Poaching

Today was another day at work, extracting metabolites from human hearts.  The only difference was that today, another college-aged girl was present in the lab.  Clementina, a third-year medical student (read: third-year college student) from Marseilles, is doing a month-long internship in the lab to learn more about cardiac research.  She’s working with Ellie (the awesome runner) to pull mitochondria out of the cells and analyze them.  I’m not sure how she’s going to learn everything AND contribute in just one month, but props for trying.  Oh, and she doesn’t speak Spanish.  That said, she’s nice, if a bit shy.  I mentioned that if she ever wanted to hang out, she could let me know, but her response of “oh, we could see a movie or something” doesn’t really go with my explore-the-city MO.  We’ll see, though. 

After work, I met up with Alex Kramer, a girl that I know from high school and haven’t seen since.  She’s creating a business plan for a small internet business here in Barcelona for the summer through a program.  Apparently, there are 59 American college students also doing internships through the program at various businesses under a big umbrella organization.  Most of them are from Arizona State University, and most of them party really, really hard.  Then again, they only work until 2 pm.  But, in their defense, raging can be a bit harder when you live a half hour train ride outside of the city on a remote college campus.  Anyway, Alex and I went to La Pepita, a restaurant that came highly recommended by Barcelona foodies and, as it turns out, is about a block away from my apartment.

Not sure who these people are, but this is what the restaurant looks like inside.

 When I called yesterday to make our reservation for 6:30 (because I had other commitments later at normal Barcelona dining hours), the woman on the other end practically had a heart attack.  Even though I said 6:30 in the evening, the woman was so accustomed to using military time (24-hour time) that she thought I meant 6:30 AM and was very flustered.  Anyway, we arrived at the restaurant, and it was 100% empty.  We thought they were closed at first.  But instead, we were seated at a little two-person table among a vast sea of empty chairs.  We caught up a bit, discussed the city, and debated various menu items, finally deciding on: (1) a salad of edamame and little speckles of red and green pepper, topped with thin slices of salted cod,

 (2) fried cazon fish with lime mayonnaise, 

 
and (3) a Neopolitan pepita, a thin-bread sandwich.  Ours had various veggies inside and a combination of eggplant and onions on top of our “rocket salad” garnish.

After dinner, we wandered the street and bought "Chuchus", a donut-like pastry desert filled with cream and dusted (heavily) with sugar.

With a full stomach, I headed to the University of Barcelona campus gym fields for some Ultimate Frisbee.

I'd found this group through MeetUp (again), and while I hadn't played at ALL in about four years, I figured that being able to chase someone down and throw a Frisbee moderately well might be useful and fun.  On the way, of course, I walked about a mile the wrong direction but found this gem:

Hurray for Chemistry!

I finally found the fields and the large group of lanky Frisbee players from around the world.  Five of them practice every week and are headed to Amsterdam tomorrow for the largest Ultimate Frisbee tournament in Europe, which lasts for four days.  Good luck, guys!

Playing Frisbee was fun, if less athletically taxing than I remember.  I got in a couple of back to back defensive plays that returned the disc to our possession and even scored a goal! Woot woot! Not bad for a rookie.  At the end, the leader suggested a jog, which got me all hot and bothered, but... alas, we did one short (like... 1/4 mile) loop around the small field and then did a group stretch that showed how inflexible they all are.  More effective stretching is definitely called for.  But they were all really nice, and the hilarious mix of English and Spanish made me appreciate how languages like sports, art, and science can overcome language barriers and frustrations.
Note: poaching is an Ultimate Frisbee term and describes a technique the team was practicing today.
POACH: When a defender moves away from their marker to try and make an interception on a pass to another player.  (super duper official reference here)  

An old-school Ultimate gem:
 Notice the socks.  LOVE the socks.  Notice how high the guy is jumping.  BE JEALOUS.

The best thing that playing Frisbee did was introduce me to Gino, a guy from the Phillipines who's working for HB in Barcelona.  He just moved here a month ago and doesn't really know anyone or have any permanent activities, so he shyly asked if he could come on some of my adventures.  ADVENTURES, AHOY.

Spotted: These sandals have popped up all over the city, spanning ages, genders, and styles (from punk to prep to fashionista to low-key middle-aged mom).

At first, I saw them on man feet and thought they were hideously ugly, but they're starting to grow on me.  Just a little bit.  It helps when you've seen people pull them off (Ellie has a black pair and, like everything in life, she rocks them).