Saturday, February 23, 2013

Adios, Barcelona




Fun in the Metro
3 de Enero.

It was full circle today. I hopped Metro to the stop called Catalunya and made a quick tour of La Mercat de Boqueria again early in the afternoon.

Now that I know the way, I retraced the route to Bahia, the tapas shop where I met the survivalist with the bow. After a glass of vino tinto and a couple of pinchos (two variants of tuna salad, I think), I wandered downhill from there. 

After a few turns, because none of the streets goes far without a twist and a change of name, a sign told me I was back in Carrer Ample. Still not interested in the Hash Museum and not craving a beer for the moment, I went to Passeig de Colom. The Spanish for that would be Paseo de Colon.

During some ramblings the other day, by the way, I stumbled on the Archive of Catalunya. (There is also an Archive of Barcelona, which is near the Seu.) On the wall at the Catalunya archive, there is a large photo reproduction of one of its documents, the articles signed by Columbus and by the Catholic kings, Ferdinand and Isabela, before he set off to prove that you could reach India in three or four weeks by crossing the Atlantic. He was to get one-eighth of whatever wealth his expedition earned by means of trade or conquest.

The Passeig de Colom (according to my Diccionari Catalá-Angles, the first word is pronounced “pa-saich,” with accent on the second syllable) is a broad avenue full of cars. The ship masts and amusements of the Old Port, Port Vells, are on the other side. 

I walked down to the main post office to send a postcard to Karl and his family. Then I started uphill, eventually finding myself back at La Rambla, not far from the Boqueria.

I drafted the text so far into my pocket notebook while sipping wine at the bar Sukaldari, a Basque place next to the market. 

I was feeling very worldly, almost naturalized Euro-trash, sipping vino, making notes, reading a menu in Catalan and French (they knew I was foreign, but not what flavor), and watching people stroll by. Some wore funny hats with ears.


I also saw that the Second Story Santa was persistent, if not very efficient. I had seen him the day before, his bandanna pulled up and his shades on, trying to break into the same apartment. He has a henchman who was scaling a balcony across the Rambla.


Later on, after a break at the hotel, I set out roughly for the same neighborhood to find a street in the Old Town that I had noticed earlier in the day, Carrer dels Escudellers. I think it means street of the shield-makers. I had a flash of all these aristocrats in the old days going down there to order their bespoke shields. (For all I know, they did.)

After all that speculation, I found that “Escudellers” is not in my translating dictionary. There is an entry for “escudella.” It means “bowl” or “basin.” Maybe that’s what the aristocrats came to this street to buy.

In a subway during the trip, I heard a man play “Auld Lang Syne” and “Red River Valley” on a one-stringed Chinese fiddle. During the ride over, a couple of uniformed security guards walked into my car. They were wearing an official badge that said “Vigilante de Seguridad.” So I got to see subway vigilantes.

When I got to the stop marked on the Google map, I realized I wasn’t sure which way to take on the Rambla. Three or four glasses of wine can disrupt a sense of direction, especially one as poor as mine. I usually have to remember how I hold a pen to be sure of right and left.

So of course I walked the wrong way for about a mile. The street I wanted was not far uphill from the Passeig de Colom. So I asked a man on the street which way to the passeig, and had to backtrack.

It is an interesting street, once you find it. There was one place called Caracoles that I wanted to investigate. With a name that means Snails, it sounded promising. But after reading the menu, I decided that I didn’t want to run the equivalent of eighty or ninety bucks American for dinner for myself.

There’s another restaurant close by that always seems to have a dozen people lined up at the door waiting to get in. Maybe they’re the owner’s cousins paid to do that to make the place look really good. There are too many good places down here to stand in line for anything.

After all, I got a seat in the hottest part of town on New Year’s Eve just by walking around, which is something I’d do anyway. 

I found a place with open seats at the bar, where I had a Catalan salad (familiar, actually—greens, tomato, olives, hard-boiled egg, yellow corn, onion) and Catalan sausage with white beans. I think the word for them is “seques.” It might have been a “g” instead of a “q.” 

The English menu said it was “boiled sausage.” I asked the bartender about that, and he assured me that, no, it was not cooked in water. There must have been an unfortunate typo, because this sausage was broiled black and delicious.

I had three glasses of wine to really screw up my sense of direction. But I found the Metro station somehow. I was supposed to go left and left. On reflection now, I think I didn’t go izquierdo y izquierdo, but derecho y derecho. Still the same general direction, but out of the way. A man handing out fliers for a restaurant called Sinatra pointed me the last part of the way.


4 de Jener

I went around the corner for breakfast this morning and drank couple of cafe americanos, while everybody else in the place was drinking beer or Calvados. I decided to save my beer drinking for the train station. Checkout time was noon and my train left at three. The Metro ride, walks, transfer, and all, would take 45 minutes tops, so I’d have a lot of time to kill.

There were some steps to climb both up and down to make the transfer in the Metro, but there were also some escalators up and in one station an escalator down. So lugging the bags to the train wasn’t so bad.

Sure, I was breathing hard at the end, but hey, at least I got there.

After seeing where I’d have to go for my gate, I had a couple of San Miguel drafts in a cafeteria at the station while I played with the computer for a bit.

I found a little place with some interesting looking sandwiches and tried one with a can of Estrella. The sandwich consisted of chopped ham and maybe a few other things baked into a roll, sort of a Catalan calzone.

It was actually pretty doughy and bland, but it was 1:30 in the afternoon and breakfast was six hours in the past, so I enjoyed it, and the beer.

The train ride to Madrid alternated between dozing off and looking at the scenery. The vines in the vineyards are all bare. The windmills were still today.

Right now, the clock says 17:34. I think we’re coming into the railyards outside Atocha station.



19:45.

Checked in to the TRYP Diana, the airport hotel, a little while ago.

I expected to have more trouble getting here because there is a Metro strike. As it turns out, trains are running at half service, about every six minutes when I got there around six.

The train from Atocha Renfe was packed and stayed that way until one stop before my transfer station. Since I was heading to the end of the line and away from the center of the city, the second line was not so bad, although those damn bags had to be a nuisance for a few people. 

Sorry about that, people.

The beer I had at Barcelona Sants station has worn off. I’m going downstairs now to have some tapas and vino tinto. 

Be well, all. Have a blast.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

Lost in Spain




Sometimes You Know When You’re Lost

I love markets. I enjoy going to supermarkets when I’m home or when I’m traveling in the States. I like to explore those little convenience stores at gas stations. 

On Tuesday, I went into the store at the gas station across the street from the hotel to buy a bottle of wine. He said he didn’t have any, although he had bottles of spirits on the shelf, as most places do.

I turned to leave and realized I must be wearing down. I had asked “tiene usted rio tinto?” (do you have red river). It’s a good thing he didn’t have any in stock; it’s not what I wanted. I wanted vino tinto. That he had.

It’s a red wine made in the region. I think I had a glass of it last night after my cab ride. At least, the cork was out of the bottle this morning. I don’t remember.

The market on La Rambla Catalunya is called Boqueria and except for a few stalls closed for vacation, was in full swing when I got there Wednesday afternoon.


This is where you go to buy ingredients. Very little besides the wine is packaged. You can buy dried or fresh fruit, sheep heads, tripe, tongues, and other internal organs, as well as the roasts, steaks, and ubiquitous ham.


I don’t know how many different sorts of oysters, clams, and langostinos there are, but it seems all of them are for sale in a circular fish department in the center of the marketplace.


A stand was doing brisk business in fruit juices of irresistibile colors. So I didn’t try to resist. I had a drink combining coconut and papaya. The straw kept getting plugged by the fruit pulp. This wasn’t a drink, but a meal.


The gumdrops looked irresistible too. But when the price for a dozen turned out to be 7.5 euros (about $10 American) I passed. 

There is very little odor from the meats or fish because they are so fresh. But you can turn the corner and get hit in the face with the fragrance of oranges.

Across from the market is a two-story bookstore. Translating dictionaries, phrase books, and teach-yourself guides for various languages are displayed by the door. I found a pocket-size Catalan-English translator.

It was time for cervesa (as it’s spelled in Catalan) and to enlighten myself. Among the mysteries cleared up over beer: The value of “x” in Catalan equals “sh” in English; the “j” is pronounced as in French; “ll” is not treated as a separate letter, as in Spanish, and has the sound of the “lli” in “million.” The Catalans have no Castilian lisp.

I thought about going over to my favorite neighborhood near the Seu, but decided to take a detour down a narrow street that went the opposite way. I’m walking around looking at shops and architecture, and thinking to myself, yeah, the cathedral is the other way, but this is new territory, and besides I can find my way back. I’m starting to get some of Larry’s knack for finding my way around colorful cities all over the world. 

This is why travel is broadening. You can always be a wise-ass. Lord knows I’m proof of that. But damn, it doesn’t take long to realize that you’re the butt of the joke. In other words, it teaches you humility, want it or not.

I knew I was going in the wrong direction, so I sort of made a note of where and which way I turned. I have no idea how accurate my mental map was, because I never got to use it. I was lost from the start.

After several minutes of exploring, I saw something familiar, a mural of stick figures that decorates the wall of the tourist office, which sits right across the square from the Seu. 


My sense of competence was severely shaken, so I had to put myself to a test.

Why not go back to the tapas bar where the man gave me directions to get to the Temple of Augustus? I almost know how to get there. 

From the cathedral square, it’s short walk to the city hall square. I go diagonally across that and take a short curving street to the square that has a construction that looks like it’s made of giant wire coat hangers, and then begin to explore from there.


Of course, I didn’t find it on the first try, so I came back to the coat hangers and started over. Along the way I stopped to read a sign or to look at something curious in a window. 

I heard a voice say, “Are you from Montclair, New Jersey?”

This is why you always have to behave. Wherever you go there is someone who can identify you to the authorities.

I turned a saw a man I see several times a week because we take the same train from Watchung Station. He was with his wife, and they were doing the same things I was doing—walking the old streets, seeing the sights, trying the bars.

His name is George, and they have been in Barcelona for a week. His back is sore from walking, but he can’t stop. Sounded familiar to me. 

A little while later, I was walking down a street behind a man who was leading a toddler. They were chatting as parents do with children, and I remember his attention was so wrapped up in the child that he walked into a sandwich board sign on the sidewalk.

That street led me to the place I wanted. It faces a triangular plaza and serves people at tables outside, as well as inside. 

I went in, but the barman wasn’t there. I ordered a red and a couple of pinchos—a type of tapa that consists of a topping on a slice of baguette, in my case an anchovy with chopped tomato and a sausage with cheese.

While I was eating and making notes, in walks my friend from the other day. With the toddler. He was the guy I’d been following down the street.

He knows I look familiar, so I tell him that I found the temple with no trouble and was back to say thanks.

He’s apparently the owner. He helps himself to a few pinchos. “Tengo hambre.” and a beer. A woman has charge of the boy, who is at the bar playing with crayons and paper. He looks up at the man and calls out “Papa.”

Later Papa changed the boy’s diaper in the bar.

A lot of people can’t understand me when I try to speak Spanish. Or maybe because I am always mixing it up with alien words—especially Italian and French when I’m trying to be Latin—they pretend not to get it.

Anyhow, the lady tending the bar spoke little English so I reordered in Spanish: “Un vino mas, y dos pinchos. El mismo.” I believe this means “One more wine and two pinchos. The same.” Then to clarify, I added “salsichon con queso y tamate con anchoa.”

I think I did it mostly right­sausage with cheese and tomato with anchovy—because that’s what I got.

At one point, a man wearing a hat with feathers in the band and hair halfway down his back walked up to the bar. He was carrying what looks like a disassembled harpoon.

He had a drink of something and went outside to light up. OK, this is too much for my curiosity. I go out and ask him what he’s carrying. It’s a bow with arrows from South America. He just bought it.

He is originally from the Pyrenees, and still goes back to the mountains to hunt. That’s what the bow is for. He hunts rabbits and small deer. Talk about eye-hand coordination.

He says he goes on long winter hunts in Sweden. He takes a kilo of salt, a couple of flour. He finds a spot among the pines where the snow is shallow enough to remove. Then he pitches a tent on the ground and covers it with snow. He says he has to keep a flap open at night or he would die of the heat.

He stays for about three months, but comes back when he is sick of himself.

I offered to buy him a drink, but he said he doesn’t drink. He’s a survivalist who doesn’t drink, but he smokes cigarettes. I wonder how many of those he lugs to the hills of Sweden. Or maybe he puts up with the nicotine fits. 

This guy looks to be about my age. He could actually be telling me the truth. Or some, anyway.

Next, I went out to try my luck some more. I went down to Admiral Columbus’s column and took a street that starts there. I had remembered that this led me somehow to La Cerveteca, the first night I was in town. 

This is the Carrer Ample. Among other attractions, it houses the Marijuana and Hashish Museum of Barcelona. I doubted they were selling samplers in the gift shop, so I walked on. 

Somewhere on this leg of the journey I saw the man with the bow and said hi. 

At the end of Carrer Ample, you turn left, and on the next corner is one of the world’s extraordinary beer bars, right here in a super wine country.

They sell 40-euro bottles of brew here. They may even be worth that much, but I didn’t buy one.

The lineup of draft beer was different this night. Farigola is a lager like no other I’ve tasted. It had as much flavor as Blue Point Toasted Lager. There was something else in there, maybe some kind of spice, something like mace, added to the malt and hops. Or maybe just terrific hops.

Then there was Chateau Oregasmic. Right, with a name like that, I’m going to pass that up. It was an ale with a deep smoky flavor, not too sweet.

I had also ordered a tapa of salchichon (llonganissa in Catalan), described in English as horsemeat sausage, served with points of toast. The menu also had helado de queso, described as “two cheese ice cream balls with jam.” 

I was waiting for that at the bar when two men came up and asked the barman in accented English about the drafts. They mentioned Farigola, and I said it was good. So one of them ordered it.

When the sausage came, I offered to share because there was more than I could handle.

His name is Paul, and he is on a family trip. He is from Minnesota, which explains the accent.

He and nine members of his family drove from Madrid a few days ago.

There had been 15 together in Madrid, but five, including his mother, went home from there. The rest came to Barcelona in three rented cars. 

Paul went to rejoin his family group and I had a new companion. A medium size dog came in with a couple and was very interested in what was on the bar. He was wiggling and trying to jump up for a look.

Maybe he liked beer, or maybe he smelled the sausage. In any event, I gave him a slice of horsemeat and he calmed down.

My third beer was Belgian called Slaap. Tripel. “Slaap.” is spelled with a point, but I’m not sure what the abbreviation stands for, but Beer Advocate’s website has an entry for Slaapmutske Triple Nightcap. This was strong, sold only in the 300 milliliter glass. And tasty as all Belgian ales are.

That was about it for me. I went out onto the street and wasn’t sure which direction to take to find a subway station, so I gave up and hailed a cab. I have a feeling I’d still be out there looking for a station if I had tried to do anything else.

Today’s photo is from the Boqueria. Spanish and Catalan food are not big on chiles, but the colors made this a popular photo. Three other people shot this stall in the two minutes I was there.


Be well all and keep warm. I hear that it’s bitterly cold in New Jersey. I’ll be getting my share of that Saturday when I come home.

Harry


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Arpa, Parc i Ping-Pong



 Pure Gothic
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