Countdown

Yesterday I finally got round to booking my flights, and in three weeks I will be home. The flat contract ends at the end of this month, so I've packed almost everything up into bags and am preparing myself for the next few weeks out of the city. On Saturday I leave the flat for the mountains where Sam and I will be monitores (kid's workers) at a summer camp southwest of Barcelona. The following week we'll head to a small village on Catalonia's border with Aragon to relax and to be with all his family.

It's a strange feeling packing up everything after spending a long time in a place. I feel like Barcelona's become my home, and there's so much I'm going to miss: the weekly, or maybe even daily, debates and speculations about the independence of this small country/region* that has hosted me for my year abroad, cycling everywhere, the beaches, the people, my church, uni, teaching english, the languages.. The man in the fruitshop who now lets me cycle into his shop and park my bike among the fruit before choosing what I want that day, and the lady in the swimming pool who gets annoyed with me because I never have change for the lockers.

*delete according to political views

I'm going to miss the Catalans too. This morning I cancelled my bank account with La Caixa (pronounced /la casha/). Talking in Spanish on the bus yesterday with Sam, I mentioned the name of the catalan bank and what I was going to have to do. The man in front of us turned around, grinned and asked Sam where I was from. He congratulated me on my knowledge of Catalan (i.e. that I could correctly pronounce the name of my bank) before turning back round. Without realising, Sam and I switched language and continued our conversation in Catalan. Five minutes later the man turned round again, slightly embarrassed and says to Sam: 'oh.. she actually does speak Catalan'.