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Other Life in Barcelona

January 26, 2002

Dear Friends and Family,

OK, so we saw a couple of modern buildings and some works by famous and infamous modern artists. What else stands out after five days in Barcelona? It's a mixed bag. Barcelona is a very big city with crowds, noise, museums, crime, color and a liveliness that pleasant little towns just don't have. We experienced a bit of everything.

For picture taking, nothing is as sure a piece of color as an open market and Barcelona's is as colorful as any. The mushrooms and the crustacians were particularly varied. One morning we went to the market for breakfast coffee and the guy next to us started singing opera. Of course he drew a crowd and some of the people seemed like real fans, including the TV crew shooting video. Music, mussels and mushrooms, this place had it all.

Speaking of eating, Spain is difficult. There seems to be some sort of meal or snack due every couple of hours. Coffee and rolls early at 9:00. Sandwiches at 11:00. Full lunch at 3:00 or so. Tapas (elaborate Spanish snacks) about 5:00 or 6:00 and dinner at 8:00 or 9:00. We never managed to do more than two or three in any one day. I think my favorite lunch was at a restaurant called "Four Cats" . Picasso and his buddies ate here too. Here and elsewhere we concentrated on seafood and never went wrong.

In between eating and required museums, we went to some optional attractions. We took an elevator up a tall monument to Christopher Columbus. It seems everyone claims old Chris for his own and he did call Barcelona his homeport for a good part of his career. Of course, it was the subsequent draining of American gold and silver that would pay for the glory years of the Iberian Peninsula, so he probably does deserve a few monuments in the area.

Next to the Columbus monument, a huge old shipyard houses a Maritime Museum. The museum covers Barcelona's maritime legacy from ancient Roman rowed galleys through the American treasure ships built in the shipyard up though the current evolution of fishing village life. It was a good museum but cold and damp and I'm afraid the biggest memory I'll have is of a head cold I caught there. Knock on wood. We've been remarkably sickness-free on this trip so we really can't complain about a cold once in awhile.

One of my other favorite museums was the Contemporary Art Museum. This modern structure was artfully hidden inside the old courtyard of the school. Inside, we were treated to an extensive display of "stairs" and the various and sundry ways they have been built and used. For an engineer, this was fun. There was even a display explaining why some of the great staircases of famous palaces would never meet today's standards. Maybe that's why all the old buildings are being restored; equivalent grandeur is now against EU and Spanish laws.

No city stop is complete without church visits. Sagrada Familia doesn't count because it's a much more architectural monument than a church. But Barcelona does have a wonderful 14th Century cathedral. Inside there is the normal collection of grand and glorious altars, but I was particularly impressed with two wooden coffins on the wall. The sign said these were the "sepulchres of the Counts of Barcelona, Ramon Berenguer I and his wife Almodis, founders of the second Romanesque Cathedral (1058)". I guess they've been hanging around there since the place was built.

Speaking of hanging around, that's what Marianne and I do a lot. We visited a local yacht harbor and wondered if the owners were happy. We wandered around the very ornate but empty train station. Where was everyone? Later, we walked through the Arc d Triumph and I wondered if Americans would ever build arcs to celebrate victory in Afghanistan or Kuwait or Korea or Viet Nam or Europe or anywhere else. Just not our thing, I think.

Oh, the crime thing. We left the Miro museum just as the sun was going down. The nearby taxi stand was empty and, after a wait of five or ten minutes, we decided to walk down the hill to find a subway, since by now we were veterans on the Barcelona subway. We whistled in the dark, telling each other that this is exactly how tourists get in trouble: deserted parks, dark, unfamiliar areas, carrying camera bags. But, not to worry, it turned out to be an OK ten-minute walk and, not far from the bottom of the path, we spotted a subway entrance with lots of commuters pouring in and out. Home safe. Almost. Entering the underground station, a young man came up to me with the obvious intention of distracting me while his buddy ripped off the camera bag hanging over my shoulder. Veteran traveler and paranoid that I am, I immediately spun around, bonked the accomplice with my bag and yelled in loud and clear English, "Get the f--- out of here." Which they did. They must have been college kids studying foreign languages.

So, there you have it. For Barcelona fun, we went to markets, rode elevators, looked at stairs, caught a cold, spotted trains, thought about victory and bonkked a pickpocket, thus ruining a $600 zoom lens. Who says travel isn't special?

Take care and watch your back.

John and Marianne

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