I was very happy to start off the day. The sky was BLUE!! I took a picture of Emilio and Carmen on the way to school.
Today’s lessons were on teaching writing (in Spanish—yikes for me!) and work on the stressed syllables in different words. In class, I noticed my leg has a bump on it right where it hurts. It’s like a knot under my skin. Steph thinks I pulled something. I know it’s related to my twisted ankle on the Pedrera. It’s hurt ever since then.

For lunch, we went back to our pastry shop, el Fornet? Laura and Dalia had invited us out for tapas, but I was exhausted and wanted to sit on the couch they have in our place and Mikaela had to get back early.

After lunch, I meant to work on my lesson plan for my one-on-one, but I ended up finishing up my emotions lesson (that I’d thought was complete!). Petr went first. His lesson was ok. I had made everything up for my lesson and felt pretty good about all of it. Half of the students left between our lessons. The ones who stayed were talking a lot and in ENGLISH unlike during his lesson. I had a fun memory game and a fill-in and a dialogue. My dialogue had a few too many phrases that weren’t good for beginners and I sort of felt finished when I realized this. I concept checked it with them anyway and set them off to write their own dialogue. I could feel that I should be doing something but couldn’t make myself. Their dialogue was great—better than mine!

I was worried about my lesson, but Geoff thought it was great. He didn’t have much that was negative to say about it. He disagreed with my analysis, saying it’s ok to let them go on the production—good to monitor them, but sort of ok not to if they’re getting it. I forgot to mention that yesterday he said he was going to save the lesson and do it himself! I am sick and I definitely overreacted yesterday. Everything just resonates with me more when I’m under the weather. I just wanted to say to Geoff that I liked his feedback style, but then he compared it to Erwin and I lost it.

Mikaela and I got on the subway to look for Fish&Chips, the restaurant. We were supposed to be meeting Steph there in honor of British Isles day. We walked the LENGTH of La Rambla looking for it. We asked a woman handing out coupons, inside a hotel, inside a business, inside a museum… everywhere we could find, but no one knew of our place! Mikaela did most of the talking in Spanish but I added occasional words or motions in English.

We ended up at the Columbus statue by the water and stood outside of a taxi, contemplating whether or not to ask if they knew. I decided we should ask the two nearby police officers in bright green vests that read “policia.” I started off slowly “we…are…looking….for….” and waited to see if there was any recognition. The officer’s face wasn’t absolutely perplexed so I continued “a restaurant called Fish&Chips because we are supposed to meet our friend there” (most people heard fish and tried to direct us somewhere else for fish—you want to eat fish, no? uhhhh no). The policeman KNEW what we wanted and gave us directions up another street angled off of Columbus and to the Rambla R-soemthing. Mikaela and I sang fiiiiiiish and chips and vinegar and were generally thrilled with ourselves for having found someone to give us directions. We regretted not going to the information station (commonly known as tourist information) at Placa Catalunya to pick up another flyer for it and not looking it up online at school. We sang and marched along and found Ramblas R…whatever. We walked the length of it too and looked at an odd cat statue. On the other end, we found 2 more police officers. We asked them. One of them got out his phone and googled our place while the other told us this is where the “bad boys” hang out, that we needed to be careful. He demonstrated with Mikaela’s backpack how easy it would be to rob her and she demonstrated her kung-fu skills. They gave us the number and directions to our fish and chips place. It was directly behind the cat. Inside, there were lots of hooligans and no Steph. We stared in for a couple of minutes and decided we did NOT want to eat that.

We found an Italian place and shared risotto and gnocchi. We were thrilled. Then we asked where the metro was, but got to the described intersection and I thought it was right and Mikaela thought it was left. Oh dear. I went in a convenience store and said metro? And crossed my arms over myself pointing in both directions at the same time. Which way? The man said yes. Uhh this way? Yes. This way? Yes. Closer? He said left. Mikaela had a laugh about my motions, but I’ve learned that in a foreign country if I embarrass myself, the person I want help from will feel pity or that they can’t be any worse than me and tell me what I want to know. It’s not like I’ll see that convenience store guy again and he DID help us!

We started to walk that way but could tell we were headed into a bad neighborhood. We saw MORE police officers. Great! I asked them where the metro was and they both busted out books of maps. One showed me how to follow the street down and make a V to another street and it would be there. Great! Mikaela said close? He said 2am, thinking she asked closed? She repeated and he did too: close? 2am. Close? 2am. Close? 2am. I said far? She said close and he repeated 2am. I marched in place and said walking, walking, walking. How far? He said 2 minutes. Mikaela said Oh, so it IS close. He smacked his hand to his forehead, suddenly seeing his blunder. We found the subway and rode to where we both had to transfer. We said our goodbyes and I went home to my one-on-one project.

Moral of the story? Don’t ask anyone who SHOULD be helpful how to get anywhere, especially not if they work in a booth with the word "tourist" written on it. Ask the police!