BCN: Virtual Disconnect

Dear Barcelona,

Because you have made it so frustrating to find information online about places & things within your city, you are forcing me to actually go out and wander the streets in search of things to do.  Sure, I get to stumble upon things I'd have never otherwise found - but finding out about places to go and things to do is so challenging. 

And Facebook doesn't get interesting for me until 4pm which is when all my U.S. contacts start waking up and posting... my contact list here is still rather meager.  As for Twitter - since I'm roaming, I can't really tweet at leisure - so there's no point there...

Talk about word of mouth: Sunday (May 1st) was Mother's day & Labor Day here in Europe.  At about 5pm, we heard a helicopter circling overhead here in my mom's 'hood.  But I didn't even realize how unusual that was until my mom pointed it out (helicopters circling overhead was the norm when I lived in Koreatown, Miracle Mile & MacArthur Park adjacent in L.A.)... Mick was over for lunch & after he left, he called and said the whole Zona Alta was on lock-down with police barricades shutting down access into the area.  Why?  Dunno... Think they had anything on the evening news?  Newp.  You know how we found out what was going on?  Mum went to the hairdressers, and that's how she got the skinny.  Old fashioned gossip at the hairdresser's.  Apparently there were some discontented unemployed rioters and anarchists protesting the banks due to the "crisis" (unemployment is 22% here), and they were throwing bricks and white paint at the bank windows all around town.  But there's no reporting anywhere!!! 

I know more about what's going on in Los Angeles than here.  sigh.  Even getting a connection here with my Mac is a tedious effort:  the Wi-Fi (pronounced wee fee) keeps going out, and I have to call up Telefonica to have them adjust their router (pronounced rooter) every few days so they can switch the channels to help me connect. 

Well, my return flight to LA is in less than 10 days... we'll see if there are things that I'll miss when i'm there until my return to BCN (not including people). 

Thanks for letting me rant.