LOUIS BURKE | Culture | CONTACT
A man talking about his trip to Europe is in a lose/lose situation as he prepares himself to say the name of the Spanish city ‘Barcelona’ out loud.
The capital and largest city in the autonomous community of Catalonia, Barcelona is a great holiday spot for lovers of football, live music and surprisingly well-organised squatting movements.
It is for the first two reasons (plus the fact you can buy booze on the beach) that aspiring reserve grade footballer Kieran Mitchell (25) decided to pop by Barcelona on his Contiki tour.
Now back in Betoota, Mitchell is sharing his travels with his friends featuring stories about how munted he got in Amsterdam all the way to how munted he got in Berlin.
However, when Mitchell got to the topic of how munted he got in Barcelona, he paused as he decided whether or not to pronounce it how it was written and be branded as an uncultured bogan, or with a ‘th’ sound and get branded as a complete wanker.
“That’s nothing though, when I was in Ba-hah-aaah…” stated Mitchell, really not sure which way he’d rather fall in this cultural Catch 22.
“When I was in the capital of Catalonia…”
After his friends asked for a bit more clarity, Mitchell made the decision to pronounce Barcelona with the lispy ‘th’ sound and face the firing squad with at least the illusion of worldliness beneath his belt.
At the pronunciation of the city’s name, Mitchell’s mates launched into the predicted rant about how Europe had turned him into a soft little wank boy, possibly due to all the museums.
It was only Corona drinker Markus Dugan who was able to defend Mitchell’s behaviour with all the expertise of someone who has every episode of Parts Unknown on a hard drive.
“No dude, it’s all bullshit. The ‘th’ sound is only in Spanish but they don’t speak that in Barcelona, they speak Catalan where the letter c makes a ‘s’ sound,” stated Dugan, who was not that far off being branded a wanker himself.
“God? Did you even speak to any locals when you were there?”
MORE TO COME.
