Isolated

The last few weeks have been quite hectic.

The third week of May my father called me to tell me he was going to get an operation and he might need some assistance. My brother was, at the moment, living with him but he had just started a job that is very important to his career. Since I was quite fed up of my job, I decided to quit and fly to Eivissa (a.k.a. Ibiza) to help him. Eivissa, as you know, is one of the islands in the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea.

There were many reasons why I should do that. I already said about my disliking of my job, but also the fact that I would have time to study for my exams this week. Since I study at the Spanish Open University I have been able to take my exams in the island. This meant that I needed not to travel to Tortosa to take them, which meant leaving my town early and having lunch there and wandering around in the city for few hours.
Now I have finished my exams and I am experimenting such a peace that I hadn't had in a long time. In fact, the peace started the moment I resigned of job: the pressure of I-have-to-study, I-have-to-learn, I-have-no-time-whatsoever had disappeared that exact same moment. Then I was taking it more relaxed: I had time. Thought, the exams didn't go as well as I expected. Perhaps I relaxed so much or perhaps I had so much pressure on them. Anyway, I still have September.
Now I am in this island for almost a month and I don't know what my life is going to be. I don't know how long I am going to stay here, I don't have a job, my father is recovering but nothing is final yet.
So here I am. In this island I hadn't been for the last 10 years. With so many nice, sunny beaches (I am not a beach guy, though). And with surprising things.
It is very funny to hear people speaking in Catalan. They speak a variety of Catalan quite different to mine. We call 'Balerar' to the Catalan spoken in the Islands, but 'Eivissenc' (in Eivissa – Ibiza) is pretty different to Mallorquí (in Mallorca); haven't heard Menorquí yet. I have been twice to Palma de Mallorca (Capital of the Autonomous Community of Illes Balears, which is in the island of Mallorca) since I arrived here. I was watching telly the other day while I was having my breakfast and Doraemon was on. The funny thing is that it was at the same time in Canal 33 or K3 (I am not sure, as the same channel changes its name depending on the content), a channel that belongs to the Catalan television and in IB3, the Balearic channel. Doraemon was speaking absolutely different to what I was used to. I commented that to my Eivissan cousin yesterday and she seemed pretty upset for that: she says that the day she has a son or a daughter wants him or her to learn Eivissan language, not Mallorcan, so she thinks that children programs in the Autonomous Community Channel should be in either all the varieties (i.e. Doraemon speaks in Mallorquí, Nobita in Eivissenc and Shizuka in Menorquí) or in Standard Catalan (which is quite similar to what I speak).
This surprised me, though, I have never heard anyone in a children's program speaking in Tarragoní (the variety of Catalan that is spoken in the region I grew up). Though, I must say, that children's Catalan is becoming more and more standardized. Though, the ones that are more isolated in towns or the ones that are mostly surrounded by elder people do speak the dialects of each zone.
Never really thought about this. It is very surprising how a language that has a pretty small coverage has so many different varieties. Perhaps for the fact that I am not a truly native speaker of Catalan and I speak much closer to the Standard than my friends. This also happens with my speaking of Spanish. Since my mother was a teacher she spoke the Standards. My dad is from Andalucía and we speak so different. Perhaps my Standardization of myself has made me think that the Standard is cool. But now, I think we should try to have the regional variety. Also, obvious, the Standard version, the Standard Spanish, and the Standard English. Wow, too many?

Anyway. Now I am in this island and things get my attention all the time: how things are, how people behaves, etc. I must say that what surprises me the most is the difference in prices. Almost everything is much more expensive, especially Super-Market buyable stuff. Though, office stationery is cheaper.
The other thing that I am so amazed of is the fact that cars (hm... their drivers) stop in the pedestrian crossings. No way in my town!
Ah, and taxi drivers in Mallorca drive very fast.

What future will be like I don't know. But I will tell you all the things that I will be experiencing in this island.
If any nice Eivissan is around (male or female), get in touch.

Listening: La Vie en Rose, Edith Piaf
and Ne me quitte pas, Jacques Brel