A Universal Language

A Universal Language

One of my favourite pass times is sitting at a cafe and watching
people. Not because I enjoy spying on people, but mostly because you get to learn a lot about different people and cultures just by seeing how the average Joe on the street interacts with the average Jane. I´ve been getting to do
a lot of people watching lately because for the last week I have been
soaking the sun and sucking down the Sangria in Barcelona. This little
get away was planned for a number of reasons - my birthday being one
of them - and ofcourse the gargantuan force of music that is otherwise
known as the Sonar Music Festival.

Barcelona is a pretty fabulous place. The streets are full of locals
rushing around in achingly trendy tshirts, tourists embarassingly
gushing at everything around them, lovers breaking and making up,
thieves looking for an easy hit. There is a colour and vibrancy here
that is breathtaking. And the language - my goodness the language! A
simple ´How are you doing´ is an exercise in passion and don´t even
get me started on a ´What´s your name?´....Everything around you lives
and breathes fire, and after a couple of pitchers of sangria, you
start to breathe that fire too!

My first day here I explored the main streets of Las Ramblas.
Stumbling upon vintage clothing stores and old record shops, I thought
I was in heaven. The ever scary Euro was starting to pinch my pockets
but I wasn´t about to worry myself over a little (or a lot of )
dinero. At my first stop, a tiny little shoe shop with pieces to rival
any Manolo, I armed myself with three pairs and headed to the till.
What commenced was a ten minute struggle between myself and the owner,
with each of us trying desperately to make ourselves understood.
Suddenly my arrogance as an English speaker hit me. There I was in a
foreign country, attempting to buy a pair of boots and two pairs of
pumps, expecting the other person to speak my language. Finally
managing to make myself understood, I left the store with my new shoes
and a considerably lighter pocket.

For the next few days I tried my hardest to pick up the language.
After one particularly rowdy after party I was sure I had, and spent
the rest of the day ´speaking spanish´. I was told later that I spent
six hours saying ´Uno momento por favor´ over and over again. So yes,
I hadn´t quite mastered the vocabulary...

My feelings of being alien and mute soon changed though. I was in a
little record shop, one of my favourites actually, and was listening
to an old Blackstrobe remix. A young boy tapped me on the shoulder and
started speaking to me. He was from Argentina and his command of the
english language was minimal, but we spoke for about ten minutes. What
did we talk about? How did we make ourselves understood? Simple, we
spoke in the truly universal language - of music. He talked about his
favorite producers, I talked about the best remixes done by them. He
told me about some wicked parties coming up and I let him listen to
the records I´d bought. Finally, a truly profound conversation. And I
didn´t have to say ´Uno momento por favor´! That night I found myself
huddled in a corner next to the DJ booth where Carl Craig was playing,
critiquing the set with a friend I´d just made. She´s from Madrid, and
yes, we understand each other just fine.

That´s the great thing about music. You can find yourself in the
middle of a foreign place, struggling to find your way around. But an
hour later, at a club or music shop, you and a thousand other people
will be speaking the same language. You will all be dancing together,
understanding the same music and speaking - nay, yelling back.
I don´t know about you, but I definitely think my spanish has improved.