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: