I’ve joined a Krav Maga club in Barcelona earlier this week. For those of you that don’t know it, Krav Maga is an Israeli developed fighting sport, focused on efficience and without the kata/ki/chi/whatever bullshit found in most asian martial.

The training was tiresome, especially for me, since I’m (a little) out of shape. Or not, since round is also a shape. I’m not in the right shape, anyway But the hour spent in the gym gave an basic understanding of what Krav Maga is all about: ultimate efficiency.

The club also teaches Krav Maga to private security forces and even to Barcelona’s “Guardia Urbana” police force. It also has a really cool shop with weapons, knifes, urban combat gear, teasers, pepper sprays and so on. And even a Facebook page.

I can’t wait to go there again.

I’m trying to learn some Spanish, but with limited success so far. Although I must admit that I didn’t put a lot of effort in it. But I will…starting tomorrow. Or Monday. A Monday…

One simple way to try to learn a new language is listening to songs in that language and trying to memorize their lyrics. The problem is that most of the Spanish bands I know suck. Bad. I mean, except from Banderas’ “El Cancion de Mariachi” and the ode to the communist icon Che Guevara – Hasta siempre comandante, it was almost impossible for me to find a song I could really say I like.

Julio Iglesias isn’t all that bad, but it only works for those of us born in the first part of the 20th century.

This changed few days ago, when I heard a commercial on Spotify. They were promoting the new album of a Spanish metal band, called Mago de Oz – which translates to Wizard of Oz. I searched their songs and I’m impressed. They’re by far the best Spanish band I’ve ever heard. I totally love their sound. Just search on Youtube for Fiesta pagana, El rincon de los sentidos or Que el viento sople a tu favor and you’ll see – well, hear – what I mean.

Their lyrics are also quite interesting, not the usual “vamos bailar a la playa” intelectual blackholes found in most latino songs.

Rock on…

…by popular demand, I’m going to continue writing on this blog

Last night I went to a club in Barcelona. It was one of my flat-mates’ birthday, we had a party at home and afterwards we went to a club to dance. Well, they went to dance, I just went to watch. I don’t really dance, mainly because when I do, I look like a rabid chimp performing some sort of dark ritual – invoking rain or something – rather than a person dancing. And, in my holy book, dancing is just the vertical frustration of a horizontal desire – not necessarily a sin, but definitely something that people should refrain from doing.

Meri, my other flat-mate, asked me if I don’t have any black shoes and she pointed out that one might be banned from entering barcelonese clubs if wearing white sneakers. Which is mind blowing for me. Here they have one of the most open minded and liberal societies in the world. They have freedom of speech, freedom of choice, freedom of religion – like real freedom of religion, not the “you’re free to believe anything you want, as long as you believe in God” freedom of religion that is heavily promoted throughout Romania – gay marriage and so on. But not white sneakers in clubs. That’s going one step too far. I can almost hear Spaniards debating “what am I going to tell my children when they ask me why there are people wearing white sneakers in our clubs!?!”.

The reason for this ban is the fact that white sneakers are mainly worn by garrulos. A garrulo is a Spanish wigger or a light version of the Romanian cocalar. And nobody wants them around.

Anyway, I had no problem getting in. But that might be because of the carnival they have these days in Barcelona – El Carnaval de Barcelona. A lot of people were dressed up as pirates, Santa Claus, KISS members, Borat and so on. So maybe the club’s staff thought that I came in dressed up as a garrulo and that I don’t usually wear white sneakers and that’s why they’ve let me in. It was around midnight and the club was almost empty, because Spaniards & Catalans usually go to clubs later, around 1 am or so. But it got full in no time. So, if you want to go to a club in Barcelona, don’t rush into it. There’s really no point in getting there before midnight. Another thing that needs to be noted about Barcelona’s clubs is that usually the entrance ticket is also a drink coupon, so you don’t pay “just to go in”, you also get a drink. Although the ticket is €7 and you get a €3.5 beer, it’s still better than nothing. €3.5 better…

In the end, it was fun. Happy birthday Ivan.

I had a haircut today. And it opened my eyes. I know now why a lot of Spaniards wear long hair and dreadlocks. It’s preferable to a haircut, which, first of all, takes forever. The guy cut my hair for over an hour. And since I don’t really have that much hair, that’s a lot. Second of all, it’s expensive. Like really expensive. I paid 16 euros for it. Back in Romania, I used to pay the equivalent of about 2 euros for a haircut. And since I usually cut my hair every three months, with the money I spent today I could have had haircuts for the next 2 years.

Or if the “Jesus will come back in 2012 and sabotage the Large Hadron Collider into creating a black hole that will melt the icecap and drown humanity because the Mayan calendar said so” retards are right, I could have used that money to get haircuts until the end of the world. That’s what I call saving

But it’s okay. My hair doesn’t look that bad…and in the end, that’s all that matters.

I’ve been today to a Japanese restaurant. An “all you can” eat Japanese restaurant. It’s really cool, you just sit at the table near a conveyor belt with lots of dishes on it and you just take what you want. The only thing they bring you is a drink – beer, soda, water, whatever – wassabi and soybean oil for the sushi. The rest you take from the conveyor. Neat! And tasty. All for little under 10 euros. But we agreed to only go there one a week. To keep…well…fit

And some pics:

Can’t wait to go there next week

I’ve seen Avatar yesterday. In English & 3D. Again at the Yelmo Cineplex, a very popular cinema around foreigners here, because they play not-dubbed movies. Avatar is a really cool movie and I think we have a lot to learn from it. Especially the fact that everything should be plug-n-play and that there shouldn’t be any compatibility issues. Just like things worked on Pandora. Heard that, Microsoft? Compatibility is good!

Come on, wouldn’t be cool if you can plug your arm embedded computer into your dog’s head and program it to go outside and walk itself? Just use your hand as a more high-tech Na’vi braid to connect with your dog. Your pokemon-dog at least. Although I think that the Japanese are getting there really fast.

I recommend Avatar as a “must see” movie to everybody. But especially for the Spaniards, they will love it: the capitalistic money obsessed polluters get their asses kicked by the socialist environmentalist blue aliens.

I also went to eat at a Syrian restaurant called Ugarit. The food is basically the same as you find in Lebanese restaurants, decent but kind of expensive. Especially the baklava style deserts that are really small – one bite each – and cost 1.5 euros. For some shawarma, desert and a beer I had to pay around 20 euros.

And, of course, yersterday I’ve took the time and admired one of Barcelona’s least known touristic attractions: hot German chicks in thongs playing volleyball on the beach. In February.

I’ve decided to lose some weight. And there are two ways that might happen: one – I keep eating and living a sedentary life and get fatter and fatter until my outer layers will collapse towards my center of gravity, like it happens with neutrino stars. Or two, stop eating all day and go to the gym.

I chose the second one. Going to gym isn’t an easy task, since I’m…well…Spanish impaired. Here, in order to signup to a gym one should pay a matriculation fee. I say “should” because nobody actually pays that tax. The lady behind the counter always “makes you a special offer”. Of course, the whole idea of a matriculation tax is stupid. I mean, why would anyone pay 150 euros just so that he’ll be allowed to pay another 60 euros monthly fee in order to go to the gym. Buying the right to buy. And I thought Spain was a socialist country .

A quite unusual thing for me was that here the gym charges money directly from your bank account. Every month, until you decide to revoke the deal. I’ve later found out that it’s about the same with all other bills: water, gas, rent, phone and so on. They just suck money out of your bank account until you decide to cancel. The only problem so far is that I haven’t found any “cancel” button in my online banking account. But I’m sure it’s there somewhere. I has to be.

Well, I’ll think about that later. Now I have some heavy stuff to lift

I’ve been yesterday to a calçotada with my company. A calçotada is Catalan tradition that takes place in spring, usually between January and April, during the calçot season where people eat calçot and drink wine from a special porrón pitcher. Drinking and eating competitions are quite common at these events.

Calçot is a type of onion that grows in these parts and it’s usually consumed grilled on an open fire and dipped in a special sauce during a calçotada. The sauce has a reddish appearance and – from what I could tell – it’s a mixture of tomatoes, garlic and spices. Quite good actually, even when served with bread. In order to eat calçot, you have to peel its outer layers that were burned by the heat, dip it in the sauce and eat it carefully, in order not to spill the sauce on yourself or on the people nearby. Everything is done outdoors. Obviously, given the mess the inexperienced eaters might create. And it’s a stand up thing. No chairs.

The porrón wine pitcher looks more like something you’d expect to find in a chemistry lab rather than in a wine shop. With it, one can drink wine while pouring wine into one’s mouth from distance, without ever touching the recipient to the lips. The further you keep the porrón from your mouth, the better drinker you are. It’s quite messy and the inexperienced drinker will surely spill wine all over his clothes. In order to prevent getting stained, people usually put bibs around their necks. Drinking without a bib around your neck is another sign of porrón mastery. Or drunkenness. Depending on whether you spill or not.

A piece of advice: don’t engage in porrón drinking contests against catalans. You’re going to lose. Bad!

Today I went for the first time to see a movie in Barcelona – Sherlock Holmes. Which sucks, by the way. It’s a really boring mixture of Murder, She wrote, old Chinese kung-fu movies and lame “2 police officers save the world” movies.

We went to Yelmo Cines cinema, where I paid 6 euros for the ticket and another 7 something for a medium sized bag of popcorn, a Coke and a hot dog. Basically sitting for two hours in a room and get bored by caucasian kung-fu fighters faking British accents yielded a final toll of around 14 euros. Great!

Of course, that wasn’t money totally wasted. I mean, the food was decent . And I’ve learned something new about the city I’m living in. In Spain, most movies are dubbed in Spanish, so if you don’t speak Spanish, is generally a bad idea to go to see a movie at random, without some prior research. Pictures marked as VOS or VOSI are the ones non-Spanish speakers should look for. These acronyms mark pictures that haven’t been dubbed and have Spanish / Catalan captions. Of course, it’s a little confusing in the begining, since one might try to read the subtitles – it’s a habit I guess – and not understand what’s written there. But it’s easy to get over it and look “at the movie” rather than “read the subtitles”.