The end of my holiday was approaching but first, I would go to one my favorite cities Barcelona to catch up with friends and hang out.
Barcelona
Saturday April 22nd
I got up fairly early this morning to get the train from Madrid to Barcelona. There now is a high speed rail link that gets from Madrid to Sevilla in two and half hours called the Ave. But there is not such service to Barcelona but I did not mind. The journey to Barcelona was about five hours. I was catching the train from the same place where Christian and I took the train to Toledo.
On the train trip they gave out complementary headphones to watch the DVD movie's being played. I think if I kept all the head phones from the flights, and bus tours and now train, I would have ended up with five pairs of headphones. They must be so cheap to make that are considered disposable items.
I could have flown from Madrid to Barcelona and saved about 4 hours in travel time but I though it was not necessary and nowadays if you can avoid flying, avoid it. I was not in any kind of rush.
I was now on my own; Christian stayed behind as he meeting Warren a few days later. The original plan was to travel for three weeks across Portugal and Spain but I was too restless; I had a lot on my mind; I was having a good time on holiday but I was also being a bit uptight. Once, I decided to come back a week early, I felt much better. When you go on holiday you are still traveling with yourself and the same thoughts you had elsewhere. I was reflecting quite a bit on the last year and my personal life and work. I have various conversations on the go with friends and acquaintances in London about projects and work and I wanted to get back to some of those potential bits of work. I thought about going back to London from Madrid but I don't know when would next get a chance to see my friends in Barcelona.
But it did mean I was in Barcelona on my own for a good part of the time there. I have lost count of how many times I have been to Barcelona. I have some friends here and it is always a pleasure to see them. And I would indeed see them later.
I arrived at the hotel and it was about 3 PM now and I was a bit peckish. A restaurant across the street was recommended to me. It turns out the restaurant was Galician. It was a local restaurant the decor was nothing special but the place was reasonably large and the food was very good. And the restaurant had "Pimento de Patron" on the menu. One of the waiters spoke good English and was kind of enough to talk me through all the dishes even-though I had a good idea what the food was about.
In the evening, I went to a bar called "La Confeteria" just off of "Calle Parallel"; I met Carlitos and Raquel here years ago. The name is a reminder that the bar used to be a sweet shop many years ago. I was asking the barman if he knew where the new restaurant the Carlitos works is; he gave me some directions. I took a taxi over the to area called "El Born". And I could not find the restaurant; I got the street it was on wrong; I had walked down every steet in the area except the one the restaurant was on - unlucky. I ended going for a long walk in Barcelona that night walking through residential parts of the city. Eventually, I made it back to where the hotel was and found a kebab restaurant open, of all things, sometime well after 1 AM.
Sunday April 23rd
Today was a culture day. And I managed to get in two museums.
Centre d'art santa monica
This is a museum on the Ramblas near the sea front. I saw three great exhibits here. One piece was an installation; it was a new kiosk and all the "magazines" were made by the artist Francesc Ruiz. Very clever.
The other featured artists were Lars Arrhenius and Mike Nelson.
In Lars works animation featured heavily; his art style was quite using stick men of a sort. His works are presented in an art gallery and I wonder what to describe his work as; it is art yes but also it is observational about life and society.
The installation by Mike Nelson was called "After Kerouac". I thought momentarily about the title and the reference to Keroauc. I had read "On the road" a few years ago. I entered a large room and the only feature was a corridor which followed the form of a spiral. I entered it; there was all these marks along the walls - curious. Eventually, I am came to a door and I opened it; it was a room full of tires. Brilliant, I smiled broadly. I got the reference to Kerouac now and cars and I realized the marks on the walls were from rolling the tires through the corridor into the room.
I had been reading the book "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. In the book he talked about 'priming'; this is where something is suggested to you in directly that will influence your thought and reactions. It would seem the title of the piece gives you a clue as what to expect that is if you have read Keroauc.
http://cultura.gencat.net/casm/
It was a very busy day outside but the museum was practically empty; I was by myself looking at many of the exhibits. It is very rare that I find myself in a exhibit by myself in London in comparison.
Maritime museum
I took in the maritime museum and it is quite an impressive place to visit. I was mainly attracted to see the "Pirates" exhibition which turned out to be a disappointment; there was not much to see in the Pirates exhibit; it more heavy on text which I could have read without going to a museum. The museum itself had quite a section describing what it was like when Barcelona was a major ship building city and the guilds that a maritimer would belong to.
There is a replica of a slave galley and what a horrible life it would be to be galley slave; I really did not know until I listened to the audio-guide; the slaves would be shackled to their seats on the boats for months at a time; it was said you could smell a slave galley before you could it see because they smelled so bad. It made me wonder what would happen the galley slaves; how long could you endure such a terrible existence?
http://www.museumaritimbarcelona.org/
Cuines Santa Caterina
I was curio
us to try out a restaurant mentioned in the b-guided> magazine. This one was located not to far from the cathedral in central Barcelona; it is a market of the same name "Santa Caterina". I went at lunch time and the place was packed. As, I was by myself, I got seat at the counter by the open plan kitchen fairly quickly once I got through to the reception. I stuck mostly to the oriental cuisine on the menu; I had some tempura, sushi and yakitori and I went for some fine chocolate cake for desert. It turns out Carlitos had worked here for a while and he later told me he did not think the restaurant was that good. But it is quite a place to go for the decor. The menu is quite novel; it is laid out like a grid with the type of cuisine the side and the type of dish along the top.
I noted that the kitchen staff was quite multi-ethnic : African, north African, Filipino, Japanese, Thai and of course Spanish. Since I have been coming to Barcelona, I have seen how the city has been changing; there is one street now that almost completely full of Pakistani shops and restaurants. I noticed a Sikh Gurdwara on another street on this visit.
Raquel and Carlitos
I would later meet Raquel at "La Confiteria" and catch up. We took a stroll up to Las Ramblas; today was Saint George's day and I am told people often buy books as presents on this day. Raquel wanted to check out some of the books on sale.
We then had a beer and did some people watching near the Ramblas.
Raquel is a hair dresser and we stopped by the salon; Raquel had been in Brazil for the month of April and she was showing me her photos on her laptop.
We then met up again later to have dinner at the new restaurant where Carlitos was now working; I think it has only been open a few weeks. It is called "Bestiari". When I first met Carlitos he was running a restaurant called "Les Guides" with another chap who did the cooking; he eventually took over as the chef; in a past career, Carlitos was a an industrial designer. For dinner, I had eaten things, I had never before : goose egg and kangaroo. I had a starter of a fried egg on top of some skinny french fries. I had the kangaroo as the main course. And I am glad to say the food is quite good. One thing, I really do like about Barcelona is the decor in restaurants; people will go the distance here with attention to detail to make interesting spaces. And to eat in such a place, it does not break the bank. Bestiari followed the trend along one wall is a giant mural of various beasts and people. The image here is just a small section of the mural.
This was Sunday night and even then the restaurant did not empty out until well after midnight; we than took in a late drink or three and met up with some friends of Carlitos and Raquel. There was Luna the little dog who was out with her owner Nuria. Luna was trying to take a nap with all the hub bub going on the in the bar.
Monday April 24th
Egyptian Museum - Divine Words
Barcelona has a small privately run Egyptian museum the Museu Egipci de Barcelona. There was an exhibit on about the french archelogist Jean-François Champollion who manged to translate the hieroglyphics; he established that they are phonetic. On the display, was some of his notebooks. Last year, the BBC did a docu-drama about Egypt that featured the men and women who explored Egypt and translated the writing and of course there was a program about monsieur Champollion.
I thought it would be nifty to see these books; unfortunately for me the museum display was not very English speaking friendly. I keep telling myself that I should improve my Spanish.
Nonetheless, I had a good look around the museum.
Biography of Jean-Francois Champollion
Movie - living and food
I then went to another concept restaurant that I read about in b-guided> for lunch. The idea was that this restaurant was to be like eating in your living room. All the food is served in bowls. I was hoping to see what kind of films they screened here. They did put on a DVD of some artistic film of a woman reclining on a bed or was it a chaise longe (you get the idea). The waitress was telling me how they do regular club nights on weekends. I would like to visit this place again at night. I had a really nice fruit salad for a starter; it was not just fruit but also green vegetables. I had the monkfish as a main course. I thought the monk fish was prepared in a way more suitable for the winter. It tasted very out of season to me; it was quite hot and stodgy with potatoes. It would have been much nicer with a vinaigrette dressing like a Japanese sunomono dish.
I felt very mellow when I left the restaurant and proceeded on my way; it was quite sunny and warm outside but just down the street at the intersection there was a man who had been riding a scooter knocked out unconscious sprawled on his back or worse in the middle of the road; he was being attended by an ambulance crew. He was not moving at all that I could tell from where I was. I like to think he was just unconscious.
Tuesday April 25th
Caixa Forum
This complex was opened as an arts centre in 2002. It was like a one stop shop for culture and I was so glad I went.
I got to see the Persia exhibition which I missed when it was in the U.K. And with an audio guide in English, I was able to really absorb a good part of what was on display. Persia is a historical culture that is very significant but not one that I had any exposure to in school.
And I also took in the Diane Arbus photography exhibition "Revelations". I had been to NYC a few times; this exhibit showed me the past and side of NYC that I had never seen depicted before.
I then went to take in the view of Barcelona from the Palau National de Montjuïc.
Lunch with Cesar
I met up with Cesar for lunch; I had met Cesar years ago while I was at the BBC; we were both attending a training course in interactive TV in Paris. He has since left interactive TV and is now working for a company that makes snack food; the name eludes me. We went to a Tapas bar around the corner from where he works. It is always a pleasure to meet Cesar again; he is very modest about his English but we do have always have very detailed and intelligent conversations.
We were talking about flavors for potato chips or crisps as they are called in the U.K. I was saying how I think it is quite funny with all these meat flavored chips. You can buy things like Mediterranean lamb kebab flavor now and grilled steak. They tried doing the same thing in Spain and they hardly sold at all.
I was asking Cesar what he thought about the proposed changes to get rid of the culture of siestas and long lunches. Outside of Spain, we think of siestas as great but it does mean that you end up working quite a bit later. If you have young children, you have even less chance of seeing them. The company he works for operates on North American time and in fact they work longer week days but then work half a day on Friday. Cesar recently become a father and he was going to swimming lessons with his child on Fridays.
I read about this story in the miniguide* magazine. www.barcelona-inside.com
And that was it; I went back to the hotel; picked up my bags and went to the airport.