Spring Fling!

What’s spring fling? It’s a mini-MBA tournament taking place in Barclona among a few business schools. Sort of a warm-up for the actual MBA Tournament in Paris. Soccer, volleyball, patenque, rugby, basketball,and tug of war. We signed up the women soccer by accident so I spent the entire Saturday out in the field playing soccer. Can you believe that? Sharou and soccer! Never really played soccer my whole life. Although I have become the regular to the games, I still have no clues about the rules (damn, shame on me ☺, I am there more for the hype and the crowd than the actual match) Think I am going to google some soccer rules and bring them to the game tonight (how dorky is that?)

"ole..ole ole ole..esade esade..."-cheer of the day!

So how did my first official soccer match go? Well, very fun indeed and bonded with the girls but got killed big time by all these men-like women from other schools. Need more training for sure! Will kick some ass in 2 months when we encounter these “men” again ☺. Was joking with one of friends that the guys in our class were actually quite lucky, not the hottest bunch but at least quite pleasant to look at ☺, the odds are not good (75% male 25% female) but at least the good are NOT odd ☺

Spring is surely coming! Beautiful blue sky! Time for some summer sports and skimpy clothes ☺

More spring fling photos on flickr!

Picásso museum, Palau Música, oyakodon, y Espanyol

For the longest time, I wanted to go to the Picásso museum in BCN but never got a chance to do so because of the crazy workload. Term two finally came to an end on Thursday. Was planning to get away for the long weekend but it was a fall-out and figured that I might as well have a tranquillo weekend in BCN. Got up early and missioned over to El Borne. Couldn’t believe that there was a huge line-up for the Picásso museum already. Decided to walk around until the line-up died down. So wandered around and ended up in Palau Música Catalana, an amazing Gaudi-like concert hall (being typical sharou, again, I forgot my camera). Asked the usher if we could go in and have a look, “I invite you.” He mumbled in catalan and handed over the tickets to us. So we walked in the concert hall without realizing that we just got in a concert for free ☺ It was a percussion concert for kids and family. Sitting there and listening to all the different percussion instruments, realized what was missing on my MP3 player: classical and musicals, been out of touch with these types of music for a while. Time to download some peaceful tune :)

Was starving when the concert ended. Walking around El Borne, I found “the restaurant” I have been looking for a long time in BCN: a small, typical Japanese joint serving home-made dishes. Craving for a bowl of ramen but they didn’t’ serve ramen for lunch so I had oyakodon. Yumm..I love it..absolutely love it..love the ambience, love the authentic décor of the place, love the tiny corner, love the fact it was cheap, love the fact that it was not some trendy fusion japanese, and love the name of the place “Ikkiu” (a famous Japanese cartoon about a child monk growing up in a monastery).

Quickly went down the beach before the game tonight (I have become a regular ever since my friend "liquidated" his season ticket in exchange of cashflow). It was nice soaking myself under the sun. Haven’t seen the ocean for a while, since Christmas. The game was a bit chaotic but I enjoyed it. It was the first time that I actually arrived earlier enough to catch the anthem of the club.

“Puta Osasuna!!” the hard core espanyol fans shouted after Osasuna shot 3 goals in a roll. Que malo! Then it came the highlight of the game when Gracia had a goal from almost the centreline. The most beautiful goal I have ever seen (not that I know anything about football but I was stoked!!!)

It was the first relaxing weekend for a while..just walking around and enjoyed BCN, actually got myself oriented with all the cool bars in my neighbourhood and El borne. Quite an accomplishment I must say. (though i didn't make it to Picásso museum at the end)

Manuale d'Amore

Was suppose to catch the new Almodovar movie “Volver” but it was sold out when we got there so we ended up watching an Italian comedy “Manuale d’Amore” (Handbooks of Love). A warm, cute little film with beautiful sound of Italiano.

El flechazo, la crisis, la traición, y la abandono (Infatuation, crisis, betrayal, and abandonment)--it tells the story of love through four vignettes. Couldn’t help pondering what people want from love..think we all want to stay in the phase of infatuation, the most beautiful, romantic, butterfly and happy-ever-after, but life is a bitch comes with a full, mixed package with bitter & sweet, happiness & sorrow, joy & pain—es la vida, a double-edged sword that one can only truly appreciate one edge when having experienced the other, no?

Candy Riot! (Festes de Sant Medir de Gracia)

Was sitting at my desk studying for international taxation (how boring). Then out of sudden I heard some crazy noise with sreaming/yelling from the streets so I immediately went out to my balcony and realized that the streets were packed with kids with plastic bags, marching bands, carriages, and CANDIES! It was nuts!! The procession of carriages were tossing sweets into the crowd and all the kids/adults were shouting and screaming. So lively! There were at least hundreds of people on both sides of Gran de Gracia. Sounded and looked like a riot! Totally had no idea what was going on therefore I went on google and found out that it was actually "Festes de Sant Medir" today in Gracia!

God, I love Gracia!! There were at least 20 marching bands. The entire streets were "trashed" with candies and horse shit..after standing out in my balcony for almost 2 hours watching the parade, I even smelt like horse crap :)

But what amazed me the most wasn't the parade itself but the efficiency of cleaning the aftermath (couldn't believe that the efficiency actually existed here in BCN/Spain:)--the tail of the parade was two BCNeta trucks sweeping and power washing the streets as the procession came to the end. Hard to believe that the street was actually cleaned up in NO TIME.