Residencies

Nau Côclea Residency - Log 2

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After all the flights, I had to take the train from Barcelona to Camallera.  I was a bit nervous about this, since I didn't actually know which trains went to Camallera (only the regional trains do, but telling a regional from a non-regional is more difficult than it would first appear).  I also hadn't slept other than a 10-minute nap in Charlotte, NC, and the flights together were about 16 hours long.  First I had to find the train station (not too bad), and then buy a ticket.  It transpired that there were actually two stations I had to visit; at the second, at first it looked like I was in for a 2 1/2 hour to get on a regional train but then somehow a completely different train was found that would go to Camallera in the next four minutes.  I scrambled to get on that one, and did.  Then I spent the next couple hours of transit time falling asleep on the train, waking up, hoping I hadn't passed Camallera but also thinking that it was a ways away so I should be fine but not even being entirely sure this train actually did go to Camallera, and so on.  As I got more and more uncertain, I finally found a list of the stops of the train on my smartphone, and then in six more stops, I was in Camallera!

The residency is about a 20-minute walk away from the station, but the day I arrived my host and the art director of Nau Côclea, Clara, was there to pick me up (no one wants to drag their luggage 20 minutes when sleep-deprived and uncertain of end destination).  The residency itself is a small grouping of buildings in the midst of hay fields on the outskirts of Camallera.  The town is inhabited by only about 500 people, but the train station means it actually has a fair amount of services for such a small town.  It also means that travel to nearby towns is pretty easy.

I have my own small house to myself and it's kind of a hybrid between the Peruvian housing situation and a more Western one.  The kitchen is reminiscent of the one in Peru - a stovetop range fueled by a gas canister, a fridge, and a sink.  Unlike in Peru, though, the water is safe to drink right out the tap and the bathroom has a water-based toilet and a shower - and all the water can be heated.  However, the rooms have no air conditioning and rely on windows and airflow from outside to cool them off, so just like in Peru, the insects come in with the breeze.  I acquired about seven new mosquito bites in the first day before I remembered to start applying mosquito repellent every eight hours or so.

The first day I had a tour of the land, a snack, took a long nap, and then ate dinner with Clara while getting acquainted with her.  I'm the only resident here at this time, so she's going to be inviting me along to some of her social/arts events so that I don't get too isolated.

Nau Côclea Residency - Log 1

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My flights were happily uneventful.  However, on the Charlotte-Barcelona leg, we were served yogurt for breakfast.  The foil top of mine was extremely puffed up.  This has occasionally happened to me before when the yogurt has begun to ferment and it's recommended that you don't eat them at that point.  I looked for the expiration date, and found it was 05.08.15.  That's actually not out of date - in Europe the dates are written day.month.year.  Yogurt can in fact ferment before its proposed expiration date, but typically it doesn't go bad two months before.  I peered around for a while trying to see other people's yogurts or a flight attendant to query, but everyone else nearby had already opened theirs up and there were no attendants on my side of the plane.

A seatmate on the other side asked me if I needed his help in getting a flight attendant since I was clearly looking around a lot.  I said I wasn't sure - what was his yogurt foil doing?  He investigated his yogurt and those of his friends, and said they were all bloated as well.  I figured that while one puffy yogurt may have snuck past quality control and onto my tray, if everyone's were like that then the staff clearly must be aware and believed they were okay to eat.  So I opened it and cautiously dug in while continuing to mull over the problem.  Then it hit me - it's because we're on an airplane.  The yogurts were packaged while on land and sealed with normal air pressure, and were then transported up with us to a lower air pressure environment so the trapped gases inside the yogurt container expanded and puffed the foil top up.  It didn't occur to me at the outset because I'd only ever encountered the problem in a different context.  This is one of the main reasons I like to travel: I love challenging expectations I don't even know I'm making (even when they're about something as quotidian as foil yogurt tops).