Day two in Barca was a little nicer than yesterday, weather wise, I must admit. The sun poked its head out of the clouds for at least one full hour late in the morning. I briefly considered working my way down to the beach but then rejected the idea when I saw the looming clouds slowly squeeze out what little sun we had. But it didn’t rain, and that’s a plus. I’m back in the hostel now after walking around all day. I’m a little tired. I’d rather be doing nothing on the beach. I checked the weather reports and it’s supposed to rain everyday from now and through the next week or so. Oy! So I just finished reserving a train ticket to the one place in Spain that was supposed to be all sun everyday for the foreseeable future, Malaga, in Andalusia, la Costa del Sol, a place I think I can find some good leisurely beach time. We’ll see. But don’t worry! I didn’t simply write off Barcelona that easily. Even in the shade Barcelona is a wonderfully cool city. Weather like this does occasionally happen here and when it does, culture emanates from the depths of these old neighborhoods. I wandered the city, looking for evidence of this. I found some cool things.
I slept in a bit this morning, I was really very tired last night. I stayed up a little bit to lounge in the kitchen area and talked awhile with some people, sipping my Spanish beer of choice, Estrella, not bad. I met two Americans from PA, doing a quick tour around Europe, they had an early morning train to Paris this morning before they fly home. And I met a cool Canadian guy, laid back, hair in dreads, originally from Toronto but living in the Yukon, working as a drilling supervisor for a diamond and mineral company - pretty interesting stuff. He had a two month leave period which he had been saving and has pretty much traced the same route that I have done, starting in Italy anyway, just three days or so behind me. I went to sleep though a little after midnight. I think they went out to party, Barcelona style.
But the one big thing that I didn’t get to do because it was too rainy and unpleasant yesterday was to check out Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral that Barcelona started building in 1882 and is still working on, long after Gaudi’s death. I walked out of the hostel to the south, retracing a path I had taken the night before to look for food where I had come across lots of cool shops and bakeries. I found one of them this morning and stopped in for a croissant stuffed with some local Catalan meat. I forget what it was called, something Spanishy, it was excellent. I bought a juice from one of the little convenience shops in the square near the hostel and then made my way down to the cathedral. Luckily the sun was out for this which brightened my mood a little (I was pretty bummed about the weather...).
The cathedral, even unfinished, is everything you hope for from a Gaudi masterpiece. I didn’t go inside, I probably should have, because the lines were long and I’m running low on funds. Even from the outside the cathedral is extremely impressive. When one thinks of a cathedral, certain architectural expectations pop into one’s mind. This place shatters those expectations. The Pope himself (Pope Benedict, I believe) came down to Barcelona to bless the cathedral’s acceptance into the Catholic Church. So it appears even in the church, with its very long, traditional artistic history, at least from an artistic point of view, the rules can bend. The building is huge, spires twist high into the sky. Each spire is topped by a cross, bubbly? is maybe the best way to describe how they look. The sides of the cathedral are typical Gaudi style - you kind of just have to look at the photo to get what I mean by that. Looming above the entrance to the cathedral are several statues of holy figures, gaunt expressions on their modern faces, and smaller spires top the structures stemming from the sides of the main hall appear to be blossoming near the top. It’s kind of weird but wholly impressive. I’m sure the inside is just as, if not more, impressive. You’ll have to tell me when you go someday.
I walked around the cathedral, taking it in from different angles before I headed on. I was aiming for Born, an indie neighborhood near La Rambla that my hairdresser from Leeds recommended to me as a cool place to walk around (she seemed like the kind of person who would know better). And it just so happened that the NY Times “36 Hours in Barcelona” recommended a couple of hip shops in this area as well, so off I went. But the sun was still hanging in the air, blaring though breaks in the increasing cloud cover, I thought briefly that I might first go down to the beach to see if it might be nicer than yesterday’s experience, and I even headed in that direction for awhile, but the sun did indeed disappear, this time for good, so I thought better of it and just aimed for Born.
Born was a good recommendation. It is located on the far eastern corner of the old Gothic quarter. Lots of small alleys mesh together in a tight maze to form this neighborhood and the streets are full of cool shops and cafes. As per NY Times recommendation, I popped into a small shop called Mutt. Walking through the discreet entrance I was greeted with this heavy industrial, synthy electro music and a couple of Spanish guys chatting by the register. The shop sold art and design books and doubled as a small local art gallery. One wall was lined with books and the other was bare apart from the collection of sketches of intertwining staircases with people and animals randomly scattered about. It was an interesting exhibit. There was also a table in the corner of the space that had an interesting collection of clay figures. The space seemed like a typical art studio, sort of a large, airy factory space. And that with the music playing around me, I felt like as I walked through the door someone would soon hand me a hardhat and shovel and I would feel the urge to suddenly build a dam or something of similar girth.
I admired the collection and moved on down deeper into the neighborhood. I passed some other pretty cool shops, a chocolate shop and a tapas bar, and then moved into a little restaurant for a bite to eat for lunch. This place was also a flamenco dance place in the evenings as was evidenced by the many photographs of local flamenco dancing favorites on the wall. I ordered a hot Catalan sausage sandwich and an Estrella, paid and continued. I walked through La Rambla, probably exiting Born along the way, and worked my way towards another NY Times recommendation but either it was closed and concealed or else it went out of business or moved, but I never found this one. What I did find though was the University of Barcelona, a really interesting area full of Spanish university students lounging outside many of the modern school buildings scattered around the area. I walked around some of the popular areas where the students were all congregated. The school doesn’t have the spacious campus feel that typifies an American college, rather it was a collection of modern buildings, very aesthetic, walls covered in student posters and music concerts and student forums and all that, scattered in a dense neighborhood on the outskirts of the Gothic Quarter. And then I made my way, a bit further (I had walked a long way today) to the train station to reserve a ticket for the train that I will be taking tomorrow to beautiful, sunny Malaga.
Then I hopped the metro and returned to the hostel. To be honest, I wasn’t feeling too well. I was more tired than I should have been and my head had been hurting. In fact, I still feel a bit under the weather, I’m not sure why. But it was mid afternoon. I decided to just lay in bed for a while and instead I slept for nearly three hours. I felt better, surprised I had slept so long considering my good night’s sleep the night before, and I decided I was up for a bit more. This would be my last chance to go out and see some of Barcelona before I left, so I rolled, reluctantly, out of bed, showered, and headed out one last night. I wanted to explore the Gracia neighborhood a bit more, the neighborhood where my hostel is located. From a few different sources, I’ve heard that the Gracia neighborhood is the preferred neighborhood by locals as a place to spend the late evenings, any night of the week. It is far enough away from La Rambla and all the hostels (except for mine!) and tourist hotels that locals still feel at home in this area. And it really does feel authentically Spanish. There is little to no English in these parts and even Spanish is rarely used, in favor of the more local Catalan language. I walked back out of the hostel and turned down the street as I always did, but this time I took a side street, slightly uphill, where I saw lots of people walking out around the street. This route was awesome and I wished I had discovered it a little earlier. It was evening time, and dark, the street was lined with tapas bars and regular bars and restaurants, book shops, and a few other small local business shops. I stopped at a small indie bookshop to peer in through the window. It had just closed. Hanging on the door was a poster of Audrey Hepburn sitting Indian style on a rug on the floor beside her bed reading a book and in old-type font, written above her read: “Reading is Sexy”. It certainly was.
I then passed a small Spanish cinema, nestled in between bars, showing a variety of Spanish, French, and international films. I decided that this would be a really cool way to spend the evening. I walked up to the small ticket booth and said to the lady behind the counter, “Hablas ingles?” She said a little. I asked her if any of the films were in English or at least had English subtitles and she said that one of the films, “Searching for Sugar Man” did. I bought a ticket for later that evening. In the meantime, I walked down back the way I came to find a local organic burger place that I had passed the day before. After some searching, I found it and stepped in. I was the only customer at the time. I looked later at the hours posted on a small sign beside the door and realized I had come in right after it had opened at 8 in the evening. In fact, this restaurant’s hours were from 1:30 to 4 every afternoon and then reopened at 8 every evening, closing at 2 in the morning. I later realized that this is the typical Spanish eating hours. In the more touristy areas, restaurants tend to conform more to the rest of the world’s eating habits and times. But here in Gracia, we were on Spanish time. The burger place I chose was called La Vespa Burgerbar, had an Italian Vespa theme, Vespa merchandise hanging from the walls. The Vespa is an old, recognizable, Italian motor scooter. I’m not sure what the scooter had to do with burgers but the place was tastefully decorated. And this place was authentically Catalan too. The people in this place spoke exactly no words of English so I had to reach deep down to the days of my middle school Spanish lessons and functionally order and consume a meal. My teachers would be so proud. From my broken Spanish, I could read the description of the “concept” of this restaurant as having an organic burger theme, using meat from only the local Catalan cattle. I ordered una cordoba hambuergesa (I’m going to write this part in Spanish to avoid having to translate the ingredients) con cordero, pimiento del pequillo, queso cabra, cogollos, tomate y cebilla. Sounds tasty, no? And they played some smooth rock in the background. Oasis’s “Wonderwall” played during my meal, a song every 26 year old American (and many other people) knows every lyric to. What’s not to like about this place? The burger was excellent, the ingredients were indeed fresh, and I was content. The woman serving me later returned, said something to me that I assumed meant, “Would you like anything else?” or perhaps, “Are you interested in a dessert?” but I think after the fact was actually, “Are you full?” and when I confidently said no, smiling, I think she was a bit confused and just sort of walked away. I realized my error too late to convince her I wasn’t rude, just bad at Spanish. But anyway the meal was fantastic and I was ready for the cinema.
The film that I came to see was a late showing of an english language documentary called, Searching for Sugarman, a story of a musician called Rodriguez who put out two albums in the US in the 60’s and whose style was similar to Bob Dylan, sort of having an anti-establishment vibe. He flopped in the US but after a copy of the albums made their way to South Africa, he was a huge success, bigger than Elvis or the Rolling Stones. And he never knew about it and how famous he had become. Anyway they try to track him down and one thing leads to another...It was a great film. But the cinema itself was half the fun. The entrance to the tiny theater is hidden deep in Garcia, between small tapas bars, but it was bustling with locals. The theater, no. 4, where my film was showing was pretty small, about a hundred seats sloping down to the screen that took up the entire wall in the front. The seats were parted by an aisle down the middle and were covered in bright pink velvet upholstery. Little lights shown upwards from the floor along either wall. They showed a few previews to other foreign films (well, foreign to me) and they all looked good. I probably could have stayed in that theater, in my plush seat, watching film after film. I love European cinema because the style is so different than the typical Hollywood blockbuster films I’m used to at home. It’s a refreshing change of pace.
But the film finished, everyone exited, and I left for the hostel. I hopped in bed and quickly fell asleep. I had an early start, an early metro ride to the train station, and an early train south to Malaga. I was searching for the sun.
I slept in a bit this morning, I was really very tired last night. I stayed up a little bit to lounge in the kitchen area and talked awhile with some people, sipping my Spanish beer of choice, Estrella, not bad. I met two Americans from PA, doing a quick tour around Europe, they had an early morning train to Paris this morning before they fly home. And I met a cool Canadian guy, laid back, hair in dreads, originally from Toronto but living in the Yukon, working as a drilling supervisor for a diamond and mineral company - pretty interesting stuff. He had a two month leave period which he had been saving and has pretty much traced the same route that I have done, starting in Italy anyway, just three days or so behind me. I went to sleep though a little after midnight. I think they went out to party, Barcelona style.
But the one big thing that I didn’t get to do because it was too rainy and unpleasant yesterday was to check out Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral that Barcelona started building in 1882 and is still working on, long after Gaudi’s death. I walked out of the hostel to the south, retracing a path I had taken the night before to look for food where I had come across lots of cool shops and bakeries. I found one of them this morning and stopped in for a croissant stuffed with some local Catalan meat. I forget what it was called, something Spanishy, it was excellent. I bought a juice from one of the little convenience shops in the square near the hostel and then made my way down to the cathedral. Luckily the sun was out for this which brightened my mood a little (I was pretty bummed about the weather...).
The cathedral, even unfinished, is everything you hope for from a Gaudi masterpiece. I didn’t go inside, I probably should have, because the lines were long and I’m running low on funds. Even from the outside the cathedral is extremely impressive. When one thinks of a cathedral, certain architectural expectations pop into one’s mind. This place shatters those expectations. The Pope himself (Pope Benedict, I believe) came down to Barcelona to bless the cathedral’s acceptance into the Catholic Church. So it appears even in the church, with its very long, traditional artistic history, at least from an artistic point of view, the rules can bend. The building is huge, spires twist high into the sky. Each spire is topped by a cross, bubbly? is maybe the best way to describe how they look. The sides of the cathedral are typical Gaudi style - you kind of just have to look at the photo to get what I mean by that. Looming above the entrance to the cathedral are several statues of holy figures, gaunt expressions on their modern faces, and smaller spires top the structures stemming from the sides of the main hall appear to be blossoming near the top. It’s kind of weird but wholly impressive. I’m sure the inside is just as, if not more, impressive. You’ll have to tell me when you go someday.
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| La Sagrada Familia, still in progress after over 100 years of construction |
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| The interesting statues above the entrance of modern biblical figures |
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| A view of the spires, very Gaudi |
Born was a good recommendation. It is located on the far eastern corner of the old Gothic quarter. Lots of small alleys mesh together in a tight maze to form this neighborhood and the streets are full of cool shops and cafes. As per NY Times recommendation, I popped into a small shop called Mutt. Walking through the discreet entrance I was greeted with this heavy industrial, synthy electro music and a couple of Spanish guys chatting by the register. The shop sold art and design books and doubled as a small local art gallery. One wall was lined with books and the other was bare apart from the collection of sketches of intertwining staircases with people and animals randomly scattered about. It was an interesting exhibit. There was also a table in the corner of the space that had an interesting collection of clay figures. The space seemed like a typical art studio, sort of a large, airy factory space. And that with the music playing around me, I felt like as I walked through the door someone would soon hand me a hardhat and shovel and I would feel the urge to suddenly build a dam or something of similar girth.
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| Mutt, in the Born neighborhood, an NY Times recommendation |
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| A typical storefront in the Born neighborhood |
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| My Catalan sausage baguette |
I then passed a small Spanish cinema, nestled in between bars, showing a variety of Spanish, French, and international films. I decided that this would be a really cool way to spend the evening. I walked up to the small ticket booth and said to the lady behind the counter, “Hablas ingles?” She said a little. I asked her if any of the films were in English or at least had English subtitles and she said that one of the films, “Searching for Sugar Man” did. I bought a ticket for later that evening. In the meantime, I walked down back the way I came to find a local organic burger place that I had passed the day before. After some searching, I found it and stepped in. I was the only customer at the time. I looked later at the hours posted on a small sign beside the door and realized I had come in right after it had opened at 8 in the evening. In fact, this restaurant’s hours were from 1:30 to 4 every afternoon and then reopened at 8 every evening, closing at 2 in the morning. I later realized that this is the typical Spanish eating hours. In the more touristy areas, restaurants tend to conform more to the rest of the world’s eating habits and times. But here in Gracia, we were on Spanish time. The burger place I chose was called La Vespa Burgerbar, had an Italian Vespa theme, Vespa merchandise hanging from the walls. The Vespa is an old, recognizable, Italian motor scooter. I’m not sure what the scooter had to do with burgers but the place was tastefully decorated. And this place was authentically Catalan too. The people in this place spoke exactly no words of English so I had to reach deep down to the days of my middle school Spanish lessons and functionally order and consume a meal. My teachers would be so proud. From my broken Spanish, I could read the description of the “concept” of this restaurant as having an organic burger theme, using meat from only the local Catalan cattle. I ordered una cordoba hambuergesa (I’m going to write this part in Spanish to avoid having to translate the ingredients) con cordero, pimiento del pequillo, queso cabra, cogollos, tomate y cebilla. Sounds tasty, no? And they played some smooth rock in the background. Oasis’s “Wonderwall” played during my meal, a song every 26 year old American (and many other people) knows every lyric to. What’s not to like about this place? The burger was excellent, the ingredients were indeed fresh, and I was content. The woman serving me later returned, said something to me that I assumed meant, “Would you like anything else?” or perhaps, “Are you interested in a dessert?” but I think after the fact was actually, “Are you full?” and when I confidently said no, smiling, I think she was a bit confused and just sort of walked away. I realized my error too late to convince her I wasn’t rude, just bad at Spanish. But anyway the meal was fantastic and I was ready for the cinema.
The film that I came to see was a late showing of an english language documentary called, Searching for Sugarman, a story of a musician called Rodriguez who put out two albums in the US in the 60’s and whose style was similar to Bob Dylan, sort of having an anti-establishment vibe. He flopped in the US but after a copy of the albums made their way to South Africa, he was a huge success, bigger than Elvis or the Rolling Stones. And he never knew about it and how famous he had become. Anyway they try to track him down and one thing leads to another...It was a great film. But the cinema itself was half the fun. The entrance to the tiny theater is hidden deep in Garcia, between small tapas bars, but it was bustling with locals. The theater, no. 4, where my film was showing was pretty small, about a hundred seats sloping down to the screen that took up the entire wall in the front. The seats were parted by an aisle down the middle and were covered in bright pink velvet upholstery. Little lights shown upwards from the floor along either wall. They showed a few previews to other foreign films (well, foreign to me) and they all looked good. I probably could have stayed in that theater, in my plush seat, watching film after film. I love European cinema because the style is so different than the typical Hollywood blockbuster films I’m used to at home. It’s a refreshing change of pace.
But the film finished, everyone exited, and I left for the hostel. I hopped in bed and quickly fell asleep. I had an early start, an early metro ride to the train station, and an early train south to Malaga. I was searching for the sun.
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