Fun and sun Catalonya style

Cough, cough....sorry boss, I need a
sick day......

Yesterday, I officially transferred from the Health Department to the Communications Department at BRAC.  As my first official act of duty, I took a week of vacation.  In defense of this decision, Nov. 5-8 is when Eid is observed this year, so those days I already had off, and if I didn't stay in Europe for Nov. 1-4, how was I going to use my holidays to visit Barcelona?  Exactly.
So I'm in the lovely city of Barcelona, capital of the Catalan language movement.  Bangladesh is a country were a lot of lingual pride; I could see them and the Catalonyans sitting down and appreciating each other's struggles.  Signs here are mainly in Catalan.  Young people here talk to each other in Catalan; no chance of this language dying out any time soon.  I'm sticking to Spanish, with a few Bangla words or constructions thrown in (facil na!!) to make it slightly less intelligible.
The weather is beautiful.  T-shirt and flip slops all you need to head down to the water and wander.
I'm lucky to have a "local" "guide."  As the winds of fate would have it, Camilo,my friend from the Colombian family that adopted me in Cartagenas, moved to Barcelona in April.  He lives in an apartment with a Catalan, a Peruvian, and a Honduran.  And many strays, like myself, seem to be constantly cycling through.  So Camilo showed me around yesterday--it was All Saints day, which in Europe is a holiday (Catalans eat chestnuts and sweets to celebrate--I can get behind that).

From Ibague to Barcelona.

There's not too much else to say because my main purpose of vacation this week is to relax.  Work was starting to turn me into a live wire and it was a little scary.  So I'm taking a week to walk, look at pretty things, eat delicious foods, sleep a lot, and speak some Spanish.  And to do it with the single-minded devotion that I usually apply to my real work.
I'm trying to be reflective, but with the sunshine and warmth, it's a challenge.  While walking yesterday, I was thinking about urban planning in Bangladesh. It's not that Dhaka does not have many beautiful places.  We do.  It's that they are scattered, and to get to one, you have to go through lots of not-beautiful places.  In Barcelona, on the other hand, if you decided you were only going to walk through places designed and maintained aesthetically, you could walk all day.  There are dozens of small parks with fountains, nice trees, artsy park benches, wide sidewalks with this and that to look at while you stroll.  Leaves are changing, so even in the ramblas, the main commercial pedestrian way that begins at Catalonya square and continues for several kilometers down to the statue of Christopher Colombus (he's a hero on this side of the Atlantic).

I'm also interested in whether I feel more "at home" here or in Dhaka.  Here I have the lingual advantage.  It's a big deal.  But it's a funny thing when I find myself missing the way things are done or work in Bangladesh.  I miss the ubiquitous cups of tea, and more than anything, I miss "thik acche."  Literally it means, "it is correct" but it gets used like "No problem," or "Don't worry about it." or "Oh well."  It's a super handy phase!  And also one that gets me blank stares here.  Ahh, now those on the other hand feel quite familiar....