Teen years come later if you are Spanish

I am working through a Spanish language book with accompanying audio track. It is slow going and I should have started months before I came on this trip to Barcelona. Of course, Catalan is the local language and I know a (very) few words in that language. I was told and it seems to be true that if you are clearly a foreigner to Spain, Catalans are fine to speak Spanish with you. This is good since Spanish is so much more widely spoken, and is quite useful back in North America.

I learned the numbers up to 20 in Spanish this week, and was surprised to find that the "teen" numbers begin at 16. There is quinze (15) and then deiciseis (16). My Catalan colleague says that in Catalan, they start at 17. The expression they have for teens by our counting is adolescent. Makes sense.

I thought this was an interesting difference and it also made me a bit critical of my own language. We could only get 12 different whole numbers before we had to recycle them. You could be generous and say that we have a baker's dozen, since "thirteen" is not "threeteen".

Rioja is a pretty good type of red wine

I am a great fan of Malbec, a type of red wine. I think of it as coming from Chile since that is where the kind I like best (that I can afford) comes from, but Argentina and France are the largest growers. I like to say that "I haven't met a Malbec that I didn't like".

I have asked for Malbec here in Barcelona but they don't seem to know what that it is. The wine that was recommended to me was Rioja, from a particular region in Spain. I am not a wine expert nor have I sampled widely, but consider Rioja my #2 choice now. I got the bottle below from the grocery store on campus (BC, get over your liquor store fascism!) for about $10. Certainly better than any $10 wine you can get in Canada.

It is nice to have (some) money

I am in Barcelona for the month. The Spanish taxpayer is paying for my modest accommodation in the UAB (Universitat Autonoma Barcelona) campus residences through a research grant that my host was awarded. The Canadian taxpayer is paying for the flight over and some living expenses through a grant I was awarded. They are paying for bringing my expertise to help the research projects of my host and his students, and the expertise and contacts I have access to here, respectively. I consider this to be a legitimate use of (international) taxpayers' money, but you can be the judge of that.

While here, I took a weekend off and flew to London to visit an old high school friend of mine. He has remained a close friend, although we only see each other every couple of years on average. No taxpayer paid for this trip, of course, and it was a bit of an extravagance. The trip began at about $360 excluding some spending I did there. Because I can spare that much money, I didn't think of it as an especially expensive trip compared to the cost of a visit from Vancouver. Keeping up with old and important friends is one of the things that makes life worth living.

I was due to come back late Sunday night, but not so late that I couldn't take the bus downtown to Placa Catalunya and then the train "home" to my UAB residence room (total cost about $10). However, the plane was delayed by about an hour and there was no way I would have made the last train back to UAB. I took a taxi instead, which cost $100. It was nice to have enough money to be able to do that without real hardship. There are always cheaper alternatives. I could have taken the bus downtown and looked for an inexpensive place to stay (hostel) or just stayed awake for four hours until the Monday morning trains began. I was happy to just pay the money, get back to my room, and go to bed.

Sunday Miscellany from Spain

I am currently in the Vila2 residence of the Univeristat Autonoma Barcelona. I am visiting Tim Myers at the Centre de Recerca Matematica, again (I was here four years ago for two months on sabbatical). I have a nice little room on campus, with a view:

I have rediscovered some of my favourites from the last visit: persimmons (a different kind than we get in Canada and fresh) and gazpacho soup. No need for a recipe: you can get gazpacho from any store in milk cartons. My favourite style of wine is Malbec, but there is a close second here in Spain: Rioja. Without knowing wine very well, they seem quite similar (and both to my taste). The bottle here is quite good - and only $6.

Recommendation: Jean-Michel Jarre's new album, Electronica 1: The Time Machine

I have been a bin fan of Jarre ever since his first album, Oxygene (1976). That is a brilliant piece of electronic music, done on primitive machines that still holds up today. I followed him for a few albums in those old days, but they went in a direction that did not interest me so much. A few years ago, I acquired his entire (large) discography and found some real gems in his later works. When I heard he had a new album out, I had to check it out. I don't have to buy it, or "acquire" it, since I have access to it through Google Music that I am subscribing to. There are some great tracks, including the title track, "Trevelator Pt 2", and "Rely on Me", which is a collaboration with the performance artist, Laurie Anderson. I recognized her voice from some great tracks on his old album, Je Me Souviens.

As an album, it is not as great as some of his previous ones, since it does not have the uniform vision. It is a collection of collaborations, each with a different artist, and was several years in the making. Still, it is worth a listen!  

Music Streaming Services

I have been interested in trying out music streaming services. I was especially interested in the curated playlists by genre, to be able to get expert input on new music or genres new to me. I have had a number of good tips from the alt rock selections on Air Canada's entertainment system, but I have pretty limited access to that.

As well as the curated play lists, I wanted to be able to make (and share) my own playlists and download selections for offline listening. I didn't want to be forced to listen to something (some of the services have fixed playlists that you can skip songs in only a limited number of times). With these requirements it seemed like a paid service was needed. Google Music and Apple Music, both for $10/month, do everything I want. It is also possible to upload your own music to the cloud and access it on any device, although you can't share these songs on playlists.

I am on the free trial for both of these services, but like Google Music a bit better so far. I think the interface (through chrome on computers) is just a little nicer. I will check out Apple Music more closely, though, since I am wedded to Apple devices and iTunes.

Here are a couple of playlists I made of music that was new to me that I learned about through Google's curated playlists (which they call radio stations). Let me know what you think.

Google Dozen #1
Google Dozen #2