings and senses that she alone understands. This is not a problem, just saying. Also, don’t bother clicking on the YouTube if you detest a few words of sultry dialogue before the song begins.
Isn’t there a word or phrase (maybe in Literature, I think) about how a person goes some where away from his or her home and has a moment of being, an epiphany if you will of one’s smallness in the world. Or it could be one’s importance in the world. I think it may have to do with the grass seem to always look greener somewhere else. Thus making you feel like going home will never be the same. Now how to you like that mixture of clichés and half-baked references? Where’s California, eh?
Kitty – well, in a word, YES.
Human – the efficient N.O. way to go out every night is work up until the 10PM news, see the beginning of the news, then go out for one set. You can drink soda water and close your face so you don’t have to actually talk to people … the point is to hear the set. You can be home around midnight and still be fresh for work the next morning.
Nice. I like that.
If I want to go out, it takes at least 45 minutes to get there. And probably longer coming back since the trains are farther apart, late. I guess if I lived right downtown.
What is nice about Barcelona and other European cities is that there is all the street life. You are not always having to figure out how to entertain yourself. And for the price of a glass of wine you can sit in an outdoor cafe and watch the passing parade by the hour.
Las Ramblas is, of course, famous. The amount of free entertainment there is overwhelming.
Ah yes – the commute – ay! And yes, the other N.O. / S.F. way to go out, just go out and wander, sit in cafes, etc. … as in Barcelona and so on. THAT is what I most miss about living in a city.
Even in Lafayette when we lived there briefly, they had the Downtown Live thing once a week during the summer, where everyone would take their lawn chairs downtown and sit in the street and drink beer and listen to live music. Louisiana does have its points.
… and Laf. has much more now!!! The entire downtown is now full of bars, restaurants, and galleries!
If I’d been born and raised in Lafayette instead of farther north, I might have found it in me to stay – maybe. Then again, maybe not.
I did love that Festival Internationale they have every April or May. One year I decided I was going to buy a djembe. I must have played every one they had there (which was a lot) before picking out the one I liked best.
I had to leave it behind in a move, though…
Fest. Int. is great! But ultimately everyone cool leaves Laf. – even if just for a while.