Summer notes

It’s almost mid-July already. This has just been the loveliest of summers, with everything taking on a calm warmth. I had been traveling a lot (this year so far: Lagos, London, NYC, Blacksburg, a quick Washington DC stop, Fontainebleau), and on the train the other day, we were talking about summer plans and how a staycation was looking like a pretty solid idea.

So here we are — last weekend, we took the train 45 minutes outside of Barcelona to an indie music festival. Well, I say indie; their headliners in 2015 and 2014 were Primal Scream and Lana del Rey respectively. It was in a forest, with forest lights and food trucks. We arrived in the afternoon and just hung out on some haystacks(!) and ate some wild blueberries — yeah, it was that kind of indie festival; just kidding, we brought the blueberries from a Barcelona supermarket chain — and tried food from the trucks: a chorizo hot-dog, some thai noodles… and then between performances much later, a kebab and a nutella + banana crepe.

At 9pm we left the festival grounds to see the football match between Germany and Italy in a bar, then returned to the festival at half-time, giving us a few minutes to search the merchandise stands unsuccessfully for a shirt to keep me warm and then to go and see Neil Hannon and the rest of the Divine Comedy band. Neil’s jokes between songs gave an even quirkier edge to an already unconventional set (chamber pop!). Kula Shaker, the next band, upped the festival mood further. Look up Tattva, it’s a 90s psychedelic rock hit that Crispian, the lead singer + guitarist, performs with even more gusto live than in the music video. Lindstrøm was magical. Dancing outdoors under the moonlight may be an overplayed cliche, but with his DJ set, Lindstrøm made it a beautiful reality that night and, I think, one of the big and cool memories of this summer.

By the time the next band was performing, I was starting to nod off (it was almost 3am by this time!) and after about 30 minutes of lending me his shoulder or lap (I can’t remember!) as a pillow, my so said let’s go back to Barcelona, so we did.

Back in Barcelona, the sales are on and yesterday we went to get ourselves some sneakers, both from the men’s shoe section! So if you see a girl in city sneaks that look unmistakably androgynous, chances are it’s me :-) I quite often do this… hi mum! (my mum knows of this habit of mine and even though we enjoy shoe-shopping together and she’s got me some of the nicest heels and mary-janes I own, I still don’t hesitate to send her a picture of my latest finds in the men’s section when I can. I love her responses :-) :-)

Also my beautiful country America is in my thoughts, today and always. Love kills fear. I am thinking today of everyone who is out there protesting police brutality against African Americans. My time in America was stress-free because of the courage of people like you, who fought to put in place rights that I have benefited from. Thank you.