Nueva Normalidad

I'm not sure how it happened, but all of a sudden we are beyond phase 3--post-phase!--and into what is still being called "la nueva normalidad," which I won't translate into English because of how much I hate the phrase. But here's what it means: we have no more time zones for approved motion around town and we are free to travel within our province, within our region, within the country, and, I believe, within much of Europe. Businesses and restaurants are pretty much open now, but with limited capacity. Masks are required in public places, indoors and out. But things are sort of back to normal. Well, at least I think they are. We didn't have enough time here before things got abnormal to gauge what normal really means, but I'm led to believe that it's sort of like this. 

But to me, things are weird. For example, there aren't menus at restaurants. In some cases there are QR codes to scan at your table to access the menu on your cell phone, but sometimes there's just ... nothing. And then the waiter comes to take your order and you have no idea what is going on and it is super awkward. I mean, I assume that happens. To some people. Who don't really have a solid handle on the local languages. Or in other cases there will be an English-language menu by the door of the restaurant that you will study before you enter so that you know what to order but then when you're at your table the waiter doesn't speak English and you don't know what the dishes are in Spanish or Catalan and you don't even have a menu in front of you to prove that you're not crazy, you planned what to order and the restaurant definitely has it because it was on the menu by the door, and it is super awkward and you wonder why you ever left the safety of your own small apartment. I mean, that probably happened to some people last weekend. It seems likely. 

In other news, I've decided to cook at home the rest of our time here. 

The rest of our time here in Barcelona isn't that long. We are here until July 2 and then we will start on a road trip through Catalonia and end up in Madrid for our flight home on the 14th. Our flight out of Barcelona was canceled twice. After the second time we ended up just getting new tickets home out of a bigger, busier airport. So far so good, it hasn't been canceled. We are expecting a refund from our original flight, but we're told it will be many weeks before they can process it. I'd certainly like to get that money back, but at this point I'm grateful just to have a set of valid tickets back to our home country (even though that country has waaaaaay more coronavirus cases than Europe). 

We were thinking about taking our last two weeks and driving all over Spain but then we decided that that would be too much. Instead we rented an apartment right on the ocean in northern Spain, just south of the French border. We will be there for a week, which we're all excited about. We will have direct access to the ocean, a pool, and two balconies overlooking the Mediterranean. As much as I love Barcelona and all of its beautiful sights, I look forward to a relaxing week at the beach before we head home. 

A picture from a recent walk 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 1

Image
I decided that it would be okay to take the first week kind of easy, in terms of official schooling. After all, everything we do here is a learning experience! On Monday we were lucky to have the company and guidance of our Airbnb host, Fiona, and her kids (aged very similarly to ours) all day. They are Australian, so there is no language barrier between us. We attempted to take care of some official residency-related business, but in typical Spanish-bureaucracy fashion (I am told), we did not succeed. More on that later, I have no doubt. Over the course of the morning we took the metro, bus, and and our feet all over the couple of miles near our house. It was great to be with people who knew the area because they pointed things out and told stories along the way. However, it didn’t help my navigating skills because I just followed them. There are a number of places we went with them on Monday that I have no idea how I would find again. But that’s okay—we will discover them again as we...
Read more

Phase 0

Image
We are now almost two weeks into "Phase 0" of Spanish deconfinement. After almost two months spent entirely in our apartment, it's been nice to get outside and walk the city during our allowed hours. The first photo below shows some pretty purple trees from one of our walks. I thought that we had missed all of the flowering trees this spring while we were stuck inside, so I was excited to notice these. I don't think I've ever seen such a strong, deep purple on a tree before. I have no idea what they are, but they're gorgeous. I can see one of these trees from my bedroom window. I look forward to watching it come into full bloom! The evening walks have also allowed us to explore different regions of the city and exercise a lot harder than we've been able to inside. I was getting pretty tired of walking back and forth the length of the apartment hundreds of times per day to work up a sweat. Now we have three evening hours to get in our exercise and we have...
Read more