madam striga: Livin It Up at the Hotel... Golf Costa Brava

I have been keeping myself busy in Spain hanging out at Hotel Golf Costa Brava. In exchange for hosting me I have been working on a blog for the hotel. It was so cool of the director, Albert, to let me stay here that I was happy to do whatever I could to get the place some attention. I like supporting good people in their business. I hope by writing the blog for the hotel I'll encourage other people to do the same.

Aside from life at the hotel, I have managed to get around town a bit. Jordi has carted me a few places and invited me along on a couple boat trips. His friend Jan has a small boat one town over in Sant Feliu de Guixols. Jan is a super nice guy who is doing waaaay better at learning a second language that I am. Earlier this year he didn't know a word of English. He went to England for 4 months and can now converse quite well. He was happy to have me to practice with and I was happy I didn't have to try and speak Spanish!

I actually told myself I would study Spanish the whole time I was in Europe. Not only useful in Spain, I decided after I visited Puerto Rico a while back that if I ever want to live anywhere warm, I should learn the language. Turns out, traveling with people who speak Danish, Swedish, French and Polish - and visiting a new country every few days where even other languages are spoken - does NOT make me want to try and concentrate on Spanish! On top of that, here on the East Coat of Spain the main language is Catalan, so my brain could not be more confused. Everyday my friend Carlos, the hotel's chef, tries to chat with me. He speaks Spanish, and while I am grateful for his friendship, our conversations are ridiculous. If it weren't for hand gestures and laughing, we wouldn't have much to communicate at all.

I don't know if the timing was coincidental or not, but the day after the verdict of the Zimmerman trial was announced, Carlos asked me "Philadelphia, mucho violencia?" I responded with "Sí", and it made me very sad. I have been to a lot of towns in the past couple months. The city girl in me is always on the look out for situations and places that don't seem safe. Back in Prague I started to wonder if I was cautious or paranoid. Do people here constantly scan the scene around them? because I keep doing it and finding no threat. Here I was, weeks later, again feeling safe and secure in my surroundings, struggling to chat with my new friend about anything we could understand with our limited common verbal ground, and we met in the middle over the violence in my home town. Don't get me wrong, I know there are far worse places in the world. It's just that when you are used to hearing about cars being broken into, people being robbed, gunfire in the hood, all happening on a daily basis, it becomes somewhat normal. Then when you're away from it for a while, and someone from a different continent points it out, you realize just how obviously abnormal it should be.

Anywhoooo, here are a couple pics of fun in Spain. There will be more coming, but others will be popping up on the hotel's blog over the next 4 months or so. They will be brief posts about the hotel and ventures I took while staying there. You can check it out at HGCBblog.wordpress.com