Our two-dimensional friend addresses the Catalan issue.

No, no, no...not THAT Catalan issue. That’s a minefield into which this expat will not tiptoe. I’m instead talking about the issue of Flat Stanley in Barcelona.

You’ll recall that I detailed the Flat Stanley phenomenon in a previous essay, and provided a letter template summarizing the Flat man’s adventures in Madrid. This week, I am providing my Barcelona template. I do this for several reasons.

First, Barcelona is Spain’s second largest city and is thus likely to have tons of expats who call it “home.” Where expats settle, Flat Stanley soon follows.

Second, I’ve lived in—and love—both Madrid and Barcelona. And like a proud father of two, I am loathe to play favourites—although I will say that the patatas bravas are much better in Barcelona.

Finally (and perhaps most importantly), I’ve had the flu for several days now and believe me folks...recycling this template that’s been sitting in my hard-drive for the past six years is just about all the creativity that I can muster this week.

So without further ado (whatever the hell “ado” means), I include the Barcelona template below.

* * * * * *

Dear [Insert Kid’s Name]:

Flat Stanley arrived at my home in Barcelona, Spain on [Insert day]. He told me that he remembered seeing Barcelona on TV during the 1992 Summer Olympics and it seemed like a nicer (and warmer!) place to hang out than [Insert kid’s home]. I think that he made the right choice.

Flat Stanley jumped out of his envelope at 2:00 in the afternoon. I was just getting ready to eat lunch. People in Spain eat a big lunch late in the afternoon, then eat a small dinner at 9:00 or 10:00 in the evening. Flat Stanley told me that it took almost one week for his envelope to travel from home to Barcelona in the mail...and he was hungry.

He asked what was for lunch. I told him that we were eating fideuá (pronounced “fee-day-WAH”). Fideuá is a typical dish in Spain’s Catalonia region—which is where Barcelona is located. Fideuá consists of a special type of short, thin noodle (like a baby spaghetti) cooked with things like clams, shrimp, squid, rabbit, chorizo (pronounced "cho-REE-thoh”) sausage or...black squid ink!

Flat Stanley told me that he preferred rigatoni, but the fideuá smelled good enough. He ate half of the pan.  What did he drink with his lunch? Coca-cola, of course. Even in Spain, we drink the stuff!

After one week in an envelope and a huge lunch, Flat Stanley wanted to see Barcelona. So we first visited Barcelona’s most famous building…La Sagrada Familia (“la sa-GRAH-da fah-MEEL-ya”)

La Sagrada Familia is a very famous (and unique) church in Barcelona. It was designed by the famous architect Antoni Gaudí (“gow-DEE”) and it looks like eight giant melting candles. The tops of the “candles” are covered with colourful tiles. There is no building like it in the world. Construction of La Sagrada Familia is not yet finished. They have been building it for 100 years, and it will not be finished
for another 40 years.

Flat Stanley started feeling dizzy after looking up at La Sagrada Familia’s funky tiles for too long. We therefore decided to take the Tube (called the “Metro” in Barcelona) to a different part of the
city. We were lucky enough to find two seats in the Metro car and sat down.

Flat Stanley passed the time away by reading a copy of Barcelona’s newspaper, La Vanguardia (“la van-GWAR-dee-ah”).  Even though La Vanguardia is written in Spanish, Flat Stanley was able to understand some of the articles because English and Spanish have many words that are similar.

The Metro stopped and we ran up to the street. We were now in the Gothic Neighbourhood of Barcelona. The Gothic Neighbourhood is the oldest part of Barcelona and has hundreds of narrow, twisting streets. Flat Stanley was still a bit hungry, so he bought a bag of roasted chestnuts to eat from a street vendor. Roasted chestnuts are sold all over Barcelona during the winter season. They are not as good as fideuá with black squid ink...but they are still pretty darn
good.
 
Flat Stanley then walked up to the Gothic Cathedral. The Gothic Cathedral is one of the oldest churches in Barcelona. It was built just a little bit after Christopher Columbus sailed to America.

In front of the Gothic Cathedral, Flat Stanley noticed a group of Barcelona citizens doing a strange dance. The dance is called the Sardana (“sar-DAH-nah”). The Sardana is the traditional dance of the Barcelona area. To dance the Sardana, you need to hold hands with a group of people and form a ring (similar to Ring-Around-the-Roses). You then lift your hands in the air (still holding hands with your neighbour) and hop around in a circle.

The Sardana is not an exciting dance to watch for more than a few minutes, so we walked down the street toward the sea front. Barcelona is located in the north-east corner of Spain and is on the coast of the
Mediterranean Sea.  It has many nice beaches and a busy harbour. Flat Stanley walked down the sea front and looked at the cargo ships.

There were ships loading Seats (“SAY-ahts”), which is a type of Spanish car that is manufactured in Barcelona. There were ships loading Cava (“CAH-va”), which is a type of champagne made near Barcelona. There were ships unloading oranges from Valencia (“vah-LEN-thee-ya”), which is a city located on the east coast of Spain. There were ships unloading olives and olive oil from Andalucía (“on-dah-loo-THEE-ya”), which is a region in the south of Spain and grows more olives than anywhere else in the world.

While we were looking out at the Mediterranean Sea, Flat Stanley bumped into a girl who had just walked off one of the ships. She was a flamenco singer named “Flat Rosalita.”  Flamenco is a type of exotic music played on the guitar in the southern parts of Spain. Flat Stanley and Flat Rosalita started talking...then they started smiling...then they started holding hands.

Flat Stanley and Flat Rosalita then walked over and told me that they would be leaving Barcelona. They were going to jump into a new envelope and mail themselves to some other place.

“Where will you go?” I asked them. “Will you go north to France? Will you go south to Africa? Will you go west to Portugal? Will you go east to Italy?”

“We are going to Italy,” Flat Stanley said. “They have rigatoni in Italy.”

Sal DeTraglia

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[Copyright Expatica]

[April 2006]

Subject: Living in Spain