Self-admittedly, I’m not a very religious person. Most of you know this. But that didn’t stop me from trying to find a local Chanukah service to attend here in Barcelona. I wanted to see what it was like. But, having approximately doubled the Jewish population upon my arrival (más o menos), it was very difficult to find a synagogue in town. My Spanish friends all confirmed the rumor that there was, in fact, one in Barcelona but no one knew where it was exactly. So I ventured to the local tourist office to ask. When I arrived, they had just closed (I get out of work kinda late) but after some kind words, the night watchman agreed to help me find it. Having a wealth of information at his fingertips, he allowed me into the closed office while he rifled through some NY yellow pages-sized books. After about 15 minutes of searching, he found that the one synagogue in Barcelona was about a block away from his house and he never knew it. Out in the booneys. With no metro service. So I thanked him kindly and proceeded to go home for some Christmas cheer with my flat mates (we celebrated Christmas that night). I tried to call the synagogue for the next three days to find out what time services were, but there was never any answer. That’d be weird: Spanish and Hebrew. I’ll try again some other holiday.