I think one of the novelties of being in a foreign country is that I feel twice removed from my Chinese heritage. It is very a surreal and disorienting "out of body" "out of character" "out of comfort" state. It puts into perspective for me what it means to be Chinese. What it means to be the child of immigrant parents. What it means to be the child of Taiwanese-born Chinese parents. What it means to be American-born Chinese. What it means to be an American in a foreign country. A Chinese-American in a foreign country. A tri-lingual Chinese-American in a foreign country. And it makes me wonder how much or how little the people in that place understand this layered identity. How do they process me? All the nuances, the politics, the prejudices, the social constructs, my multi-cultural values, the pieces of my heritage that I choose to wear and the other pieces I've chosen to shed-- They can't they possibly understand any of that, but what do they see instead?

Sunday, June 27, 2010

L'eixample

After work on Friday I spent an hour wandering around L'eixample, the neighborhood around Somnio. The architecture in this neighborhood is just positively breathtaking, I immediately fell in love. I hope you believe me when I say the pictures don't do it justice, it's truly beautiful.




Also, there's this great place called La Reserva Ibérica, which is a ham shop with several varieties of ham, and they just have the legs of ham sitting out in a row to be carved fresh. The woman at the counter let me sample a piece and it was positively delicious!

After wandering about, I met my bosses, Lee & Lauren, co-worker, Paulina, and two ex-employees, Alfonso & Ariel, for dinner at Omeia. (side note- there is an absurd amount of Lebanese/Greek/Syrian food here. I think I've eaten more falafels here than in my whole life combined...not even exaggerating). The food was really great. I especially enjoyed the babbaganoosh (which I derived to be roughly a mint-peppers-cous cous salsa) and my Kebbeh was also quite good (chick pea & hummus croquettes).


Hugs and hummus,
Angela <3
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