Puedes nadir desnudo?

t(Picture taken at local daycamp in a municipal courtyard with an amazing looking pool that surrounds a water tower. The counselours eventually blocked me from taking any more pictures of the kids, because I think that they thought it was a bit creepy.)

I have been reflecting today on how many people here ask me if I speak English when I try to speak to them in my poor Spanish. I am trying to understand why and whether or not this has anything to do with the fact that Catalan is spoken here and English is their primary second language, but anyway here is a good story to go along with my use of espanol.

So just incase you don't know the Olympics were held in Barcelona in 1992, and because of that they have two official olympis pools that you can pay a fee to swim in. I was told that Tuesdays was the day for nude swimming, which my friend and I really wanted to participate in. However, we didn't want to go all the way there without bathing stuis just to find out it was the wrong day. So I decide to pick up the phone and call the pool with my limited english. I decided to try and use the room phone and when they answered I said something about la piscin, to ask whether or not I had called the pool, and I thought they said yes, so I proceeded to ask them what time the pool closed and then I asked if I could swim sin ropa or without clothing. They said in English a few times that they didn't understand, so I hung up and looks up the word for naked, beccause I thought then I would be able to ask more easily. I called a second time, and they said that they didn't know what I was talking about, and that it was the reception desk at the residence where I am staying, so in other words I basically called the residence desk twice and asked them if I could swim naked, despite the fact that they don't have a pool. As if this wasn't bad enough someone knocked on my door a few mintues later and asked me what the problem was- I explained that I had been trying to call a pool, and she explained that they didn't have a pool and that if I wanted to place outgoing calls I needed to come down stairs and pre-pay. Luckily this encounter with the reception worker was with my friend Amy rather than mysef, but Amy is only going to be here for a week, so it works out because now every time they see her they will think she is the one who kept calling the desk to ask them about nude swimming, when really it was me the whole time.

Eventually we used skype to call the real pool and I said "Puedes nadar desnudo?" and the lady told me en Sabado- not Martes, so it's a good thing that we didn't go today, because even though I'd be happy to swim their con ropa I'd also love to swim in an authentic Olympic pool nude, just to say I did it... I have several Saturdays ahead of me, and if I am not in Rome you might just know where I will be.