españa part 2: in shades of grey between city and sea

More rain. But I’m unfazed as I sit in the warm shelter of Le Troquet des Sens (my new favorite café – the one I discovered wednesday), the soulful words of Aretha Franklin resonating sweetly in my ears.

Barcelona: Day 1

My alarm (a tone I’ve come to detest) went off Tuesday morning at the bright-and-early hour of 7:30. I took a shower in what was by far the cleanest hostel bathroom I’ve ever been in (worth far more than 12€ per night), got ready, packed my bag, and set out. Little did I know that nothing is open that early in Spain. I should have figured it out after I hopped onto the nearly-deserted metro and saw only a few tired-looking commuters (a rare phenomenon on any given 8-am metro in France). But already wide awake, I made my way to the Diagonal metro stop, and, walking out of the station, had my first Gaudí sighting.

La Pedrera (also known as the Casa Milà) is an enormous apartment building in the center of the city. With its undulating walls and organic ironwork, it’s like a mirage straight out of a Dalí painting. Unfortunately, the dull, grey weather made it impossible for me to get pictures worthy of doing Barcelona’s – and particularly Gaudí’s – incredible architecture justice, but the experience was monumental all the same. From La Pedrera, my map led me no more than three or four blocks down Passeig de Gracía to another Gaudí piece, Casa Batlló. I’d love to see how this otherworldly edifice interacts with the sun! Covered in luminescent tiles of various shades of blue, teal, and orange, I imagine it can only be described as a dreamlike, polychromatic light-show. Indeed, I would later see it illuminated at night (an amazing spectacle in and of itself); but I can’t help but feel as though Gaudí’s intentions are somehow undermined by this artificial display. Oh well, wanting to see it in the daylight will just give me an excuse (among many) to return to Barcelona in the future.

Following these architectural sightings and nearly two hours into my Day 1 explorations, I determined it was finally appropriate to eat some breakfast, and settled on GrupoAMT, some random restaurant I passed on the sidewalk. Still new to me, the language barrier continued to be kind of freaky. With the realization that I didn’t even know how to say such basic things as “I’d like…” or “What is…?” I resorted to pointing stupidly at the menu, doing my best not to butcher the pronunciation of the ous ferrats amb xoriço (fried eggs with chorizo sausage… worry not, Hispanophiles, this is Catalan and not Spanish) I ordered with a café sin leche (without milk – a request that, if my muteness hadn’t already made completely clear, confirmed my being foreign). Of course, because the waiter had whisked away my menu before I was able to finish ‘ordering’ (does this imply verbal communication?), my huevos (eggs) came con jamón (ham) and not with sausage. Oh well, still a deliciously satisfying breakfast experience for this lover of anything pork, and only a minor linguistic glitch. After gulping down my gigantic coffee (seriously – this thing was big even by Starbucks-inundated American standards), hurriedly calling Liz to see if you’re supposed to tip in Spain, and listening to the Spanish translation of YMCA, I left the restaurant in a kind of caffeine stupor.

(huevos con jamón)

(café sin leche)

[Side note: music has now switched, somewhat randomly, from Aretha to Serge Gainsbourg. This is good stuff.]

This almost out-of-body daze only intensified as I made my way down Las Ramblas, the gigantic pedestrian avenue cutting through downtown Barcelona. Las Ramblas has some weird stuff. Among all of the newspaper kiosks and postcard stands are a random assortment of mobile, collapsible pet ‘shops’ (that’s right, buy a chicken or ferret while you’re out if you happen to feel so inclined), flower markets, and – scariest of all – people dressed up as human statues soliciting euro-cents for their bizarre spectacles. These artists (can they be called that?) are definitely committed, dyed from head to toe in silver- and copper-colored paint; they stand completely still until you drop a coin or two into their tin cans, at which point they’ll adopt a new pose and hold it until they get more money. The most frightening of these street performers was neither a faux statue nor the white-clad angel handing out turquoise marbles to children brave enough to approach her; rather, it was a man who had somehow created the illusion of being an infant in a cradle, wailing like a baby when he wasn’t taking pictures with tourists or asking Spanish women to grace his cheeks with dos besos (two kisses). Needless to say, walking down Las Ramblas was an unsettling and surreal experience, but one that was also an oddly appropriate representation of the city of Barcelona.

Hoping for a momentary return to earth, I decided to turn off of Las Ramblas onto some random side street. I savored the calm of this particular alleyway, listening to the steady sound of rain on the rooftops above me and watching precipitate globules fall to the cobbled ground with a splash. This moment of tranquility was all too fleeting; turning the corner, I ran into the commotion of the Mercat St Josep La Boqueria, an immense covered market positioned smack dab in the city center. There, I weaved through a maze of produce, meat, egg, and cheese stands, eyeing, among other things, the heaps and heaps of beautiful Spanish citrus! Catching sight of a particularly inexpensive (not that anything was terribly costly to begin with) stand, I bought an excessive kilogram of Valencian oranges (for only 0,89€!) and another kilo of local clementines (0,99€). With my backpack now approximately four pounds heavier, I made one more circuit around the market, remarking such contradictions as women in ruffled floral aprons hacking away at slabs of raw meat with frighteningly large cleavers before placing them indifferently onto beds of ice in front of them. Spain sure is something special.

(produce, produce, produce!)

(huevos a-plenty)

(cítrico city)

The afternoon was, as far as jam-packed 2-day tourism goes, pretty relaxing. At first frustrated by the grey weather because I felt like I wasn’t experiencing the “real” Barcelona, I readjusted my attitude and decided to use the weather to my advantage. I abandoned all hopes of getting great shots of the city’s many tourist spots and instead dedicated myself to observing and documenting some of its lesser-acknowledged aspects, and thus headed to the port. I admit this is a pretty popular sight, but unlike the tourists hastily making their way down the promenade to the aquarium and back before rushing to their next destination, I decided to hang around for over an hour in the hopes of gaining a profounder insight into the complexities of this particular part of the city. In addition to the multitude of camera-clad sightseers, I noticed that the port also attracted a number of locals; and I understand its appeal – even on this rainy day. One thing these locals shared in common: they were all alone. There’s something oddly humbling about being caught between city and sea, and Barcelona is unique in partbecause of its position on the Mediterranean. Staring out over the water, back against the roaring city, you experience this strangely comfortable but inevitably transitory moment of self-awareness...this is deep stuff.

Other events from the afternoon and evening include: buying my train ticket to Valencia followed by sitting for half an hour in the train station away from the now pouring rain and people-watching in my continued pursuit of discovering everyday Barcelona; getting lost in some random, narrow-roaded barrio (neighborhood) with lots of graffiti, cranes, and construction; more coffee; standing over trashcans as I peeled oranges, my hands literally dripping with juice and stained a semi-permanent shade of yellow-orange; sitting on a bench on Las Ramblas where I successfully convinced an Algerian girl who said I resembled Clark Kent (one of THREE people in Spain to do so!) that I was French; dinner at Samoa where I got a delicious pizza with ham, goat cheese, and red peppers; La Pedrera and Casa Batlló by night; returning to the hostel, internets, bed.

Sorry, folks. Brevity ain’t my thing. I’ll go ahead and give you guys a break and write about Day 2 in another post. You may thank me.