March 31
Five very short hours of sleep and we were off to our 0830 rendezvous with the Nasrid Palacio in the Alhambra, Granada. Rick Steve’s guidebook said be there an hour early and I’m glad we were. It was a lovely walk up through the park, with dawn light and birdsong, to the main gate. But then it was very confusing to us and the multitude of Italian, French, German, and Spanish gente as to which of the 4 or 5 lines to stand in. We raced back and forth based on misinformation from numerous helpful workers.


Finally inside – the palacio was quite impressive, with intricately carved stone covering vast area of wall, ceilings of carved wood and stone, tile work with beautiful geometric designs. But it was so cold we were literally shaking and after a couple of hours were grateful to find a little outdoor café. I drank 2 cortados and just let the sun sink in.








Luckily I didn’t regurgitate the coffee upon seeing this ball of frogs!! Yuck!!!




Later we strolled up to the Plaça San Miguel del Bajo. We sat outside enjoying tapas and muscatel and delighted in watching this pink-haired little girl zip around on her scooter. Once she fell over backward and her first move was to straighten her wig. This group of scruffy hippy musicians appeared from around the church, set up their instruments, and played fabulous music until the sun went down.

Not sure if anyone is still reading this, but I'm going to post a few entries I wrote while still in Barcelona but didn't get posted. Just for the record!

April 24 – Súria to Mont Blanc to Tarragona
I am very planktonic here – a strong contrast to my more salmonid nature. Drifting under the influence of others puts an element of surprise into life – I wonder if this is how children often feel. I knew we were going to Tarragona, a coastal town, for the weekend, and had an inkling from my internet weather connection that the weather would be good. Other than that . . .

So, when we left Súria it was hot and I wore a sundress and chakos. I fell asleep in the hot car, and awakened in a town streaming with people and children dressed in medieval costumes. Unexpected. We were in Mont Blanc, and made our way through the crowds to a medieval Roman castle. We spent the next 7 hours or so, until after midnight, wandering the narrow, shop- and vendor-lined lanes, tasting wine, cheeses, pastries, and buying handicrafts. I cannot emphasize enough how much more enjoyable medieval fairs are when they occur in actual medieval walled cities! Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I am pasting in some pictures I found on the web.





I’ll leave you with my best memory – around midnight the lanes were clearing of people, although we encountered some young lovers, with the boy upon bended knee in front of a girl who looked like Juliet in the 1970s Romeo & Juliet movie. Zafrelli? I loved that movie. Anyway, as we wandered, seemingly endlessly as I had no clue where we were going or for what purpose (nowhere and none, I concluded), my eyes followed the crenellated wall of the castle, backed by a soft sky with a three-quarter moon darting in and out of the crenellations. We stopped by an outdoor restaurant, where people where drinking out of terra cotta pots and ripping apart smoky ribs with their teeth, and I took advantage of a roaring fire to warm up my bare arms and legs. This is where being planktonic got me . . .

Home for 3 weeks now, trying to hold onto some of the tranquillity of Barcelona.
These pictures help.

The view when I hung out my weekly laundry -- if you look closely you can see the Mediterranean beyond that pointed tower.



The site of my morning cortado and croissant con chocolate


Kira and Elena walking home on La Ramble Poble Nou after our last late night meal. And the spectacular National Art Museum of Catalunya, and a 500 year old (or so) icon. Look closely at this one and repent!

April 21, 2010

I have hilariously walked in circles in this city, but today I walked in spirals! Spirals that wound up and up and up. My mission was to reach the glowing golden spired building that beckons me every night. I felt pretty confident I could find it by wandering; after all, it is up on a hill so can’t get lost behind anything. There it is in the distance.


What I didn’t realize is that there were three significant hills between it and me. This sounds dumb, as one wonders why I couldn’t see these hills, but the surprising valleys between ridges unfolded as I ambled. Up. I swear I walked the equivalent of about 6 Queen Annes. And 15 literal kilometers. The ironic thing, in this city where stores stay open (once it reopens after closing down at 2:00 p.m.) until 9 or 10 p.m., is that when I finally, finally reached the funicular that would take me up the final slope, it was CLOSED! Razafrazarats.



But the walk back down took me by more beautiful Barcelona buildings and interesting shops. Five hours later I made it home and immediately became horizontal. Check out these amazing posters by Angele Etoundi Essamba that were along La Rambla . . .






My last few days here . . . I am eating everything I love every day, as much as possible, and walking every neighborhood I like and those I haven’t yet explored, and revisiting all my favorite libraries for a last few days of quiet work before tasks erupt out of my worklife as explosively as the ash from the unpronounceable/unspellable Icelandic volcano. Anyway, I am reluctant to leave. I understand why Kira never wants to come home.

This is the stairway in one of my favorite libraries, Casa Asia.




And a fun statue in a nearby park:

Everyone smokes in Catalunya!!


April 22
Having finally made up my mind to buy this very cute dress in a little shop called Tomate, I was trying to find my way through the narrow lanes of the Barri Gotic. Came across a crowd in the plaça in front of the catedral – so I hung around, even got a nearly front row place to stand directly in front of the cathedral entrance. Lots of small Mercedes, BMW, Audi sedans in dark blue, and drivers in black suits and secret-service types and guardia civil and policia and army types.


A few antigua-type sentries in red suits and plumed hats, and 2 guys in funny looking suits with lots of braid and buttons. Saw some elegant, black-garbed folks go into the cathedral, and the crowd tranquilly (I love the word “tranquillo” which people use a lot here) clapped for them. Others in lots of black leather straggled in . . . and for the 1.5 hours I stood there an occasional person came out, always in colored clothes. Funny how they looked all frumpy compared to those in black who moved gracefully in small clusters. Turned out this was the funeral of the man who was director of the Olympics (maybe in Spain – instrumental in bring the Olympics to Barcelona before). Some controversy because he was Catalan but also a “Franco-ista.” The president of Catalonia was there, and the mayor of Barcelona and other politicians plus the entire royal family. I got a lot of impressed comments from Elena, Cristina, Esther, and Ana later that I saw the king and queen and the 2 Infantas (daughters of the king) and the princess (wife of the prince). The crowd applauded especially the Queen and the tall Infanta.



Then some people in the crowd behind me began yelling anti-King sentiments, and 3 very angry looking men rushed up to the barriers in front of me and wanted to get through but couldn’t so they ran back and forth looking mad and then stopped and used their iphones to take pictures. I was a bit nervous being between the 2 groups!

Eventually bought the dress – now I need to quit eating so much so it continues to fit.

A few favorite places:
This is the library close to my piso, where I worked most days.


And the beach across the street from the piso, where I walked every morning: