Barcelona - Part I

The City - 11/05/04
Barcelona is my favorite city in Europe and in my opinion, the most ideal place to live. It’s nestled between a mountain backdrop to the west and the Mediterranean coast to the east. The warm weather (high 60’s during my stay) attracts world travelers looking to escape the cold. Barcelona is also a cosmopolitan city with a wide array of charming restaurants with delicious foods and wines to suit any palate. Most of all, it possesses awe-inspiring architecture, most notably the work of the modernist architect Antonio Gaudi (hence where the word gaudy originates). The spirit of Barcelona in simple terms is just that: gaudy, eccentric, and modern.


Barcelona

I had an ambitious itinerary and was looking forward to a full weekend of exploring this idyllic city. Two years ago, I was with Holli & a half-dozen friends from business school who cared only to drink up the night and sleep down the days. This time, a good friend (Michael) from Switzerland flew in to hang with me. We arrived after 9 p.m., the usual time for dinner here in what's called the Catalunya region of Spain. So we ventured for food to satisfy our hunger pangs in the most logical place to get oriented with Barcelona: Las Ramblas. This popular tree-lined street is sleepless and breathes with life at any hour. We could feel the rumble of the metro train below our feet as we walked down the wide median that cuts the street down the middle. We fought our way through the crowds, passing overpriced newsstands, flowery kiosks, tarot card readers every 50 feet, random guys selling beers by the can from six-pack plastic rings, and one dancing puppet show by a dreadlocked Brit. After countless rows of outdoor cafes, we swooped down upon one table, seemingly perfect for people watching, drinking beers, and munching on a variety of Spanish tapas. This was the fantastic scene that welcomed me back to Barcelona.

Wandering the Streets - 11/06/04
We started the morning navigating through the narrow corridors of the oldest part of the city: el Barrio Gotic. The streets of hand laid stone seemed to close into us, making each passage feel like we were in a maze. I imagine it’s quite easy to slip through the shadows of these streets undetected. Luckily all roads in this part of the city seem to lead to the Cathedral of Barcelona, a 13th century gothic cathedral, where the crypt of Saint Eulalia resides inside. If you want, you can put in a 50 cent Euro piece, and a light comes on for a minute so you can get a glimpse of the tomb. Kind of creepy!


Barrio Gotic

Just outside in the square, street performers work hard for the Euro. We stopped to watch the grungy flamenco dancers, bards speaking in broken English, flower holding clowns, ragtag puppet show theaters, juggling punks, and aspiring break-dancers. Some artists engaged us with more conventional acts such as the didgeridoo, hand drums, dueling violins, harpsichords, and classical guitar. It was all a bit charming to watch these troubadours gather the crowds as the autumn sun began to warm our faces.

Being a musician, I could picture myself playing on these streets, but I realized that it must be tough to be a performer in this competitive environment. There are just too many artists to count, and not enough Euros to go around (especially with the US exchange rate right now). As a result, Michael & I had to come up with special criteria to decide on who we’d give money to. So we came up with the notion of “eccentric creativity.” Like standing on your head while playing an instrument with your feet creative, or juggling knives creative, or even setting yourself on fire creative. This new measure seemed to work well as we found more unusual entertainment in the form of a haggard cat lady who adorned her cats with Hawaiian leis, or the statue guy who tied himself to the side of the cathedral wall in Christ-like fashion to emulate Jesus. But the most deserving performance came from none other than the headless accordionist who drew smiles from countless passers-by. Truly, these artists represented Barcelona’s eccentricity quite well.


Headless Accordianist - Can you spare a head...uh... Euro?

Michael & I would liked to have enjoyed the entertainment, but we were determined to see the work of Guadi. To do so, we made our way to the Placa Catulunya, the largest square in Barcelona. It is the heart of the city where the fountains burst with energy and people shoot pictures as pigeons swarm the brave few who offer portions of their lunch. We picked up a bus here to la Sagrada Familia.

La Sagrada Familia is the most famous cathedral in Spain. Gaudi took on this lifelong project in 1882, and died before seeing it completed. Construction still continues on today. His vision was to create a cathedral of mythical proportions that was inspired by his fervent faith and the natural world that surrounded him. When completed, la Sagrada Familia will have 18 towers: twelve representing each apostle, four representing the four evangelists, one for the virgin Mary, plus one large one in the middle representing Jesus. So far only eight towers are complete. It will have three facades: the glory façade, the passion facade and the nativity façade – the latter two being completed already. The nativity façade is adorned with stone carved leaves which look more like melted candle wax. The passion façade depicts Jesus’ suffering from a cubist perspective (Gaudi was a contemporary of Picasso).


La Sagrada Familia

The structure is enormous and boasts a blueprint inspired by the simple things in nature. For example, I ascended the complex towers through a narrow spiral staircase resembling the spirals of a seashell. The climb begins in darkness giving you a claustrophobic feeling that contrasts with vertigo as it opens up into small terraces hundreds of feet in the air. The spires are beautifully decorated with giant tiled clusters of grapes and leaves. And the columns closely resemble tree-like trunks looking up into the sky.


Treelike Columns of la Sagrada Familia

We continued our journey to Parc Guell, a hillside park overlooking the city. In fact Parc Guell, and the whole city was immortalized by the HP commercial featuring the Cure song, “Pictures of You,” filmed here on location. Here at this other Gaudi inspired respite, another musician played among the roman-style columns, while people sat on the veranda basking in the setting sun. Michael & I walked through the trails, stared at the chameleon fountain that many kissed for good luck, and admired the ornate mosaics decorating the park’s structures. It was a suitable place to watch the sun setting behind the mountains.


Parc Guell - Chameleon

Two Beds!
We headed back into the city for dinner at the oldest restaurant in Barcelona, Can Culleretes, founded in 1782. We found it on an obscure backstreet away from the busy Las Ramblas. They serve a menu del dia (menu of the day) where 15 Euros buys a three-course meal full of Spanish appetizers, baked salmon, ice cream, and plenty of vino tinto (red wine). The place though large, felt intimate as wall-to-wall people cramped in together. The walls were covered with yellow-stained pictures from the lingering cigarette smoke in the air. Wine flowed and conversations overlapped, as strangers glanced over at one another sharing the little space available. I slid between two tables practically sitting on top of one another.

A middle-aged balding Brit dined alone next to us. He smoked incessantly, and was determined to polish off his full bottle of wine. As the evening meandered on, our British friend seemed intent to talk to us, and began to recite bad jokes in his thick cockney accent. He took a peculiar liking to us. Apparently, he was on holiday, and he made sure we knew how frequently he traveled to Barcelona, and how the hotel clerks knew him by name. I politely smiled and asked him if he could recommend some good spots to hang out in. That only made things worse as he detailed the really great gay bars that he liked to frequent.

Then, I suddenly realized that from his vantage point we were two young guys having dinner together, and he probably assumed we were, you know, together. I guess I always heard of people having that mysterious gift called gaydar (apparently, the ability to sense the presence of a gay person close-by). I for some reason do not have this gift. Perhaps our new friend's gaydar was going off, but all the wine he imbibed seemed to be impeding the signal. Oddly enough, I found myself subconsciously trying to set the record straight as I deepened my voice and slipped in a few references about my wife Holli and my daughter, while I inadvertently played with my wedding ring explaining to him that I was here on business, and my friend Michael here, came to visit me for the weekend, and that we had two separate beds in our room. . .and. . .and. . . "TWO BEDS! TWO BEDS!" I so desperately wanted to shout out at the top of my lungs for the whole restaurant to hear. It was no use.

- Marvin A.