Barcelona Neta

As cities go, Barcelona is a pretty clean (neta!) one. Much of that is owed to the constant street and sidewalk cleaning that goes on here. They have various sizes of street cleaners so they can get in to every corner. The average street cleaner truck is the size of a small mini-van. These street cleaners close every parade as the last vehicles down the route before the streets are opened to traffic. I applaud the city government for their tenacity for keeping the streets and sidewalks clean, but sometimes it borders on OCD. On occasion you feel like someone is following behind you sweeping up the dirt you tracked into the city. Still, it amazed me when I walked on to my small balcony the other day after a student protest against the Bologna Process had rolled through and noticed that the cleaners were already at work on the graffiti the students had left on the buildings as they protested. After I got over the fact that the students felt it necessary to splatter paint everywhere and graffiti any place they pleased, I was surprised (and pleased) to see that the cleaners got right to it. I'm not sure that would be the case in Chicago where the street cleaners are behemoth vehicles, although perhaps Mayor Daley's graffiti squad would have been all over it.

A note regarding graffiti: It is everywhere in Europe and it often goes uncleaned. I don't mind a good mural or some interesting and artistic tags, but just random graffiti while you're protesting seems excessive and disrespectful to me. How will anyone take your complaints seriously if you splatter paint and leave behind a mess as if the protest was a party?

Big Dinner

When you eat dinner or lunch in Spain it is common to have multiple courses. Lunch, for example, is usually three courses: first plate (generally salad, soup, pasta, something green, etc.), second plate (meat, fish or some heavier vegetable dish), and a dessert. All of this is accompanied by wine or water, ending with coffee or, if you're me, a cup of chamomile tea.

Tonight we had our final group dinner at an Italian restaurant called Da Greco. It is owned, I am told, by an Italian-American guy, which was confirmed when we left and he said "goodbye, thank you for coming" in perfect American English. The place looks a bit like an Italian palazzo on the inside even though it's located in the heart of Barcelona on the Passeig de Gracia. When you come upon it, big wooden doors greet you with an imposing handle. You must ring the bell to be admitted. Our group of thirty people was escorted upstairs to a private dining area overlooking the street. We started with some Italian cold cuts - mortadella and salami. This was followed by a caprese salad and then some of the biggest white asparagus I have ever seen. I thought, cool, next comes the fish. This is the perfect meal, with the exception of the disgusting white asparagus. I don't know why Spaniards like white asparagus so much. It's so mushy a baby could gum it, and it tastes canned. Anyway, the fish did not come out next. Instead, we were treated to three separate pasta dishes. First came cheese tortellini with a creamy cheese sauce. Next were mushroom ravioli with a creamy cheese sauce. Finally we were served chicken ravioli with a fresh tomato-basil sauce. Now, these were not huge plates of pasta. There were perhaps five, maybe six, of the bite-size pasta on each plate. But still, it added up to a lot of filled pasta. After the pasta came the fish. Then a perfect portion of tiramisu for dessert.

I think I'm a good eater most of the time, and I was raised to clear my plate, but I couldn't do it. The last plate of pasta and half the fish filet just wouldn't fit. I did save room for the tiramisu, though. I don't think I have ever eaten so much at one dinner. I do love lingering at the dinner table but this three and a half hour dinner needed less food or more time for digestion. The only thing missing was some sambuca to help it all digest. Whew!

Música por todas partes...

Sundays in Barcelona are dedicated to rest. The stores are not open and most restaurants and cafes only open in the afternoon. It's a day when people stroll the boulevards with no destination and without hurry. Entire families can be seen making their way along the wide sidewalks with grandparents in tow, or just the grandparents will walk slower than you thought was ever possible, taking in all the sights. Sunday is also a day when the streets are full of musicians. I saw at least three bands today, and that was just on one side of the Plaza Catalunya. One outstanding group played Latin rhythms, mostly salsa. A second group farther down played old-timey Cajun music, complete with banjo and a full-size upright piano (on the street!). Another group played an eclectic mix of cumbia, reggae, and dancehall beats with a Manu Chau-like tone layered over the whole thing. And they even had a cajón player. The cajón, if you aren't familiar, is basically a box with a whole in the back that the musician sits on and plays like a drum. It's simple but it adds a cool sound to the music and is common in flamenco shows. Their guy selling CDs had a Fu manchu style mustache, a bamboo Chinese peasant hat with a chin strap, and was called Mr. Miyagi.* Clever (or possibly offensive, depending on your point of view). Despite their gimmickery, they were quite good and definitely fun to listen (and dance) to outside on a beautiful sunny day in Barcelona. A cup of cookies and cream ice cream completed the perfect afternoon break from grading essays.

*Sorry there's no photo of him. I didn't bring my real camera and the iphone camera just isn't that fantastic.

Santa María del Mar

I suppose this blog wouldn't be complete without an entry that references the church Santa María del Mar. It is my favorite church in Barcelona. If you know me at all you know that I am not much for attending church services and I have some serious disagreements with the Catholic Church. However, I really love visiting churches and cathedrals, particularly in Europe. I find them very serene. Sitting in one when the tourists have gone is completely calming. I can feel the history and spirituality that lives there. So, on Friday I took a walk through the Borne neighborhood and along the port, stopping along the way to eat lunch and to sit in my favorite church.

Santa María del Mar was built in the Catalan gothic style in the 14th century (between 1329 and 1383) when it was closer to the sea than it is now. I've been told that it was the mariner's church but I'm not sure how true that really is. It's a nice thought, though. Being in the gothic style, it is a fairly severe and spare church, but there is something about its austerity that I find comforting and beautiful. Plus, it's in the middle of the one of the coolest neighborhoods in Barcelona.

Dalí!

I feel like Salvador Dalí doesn't really need an introduction or a description so I'll keep this short. If you're in the vicinity of Barcelona or Southern France and you haven't been to the Dalí museum, I recommend visiting. As our guide said, the whole place is a surreal object. It's filled with some of Dalí's greatest and most well-known work, and it also gives you a glimpse into Dalí's crazy world. The whole tour feels a bit like a dream, which is a major aspect of the surreal movement, so as surreal object it's a blazing success. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Il.luminacions

One of the perks of being the (graduate) program assistant, or GPA as some of the students have dubbed me, is that I get to see some cool exhibitions that I might not otherwise seek out. Or, I might just get lazy and choose to sit in a cafe watching people rather than go to a museum. In any case, last Tuesday we went to an exhibit at the CCCB (or Center for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona) called Illuminations. The exhibit brought together art and ideas by Catalonia's visionaries from several centuries. There were contemporary comments on ancient pieces, like the Roman Medusa mosaic, which we saw in Tarragona, re-made with bits of photos and words generated by a freeware program that uses Google to search for images and text.

This painting of an open mouth caught my eye, but I don't remember the artist's name. And, there was a difficult to digest piece on the marriage of the Statue of Liberty with the statue of Christopher Columbus, which resides at the end of the Ramblas here in Barcelona. It was basically photo and text documentation of the whole "ceremony" including a display of models of the wedding dress. In any case, an interesting exhibit promoting Catalonia's forward-thinking citizens, and a good prelude to our visit to the Dalí museum on Wednesday.

Grilled Ham and Cheese

It sounds like a simple sandwich, and it's one of my favorites. Here in Spain they call them bikinis. I have no idea why. Usually the sandwich consists of white sandwich bread, ham (jamón dulce, as they call it here), and some kind of white, melty sandwich cheese. Put it in a panini press or on the grill and voilá! However, tonight I had a bikini elevated to the highest, gourmet standards of bikini-dom. The cheese was gooey and deliciously nutty, not your ordinary sandwich cheese. The ham was of the serrano variety, I believe, and impossibly tender. The bread was still some kind of white sandwich bread, probably from a bakery, though, or baked on site. What made this bikini better than all other bikinis I have tried was the addition of the tiniest bit of black truffle and what looked like some sort of wine glaze. Bikini heaven! I was skeptical when the waiter recommended it, especially because my dining companion would not be sharing since she doesn't eat ham. I thought, really? I'm going to eat a bikini at one of the hottest tapas restaurants in Barcelona? I do not regret saying yes to the waiter. In addition to the bikini, I also tried some lovely roasted and perfectly salted chunks of eggplant drizzled with honey and lime. And some of the better pan con tomate I have had here in Barcelona. I'm just sad I didn't try Tapas 24 sooner, especially considering I lived across the street from the place for a whole week in August and never went in. I will add it to the permanent rotation now that I know it's there.