John T. Cull

Travels With(out) My Aunt

My first study abroad experience happened earlier than most, since I decided to enroll directly in the University of Barcelona's Diploma de estudios hispánicos program immediately after graduation from high school. So, at the tender age of seventeen, I packed my bags and left Chicago. Much of what transpired that year will remain unreported, for the sake of salvaging my semi-respectable reputation, but I will share a few memories of the first of many trips I have made to Barcelona.

The first hurdle of my journey was wrestling with my enormously heavy suitcases as I made my way to the international terminal of JFK. They were unduly weighty because I carried with me approximately 20 record albums that I could not possibly survive the year without. I cannot remember exactly which treasures lay buried in my suitcases, with the exception of Live Dead. The first of many magical moments that year occurred when none other than Jerry Lewis, in the company of a beautiful blonde, held some doors open for me in the terminal while I labored with my vinyl laden suitcases.

To play records, one needs a record player. No problem. A long bus trip to Andorra, the duty-free mecca, landed a reasonably priced record player. Many of the Spanish men on that bus were actually heading to Perpignan in France. It was only years later that I learned the reason why, but that's another story. The Spanish customs agents tried to ruin the moment of triumphal frugality by trying to charge duties, but I managed to convince them that I would soon be returning to the US with the record player, and therefore should not be charged in Spain.

My most vivid memories of that year have little to do with my studies, unfortunately. I do vaguely recall a survey of Spanish literature class with the venerable critic José Manuel Blecua (years later I would read Don Quijote in Barcelona with his son, Alberto Blecua), but when I envision the University of Barcelona now, I recall how the entrance was usually guarded by police armed with machine guns, and how you never knew whether or not they would allow classes to be held on any given day. Usually, if a tank was parked outside the entry doors, you knew that the University was closed in anticipation of some illegal political manifestation against the Franco government. I sought out those protests whenever I got wind of one, because I was naively curious. On one occasion, in the Plaza Cataluña, a group of demonstrators began to chant, softly at first, then building to a crescendo: "Libertad, libertad." That was enough to prompt the riot police to charge at the offenders, beating them and anyone in their path senseless with their clubs, and hauling as many as they could into foreboding windowless vans. I grabbed a vacant seat in an outdoor cafe, the boundaries of which the police curiously respected. So I ordered and drank a coke while chaos reigned all around me.

My first year of Barcelona included attendance at the first outdoor rock concert ever allowed in Spain, at the soccer stadium in Granollers. It was an all night event, and soldiers with machine guns patrolled the perimeter all night, to keep the mad contagion from spreading, I guess. I attended a concert by Pete Seeger on another occasion, who roused the crown with his anti-establishment folk songs. Then there was the night I was sitting on a park bench minding my own business when I was approached by an undercover cop and two uniformed ones pointing their rifles at me because someone had been distributing anti-government leaflets, and I was a prime suspect.

What a year! And remember, these are the anecdotes mild enough to share. Study abroad is indeed transformative, but often not in ways you can ever anticipate. I will conclude with one final magical moment. Taking a walk one Sunday, a man approached dressed in a cape and walking with a cane. It was only when he passed me and I noticed his grand mustache that I realized that I had crossed paths with Salvador Dalí! Study abroad! It will change your life forever!