Barcelona

A long, long time ago, in February, Laura and I watched "Vicky Christina Barcelona". Like everyone else, we left the theater longing to visit Barcelona. It was admittedly a silly and fleeting romantic desire. However, a couple weeks later I got wind of the Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona. Two impossible bands to see live, My Bloody Valentine AND Aphex Twin, on the first day for 60 euro. Laura and I were sold on this excuse to visit Spain and booked a five day excursion.

It's worth noting that the weather in Manchester in the spring is absolutely horrid. It's still relatively cold and it rains most days. When it rains really hard, it hails. But only for a bit. Then the clouds will clear and the sun will come out and you'll think I should take this opportunity to take a walk. An hour later you're sprinting through a downpour cursing the baby Jesus. Needless to say I was overly excited just to feel Barcelona.

My plane left Manchester on Monday around noon. A girl behind me was playing her ipod unnecessarily loud and I eventually stopped my own ipod. Through my headphones, I recognized what she was playing and it was driving me crazy trying to think of the artist. Groove Armada. Now I wasn't annoyed with her loud ipod, which is hard for me to accept in retrospect. A couple in the row beside me ordered several Stellas and chips to enjoy with their DVD player, which they watched in full volume without headphones. It looked and sounded like MASH. Their son played a PSP. A guy a couple rows in front of me stood up in the isle for about half of the two-hour flight. He had a strange body shape: his chest was like a trunk but his arms and head were proportionately smaller. I'm convinced he was The Tick.

I met up with Laura in the Barcelona airport and we made our way by train to the city centre. We had an ensuite double room at the Mediterranean Hostel. We were told when we got there that the room would be ready in an hour. Being that neither of us had slept much the night before (I am always incredibly restless nights before traveling), we desperately wanted to nap and we told the lady we'd be back in an hour. "So eager to get to your room!" she replied. Laura blushed. The palm of my hand hit my forehead.

We went to eat at a small cafe a few blocks from the hostel. A menu outside showed a sandwich resembling grilled ham and cheese called a "bikini". We sat down and a man came over to take our order. Laura told him that we only speak "Anglais" and he threw up his hands and replied "No! No! No!". Every head in the place turned towards us. "This is going to be interesting," Laura said to me.

Our room was on the 7th floor, or the "attic". It had a great view of the city. We could see Torre Agbar (the egg looking building in the picture) and Temple de La Sagrada Familia from our room. That night we took a walk around the beautiful Gothic district.

The next day was our "Gaudi day". We first saw the Casa Battlo (right), which was designed, with it's broken ceramic tiles, to look like a dragon. It's an astonishing building, but even more so when placed conspicuously on Barcelona's busiest, most commercial street, Passeig de Gracia.

A block away is the Casa Mila (below), or what was referred to as "La Pedrera" or "The Quarry", which is somewhat offensive. The nickname must have been granted to the design of the roof, one of the more creative architectural feats I've witnessed. Each floor of the building was individually designed to structurally hold it's own, like a cake. As a result there are very few straight walls inside and no obtrusive framework, giving the rooms greater freedom of space and window arrangements. The building was redesigned several times for the tenets living there, causing the roof to have an uneven, wavy appearance. Also the chimneys were inspiration for the design of Darth Vader's helmet.

Next we saw the futuristic Temple de La Sagrada Familia (below), which is still under construction and optimistically scheduled to be finished in 2026. The scale and design are like no church I have ever seen. Gaudi spent the last 15 years of his life dedicated to it's design and even lived in the church's crypt. We then took a lengthy walk north to the Parc de Guell (further below), named after Gaudi's patron.






























Much of the park looks like something out of a Dr. Suess book or a dream. Apparently Gaudi once said to Guell, "Sometimes I think we are the only people who likes this architecture." Guell replied, "I don't like your architecture, I respect it." Like alot of artists, Gaudi's work wasn't fully appreciated until the years following his death. In 1926, he was run over by a tram. Because he had little money, ragged clothing and mostly likely bleeding immensely, no cab driver would pick him up. He was eventually taken to a pauper's hospital, refused to be taken to a nicer hospital and died three days later. So it goes.

That night I enjoyed my first steak since I left the states in January, served with a delicious raspberry sauce. Laura and I drank a good bit of sangria, discussed our mutual crush on Tina Fey and debated whether or not I'm a feminist.

The next morning we had our usual croissant and coffee breakfast and explored the Gothic district by day. The massive cathedral was under construction, but did have an awesomely unnecessary garden with geese, turtles and fish. We made our way to a park with a giant Romanesque fountain (under construction), a mammoth statue and a zoo that was sadly too expensive for us. We did visit the Museu de la Xocolata which just made me very hungry.

We changed into swimsuits and took the metro to Barceloneta to hit up the beach. Turns out we didn't really need our swimsuits. As we passed a topless lady building a sandcastle, Laura declared sarcastically "You're welcome." The surprising thing to me was seeing just how casual public nudity is for Europeans. Next to where we had laid down, three topless girls took turns massaging each other and in front of us, Muscly Arms in a banana hammock and his blond topless girlfriend stood drinking beers and laughing. The water, in which I normally spend most of my time at the beach, was entirely too cold to swim. Guys walked around offering tattoos, which seemed strange, but as Laura pointed out, they wouldn't sell them if there wasn't a market for them. It was the complete opposite of the family-friendly Emerald Isle beach where I spend alot of my summers.

That night was the Championship League final between Manchester United and Barcelona. We went to dinner about the time the match started and as we left the restaurant the streets were still and eerily quiet. Assuming Man-U was winning, we walked to the city centre where the game was being played on a giant screen. There was still a large gathering in the square and looking up we noticed the game was down to stoppage time and Barca was up 2-0. Only when time had expired did the crowd erupt. From up on the Heineken building, fireworks exploded and hundreds of people trickled through the streets to join the party. We got celebratory gellato before returning to the hostel where we listened to every car honking and what sounded like cannons being shot off. There'd be a loud explosion and then the sound of glass and ceramics shattering. All of that continued late into the night. It was like a Franklin St. celebration in the middle of a medieval war.

On Thursday Laura and I went to the Museu Nacional D'art de Catalunya. It too was under construction, a prevalent theme to the city. We were disappointed to find that the Magic Fountain (foreground of picture), one of Barcelona's most iconic sites, does not operate during the day. At the entrance to the museum we were granted with fine Spanish guitar and our best view of the city. Inside, the art was impressive and inspired us to create words like "relaxative" (a stronger, more habit-forming chill pill) and "welfare eye" (the only way to describe the extent of my eye's laziness). We also found some nice gardens and the 1996 Olympics grounds.

That night was the amazing and exhausting Primavera Sound music festival, which I will detail fully in the next entry. The next morning, after a couple hour's rest, Laura and I said our goodbyes and I looked for my airline to check in. I asked an employee where Monarch's check-in was and she asked if I was going to Manchester. I said "yes" and she replied "HAHA! You lost!" That may be true, but it wasn't in vain. I think Manchester learned a little something from Barcelona. Since I got back on Friday, it's been unusually warm and sunny.

Here's the (strange) music video for Giulia y los Tellarini's "Barcelona", the song used throughout Woody Allen's film.



Giulia y los Tellarini "Barcelona" (mp3)

p.s. I just found out you can click on any of the pictures in the post for a larger view, you know, in case you wanted to see if there were naked people on the beach.