Jan.
2
More
on yesterday’s forays:
Parc
Guell (rhymes with “way,” at least sometimes), as I say, is well worth the
labor to get there. What’s more, the effort climbing up makes food, even water,
taste better on the climb down.
I
got to sit by a Gaudí colonnade and hear a harpist play. I was keeping an eye
on the pigeons overhead. A man outside the Casa Battllo earlier in the day for
some reason told me that I had bird droppings on my coat. He helped me take my
slicker off and brush it. I'm pretty
sure there was never a problem at all. He may have been high and thought
it was funny. He may have thought he could pick my pocket, but there was
nothing in the pocket of my slicker. But I was still keeping an eye nonetheless
on those pigeons.
While
I was trying to find my way out, I passed a ping-pong table. This one wasn’t in
use. I guess no one wants to do all that climbing to play ping-pong. They’d be
too worn out for it.
Most
people were on a terrace and what appeared from my vantage point to be a small
amphitheater to hear a band play.
The
rest of them were walking trails. Maybe they were trying to find their way out,
too.
By
the way, those folks I followed to the park were up on the top when I was
there. They were taking photos of each other. They were English.
When
you’re in a tourist district far from home, you just assume there’s going to be
a language barrier.
A
few days earlier I was in a big park not far from the hotel. It is also
beautifully landscaped, but more traditional than Gaudí’s work. Although it
does contain a stand of plane trees that look like something Gaudí made.
There
were half a dozen ping-pong tables near the gate where I came in, and they were
all busy. Maybe ping-pong here is like basketball in cities back home. You go
to the park for a pickup game.
The
park also contains an Arc de Trionf that I was able to photograph at night.
The
park is called Ciutadella, because it sits on the site of an old fort. It has
natural science museums, gardens, and a zoo. The government of Catalunya meets
in the parliament building next to the park.
Another
funny thing happened the other day. I was looking for a place with cheap tapas
in the Barri Gòtic, when a young man with trimmed hair and beard comes up to me
and asks what I want.
Remember,
it’s common here, when you read the menu by the door, that someone comes out of
a restaurant and makes a sales pitch. So I told the guy “tapas.”
He
says “marijuan’, hashish.”
I
don’t know what the rules are here. I’ve smelled the faint aroma of distant
cannabis on the air a few times in the narrow streets. But I’m sure this ain’t
Amsterdam.
This
is the land where Franco died. They still have a police force called La Guardia
Civil. So I skipped the marijuan’, hashish, or oregano he was hawking.
Chicken-shit?
Maybe. But hey, I’m still not in Spanish jail.
Last
night, after I sent the e-mail, I went to the Old City and took a different
direction from the Metro station. It brought me to another monument of
Barcelona, the basilica of Santa Maria del Mar.
According
to the tourism board, it was built over the short span of 55 years in the
middle of the 14th century, and is “the only surviving church in the pure
Catalan Gothic style.”
I
have no clear idea of what all that implies, but it’s a relatively austere
church that hasn’t been Baroqued up, like some others I’ve seen here.
The
lights started to wink out shortly after I went in, but I managed to get close
to the sanctuary. Eight or a dozen columns support a groin vault towering above
the main altar. All that heavy stone looks perfectly graceful.
I
wandered more of those little streets, including a few that run under upper
stories of buildings. In New York when you do that, you’re passing under a
bridge connecting floors way over hour head. It’s not the same feeling as
passing under a timbered ceiling a dozen feet off the ground.
I’ve
visited a few old cities in Europe: London, Prague, Valencia, Barcelona. They
all have them. I don’t recall seeing a public thoroughfare like that anywhere
in the States. There must be some. Does anyone know of any? I’d take a trip
just to walk through it.
After
I got myself good and lost, I tried to retrace my steps. Much to my surprise, I
was able to do it. Of course, I was still running on only two glasses of wine
at the time, although I was starting to wear out. The heights of Park Guell had
me feeling my age, but I was too damned stubborn to stay inside the
hotel.
I
found a place that serves paella for one. Most restaurants will make it for a
minimum of two people.
I
had been walking around town and wanted to wash my hands before I handled any
olives, so I asked for the “sala des hombres,” which is an example of my
language barrier. It’s a take on French “salle des hommes” part way translated
in to Spanish. Then I asked in English for “the washroom.”
The
waiter heard “mushroom” and started to open the menu.
Then
I remembered the universal word, “toilet.”
Damn.
I felt like such a rube. But I did get the directions and found it.
I
had a variant called arroz negro. It is spiced a little differently from paella
Valenciana and has the ingredients of paella de marisco—shrimp and other
seafood. It is black because it is made with squid ink.
When
we were in the bar at the airport hotel in Madrid, Joanna and I watched a
cooking show where the host something similar with squid, ink, and rice.
By
that time, I was beat. I limped back to the Metro station and then got back to
the hotel, where I played with the computer for a while and finished that
bottle of wine I started the other day.
It
was about midnight when I sacked out. I slept till 9:30.
I’m
going to stroll out to the subway soon and maybe go to one of the markets.
Be
well all. And again, Feliz Año Nuevo.
Harry
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