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

Changing Years in Catalunya

Feliz Año Nuevo

Dec. 31-Jan. 1

I asked the man at the desk about the runners, but he claimed not to know what was going on. He gave me some explanation about people here are always finding an excuse to run.

He also told me that New Year’s Eve isn’t a big deal in town, but the Plaza Catalunya is a popular place to spend the evening. I figured that if it turned out to be as bad as Times Square, I could always stroll down to the Barri Gòtic and have a good time. 

I got the plaza around 8 p.m. I wanted to last at least till midnight, so I didn’t hit the bars right away.

I did stumble onto one of the attractions of the city while I was wandering the Rambla. The Boqueteria, one of Barcelona’s big markets, was still partly open. It was in the process of shutting down, but I was able to see a few of the stalls, mainly for chocolate and fruit, still open. It’s bright and colorful, like all markets, and feels a little older than the Central Market at Valencia.

The restaurants were already starting to fill up, and I wasn’t hungry yet, so I walked some more and found another sight I had read about, the Iglesia de Sant Agusti. This is an Augustinian church named for the Bishop of Hippo, not to be confused with the God Augustus, who is remembered elsewhere in Barcelona.

People were going in. Youngsters dressed in robes for a service were standing outside, chatting. All right, now I’d hear the mass in Catalan, maybe pick up a couple of pronunciation tips while I nourished my spirit.

This service had an unusual feature—a projection screen that showed the words of hymns so everyone could sing along with the choir.

When the first slide came up, I was a little confused. I can’t say I know Catalan, but I have been reading quite a few signs in the language lately. This didn’t look like Catalan. 

There were some Spanish words, but spelled oddly, “diyos” and “Hesucristo” for instance.

During the sermon, the priest would slip into English for a sentence, or part of one, and then go back to this language, and maybe throw in a little Spanish too.

It was very interesting to sing along, not knowing what the words meant or even what language they were in.

When the service ended, I asked a lady in front of me, if she spoke English. She did. 

What is the language of this service?

She looked puzzled for an instant. What do you mean? The Tagalog? 

I went to church on New Year’s Eve in Barcelona and attended a Philippino service. Is that lucky or what?

And luck still held. I was getting thirsty and a mite peckish besides. There were lines dozens deep outside the bars on the Rambla. So I started to explore the square. There at the end of a bar was an open stool. So I took it.

I bought a half bottle of red and cod in red pepper sauce. I expected something muy picante, but the sauce was savory and a little sweet. Maybe I was having fish with honey again. I’m not sure.

The bartender was a joy to watch. He had told me he was new to the job, but you‘d never tell by looking. When I got there, the place was only busy. He stored my hat and gloves behind the bar for me while I went to wash up. Later, once the place really filled up, he was racing up and down the bar. He got everybody’s orders right in four languages. He could even answer their questions.

I had a split of cava, the local sparkling wine, and then bought another around midnight.

This isn’t Chiang Mai. At midnight there were two floating lanterns in the air, not hundreds, and every now and then an anemic, single burst from a rocket.

There were, however, a lot of drunks spraying each other with sparkling wine, and an improvised chorus singing Le Marseillaise. I stayed inside the bar out of the fray for the most part, because I am down to one presentable suit. The other is barely presentable, and there’s no access to dry cleaning until the second, which is too late to help.

The steps leading to the Metro station were wet.

The revelry proceeded into the subway. There were two groups. One of kids with modified Mohawk haircuts and whistles. One of them stood at the edge of the platform and pretended to be falling. 

I’m thinking to myself: Should I intervene? If that kid gets hit by a train it’s going to be a real buzz kill. What’s more, his blood may get on my suit and the line will shut down, so on top of everything I’ll have to walk home.

But his friends brought him back from the brink.

The other group was singing something. I guess it was in Catalan. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Tagalog.

One of them had what might have been a two-liter bottle of Fresca, and he was pouring for everybody in his chorus. Judging by the way he was pouring (and wobbling), I suspect the bottle had an industrial strength spike. 

I got back to the hotel around one and had trouble with the lights, so I went out for a drink while the staff fixed the problem. I went into a place around the corner with falshing lasers and disco music and maybe four people there.  

About halfway through my second glass of wine, a crowd of kids started to pour in. They seemed to be regulars, because the barmen seemed to know them all.

Tequila with a slice of lemon is a big hit with kids around here.

I don’t think I passed out when I got back to the room. I may have gone conventionally to sleep. Anyway, I woke up in the bed.

For New Year’s Day, I went to the neighborhood called L’Eixample. Doesn’t mean role model. Apparently it’s Catalan for “extension.” The city expanded that way late in the 19th century, when Gaudí and his cronies had hit their stride. The district was populated by rich merchants, who could afford to commission elaborate homes.

So since Sagrada Familia wasn’t a bust, I was going in quest of a little more Modernisme.

Even more than those sidewalks in the Rambla, the Ruta de Modernisme makes itself felt in L’Eixample. One of Gaudí’s domestic creations, Casa Battllo, seems almost as famous as his church.

It is on a broad avenue called el Passeig de Gracia. It has a wavy front, and is decorated with sculpture, grillwork, and tile. Sort of an early run-up to his big work.

 It’s on a block that also contains a couple of neo-classical designs and something harking back to the Spanish renaissance. It’s called la Manzanita de la Discordia. “Manzanita” means both “neighborhood” and “apple.” The discord in this case is the juxtaposition of so many different architectural styles.

Passeig de Gracia feels like Fifth Avenue, with its Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Lladro, etc. There is also a museum of modernisme. I walked up the passeig and eventually got to a metro station.

From there I headed toward Parc Guell. The subway got me to within a mile of the place. A security guard from somewhere, walking down the street and seeing I was clearly bewildered, pointed me in the right direction after I came up from underground.

What I hadn’t counted on is that it is uphill all the way, and steep. Some of the route must have had  sharper than10-degree climbs.

Gaudí built a house for somebody named Guell up there, I believe, and now the grounds, also landscaped by Gaudí, are a city park. 

It isn’t easy for a stranger to find. You follow a fairly large thoroughfare most of the way, and then you hit side streets. Signage is a underdeveloped art here. 

I knew I was close but had no way to know the proper direction. I asked a group of people: Por favor, Parc Guell? (There was an upside down question mark in front when I said it, but I don’t know how to get it when I’m not working in Microsoft Word.)

They shrugged. They were strangers too and looking for the same place. One of them had a cell phone with a GPS app. So I followed them. If you ever go there, here’s how to find the park: You climb almost straight up for a block, turn left and then climb some more.

The park is worth the work. It is full of Gaudí shaped structures, colonnades, wavy walls, tiled terraces, and the like.

The views of Barcelona and the sea are spectacular. I took several, but I like the composition of this one the best.

And here is one in motion photographed higher up.

I wandered through much of the park but didn’t see it all. I was getting tired and thirsty and had to leave. 

Of course, I got lost in the twisting lanes. There were signs pointing me in two vague directions at three- and four-point intersections. As I say, local signage is a developing art.

I had to go out the way I came in, because it was a residential neighborhood around the park, and it would be a long walk to find a cab if I went the wrong way.

After about 10 minutes, or maybe several hours, of wandering, I found the vertical walk I had taken to get up to the park. So far, so good.

It was so steep and I was so tired, I had to go flat-footed to keep from falling on my face. 

I remembered the way through the side streets to the main road, and right there found an open tapas bar. I went in and muttered “Feliz Año Nuevo.” Then stood there breathing hard for a second. They guy behind the bar said something, maybe Catalan for “take your time” or “don’t let your head blow up.”

I managed to get a single word across my parched lips, “agua.”

I was a mess. Imagine: Harry walks into a bar and the first thing he asks for is water. Then I made up for it with some anchovies, meatballs, and Rioja.

Breakfast was a long time and a long walk in the past, so everything could have been mediocre, but it was among the most delicious lunches I’ve had.

I took the train back to the hotel for a rest and to finish writing this message.

It’s a little after seven here and I’ve only had two glasses of wine today.

I’m going out in a little while. Good places to eat are going to open in the next hour and should be hitting their prime around nine. 

Love and good wishes.

Be well all, and happy New Year, no matter what your time zone is.

Harry

Jan. 1

Hmmm, Grasshopper. glad to hear you got a spot at the bar with an interesting bartender. Otherwise, New Year's Eve sounded a bit underwhelming to me. Even my crazy experience in Jerez, even if nothing was open, proved more interesting in the end.

Things are fine here, but my lodgings could be better: the room is on the second floor and faces out on the street. Yes, it's fairly quiet, with the exception of the occasional delivery truck and dopey, loud-mouthed tourists talking about nonsense. I'm right across the street from our second lodgings here. Indeed, I see the other hotel out my window.

Larry

Jan. 1

Except for last year in Chiang Mai, New Year's Eve has always been underwhelming for me. I usually spent it at home with Nancy, watching one or another TV marathon. One year it was "Sex and the City" on HBO. The best TV programming was sometime in the 90s. One of the local New York stations ran a marathon of Italian Hercules movies. Getting drunk to that was memorable.

One year, Nancy was helping with the town's alternative New Year celebration, called First Night, designed as a family-friendly, non-drinking event. The highlight of that was hearing a traditional Chinese orchestra play in a church. That was interesting.

My night this year wasn't bad at all. I strolled the old streets of Barcelona, a place I dreamed of seeing when I was a kid. I got to sing in a language I'd never heard before. I got slowly loaded. I had a great meal. Dozens of young people made assholes of themselves for my amusement. 

As I say, this was no Chiang Mai, but given my experience of New Year's Eve, this was actually one of the better ones.

Harry

Spain Drain 8

Rambles, Ramblas, and Boardwalks

Dec. 31

I did a lot of wandering last night. Didn’t have enough walking earlier in the day.

I took the Metro back to the Barri Gòtic and got out at a new stop, one farther away this time.

When you come up from underground, if you have a sense of direction as bad as mine, you have no clue where anything is, except up. That you know because if you lean your head back, you see it.

So I trace a little circle in the crowd until I see a fingerpost to the Seu. That’s what they call a cathedral in Catalan. So I rambled down there and went in while a mass was in progress. Was it in Catalan? I tried to join the service but much of the nave was roped off.

Then a guard removed one barrier, so I tried to go in. She said no.

I can’t join the service? How can she tell I’m a heretic just by looking?

Tomorrow. Go! Limited English or limited civility, I do not know.

I went back to see what I could on the video monitor. The mass was ending. The priest walked out of frame, and then the congregation was leaving. I wasn’t the only one, but I was being thrown out of the Seu. Is that anything like excommunication?

So after that I wound up on the Rambla, which leads to the statue of Columbus at the Old Port. It is a wide avenue with narrow lanes for traffic and a broad pedestrian mall down the middle. The surface of the walkway is not level, but wavy by design. It is part of the Ruta de Modernisme, according to a plague set somewhere along the street in the tiles. That’s the local version of the Art Deco movement represented by Gaudí and his contemporaries.

The surface is not as challenging to walk on as I had expected on first sight.

I caught a glimpse of Colom’s column and knew where I was. So I headed into the old city. I love these little old streets. They are filled with shops selling everthing from “cheap gifts” to tony clothes. Half of the places are bars and restaurants, some still shuttered after 8. Maybe they open later. 

Spain runs on late time, as evidenced the other day by the Ghost disco in the Tryp Diana.

After about a half hour of walking, I came to Ronda de Sant Pau. “Ronda” I’m not sure. “Sant Pau” I believe is “Holy Peace.” I went into the first bar and opened my map. 

I actually found that street on the map, way the hell on the west side, when I thought I had been walking east. This was fun. I had finally managed to get lost. I have no idea what I saw from the Rambla. Certainly not El Almirante Colon.

And this is how lost I was. I finish my vino tinto and ask the bartender where the Metro is. He points. It’s directly across the street.

Three stops to a transfer and then five more stops brought me back to home base.

In the morning, I decided to go down the shore. You turn right outside the hotel and walk straight until the land ends. Barcelona’s beaches extend from the Old Port to I don’t know where because I didn’t go that way.

On the way to the beach, I strolled through a cordon of cops. First I saw a cop car and an ambulance, then more cops, and yet more. 

They didn’t look anything like the Guardia Urbana, who wear yellow safety vests. These guys had heavy boots on, and even heavier side-arms. They wore black uniforms and berets and little microphones like Britney Spears or Madonna.

I got about two-thirds of the way past them when one told me to walk in the street. I was walking between them, in front of this one, behind that one, and was probably getting too close to what they wanted to protect. Besides, remember I’m the guy wearing the pony tail and the black suit.

I have no idea what the building was, but I’m assuming an unpopular elected official was inside. Hell, maybe they’re all unpopular, especially now in the age of budget cuts and political protests.

The road ends with a kind of boardwalk-looking bridge over the highway, where you can stand on a pier and peer out at the Mediterranean.

Then I came down from there and followed the beach. There was a building in the distance that looked like a fish.

I walked for a while on top of the sea wall separating the Mediterranean from a marina full of masts. Some of the boats were registered in the British Virgin Islands. That may be a registry of convenience, or maybe they crossed the Atlantic. They looked small for an ocean crossing, but were probably bigger than Columbus’s caravels. They looked heavier than that reproduction of Drake’s Golden Hind in London.

I followed a boardwalk from beach to beach. There were some people actually in the water, including two guys who were convinced they could surf on waves that were about a foot high.

High up on one beach in the sun was a group of guys my age. I had a flashback to some of the Russians on the beach at Pattaya. Why would any man falling apart or drooping think he looks presentable in a Speedo?

After that revelation, I may stick to a suit and tie on the beach.

Eventually, I found myself in a street of warehouses, boatyards, and Club Natació. Maybe that means swim club. The old guys up the beach may have been members. Didn’t ask, so I’m not sure. 

Near the end of the street, it occurred to me I had no knowledge of the way ahead. So I consulted a bus route map at a kiosk and found that the only way out of here was to walk all the way back. Or take the 64 bus to Columbus’s column. So I bought a rest for two euros and got myself dropped off just past the column by a remnant of the medieval city wall called the Santa Madrona Gate. 

Behind it was an old building. I thought it was a museum, but when I started to go in a guy told me it was a hospital. He led me to the maritime museum down the street. Through Pidgin English and Pidgin Spanish, I learned he was from Puerto Rico and had a sister in Boston. 

I gave him two euros. He tried to talk more out of me.

The museum is in a 13th century building that was the shipyard for the King of Aragon. I was too tired and thirsty to do more than stop in for a glimpse. There is a diorama that shows the city in the 15th century. I could recognize some of the landmarks.

Once I got to the Rambla, I could see Columbus and vaguely knew the way to the Seu.

But first I needed rest and refreshment. I stopped at a place that had a special of the day consisting of one drink and a tapa for 3.5 euros. Very tasty pincho, which is anything served on a slice of baguette, and some macaroni and tuna salad with a vino tinto. Then I ordered more vino and some duck with applesauce. One order was almost like home and the other like no combination I’ve had before. There was raspberry syrup on the applesauce. That wonderful, almost rancid flavor of duck was perfect with the sweet-tart of applesauce and the syrup. 

I went to tour the cathedral next. The lady who sold me my ticket was the same guard who threw me out the night before. 

The cathedral has the remains of some martyrs—St. Sever, a bishop from the late third century, who has a side chapel where he is buried, and St. Eulalia, whose crypt is under the main altar. You can go down steps from the nave to the gate of the crypt. The sarcophagus dates to the 14th century. It shows scenes of her martyrdom and above them the procession bringing her remains to the cathedral. That is today's photo.

There is another replica of the Black Madonna of Monserrat in another side chapel. She is the patron saint of Catalunuya.

There may have been more exposed bones or skulls, but I didn’t see them.

I came back to the hotel for a brief rest before I venture out on St. Sylvester’s Eve.

It’s about 6:30 local time and there are people shouting and running past the hotel. It may be a New Year’s Eve celebration, or the Barcelona Half-Marathon. I will go and ask. I’ll tell you later what I learn.

Happy New Year’s Eve, everyone.

Harry