(no subject)
2006 September 19th,
Today may have been one of the busiest days ever:
The Boqueria Market is a landmark along the side of Las Ramblas, featuring a variety of fruit, fish, meat, ham (oh so much ham), and a few small restaurants. We went to one titled Pinocho bar, run by Juan and his family. Here I began my love affair with tortilla española. It's just a simple and great tasting omelette, but the egg parts are fluffy, the potatoes are properly hard (lightly fried, not deep fried or boiled), and the simplicity of the dish appeals to me. Liu got a eggplant omelette thing that wasn't as great as mine (in my opinion :)), and we both got coffees, and a mostly Catalan thing called "Pa amb tomaquet". Pa amb tomaquet is supremely simple: bread covered with a light tomato paste (not processed like ketchup or marinara sauce, more like cutting a small slice of tomato and then spreading it over the bread) and olive oil. Surprisingly simple and delicious.
Here I'd also like to quickly comment that drinking coffee in Spain is an odd experience, because most places do not really have coffee, but espresso (well, maybe just really condensed coffee). 'Coffee with milk' is about one part espresso, two/three parts milk, while 'only coffee' is just one shot of espresso. I couldn't take the diluted taste of the one w/ milk, but the espresso was a bit too harsh at first. I adjusted quickly though.
After breakfast we wandered the market a bit. The market was full of stalls selling pretty much the same thing at pretty much the same prices: fruit stands with many kinds of fruit, meat & fish stalls, and of course ham stalls. One common sight in Spain is a wall full of hanging legs of ham. We took a picture, but it got corrupted before we had a chance to copy it onto a laptop :(. The market was just starting out, and lots of regular customers were chatting with their favorite grocers, while we wandered around munching on a fruit salad we got. I have to say, the ground was surprisingly clean, although that could be because the day just started out.
Our next escapade took us to the Metro station, where we got immediately confused by the fact that the subway and the commuter trains use the same station. The commuter trains used a zone system to determine fare, but the subway was all in one zone and thus one price. After calculating that we would take about 5 trips, we went ahead and bought a 10-ride combo for each of us. Yeah. Brain not work.
We arrived at block of discord, where I promptly lost my bearing, and we did a whole lot of guessing. This area of Barcelona, the Eixample, is a newer area, where the avenues have three or more lanes each way, luxury good stores are on every other block, and periodically you see Gaudi works. Gaudi is hard to describe; flowing lines look great in stories and drawings, but put in real life next to blocky buildings, and they look too alien. On the Block of Discord, where three Gaudi-ish (at least one is not his) buildings line up next to each other on the street, the problems are most obvious. Gaudi buildings just cannot be placed next to one another without looking out of place. The rhythms of one building disrupt the flow of the other, and the whole lacks cohesion.
Anyway, we paid (standing amongst American tourists) and climbed Casa Milo, a Gaudi apartment building, bought and opened by a Catalonian bank. The rooftop looks fitting in a Dr. Seuss story, but there is a great view of the Sagrada Familia up there, as well as a great health hazard (the railings were added recently). Coming down from the rooftop you can visit a mock apartment from the 20s, with appropriate furniture. Inside, Gaudi still continued the curve motif, but not constantly comparing to the standard rectangular shapes made the apartment look a bit normal. It actually looks better, as there's more room, more variety, and a grace that hard lines cannot match. Having said that, some of the corners must be really hard to clean.
From Casa Milo we directed ourselves towards the Sagrada Familia, and proceeded to walk through Barcelona. The walk was highlighted by an odd young man. As Liu and I were waiting at a stoplight to cross the street, a Spanish man came up and said in accented Mandarin, "Are you Chinese?" We answered in the affirmative, in Mandarin. The man nodded, paused for a second, and then proceeded to walk off. Very confusing.
The Sagrada Familia itself is something else. As per its origins in the mind of Gaudi, it is a quite complicated structure. There are plans for three entrances, each with four towers representing apostles (I never understood why Judas always counts as one of the twelve, if he is vilified elsewhere); the entrances would represent the Nativity, the Passion, and another third thing that I do not recall that is probably documented somewhere on Wikipedia. I remember Nativity and Passion since they are the two sides that are currently completed. The center of the cathedral is to support two taller towers, for Christ and Mary. To be honest, the apostle's towers look a little like empty corn husks.
The wonder of the cathedral isn't its amazing architecture. It isn't its size. It's because so few of us, in our modern lives, interact with projects that will have taken a century to complete. In a world where circumventing the world is child's play, where new skyscrapers that push the limits of structural engineering are built every few years, where man tried and successfully entered space only a few decades after discovering flight, people are working on a building that will not be completed for another 20 years. Our lives are constantly changing, accelerated by progress; the idea that people are still willing to contribute to something so far off is inspiring.
We went in, joined the line to go up one of the towers, enjoyed the view of Barcelona from up there, squeezed between the narrow corridors between towers, and marveled at a such a massive cathedral being built in this day and age. We climbed down using stairs, enjoying that odd sensation of vertigo that constantly turning starts. Closer to the bottom, the staircase stopped having a railing, and with our bit of dizziness, we had to stop for a few minutes before being able to continue.
We went to the other side and gazed at the Nativity facade, the one designed by Gaudi. You can see it on pictures throughout the Web and come to your own conclusion, but let it be known that there are benches around designed so you can recline and take in the entire facade, including the towers.
Underneath the cathedral is a museum dedicated to Gaudi and the cathedral. Of note are two displays concerning how Gaudi designed his work, one from artistic point of view, one engineering. The artistic display reminded me that while Gaudi's work does look ridiculously complicated sometimes, it's still based in Nature. The inelegant columns, which split off at closer to the top in seemingly random directions, actually reflect the branching that trees do. The massive holes and indentations are also commonly seen on trees. These things look perfectly normal independently, but we're not habitualized to seem them in our own architecture. From an engineering perspective, Gaudi used an interesting mechanism where he would build an inverted model of the cathedral using sandbags tied to strings. Then by following the weight on the strings, he can get an idea of where the load points will be. And because the system is sandbags and strings, he can quickly adjust his design to see what works best. Smart chap.
We left the Sagrada Familia after that, and had a small and uninteresting meal at a nearby eatery.
The next stop on our list for the day was subway to Montjuic, where a funicular will take us from the subway station close to the top, where we had to wait (confusedly) for a bus to take us to the real top. (The confusing part was because private sight-seeing buses which allow getting on/off anywhere come by very often, while the public bus took half an hour to arrive.) The top of Montjuic is a small fortress, offering a glorious view of Barcelona as well as the Mediterranean. We circled around the fortress, which looks quite decrepit after a certain point. After a line, I guess, the groundkeepers just never visit. Returning to the bus was an adventure, as we found ourselves (and four other tourists far away from us) at a dead end. There was large fence against a wall, and we had to circle back to staircase so we can go on top of the wall. I decided to climb the fence to see if the wall actually leads somewhere, resulting in a tiny cut in my palm. I saw that the wall just leads back down, so Liu went underneath the fence instead.
After Montejuic we went back to the apartment room for a short nap, and we stumbled back into the streets of Barcelona for dinner.
After wandering forwards and backwards through the Gothic Quarter again, we found ourselves near the riverfront, where there are a selection of recommended restaurants. We ended up having raciones (half-portions; i.e. more than tapas, less than a full entree) of bombas (essentially a potato croquette), pimientos (roasted red peppers), and pig ears. Liu and I truly enjoy the pig ear of Chinese cuisine, but this one was not as enjoyed. She really loved the peppers, but I was taken in by the bombas. To drink, she had a glass of red wine, which cost 10 cents less than my bottled water. The server also left the bottle with us, in case she wanted more. More honor policy.
After dinner we walked back through La Ribera, having gelato and being entertained by the numerous Spaniards out for a walk at night.
Today may have been one of the busiest days ever:
- Wake up @ 5am due to jet lag
- Get up @ 8am to wander Barcelona
- Go to Boquería Market, a famous marketplace, to grab breakfast and wander
- Take subway to Block of Discord, a city block with some odd architecture buildings, including one by Gaudi
- Walk to Casa Milo, a more famous Gaudi building
- Walk to Sagrada Familia, the most famous Gaudi building, and a grand unfinished cathedral
- Take metro to Montjuic, a hill close to Barcelona with great views of the sea
- Go back to take an afternoon nap (siesta)
- Wander back into the town for evening dinner
The Boqueria Market is a landmark along the side of Las Ramblas, featuring a variety of fruit, fish, meat, ham (oh so much ham), and a few small restaurants. We went to one titled Pinocho bar, run by Juan and his family. Here I began my love affair with tortilla española. It's just a simple and great tasting omelette, but the egg parts are fluffy, the potatoes are properly hard (lightly fried, not deep fried or boiled), and the simplicity of the dish appeals to me. Liu got a eggplant omelette thing that wasn't as great as mine (in my opinion :)), and we both got coffees, and a mostly Catalan thing called "Pa amb tomaquet". Pa amb tomaquet is supremely simple: bread covered with a light tomato paste (not processed like ketchup or marinara sauce, more like cutting a small slice of tomato and then spreading it over the bread) and olive oil. Surprisingly simple and delicious.
Here I'd also like to quickly comment that drinking coffee in Spain is an odd experience, because most places do not really have coffee, but espresso (well, maybe just really condensed coffee). 'Coffee with milk' is about one part espresso, two/three parts milk, while 'only coffee' is just one shot of espresso. I couldn't take the diluted taste of the one w/ milk, but the espresso was a bit too harsh at first. I adjusted quickly though.
After breakfast we wandered the market a bit. The market was full of stalls selling pretty much the same thing at pretty much the same prices: fruit stands with many kinds of fruit, meat & fish stalls, and of course ham stalls. One common sight in Spain is a wall full of hanging legs of ham. We took a picture, but it got corrupted before we had a chance to copy it onto a laptop :(. The market was just starting out, and lots of regular customers were chatting with their favorite grocers, while we wandered around munching on a fruit salad we got. I have to say, the ground was surprisingly clean, although that could be because the day just started out.
Our next escapade took us to the Metro station, where we got immediately confused by the fact that the subway and the commuter trains use the same station. The commuter trains used a zone system to determine fare, but the subway was all in one zone and thus one price. After calculating that we would take about 5 trips, we went ahead and bought a 10-ride combo for each of us. Yeah. Brain not work.
We arrived at block of discord, where I promptly lost my bearing, and we did a whole lot of guessing. This area of Barcelona, the Eixample, is a newer area, where the avenues have three or more lanes each way, luxury good stores are on every other block, and periodically you see Gaudi works. Gaudi is hard to describe; flowing lines look great in stories and drawings, but put in real life next to blocky buildings, and they look too alien. On the Block of Discord, where three Gaudi-ish (at least one is not his) buildings line up next to each other on the street, the problems are most obvious. Gaudi buildings just cannot be placed next to one another without looking out of place. The rhythms of one building disrupt the flow of the other, and the whole lacks cohesion.
Anyway, we paid (standing amongst American tourists) and climbed Casa Milo, a Gaudi apartment building, bought and opened by a Catalonian bank. The rooftop looks fitting in a Dr. Seuss story, but there is a great view of the Sagrada Familia up there, as well as a great health hazard (the railings were added recently). Coming down from the rooftop you can visit a mock apartment from the 20s, with appropriate furniture. Inside, Gaudi still continued the curve motif, but not constantly comparing to the standard rectangular shapes made the apartment look a bit normal. It actually looks better, as there's more room, more variety, and a grace that hard lines cannot match. Having said that, some of the corners must be really hard to clean.
From Casa Milo we directed ourselves towards the Sagrada Familia, and proceeded to walk through Barcelona. The walk was highlighted by an odd young man. As Liu and I were waiting at a stoplight to cross the street, a Spanish man came up and said in accented Mandarin, "Are you Chinese?" We answered in the affirmative, in Mandarin. The man nodded, paused for a second, and then proceeded to walk off. Very confusing.
The Sagrada Familia itself is something else. As per its origins in the mind of Gaudi, it is a quite complicated structure. There are plans for three entrances, each with four towers representing apostles (I never understood why Judas always counts as one of the twelve, if he is vilified elsewhere); the entrances would represent the Nativity, the Passion, and another third thing that I do not recall that is probably documented somewhere on Wikipedia. I remember Nativity and Passion since they are the two sides that are currently completed. The center of the cathedral is to support two taller towers, for Christ and Mary. To be honest, the apostle's towers look a little like empty corn husks.
The wonder of the cathedral isn't its amazing architecture. It isn't its size. It's because so few of us, in our modern lives, interact with projects that will have taken a century to complete. In a world where circumventing the world is child's play, where new skyscrapers that push the limits of structural engineering are built every few years, where man tried and successfully entered space only a few decades after discovering flight, people are working on a building that will not be completed for another 20 years. Our lives are constantly changing, accelerated by progress; the idea that people are still willing to contribute to something so far off is inspiring.
We went in, joined the line to go up one of the towers, enjoyed the view of Barcelona from up there, squeezed between the narrow corridors between towers, and marveled at a such a massive cathedral being built in this day and age. We climbed down using stairs, enjoying that odd sensation of vertigo that constantly turning starts. Closer to the bottom, the staircase stopped having a railing, and with our bit of dizziness, we had to stop for a few minutes before being able to continue.
We went to the other side and gazed at the Nativity facade, the one designed by Gaudi. You can see it on pictures throughout the Web and come to your own conclusion, but let it be known that there are benches around designed so you can recline and take in the entire facade, including the towers.
Underneath the cathedral is a museum dedicated to Gaudi and the cathedral. Of note are two displays concerning how Gaudi designed his work, one from artistic point of view, one engineering. The artistic display reminded me that while Gaudi's work does look ridiculously complicated sometimes, it's still based in Nature. The inelegant columns, which split off at closer to the top in seemingly random directions, actually reflect the branching that trees do. The massive holes and indentations are also commonly seen on trees. These things look perfectly normal independently, but we're not habitualized to seem them in our own architecture. From an engineering perspective, Gaudi used an interesting mechanism where he would build an inverted model of the cathedral using sandbags tied to strings. Then by following the weight on the strings, he can get an idea of where the load points will be. And because the system is sandbags and strings, he can quickly adjust his design to see what works best. Smart chap.
We left the Sagrada Familia after that, and had a small and uninteresting meal at a nearby eatery.
The next stop on our list for the day was subway to Montjuic, where a funicular will take us from the subway station close to the top, where we had to wait (confusedly) for a bus to take us to the real top. (The confusing part was because private sight-seeing buses which allow getting on/off anywhere come by very often, while the public bus took half an hour to arrive.) The top of Montjuic is a small fortress, offering a glorious view of Barcelona as well as the Mediterranean. We circled around the fortress, which looks quite decrepit after a certain point. After a line, I guess, the groundkeepers just never visit. Returning to the bus was an adventure, as we found ourselves (and four other tourists far away from us) at a dead end. There was large fence against a wall, and we had to circle back to staircase so we can go on top of the wall. I decided to climb the fence to see if the wall actually leads somewhere, resulting in a tiny cut in my palm. I saw that the wall just leads back down, so Liu went underneath the fence instead.
After Montejuic we went back to the apartment room for a short nap, and we stumbled back into the streets of Barcelona for dinner.
After wandering forwards and backwards through the Gothic Quarter again, we found ourselves near the riverfront, where there are a selection of recommended restaurants. We ended up having raciones (half-portions; i.e. more than tapas, less than a full entree) of bombas (essentially a potato croquette), pimientos (roasted red peppers), and pig ears. Liu and I truly enjoy the pig ear of Chinese cuisine, but this one was not as enjoyed. She really loved the peppers, but I was taken in by the bombas. To drink, she had a glass of red wine, which cost 10 cents less than my bottled water. The server also left the bottle with us, in case she wanted more. More honor policy.
After dinner we walked back through La Ribera, having gelato and being entertained by the numerous Spaniards out for a walk at night.