the wait is over

Most of you already know I have been waiting for this moment to arrive, and it did. As usual it always seems like it takes forever, and then when the time comes you're never quite prepared, wishing you had done this or that. Anyway, Jordi arrived Wednesday at 3.15pm.


Edward had asked me a while back if he could come with me to the airport to pick him up, but first I had to check in with Victor, the "official airport transportista" to sign the release papers.


When we got to the airport, Edward insisted on parking on the second level because it is a straight shot to walk to arrivals without having to drag your bags around more, however this level only had a few empty spots, as they are indicated with green lights, but we couldn't find them, so he decided it would be ok to park in a handicap zone, which there were many and they were all empty, but still you can end up with a serious fine. Once we got to the gate area, while I waited, he went to move the car. So, when we finally came back to the car, we found ourselves in a Seinfeld episode "the parking garage". It was hilarious, and 20 minutes later Edward showed up with his car.

okupa building

Later that evening we had all planned to get together at Edward's to watch "the game", which Barcelona won 5-1. First we met Juanjo and went to Rekons, where these Argentineans make delicious bocatas (sandwiches). Across the street is one of the "okupa buildings", okupa is the word here used for squatters, although because this is a current trend, while some people squat for need, this particular building and a few others are actually rich kids doing whatever they want…big surprise. Edward and David showed up two minutes later, and Sol stopped by to say hello on her way home from work; and Monica joined us when we got to Edward's. During the halftime, they surprised me with cake and candles (did I forget to mention that Jordi arrived on my birthday?).

birthday cake

Although by the end of the game Jordi was zombie-ing around, as he had a very long and uncomfortable trip; on the first segment, from Reno to Denver, turbulence was so bad that everyone on the flight had to use the blue vomit baggies. The rest was simply a lack of leg room.

In the morning we went to the park to take Wilbur for a walk. And later we were going to take to metros and one tram to get to Victor and Mari's for lunch, as she made a delicious fideua. But first we went to meet Georgina at the plaza Eivisa for "aperitiu". Gina is Neus' younger sister, who had come to visit us 12 years ago, and had spent some time with Jordi and also Stephanie, another friend of Jordi's who happened to be visiting us at the same time. We were both very impressed to see she has turned out to be a wonderful person.

institut verdaguer/my high school

After lunch, Victor took us on one of his walking tours of the "old city". First we walked through the "ciutadella" which is a large park, which contains, the city zoo, my old high school, the parliament building, and a few others. 

large catalan sheep dog 

park green house

As we exit the park, across the street is the Borne neighborhood, a part of the old city, where we come to see the "chocolate museum", see the hot chocolate fountain just inside…yum.

chocolate fountain

Behind this building is the bakery school.

bakery school

Victor's 90's home

Victor showed us one of the old apartments that he used to live in the early 90's. The street entry now has an intercom, but it use the have a string with a bell, like many others, to notify the neighbors someone was there, so all the neighbors would here the bell and all would step onto the little balconies to see if it was someone they knew, and then they would pull another string to open that door, and if you didn't have one, you would have to walk downstairs to let them in.

roman wall

We Also went to show Jordi some parts of the Roman walls, which was back in the day when the city was named Barcino by the romans, well over 2000 years old.

roman columns

When I saw this rose petal dress, I can't help to think about Linda and her party attire; my mom use to have some pretty wild dresses too. Although I don't think this dress would actually survive a party, this is one of many little design stores in the old city, the best part of any of these little stores, restaurants, hotels, or bars is the interior space have actual old roman walls.

plaza del rey

Victor explaining some history here to Jordi.

We also came across the Picasso museum, although we didn't go to see the exhibit, you can walk thru the exterior part were they have been expanding.

Picasso museum

Picasso museum

lot's more to come, but I must leave now

the parks around here

OMG, OMG! I had the best weekend so far, however I’m afraid I can’t share most of it with you guys because just as we arrived at the rustic house in Casavells, small town of the Baix Emporda, this photo of the door and the kitchen below was the last before the battery in my camera died.

I tried finding pictures of the towns we visited online, but they all suck; so I promise to go back there sometime soon so I can share those with you.

Who knows maybe I’ll go back to stay.

I can tell you the first part of the weekend, I went with my friends Friday night to a small city by the name of Granollers to a club Piano Blau (blau is catalan word for blue), to see a spanish pop singer who seemed to be also a pretty good stand up comedien, as in between songs she would tell these joke stories, and her singing was great too, and so was her band, anyway in case you want to hear something, here’s a link on her name: Pastora.

I also saw the longest truck I’ve ever seen.

But now, I will continue with some of the stuff I see around here daily as Wilbur and I explore the parks.

On the way I run into a Seat 600, which now a days is pretty rare, but when I was 11 years old, 95% of vehicles were 600’s, and 80% of them were white. My friend Maite told me that when her brother turned 50, the family and friends got together to find and buy him one. And then each one of his friends got one too when they turned 50. So now, they go out on “guy trips” with their little collectible cars. Boys and their toys.

pasionaria del pino

“La Pasionaria del Pino” is what this fuzzy bunch of caterpillars is called, because of these long formations they travel by. I took these pictures about a month ago, first time I came to the park, I just thought they were fascinating. Lucky for me, and Wilbur, neither of us touched them, as a few weeks later I learned they are the only real danger in these parts; they come about in January and February, and they are very toxic, they can make a person quite sick and they can kill a dog, in fact some dogs have had their tongues amputated after coming in contact with the little critters. Most people tend to purposely step on them.

Maite had also told me that she would go sometimes with her retriever Roc to 3 parcs Guell, Carmel and Guinardo, as they are connected by a bridge over a canyon; unfortunetly she currently has an ingrown toe nail that hurts, so she can’t go with me.

arbre del amor

So I start at the Guinardo, which is the one closest to me, I think Wilbur could pretty much go on his own by now. The first time a neighbor across the street from me, Maria Jose and her cocker spaniel Alba showed us the way to get there. 

Then we have to make our way to the top of the hill, and to the opposite side in order to find the bridge.

Wilbur is not keen on crossing any bridges, regardless of how sturdy they may be, he can see the distance down below the 1” gaps between the 6 x 10 beams is scary even for me, but I know not to look down. So he will wait till I made it all the way to the other side, and once he knows for certain that I’m not turning back he will come. See the little black spec to the right, in the shade, in the distance? that’s Wilbur.

As we arrive in Carmel, the park benches are filled with elderly folk basking in the springtime sun. Another interesting fact I noticed is the language change, the Guinardo is mostly catalan speaking, while Carmel, being that it is an old working class neighborhood is mostly castilean speaking, and when I get to Guell park, it is all the other languages, as it is mostly visited by tourists.

I follow some signs that show me the way to enter park Guell, you may remember this one from a few weeks back, when I met Hugo; if you do you'll remember that I told you there are only 3 homes built here, and last time we were at the other end of the park, so today we can see one of those homes up close.

There Goes The Neignborhood

Since I had an awful stomach flu this weekend, and although I only ever had a mojito once in my life before, this one will definitely be the last. However this is the perfect opportunity to walk you around my new neighborhood, which in part is because I am discovering it myself also for the first time.


Horta, back when my grandmother was a young girl, was considered a weekend getaway for regular folks, taking a long ride on a streetcar, to breath the mountain air, and also where some rich folks would have a second home.



Because of the expansion the city has gone through these past decades, these suburban towns have become neighborhoods of the big city, but many locals still consider their town to be independent of Barcelona, and so we see evidence of this, like this mural here, that has already been "touched up" by blacking over the catalan flags and some writing. Not everyone respects the artist's point of view.

Libraries have been popping up all over, some new, and like this one, some remodeled; and currently the only spots (other than some bars and coffee shops that have free wifi/internet. Actually the city had until recently many free wifi public spots, like parks, streets, etc., but of course the phone companies were not happy about that, and you can guess how that story went.

While you can't find organic food or products in regular supermarkets, there are many little herbal shops that sell these staples.

This is my street, Mas Pujol, a very quiet small street, and just one street over from the Font d'en Fargas, which is a very old water source that is public, so even though there is now a restaurant built around it, the access to the public remains open, as many of the older folk continue to go fill up their jugs from the fountain.

I love how most homes around here are houses as opposed to apartment buildings, some are the original old ones, some have been remodeled conserving the the original structure and facade, and others have been torn down to build new apartment buildings, although there is a height limit here in Horta, so the maximum is four story building.

I find doors quite fascinating

then of course the church around the corner

and the trash=grey bin, compost=brown bin, paper=blue bin, glass= green, plastic, tin and brix= yellow bin

and I bet you were thinking: where's Wilbur

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.