Spain's Surprises: The detail put into sidewalks with the "embossed" curly lines and leaf patterns and the terrazzo sidewalks and slate plazas. The razors are found at the perfumerie not the pharmacie, and the stamps are found at the tobac not the general stone or pharmacie. Garbage pick up is every night not one weekday, probably because the streets are so full in the day and the amount of garbage produced. Traffic is so patient even when backed up for blocks there is little or no horn beeping. I'm used to building code for wooden houses and fire-bylaws of setbacks from the road and from other houses.

In Barcelona, the old capital of Catalan, we came across less furniture, lighting and clothing design than we'd seen in Paris but given more time we might have come across equal amounts. Naturally Barcelona being coastal had a lot of seafood on the menu although there's some anti-fishery advertizing all over Spain. Here we found a more mixed age population than the retirement south or young mid-Spain and more people who could recognize my English accent and switch to English.

Barcelona could be a 2 month stop by itself. On the Mediterranean in North Spain had the amusement parks and festivals as we saw in other Spanish towns but with a huge amount and variety of activities for the visitor. It was a city with history and money as evidenced by the infrastructure left from the Olympic Games here such as the apartment complex to the left and the Poble Espanyol, an artisan village market "recreated" for the Olympic Games (It was a let-down being just a elaborate "historical" booths for arts/crafts sales but the view of Barcelona at the top of the page was taken from there.)

	In the mid-20's temperatures, we passed some time at Port Vell's market and Mediterranean Aquarium. (It was fun with the tube of aquarium you are conveyed through on a moving sidewalk)
	We also window shopped through design rooms and attended a tapas festival which was great because of the lovely waitress who enthusiastically and creatively explained around my small vocabulary in Spanish all these food words and is pictured on the left.
	The phrase "city block" makes more sense here where they are exactly that, solid blocks of buildings run against each other even if the color, material or age may vary.

	We were among the circle that grew to 4 rows deep for Charlie Chaplin and kids climbed the street lights to watch him. We watched the imitator interact with the shy kids in the crowd getting them to come forward and pick up his cane for him for a treat and run back to cling to mommy to crowd's chuckles. Probable a recurring nightmare for the kid in the future but adorable in fearing what everyone else knew was a safe performance. Charlie hooked with his cane a lady who left the circle to move on and got a kiss from him for her release. Charlie Chaplin danced to the bass-speaker-car then feather dusted its window glass and put out his hand for money like a squeegee kid.  He dressed up one of the kids like a miniature him painting on a moustache and had him take his mimed orders.
	A metropolitan city, the street performers were from Guatemala and all the identically stocked souvenir shops i.e. Barcelona T-shirt shops, seemed run by Sri Lankans and other Southeast Indians who could serve you in at least Spanish, English and German.
	Street performers included a few Flamenco dancers who suggested songs to one another by clapping the start of the rhythm.

Further down the street people 4 or 5 rows deep watched a pair who moved in slow motion through a scene one step per donation in the hat. Further down we saw the homeless man again who had set out a sheet and things he had recovered from trash to sell for 1 Euro each. In another neighbourhood more Flamenco dancers and two accordion players setting out their hat. Jeans are more rare than men with long hair and tight shirts. More rare than people with crutches and limps. We wonder if there was no polio vaccine here for some years of Franco's control.

The province that Barcelona is in is Catalan which was a discrete empire and Language-wise signs and flyers printed in Spanish and Catalan's tongue unlike in other parts of Spain. The Separatist movement was visible here in banners hung from windows, graffiti and the respect for equal and distinct status given to the Catalans in writing. It was architectural language that brought us here though; The main draw for us was Gaudi.

2002, Pearl and Brian Pirie      | Trip Main Page |