Not Just Another Church...

Barcelona, Spain

November 2, 2007
N41°23.190
E002°10.480

Antoni Gaudi, Spain’s most famous and eccentric architect left his mark in Barcelona with his unique style. There are various houses and parks designed by Gaudi throughout the city, but the most famous and impressive is Sagrada Familia; Gaudi’s last piece of work.

Marc has heard of Sagrada Familia over the years from me, he has seen the pictures, and even looked down on the church that defines the Barcelona skyline from Park Guell, another Gaudi achievement. However, he wasn’t impressed with the massive construction project until he was in the shadows of the church, gazing upwards.

The church has a completely different appearance than when I saw it ten years ago, but it still has the same avant-garde feel. It definitely is not cast from the mold of catholic churches found in Italy and Eastern Europe. Massive spires that look like molten candles, columns topped with fruit such as grapes, giant statues depicting different biblical scenes, and little gold men sitting on the ledges between the spires seemingly looking down and observing the ongoing project, all make Sagrada the most unconventional church we’ve seen during our travels.

The church has been under construction for the past 100 years and has at least 20 more years of construction until it’s finally completed. Cranes and scaffolding litter the area reminding guests it is indeed a construction site; at the same time reminding you that you’re witnessing history. Sagrada de la Familia, like many great architectural achievements, will ultimately take centuries to complete, but it will be a work of art that will be appreciated many generations to come.

Other Notes: Marc passed a kidney stone today. Luckily, it didn’t cause him too much pain, only some slight discomfort over the past few nights.

Out All Night...

Barcelona, Spain

October 31, 2007
N41°23.190
E002°10.480

Yes, it’s Halloween night, but Spain doesn’t really celebrate Halloween like we do in the States. However, the streets were still full of people, not because of Halloween, but because November 1st is a holiday—The Day of the Dead.

There were a few people running around in costumes, mostly in ex-pat bars like Wall Street, where the price of drinks fluctuates based upon what’s being purchased. For example, if you buy six pints of Amstel you’ll instantly see the price of Amstel rise and the price of other beers drop on the electronic ticker-boards hanging above the bar. It’s all about supply and demand! Of course, every so often, someone will order a large round of drinks and cause a crash in the market; yellow lights begin to flash, bells ring, sirens sound and the price of all drinks fall nearly 50%. This causes chaos and there’s an immediate rush to the bar, everyone trying to get in on the crash and buy a cheap round before the prices stabilize. Buy low and drink cheap!

Our evening started at a tapas bar and quickly slipped away. We met my friend Ana and her boyfriend Kyler (an ex-pat from Texas living in BCN). It was great to see Ana again after so many years. The last time we talked was at least five years ago, when we randomly saw each other on a street in San Francisco. We promised to get together, but it just never happened. We made up for lost time and talked all night, literally. Before we knew it, it was 5:30 AM and we said good-night (or good-morning) and strolled back to our apartment.

The streets were far from deserted at 5:30 in the morning. It seemed like everyone was just headed home from parties or just hanging out in the streets. Marc and I finally walked in the door of our apartment at 6:15 AM, looked at each other and just laughed. Neither of us could even remember the last time we stayed out until 6:00 AM; maybe in college, but definitely not in the past 15 years! Barcelona does crazy things to people.

The energy and mellow people make the city easy to fall in love with. We realized we could easily call Barcelona home, at least for part of the year. Especially if we had wonderful people like Ana and Kyler to hang out with.

Barcelona, Spain

October 29, 2007
N41°23.190
E002°10.480

Our neighborhood has great little Tapas Bars, loaded with all of the Spanish classics such as albondigas, pulpitos en salsa, patas bravas and croquettes. Some of the places are fancy with bottled wine; others serve house wine or sangria directly from the carafe or pitcher. We tend to frequent the places where you can get wine by the carafe. The tapas bars are definitely a highlight of Barcelona, well, that and seeing some familiar faces for the first time since we left Dad and Pat in Rome.

Marc has a former co-worker who currently resides in Barcelona. He is originally from Spain and after the dot-com crash left him out of a job he moved backed to his home land. It has been three years since David Castillo left the Bay Area and headed back to Mallorca, Spain. He has since bounced around between Madrid, Mallorca and Barcelona and we were lucky enough to catch up with him today.

I also have an old college friend, Ana Esteban, who recently moved back to Spain after living between Sacramento, Davis and the Bay Area for several years. She even lived in Santiago, Chile for a period of time until last year. She is also back in Barcelona after several years living abroad and starting up a new spa (that was recently mentioned in Vogue Espana—and it hasn’t even opened yet!). We plan on catching up with Ana in the next few days.

The irony of the whole story is Ana’s brother, Jordie, who also lived in San Francisco in the early 2000’s played soccer with David and they know each other quite well. It makes you realize how small the world really is—especially when you’re 7,000 miles from home and familiar faces help you feel like you’re just around the corner.

Hopefully we’ll get the whole gang together for some tapas during our stay in Barcelona.

Other notes: Today is the official nine month milestone for our trip. It’s crazy to think we’ve been traveling together, and putting up with each other, for nine whole months… but we have. We still have three months to go, but we know those months will fly by quickly—just like the last nine.

Park Day in BCN...

Barcelona, Spain

October 28, 2007
N41°23.190
E002°10.480

Barcelona is… well, BCN is easy. The metro system is efficient; taking you everywhere you can’t or simply don’t want to walk. The alleys are densely lined with restaurants and bars serving local and international cuisine. It seems you’re never more than 50 meters from ice-cold Estrella and a bocadillo.

In an effort to really get to “know” BCN we decided to hang-out and get the flavor of each neighborhood for at least three consecutive nights. A sort of BCN barrio taste test; we will ultimately decide which ‘hood we like best at the end of our stay.

Last night we strolled through the hip and trendy Born neighborhood. We ambled through the streets filled with people; pouring out of restaurants and bars, sitting on benches drinking beer, enjoying pizza or kebabs from one of the many take-away joints. We hit three different bars, enjoying a beer and second-hand smoke in each one. We just scratched the surface of Born, but hey… we have two more nights before we move on to another neighborhood.

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We got home early, 1:00 AM. Woke up at 10:00 AM, then we realized it was really 9:00 AM since Daylight Savings ended today (spring forward… fall back) so we stayed in bed for another hour. We decided to avoid the large tourist areas on the weekend, saving them for the week when tourist traffic will hopefully be less. Marc made coffee while I cooked-up some eggs; it’s nice to have a kitchen, and then we headed out the door. We jumped on the metro with a plan to visit the parks in the city designed by Gaudi, Park Guell and Park Ciutadella.

Park Guell was teeming with tourists. It seemed to be a place that was on everyone’s check-list of “must-see” BCN attractions. The fall sun was warm and occasionally a cool breeze would pass; reminding me of Indian summer in San Francisco. We spent an hour walking the trails and climbing to the summit of the park overlooking the city. However, the hazy skies didn’t help the already non-descript BCN skyline and we strolled back down the trail and made our way across the city to Park Ciutadella.

Ciutadella didn’t seem to be on the “must-see” list. We found a park bench in the shade and watched. A wedding party exiting from the park church, balloons swinging from tree branches, children singing, screaming and crying as they celebrated birthdays, people napping and lounging on grassy knolls, the familiar squawk of parrots overhead, bright sun bleeding through the remaining leaves of sycamore trees, a slight chill in the air.

This was the park we wanted to find. The best part, it’s very close to our apartment and a great place to take a picnic. We’ll definitely be back for another visit.