And then came a week of "vacation" for Thanksgiving. The first three days I worked. We had a workshop where I had to explain what lighting should know they know in order to provide the service our department was supposed to offer when I was not there. The second day we did a workshop of sound and therefore we all brought our instruments and we had a mini jam session, we also played one of my songs and one from a colleague who also composes.
On the last day I worked on redoing the electrics to improve the lighting.
Then Thanksgiving came. A classmate invited me to her home to celebrate it with them. Because in accepting the invitation I was told it would be very casual (pajamas and sweats) when that morning when I was asked if I could get there between 2 and3 I said no problem because I would not change.
Despite warnings that the family was so special, I thought the dinner was not much different than any family dinner I had. There was plenty of good food, conversations about Catalonia, alcohol for everyone, and after apples to apples and taboo.
After the youngest went upstairs to play guitar and ended up talking until 11 pm. As I drove from San Francisco and it takes an hour, we all agreed it would be better to stay in overnight. So we watched a movie and we ended up going to bed passed 1am.
The next day we woke up late and went to lunch even later in one of these places between bars and cafés very American. It was just me and my friend and a friend of ours came later.
In the same way that the previous night had suddenly been 11pm, this morning suddenly was 2pm and I had to return to San Francisco.
Towards 4pm I met some friends to see the lighting of the Christmas tree in Union Square. I thought (without having consulted anywhere) it would be a long celebration with music, lights and effects and stuff, but it turned out to be a bunch of people singing who did not know who they were and illuminate the tree in half a second time . We took the pictures, and we ended up going for a bite. Strangely it was me and my friend who’s also Catalan who order the strange combination of chips with milkshake. We were talking until past 9pm when everyone returned home.
The following week rehearsals for Lorenzaccio began. That lasted 3 days and that Thursday we had preview and we opened on Friday. Thus began a week of classes, theater and work without much time for anything. That would go for period of two weeks, in addition to other things running in parallel. Saturday I finally could go to a party, I hadn’t gone out for a long time, and we had karaoke and fun for hours. We were part of the crew even though most of us had to work on Sunday.
Usually end the blog here, but this week a thought occurred to me that I think is worth sharing. I made this blog a travel journal where I share experiences and details for all those people who I can’t be with and those people who are just curious to know how things happen on the other side of the ocean.
Since I got here a series of events have happened, that I think have been important to the life of any Catalan. To mention three examples, the demonstration on national day with a million and a half of Catalans, the Catalan elections and the attack on the school in Catalan (now and always) from the Minister Wert. Despite my general stress level for other personal circumstances I realized after a few days that it is very stressful for the Catalans, who are not there, especially the first-generation immigrants. It is very difficult for me to see the struggle that my country is suffering and I cannot be part of it, is complicated that it can only communicate through the internet, and sign petitions via social networks even though I thankful for at least have that. But what is even harder is incomprehension, having friends around me and have no clue what is going on, the importance of it. Probably because they only hear from me or it just do not affect their lives, have not been able to experience anything like that. Even friends from there can’t understand how it is. I think there are very few people who may have had such circumstances and that few people can understand, and I myself didn’t understand how it could affect me until I had to stop a moment and think about it. But from here far away I will still fight for right of a better life for my country.
And that’s it because I just wanted to leave a record because I think the situation is quite exceptional.
TBC
N.A. Do not forget to follow every week fif7.blogspot.com and maybe have a chapter for Christmas!
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