When I think of the confluence of great architects all feeding off one another, I reminded of lyrics from Hamilton, and wonder if these greats in Barcelona had similar thoughts:
What are the odds the gods would put us all in one spot
Poppin' a squat on conventional wisdom, like it or not
Barcelona is a city of dogs. Remarkable dogs at that. Many of the dogs go unleashed, but stay by the side of their owners, not reacting to other dogs, kids, or people. Some dogs stray a bit from their owners, especially in the park, but always zoom back over to them, and never bother them.
Yes, some dogs are on leashes, and some dogs are even wearing muzzles. . .I think more to keep them from going after other dogs than people. There are a multitude of dogs here, and I just wish their owners would carry water with them so they could wish off the dog urine from the street or buildings when the dogs take a whiz.
There are a lot of homeless in Barcelona. It's very touching to see them with their dogs sleeping by their side. The dogs seem to double as companionship and protection. Not every homeless person has a dog, but a high percentage do.
The homeless are quite polite -- there would be five or six sleeping under the overhangs of our apartment building and others nearby. They wouldn't go to bed until 11pm at the earliest, and most were up and gone as daybreak arrived. They seem different than NYC homeless for instance -- not harassing people for money, pissing in the street, mentally disturbed. I felt safe around these homeless.
The Metro in Barcelona is what public transportation should be. We easily took a dozen or so round trips on the Metro. It's clean, on-time, and runs often. The longest wait I ever saw was five minutes, with most averaging two minutes between trains (rush hour) and four minutes (weekends).
The only three complaints I have about the Barcelona Metro is that underground transfers were far apart, but at least the walk was VERY hot! (Note: "at least" denotes sarcasm). Pickpockets. And last but not least, some of the lines were well laid out, while others (such as our yellow line) pretty much meant transfers were needed. Still, it blows away subways in the United States for cleanliness, on-time performance, and frequency of trains.
And, there was no graffiti on the trains. But, changing topics from below ground to above ground, that was the biggest disappointment about Barcelona. The amount of graffiti. Look, I grant you that some of the graffiti looked like amazing public art, and should be counted that way. But, 90% of graffiti is terrible crap.
The good people of Barcelona seemed nonplussed by the graffiti, but it's definitely NOT a plus. Most of the stores have the pull down metal doors, and all of them, nice neighborhood or not, have been tagged. And it's not just on the metal doors.
Walking through the city in the morning before the shops open, you are met with a cacophony of silent screams of the graffiti junk. Clean up your act!
Growing up, as my dad had irregular hours running his small business, he would say as we sat down to a late meal, "the rich eat late, and so do we." The first time we went to Spain, the girls were 7, 5, and 3 years old respectively, so we were usually the first ones in a restaurant, and left long before they got crowded.
Well, now we're able to take full advantage of the Catalan proclivity to eat late. Twice on the trip we had dinner reservations for 10 pm. Other times, 9 pm or 8:30. We occasionally made our arrival to certain restaurants as early as 7 pm, but that's because we wanted to be certain to get a table or counter stools as they opened. Obviously, those were popular restaurants, because they were full from opening to closing.
Free public bathrooms should a basic human right. That might not be a hill to die on, but having to pay 50 cents or a Euro to use a bathroom is annoying. It's not as endemic as it used to be in Europe, but it's still annoying. And while they are solving that problem, the next two things to work on are larger bathrooms, and hand dryers that actually blow air!
I wish we had markets in America like the ones in Europe. La Boqueria was a treat every time we went to it. The variety and freshness are incredible. And they are fun.
So, the smoking rate in Spain is 34%, but when we are sitting at an outdoor table in Barcelona, the rate of nearby smokers automatically goes up to nearly 100%. Come on people. You think you are better than Americans at health, but 34% is ridiculous. I see more people smoke in Barcelona in a day than I see in America (where it is 14%).
There was this weird streak of "Amsterdam Air" and then no Amsterdam Air. It's that sickly sweet smell of marijuana. The first week or so we were there, we smelled it everywhere. And then we didn't smell it hardly at all for a couple of weeks.
The difference was much more enjoyable (sorry dope smokers, the sickly sweet smell of your drug of choice is pretty gross -- although not as disgusting as regular cigarette smoke. If I sound like I'm anti-smoking, I am. Then, our last week in Barcelona, we started smelling Amsterdam Air, although not as often as the first week. Weird.
We only used taxis to go to dinner at further away, nice restaurants. We didn't want to be dressed nicely but sweating in the Metro stations. It's not a complaint, it is just a fact of life. Some of the cabbies were great, but one night, with Don and Jennifer along for the literal ride, we had two crazy drivers. I usually appreciate aggressive driving cabbies, but I thought for certain we were going to have about ten collisions, and kill at least one bike rider that night.
By the way, Uber no longer operates in Barcelona, because of course the lefty government screwed their own people by passing draconian regulations.
The weather was sublime during our time in Barcelona. It was like living in San Diego for a month.
No comments:
Post a Comment