New home!!!

Here are pictures of our new apartment- on the little street "Calle de Menoc"-- in the Ribera neighborhood, near Parc de la Citudella and the Arc de Triompf (obviously the one in Barcelona, not the one in Paris, ha ha). We love love love our new little home, with its character features, such as a high ceiling and original tile floors. We even have a little balcony to hang our laundry from and put out a few plants! The street it's on is too narrow for cars to pass, but there is moto and foot traffic. The area around our apartment seems to be a mix of a North African, Pakistani, and Latin American community. Right around the corner from our place is a huge playground where yesterday about a million kids were playing, shouting to each other in a cacaphony of different languages. On our street there are a few little markets for frutas y verduras, (fruits and vegetables!) and even a Uruguayan bakery right across from our building. The area about four blocks south of us, El Born, has more bars and restaurants and such. We're also just a twenty/ thirty minute walk from the beach! And the Santa Catarina market isn't far.
In these pictures you see the view of the living room/dining room with the skinny door to the bedroom visible. I forgot to take a picture of the kitchen, which is just around the corner. It's pretty tiny...and with just two little burners, no oven, but it's actually more roomy than our ridiculous slanted-ceiling kitchen in Vancouver! So we'll make do. In the kitchen there's a laundry machine! Yay!
Yesterday we made the first trip to the new place with our luggage, navigating the many steps up and down into the metro carrying our suitcases. Actually, I should correct that statement: Michael did most of the lugging up and down the steps. Yes, I know, I shouldn't let the man do all the work-- the feminist in me knows not to just let him carry everything. But, honestly, I couldn't even lift one suitcase even up one step. You can say it. I'm a wimp. I have no upper body strength at all. I'm lucky I can carry my head around on my shoulders.
But Michael grabbed on to our two fifty pound bags and ran like mad up and down several flights of stairs. It was impressive.
Now just a few more trips today and we'll be all moved in!
Meanwhile, today is our last Spanish class! It's been great, but an interesting challenge. My Spanish is, ahem, a bit worse than I thought it was. All the sweet Costa Ricans would nod and smile and have conversations with me as if I wasn't making a total fool out of myself when I opened my mouth. But, apparently, there is a lot I don't know. A LOT. And the Ticos were being mighty generous to pretend that I wasn't speaking like a two year old. Perhaps they were laughing at me after I left the room? "Ha ha, that Rebekah, she thinks she makes sense but she really doesn't make a lick of sense. Ha ha ha." Let's hope they weren't thinking that.
Also, now there are so many words that I used in Costa Rica that sound very formal and exceedingly polite to the Spanish. Our Spanish teacher actually did a little imitation of me saying "Quisiera" at a restaurant in which he pretended he was a cutsy little girl batting her eyelashes. Quisiera means "I would like"-- very similar, I thought, to "je voudrais" in French, but apparently the meaning here in Spain is more like-- "If it would please you to possibly honor me with this thing that I'm asking for?" (not an exact translation, but that is the gist). In Spain, it is perfectly okay to say to a waiter, instead, "I want this!" or even "Give me this!" ("Quiero esto" "Me pone un cafe...Me da un barra de pan", etc) And yes- for those of you who speak Spanish- you can use "poner" to mean "give me this" even though the exact translation of the verb is "to put." "Put this in front of me" I guess is the idea. But you only use that sometimes, depending on the situation. More commonly, I think, "Me trae" is used, meaning "bring over to me." Or I could be wrong about that. As I mentioned above, Rebekah's Spanish is that of a not-too-verbal toddler. So what do I know?