La Huelga and more

If any of you watch international news, you may have seen footage of massive rioting going on in Barcelona yesterday. Yes, I am alive. September 29th was a general strike day and there was quite a lot going on in Placa Catalunya, which I actually walk through almost daily. Our classes were cancelled that day and we were told to keep mostly inside and away from large, boisterous crowds. In reality, most of the car burning, rock throwing, window breaking, and stealing was done by a group here called "Anti-sistema." You got it, they are an active anarchist group in Spain and apparently protest and cause a ruckus at just about any opportunity. According to my history of Catalunya professor, it is not clear exactly what their political platform is. I suppose it is a bit difficult to be a cohesive organized group when you are fighting against structure and organization itself. Anyway, this was apparently one of the more violent strike days that Barcelona has had in the past few years. What did I do? Tons of homework.

And now a quick note about language barriers. Having a good sense of humor is absolutely essential in living with a host family. A few days ago, we all had a good laugh when I stated "Estoy perdiendo pesetas de caminar," attempting to say "I am losing weight from walking." However, the word for "weight" is actually "peso." "Pesetas" are the former Spanish currency that were replaced by the Euro. So I actually said, "I am losing money from walking."...which makes no sense at all! Once we had all laughed about my mistake, I corrected my statement to be "I am losing weight from walking and money from shopping!"

This evening, my host sister Ana pulled out a tub of Betty Crocker chocolate frosting to eat with some cookies. Ana is allergic to milk, and so she bought the frosting in place of chocolate sauce. However, in typical American fashion, the tub had a line that read "May contain traces of milk products." Ana asked me what this meant. Does it have milk in it or not? Ummm...well. See, sometimes, the same machines may have been used to make different products so it might contain the tiniest bit of milk, but probably not. And companies have to put that on there to protect themselves from being sued. This explanation is really helping right? That is correct, I can't tell you for absolute sure whether or not it has milk in it. And yes, Americans are the slightest bit crazy.

I am happy to report that Ana tried it and that she is perfectly fine.

Oh life...

Besos!