Barcelona
Felice is fascinated by pickpockets.
I took it with a grain of salt when word passed to us in Madrid, but today our guide confirmed Felice’s suspicions, thieves are only hit with a 50 Euro fine and it often makes sense to steal, if the item is expensive enough, the profit is there. Andrea, the aforementioned guide, says he knows all of them, sees them in the finest restaurants, nods and winks and said he’d been ripped off once too.
Having frequented NYC pre-Giuliani, it takes a lot to make me paranoid. Then again, after lunch Felice slipped her hand in my pocket to show how easy it would be.
Lunch. Was at this Tapas Bar, Tapac 24. You can look at the daily menu here: Tapaç 24 And if you read Spanish, you can get the full flavor. Andrea tipped us to the McBurger with foie gras, sensational! And I say this having totally fucked up ordering at a Tapas place in Madrid, where we got thin strips of meat on bread, but Andrea said tapas cuisine is different in Barcelona.
Barcelona. Let’s see, they had the Olympics and Woody Allen did that movie. Was never at the top of my list of places to visit, but it was a perfect itinerary fit, a great place to fly back to the U.S. But once we told people we were coming, they waxed rhapsodic! About the food, the atmosphere…
But not the heat.
Today it was 104. Yesterday, 106. And unlike L.A., there’s plenty of humidity. I thought I was gonna have heat stroke yesterday, I was finally revived by a Coke. Today, I thought I was going to fade into oblivion. Thank god we found some shade along the way.
The way…
I’d like to say we planned prodigiously for this trip. Alas, we did not. Which left us scrambling once we arrived. An e-mail from my mother told us to hire a Gaudi guide in Barcelona, which blessedly we did, it made all the difference.
Utterly fascinating.
We’re staying on the Passeig de Gracia, up from the old city.
Everyone lived inside the walls until the defeat of Napoleon. Then, this street shooting out of the old metropolis was developed. By the rich. They built houses and wanted to show off.
They all lived on the first floor, which is the second in the U.S. There are bay windows, marble columns, the wives situated themselves where they could be seen all day, so everybody would know how rich they were! And they hired Gaudi and his compatriots to design edifices that made others ooh and ahh.
The most famous is the Casa Battlo, with the colorful facade and the dragon’s back atop. Turns out this was not the initial front of the building. But Battlo was one-upped by his next door neighbor, the chocolate maker, who had a Modernista facade, so Battlo hired Gaudi to deliver a masterpiece, which he did: Casa Batlló
But I was more impressed with La Pedrera, up the street. The building with the exterior that looks like melting ice cream.
We studied it in art class. And today not only did we get to see the exterior, we went inside, to find a car park, Gaudi could foresee the necessity. And there was an interior courtyard, all structures had them, for light. Although there was electricity in La Pedrera. And custom Gaudi furniture:
And from there a cab up to Parque Guell.
The cab. It was a Suzuki. The Japanese company has yet to gain its footing in the U.S., but I see more Suzukis here than Toyotas. The one we were in was small on the outside, yet large on the inside, bowing out at hip level to add extra room. I sat there saying, I’d buy one of these!
Buying… So fascinating, you learn about distribution and marketing here. iPhones are rampant. The valet had one in Madrid, that’s how he checked the intermittent wi-fi connection. Somehow, the people here were made aware of the product, and they found a place to buy it. If you’ve got a great product in one location, that doesn’t mean it will bust out big somewhere else. You’ve got to advertise, distribute, provide customer service… Hell, that’s why direct sales of the Google Nexus One died, there was no customer service infrastructure. Reminds me of the settling of the west, when those who were richest were the distributors, getting food and hardware to the hinterlands.
Parque Güell was mesmerizing:
A failed housing development, it’s loaded with Gaudi-isms. Not only broken tile decoration, but coffee cups too, embedded in the spires. Gaudi was all about testing limits, he did it his way, and therefore his name and his creations live on. Want to last? Don’t copy everybody else, don’t be a Me Too Mickey. Then again, you need incredible strength of character and perseverance to go your own way. If you’re doing something different, you can’t dun people into paying attention, pressuring them to buy your creation. You can only succeed by doing something so special that other people demand it. That’s what happened with Gaudi. Like I said, Ballot wanted to keep up with the Joneses!
And from there to the legendary Sagrada Familia, which looks like a real-life Monet, almost out of focus:
Gaudi was not the original architect. And when hired, he threw out the old plans and instituted his own. Only this one facade was completed before his death. And they’re still finishing the cathedral a hundred years later, but at an accelerated pace, with admission fees to Spain’s number one tourist attraction, totaling 20 million Euros a year, financing the construction.
We learned so many interesting things. How architects employed the latest inventions in their imagery. On facades we saw cameras. And the chocolate maker had a small statue of a worker making candy on the front of his house.
Andrea made the city come alive.
Which reminds me of something Lenny Ibizarre said in Ibiza: "You’re nothing without an introduction."
That’s what wannabes don’t understand. You just can’t e-mail Jimmy Iovine blind, you’ve got to know someone who knows him! Don’t blame the music business, it’s been this way for ages, in every walk of life. Wander around alone and you’re a pariah. Have a friend and you’re welcomed with riches.
In other words, you’ve got to know someone. And by knowing Andrea, albeit through a commercial exchange, Barcelona opened up to us.
We’ve still got some time left. We need to dig deeper into the old city, and hopefully go to the Miro museum, but this trip to Europe has been so illuminating.
Last time I was on the Continent, decades ago, Americans dreamed of traveling to Europe, to learn history, to find out about where they came from. Today, America’s riddled with jingoism, we’re the greatest country in the world, why go anywhere else, America first!
Well, we just might be number one. But there are billions of inhabitants outside our borders who know a thing or two.
Like spray vinegar. They’ve got it all over Spain, but I’ve never seen it in the U.S.
And dual flush toilets. You pick the appropriate button based on how much needs to go down. Much better than Santa Monica’s low-flush commodes, which constantly back up.
And then there are the cars. If we paid this much for gas, we’d drive smaller automobiles too. And what would we lose in the process? Nothing!
Then there was that almost-doctor who just asked me to take his picture in the park. He’s from Brazil. Speaks pretty good English. He’s a urologist, who’s studying robotic surgery. The thought that the rest of the world can be cutting edge is unthinkable to so many Americans.
Last night I had my paella. Not sure where we’re going to dinner this evening, but I’m expecting an adventure. Because in Europe, they don’t live to work, they work to live…and restaurants and places of entertainment are up to snuff!
Chao!
