Cigarette Butts

From what I'm seeing on my info sources, many Californians are worried about radiation, amongst many other things too of course, what I haven't seen is any news on Hawaii, they are hours closer in wind trajectory; if you guys know anything, send me a link.

Yesterday I met my cousin Edward for lunch, as he's been very busy with work, and also shuck up by the Japan disaster, as his soon to be ex wife is living in northern Japan, along with other family members who he has ties with. And while many Japanese have blind faith in their government, it is not the case with this family, but all they could do was to stay inside. 

Lunch was a "Menu del Dia" which is very popular in any bar or restaurant, particularly with the current economy. You have a choice of 3 first and second dish for a fixed price, usually around 10 euros; in this case it was 8.5 euros, and tips here are usually just change, so if you leave 1 euro, it's considered a lot.

Edward's work partner, Juanjo showed up as expected with a new device to show us, an ashtray. Do you remember in an earlier blog I mentioned that on January 1st this year a new law requiring no smoking in bars and restaurants came in effect? So now everybody sits (or stands) outside, regardless if it's cold or warm or rain. Of course some people are upset about this, not all, and as usual it takes time to adjust to these changes. As a matter of fact, during lunch, we were watching the news on tv, lot's of stuff on Japan, and in between some local tidbits, like a bar that was closed because the non smoking law was not enforced, also the government had lost over 100 million euros in tax revenues from people who had quit smoking. So the more recent problem is that since everyone is now smoking in the street, there are many more cigarette butts on the sidewalks for the city to clean up, right?…wrong, the city has decided that they will fine anyone who throws butts on the floor, but since that is difficult to do, they will instead fine the owners of the bars, restaurants or buildings that have excessive amount of butts.


So this is where the "new ashtray" comes into place, designed to be bolted onto an exterior wall. David (Guillermo's son, owner of the bar) and myself were playing devil's advocate, because the design of the ashtray did not work well with this particular bar, as we felt the protrusion could cause potential problems. Juanjo was sticking to his guns, saying that he could not ask the manufacturer for a redesign, just because of Guillermo's facade, and the product should be sold as is. But we had a good laugh at his expense.

Before heading back home, Edward and I went for a short walk, as he wanted to show me the interior design store area of the city, and also the Convent which our Grandmother Adela stayed at when she first arrived in 

Barcelona, as she came from Palafrugell from a poor family, so her mother sent her to work in the big city, and from there she was sent to work at our Grandfather's home. I had known this story all my life, but I don't remember anyone actually pointing out this building to me, which you can see is quite beautiful. Casa Golferichs is now an exhibit hall/art gallery, keep in mind that during the Spanish Civil War, convents were raided and nuns had to flee, so most became something else.




This picture shows the detail underneath the eaves of the roof.
A mixture of wood carving and old ceramic tile.














And this one shows how underneath the smooth broken asphalt is the old brick pavement that the Romans left behind. I remember when I used to ride my Vespa Primavera over the "adoquins" and I would shake/vibrate all over. On the other hand though, the old pavement was indestructible compared to the asphalt.

Finally I wanted to show you this new solution to another big city problem "tagging". Apparently these vandals seem to respect this other style of spray paint; so a new and more recent type of artist have stepped in to fill this need, they charge approximately 500 euros for each mural.