Barcelona Flashback

This post was written back in winter of 2015. I was on a study abroad trip with three buddies and we were on a two week journey through Iberia: Barcelona, Valencia, Seville and Lisbon. This is the first leg, to the Catalonian capital. Do enjoy any naivete that shines through! We all live and learn.

Third Time Lucky to Barcelona 

So apparently I’ve started a trend of heading to Catalonia every three or four years, and quite frankly it’s not the worst trend I’ve ever started. (I don’t think I’ve started very many trends though.) First off, the city is every bit as magical and fun as I remembered, but with a slightly matured perspective (very slightly) I appreciate it a bit more. [I went when I was a few moons younger.]

It was really cool going with Ms. Mack last time, but I missed out on much of the art history part just for a lack of real understanding. I think the only things I understood were “Gaudi” and “that was cool.”

This time around the city just made much more sense having taken an art history class and studying up a bit on the architecture and the history of the city a bit more. I think first and foremost I learned to research cities before I go.

Although I like going in fresh to a place, I infinitely enjoy knowing about a place thoroughly instead of learning there. You get much more of the finer details and don’t have to worry about learning the basics there. Understanding the history of a city adds to understanding a place much more, and by this I’m using the most basic clichés of knowing where you come from to know where you’re going yada yada yada….

Beaches and Bars

Anyways, we got to the city late at night on Friday, grabbed a quick snack (for me: leftover Parisian baguette and an apple, and water) and headed downtown, to the Mediterranean, to go out.

We went to this place called Opium, which was just straight up the largest club I’ve ever seen.

On the beach, up above there’s a whole street of shops and bars and clubs and such, and down below right on the sand a lot of the clubs open up right to the water and have speakers out on the beach. Opium was easily the largest and loudest in the place on the beach.

There was a whole bunch of rooms separated by small walls and steps, a huge dancefloor, a huge bar, a long spot on the beach with glass walls, and it opened right out to the Mediterranean. As a nerd, I thought the coolest part was the light fixtures on the dancefloor which looked like a warped candelabra with twisted, melted candles, obviously a la Dali. Just a nice little touch.

All in all, the city offers a million reminders about the surrealist touch of Dali, Gaudi and Picasso on a minutely basis, and this was just one of the ways. It’s as if Tim Burton and Dr. Seuss collaborated to make a city. It turned out great.

Another cool part about walking around was just how much of it all I remembered. Obviously I recall walking down Las Ramblas, but I remember shops I went in, restaurants I ate at, squares I sat in. It’s all new again, and yet still fresh in my mind.

When I went to Barcelona the second time I was somewhat upset that I had already been there, and when planning this trip I really didn’t want to go a third time, but I’m definitely glad I went for two reasons. One, I didn’t actually go out into the city with freedom and all that that entails. Two, I realize that you get so much more out of repeated visits to a city or a place. I went to the Louvre several times. I went to Notre Dame and Musee d’Orsay and Invalides twice. I think monuments like those all deserve a second glance as you will inevitably miss things on the first go, or you may have a new perspective.

Food and Weather

One of my favorite parts of Europe: the ubiquitous kebab shops. Surely this is a factor of the proximity to North Africa and is probably similar to the reason there are so many Mexican restaurants in the States. But in general they are incredibly delicious, cheap and convenient. Barcelona was no different, and there’s was particularly dirt cheap.

One of the more upsetting parts of the trip was the bab in Lisbon. As my last dinner in the Europe I really wanted something cheap, delicious and unique so I figured one last bab couldn’t hurt no one. Portugal is not a specialist in quality bab (or at least the one we went to.) The had subpar meat, subpar veggies, subpar bread, subpar fries and subpar quantity. Granted for what it was, it really wasn’t terrible, but my God Parisian babs are incredible. Opening a solid shop in the States probably wouldn’t be the worst decision if you found a good location. That or crepes.

A bummer on the trip was that it was rather rainy and cold for a good part of it. For our two weeks supposedly there was a cold front and then it hit 25C on either end of our trip. In all fairness it was colder in the States at that point in time than any point I was in Paris so I can’t complain, but still, relatively it was a bit annoying. I guess something had to go wrong on the trip. I just didn’t pack for rain and most of my clothes got grossly wet (and really fucking smelly. Like vinegar and BO. Whoops.) Especially after the El Saler Campground. Anyways, lesson learned: you should pack for more scenarios other than 75 and sunny.

Illegal Salesmen

All over Europe you see these dudes selling what can almost certainly only be illegal goods. They put them on white blankets with strings and when the cops come a-running, the “salesmen” follow suit. These guys are everywhere, in parks, on beaches, on streets. And they always sell sunglasses or shoes or purses.

Along the water this one time, we heard some shouting and then saw a thong of 20 or so of them bolt sacks over the shoulder running to an alley. It was bizarre, but it confirmed what I thought: that they were selling illegal shit and needed a quick way to run the hell away. I saw another variant of the blanket: the umbrella. What a novel idea.

They would literal the top of an umbrella with smaller jewelry and such. See the cops? Simply fold the umbrella and dart off. Another really annoying thing were the people selling shit all over the entrances to monuments. In every damn country. Selfie sticks. Bracelets. Pandora jewelry. Hats. Tourist t-shirts. Anything cheesy they could think of they sold. I guess it happens everywhere I’m sure, but really I’ve yet to see it stateside. No I don’t want you damn selfie stick or the one your buddy tried to sell me a block ago. Christ.

Sagrada Familia

Seeing the Gothic Quarter again, it was definitely different than I remember. Being able to walk around freely as you chose definitely changes how you interpret a city. It was a much looser defined area than I remember as it bleed into Las Ramblas to the south, and the Baroque section to the north. Much of the buildings certainly followed the Gothic style, but there was obviously variation, and I saw some cool shops here.

There were a couple clothing boutiques and stores selling paintings and sculptures and such. Given more money and a means of transportation and there were more than a few paintings I could’ve/would’ve pulled the trigger on. The main building (I guess you could say) of the Gothic Quarter was probably the Cathedral. It was certainly impressive but we passed on the pricy entrance fee in favor of seeing Sagrada Familia later on. It had a few spires, one of which had a spire pointing north off on a diagonal, which is odd for a church, because they usually align on the east-west axis, so they face the rising sun. Because of the angle of the coast, the city is generally not on a convenient axis at all, and the church doesn’t really seem oriented toward anything much.

We moved on, on a fairly long march to Sagrada Familia, “just to see the facade” but then we obviously went inside. The walk there was pretty nice, but I have to say I’m mixed on how they designed their streets. A lot of the intersections away from the main drags are octagons. So the streets cross and the open up at 45° angles to accommodate some parking at the expense of real estate.

It’s also at the expense of walking straight as a pedestrian, meaning you have to walk in zigzags the whole time, or just cross traffic at inconvenient times. It was the only city I’d ever seen this in, until Valencia. (Later on that though.)

[That being said, nowadays I think the layout of the streets is great. I read this article years later, and my mind has been changed. Time seems to do that to people.]

Seeing the church from afar for a third time was crazy, and I knew I had to go in this time. I’d seen the front the first time, walked all around it the second time. Now it was time to actually go in the thing. The architecture is nutty and doesn’t really feel like a church at times, but more like a Willy Wonky design. It’s got spires than climb to the heavens, and it needs 10 more at this point, in the next ten years, supposedly.

Not sure that’s going to happen. There’s supposed to be 12 towers for the disciples, 4 for the evangelists, a taller one for Mary, and the tallest one reserved for Jesus. It’s only got 8, so they should probably make a move on it.

Gaudi’s style is characterized by trying to fix the “imperfect” style that is Gothic architecture, as it relies on flying buttresses and keystones. As Gaudi was as much a mathematical genius as he was an artist, he contrived a style that used twisted and bent arches that eliminated a need for buttresses and allowed a hole for natural light where keystones used to be. He did all this while employing a naturalism.

Entering the church you can certainly see this as the columns all branch out resembling trees spreading out and smoothly working themselves into the ceiling. The basilica is unlike anything I can describe properly to be honest. The stained glass windows actually reminded me of some of the ones in Notre Dame in Reims, and made a gradient, generally from red to blue with yellow in between behind the apse and altar. The building was showered in natural light, looking like God’s rays shining through a forest canopy.

As we left the church, a storm was definitely brewing. In the hour that we entered the church, the sky moved from a picturesque blue sky with fluffy clouds to an angry, darkening gray growing hastily overhead. Eventually the heavens opened up and dumped their waters on us, forcing us to sprint to the hostel.

Plaza Catalunya Hostel

On that note, our hostel (Plaza Catalunya Hostel) was actually a really nice and friendly place, as were most of ours. At almost all of them, the owners were more than willing to point out all the stops on their maps, make accommodations, and just help us out (or sell Kevin weed.) That night I decided to eat damn cheap again, even though we returned to our much frequented Lateral for tapas.

I decided to get smoked salmon with cream cheese and caramelized apples which was delicious and somehow filling. Afterward we walked to a club called Razmatazz. Kevin took us on a route that took an hour to get there, and only 30 minutes for normal people to walk back. It was 20 euros to enter so me and Matty passed, but I guess it was a cool place. There were 7 rooms/ floors with different vibes and DJs in each, which I guess would’ve been cool for approximately way less money.

The next morning Matty and I decided to go for our seemingly routine stadium run. It was fairly standard to Camp Nou mostly. We generally get really, really close to the desired location and then decide to ask for directions. In this case we got literally two- or three hundred yards from the stadium when Matty asked a random country club guard, “Donde esta el estadio Bernabeu?” to which he gave a fairly unhappy face and response.

Parks of Barcelona

We showered and headed to Park Guell. Back around 1900 there was a bit of a real estate problem in the city, and the wealthy all moved to the north side of the city, and city officials wanted a nice park. Naturally they brought the city’s iconic architect to design it. Some of the structures were interesting, it was a nice view of the Mediterranean and was generally a nice place to be. But again, it was certainly not worth the 8 euro entry fee. You could pay zero dollars and walk all around the larger park and see everything there is to see from literally feet away. Or pay and be in it. I guess it was worth the experience and I did it. Yay! (I hope I look at this years on and laugh at my stinginess.) [My oh my, I’m clairvoyant.]

After that, I really wanted to go to the (I forget the name, maybe I’ll edit this someday when I have internet and I’m not on a plane) mountain/park on the south side of the city on the water. It has a castle/fort thing and the Olympic stadium, and is supposed to be quite pretty. I passed up that opportunity to go solo, and went with the boys on a subway to the beach. Generally I think it’s better to be in the group, so eh, I did that.

I was hoping to find this spot we went to the last time we were in the city, but alas I couldn’t find it. I remember a hill with restaurants and shops overlooking the beach and there was this large ridge dividing the nude beach and the regular one. There were some rocks the boys jumped off and I couldn’t swim, so I waded through urchin infested shallow water to not drown. I remember this clearly from 2011 but couldn’t find it this time.

Anyways, we walked down the water and it’s an awesome park space. People use the waterfront extensively, with volleyball nets, soccer goals, showers, etc. Typical beach stuff. Then we ended up walking back to where all the bars and clubs were, and we just took a subway home.

Conclusion

Some final Barcelona stuff I forgot:

1) On the way to Guell Park, there was a series of four squares in the west side a little ways that are all quite pretty. It was sunny out and each one was packed with children playing soccer (one of them, against the central statue) or people just eating, talking or even playing music.

2) There were Catalonia flags all over the place, for which Kevin originally thought they were Puerto Rico flags.

3) We went to this restaurant called König, which is obviously not a Catalan word. But we got more of those delicious ham and cheese croquetas, some fried artichokes, and some Catalan sausage which was delicious. And sangria.

4) I really wanted to go to Montjuic, the park with the Olympic stadium, which technically I’d been to in 2008, but I wanted to see the whole park, not just the stadium. So having passed on it the last night, I thought why not wake up early in the morning, run to it and see the sun rise over the Mediterranean. So I woke up an hour before sunrise, got up dressed. And for some reason was just too lazy to go. It wasn’t that cold, but it was super cloudy and I was lazy and so never went. Little upset I missed out on it, but live and learn. Next time don’t be such a bitch.

Anyways, next morning we caught a train and onto Valencia it was. I tried to help Matty and Codi since they had more luggage and gave them the metro passes, but that ended up being more work for them. Kev had some weed in the train station, but we saw security check points so he dumped it. Turns out we didn’t go through it so he didn’t need to. Suck it! Anyways, onto to Las Fallas!

Let me know what you think in the comments below!

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