The Rest of the Best of Barcelona

(note: there are so many photos I couldn’t get to load for the past 6 days I got tired of it all. To add them later. I left Barcelona on the 30th. Just sayin. WiFi no bueno.)

Outside of Gaudi, Barcelona really doesn’t offer much more than tapas, and paella, and mojitos, and caipirinhas, and Gothic architecture, and Picasso, and sweeping views, and something called the Pickle that more than likely goes by an alternate name.

We spent most of our Barcelona time pounding the streets with Jaume (who is 70ish, I now understand,) meandering our way through plazas and pathways, with all of the city’s laundry swaying in the breeze.

From every balcony hang shirts, pants and doily droops. By the looks of most the women here, they do little to hide their undergarments while they’re wearing them, so why not let ’em fly whilst not wearing them. It must have been laundry day for a majority of women, seeing as nary a bra could be seen.

Jaume loves his city, and how could he not when it’s a walking, naked runway. Without Jaume, there are things we’d never know about. Like the Giagantes— part of the local heritage and festivals (as the plaque stated,”their distinguishing characteristic is their size.” Thanks, Captain Obvious…) and the bull fighting mall. We never would have come upon the tiny Roman era Synagogue tucked in the middle of the city. As if a stand-up comedian was lying in wait, in walks a Protestant, a Catholic, and a Jew. Sweating like stuck pigs after a couple hours of our foot tour, what we all have in common is a pure desire to grab the seats closest to the fan. That happened to be pretty much every seat, because when this Synagogue was built, it wasn’t allowed to be any larger than the smallest church in the city. Needless to say, it felt more like the principal’s office than a place of worship. But they seemed to make do with their resources.

(Jew not pictured.)

From the smallest place of worship to the most famous: Barcelona Cathedral. (“Most famous” can likely be contested. In our group, I didn’t know Sagrada Familia existed and Margaret knew nothing of the Gothic Cathedral. Molly knew about both, not sure about Mike, so Molly takes the kitty on this one until an argument ensues after this posts.) Its official name is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. The Cathedral sits hunkered in the middle of the Gothic Quarter (go figure.) Upon entering the cathedral, you can’t help but hear ominous organ music in your head and become immediately convinced that this is where Quasimodo goes on holiday. It took 150 years to complete. In the late 1300s/early 1400s. When they didn’t have massive cranes and hydraulics. In the late 1800s, work was done to complete the facade (in Neo-Gothic) and central tower, which was finished in 1913. Here’s what I’m sayin’…If that Gaudi place doesn’t get the last 30% done in 8 years… they’ll have to answer to Saint Eulalia. I hear based upon her full throttle martyrdom, she can talk a little smack. Refusing to recant her Christianity during the persecutions, Eulalia suffered 13 tortures (she was 13 years of age — I’m sure they thought that was clever) including putting her in a barrel with glass stuck into it and rolling it down a street. Yeah. Don’t ever bitch about a paper cut again. Since that didn’t kill her, they went ahead with the old standby: crucifixion. And just to make sure they got the job done, decapitation. What was that you were saying? It’s too uncomfortable to voice your opinion? Sure. OK.

The famed gargoyles put to shame Gaudi’s bunches of grapes and a pile of oranges. Fruit just doesn’t strike fear into evil demons like gargoyles do. Back in the cloister, there are 13 geese kept at all times….Eulalia’s age, remember? They’re an angry bunch — honking and spitting like delegates at a (insert your political party here) National Convention. One can only assume in defense of Saint Eulalia. I told this one I ate his cousin in China. He was none too pleased. As we came around the other side of the cloister, we learned they were simply hungry. They went goose-shit crazy when the guy came out with a bag of lettuce. It left me wistful, wishing I could ever be that excited about a salad.

(That’s Jaume. The dude. Not the duck.) As we passed back through the plaza in front, we dodged angry looks from the street performers and vendors who despise having their photo taken without payment. I hid behind a tree to capture the bubble man. Rose lady glared at me with a Catalonian curse on her lips, so I zoomed in from across the square.

Molly and I set out on our own to check out the famed concert hall, Palau de la Musica Catalana. A place not of Gothic or Gaudi but still of the modernist movement (early 1900s.) Astounding anyway you look at it. Now, I can’t manage to have my clothes in any fewer than 3 rooms in my house, yet they crammed a 2200 seat auditorium and stage in the middle of a narrow passageway of a old/new city (old/new because Napoleon burned it, stuff was torn down, and built back up in the late 1800s. There wasn’t an inch that wasn’t elaborately decorated — less like the Griswolds’ at Christmastime and more like Martha Stewart (but better. And without the jail time.) There was enough stained glass that it’s illuminated during daylight hours entirely by natural light. Doric columns. (these aren’t necessarily Doric but they were too gorgeous to leave out.) Pegasus flanking the balcony. Busts of great composers. The 18 muses on the wall each of different ethnicity (18 in Catalan v. 9 in Greek.) Freddy Mercury performed “Barcelona” with Montserrat Caballe (look it up. It’s amaze-balls.) And the grand centerpiece: the inverted domed skylight. They call it the glow worm. It glows, sort of. But there’s nothing remotely wormy about it.

Moving on. Anywhere you look, there is some art installation of sorts (permanent and otherwise) or just a building someone decided to pretty up a bit. On one corner, we saw one building with etched characters and on the next, an interesting display of googly eyes or chlamydia spores. Not sure, so we didn’t touch it. The entire city is in mosaic.

It’s no wonder Picasso’s style is what it is. He didn’t invent cubism as much as it was probably what he thought was normal.

Overall, I knew far less than I thought about the city. Things I didn’t know but do now:

– Barcelona has its own Arc de Triomf – but it was built for the World’s Fair, so they didn’t bother to spell it right. (Plus this abandoned green house)
– There are parrots here.
– And other birds that looks like Scuttle.
– I have no fear of an angry mob protesting, but a flower vendor terrifies me.
– All the street corners are not corners, but the corners are cut off for greater visibility and basic awesomeness.
– I’m not meant to see any Picasso while in Spain. The museum was closed in 1987 for that Labor Day Holiday. This time? The workers were on strike — apparently too much laboring. So it was closed. Again. We could have seen Picasso’s ‘kitchen’ but that’s like going all the way to the Vatican only to see the Pope’s underwear drawer.