Taking in the old town

October 12: It seems I’ll have to write more often while in Barcelona because I literally cannot remember what I did four days ago. Each day is packed with new places and new adventures that it’s hard to keep track of everything we’re doing without looking back at my pictures. It’s a good reflection of how I’m feeling here. By the end of our stay in London, I was starting to feel a bit lonely during the weekdays even when I attended classes for Jonah (and spoke to other moms) and spent time with the casual friends I made in our neighborhood. Maybe that’s because Jeremy was gone for such a long stretch, but I think that was only a small part of it. Barcelona just feels so alive. Even when I’ve not spoken with anyone beyond the exchange of a few words with a shopkeeper, I feel like I’ve taken in so much over the course of a day here—my surroundings, the culture, the language—that I don’t find the need or desire, for that matter, to meet people and find a community. Seems strange considering that I fancy myself a rather social person, but there are times when it’s not about people for me. Rare, but it happens.

So, four days ago…Wednesday…Jonah and I started with another trip to Dunkin Donuts before visiting sites in the Raval neighborhood in the old town. The guy at DD knows me now and asks as I walk in, “Café con leche?” Indeed, and a donut, please. We checked out the big market closest to La Rambla—Mercat de la Boqueria—where many locals go for their fruits, vegetables, meats, and cheeses but, it appears, more tourists go to have the market experience themselves. Compared to the market in our neighborhood, it’s much fancier.

We continued down La Rambla, and I finally took the time to look up and notice the very beautiful and interesting buildings and architecture above the ground level. Jeremy said it best the other day, “There’s so much to see at the street level that you forget to look up.” One building constructed in the 1890s on La Rambla used to house an umbrella shop when it was initially built, so there are lovely parasols adorning the exterior of the building and an interesting green dragon scaling the side. Next, we went to check out the Palau Güell, which was a townhouse designed by Gaudí in 1885 for a wealthy shipowner and the first modern building declared by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. You can only visit the basement and a small area on the ground floor because of extensive renovations currently underway. But it’s free, and the basement was a nice place for Jonah to walk around. (The relevance of it not costing anything being that if we only stayed for five minutes—the duration of our stay determined by the museum’s ability to keep Jonah entertained—it wouldn’t matter.) He really liked going up and down a little step and hiding behind the large pillars, so we stayed for almost an hour.

From there we went to check out the oldest church in Barcelona, Sant Pau del Camp. As the name suggests, the church was at one time in open fields beyond the city walls, which seems hard to imagine given how close it is to the heart of the old city. There’s a playground outside the grounds of the church, where we went our first day in Barcelona. Jonah played there for a bit, although he spent most of his time at the gate as per his usual MO. Then it was back to our apartment to meet Jeremy for lunch.

We have developed a sort of routine for our arrival home. I call up to Jeremy so he can come down and help me carry Jonah’s stroller up two flights of stairs. We leave the doors to our balcony open during the day, so Jeremy always hears me from the street below. On our third day here, Jonah started calling, “Daddy! Daddy!” as our apartment building came into view. That’s how it goes now each time we’re in front of our apartment. And Jonah definitely recognizes our neighborhood. As we crossed the street in front of our apartment the other day, Jonah said, “Home.” And again, tonight, as we rounded the corner to our street, “Home,” he said, “Home.” For now, it is indeed home.

On Wednesday afternoon, we went back to one of our afternoon play areas, where Jonah was confronted by a little girl who was quite bossy. There was Jonah, smiling and happy, closing and opening the gate to the playground, when this girl (maybe six years old) came over and told Jonah (in Spanish) to stop playing with the gate. Her mother told her to move along. Later, the little girl yelled to Jonah to get on the play structure with her. He looked at her somewhat bewildered and continued with his gate. Then she told him to get on one of the horses. He, of course, had no idea what she was saying. He kept peering through the slats of the gate at her and smiling. He couldn’t read her tone of voice, or maybe he did and his sweet nature made him try to befriend her anyway while merrily defying her. She finally decided if he wasn’t going to come to her, she would go to him. Jonah was collecting rocks and throwing them through a metal drain cover, so she started collecting them as well. Seeing that the girl could collect rocks faster than he could, Jonah started going over to her and putting his hand out for a rock. She’d tell him (in Spanish) that he could only have one. He’d take his rock and throw it in the drain. Then he’d go back to her with his precious smile and outstretched hand, and she’d give him another rock all the while insisting that he only could have one. Jonah already seems to be learning how to interact with the world in a way that gets him what he wants, or, really, maybe he just had no idea what she was saying. For all he knew, she was saying, “I’ll collect the rocks, and you can throw them down the drain.” He did have to chase after her a bit to get the rocks though, so that scenario seems a bit less likely…

The night before, we finally secured privileges to rent movies from the local video store, so Wednesday night we enjoyed another movie. I realize this sounds like an easy task to accomplish, but it took me about five days to find a place that rents movies in English. (The other movie places I found rent movies, not in Spanish, but in Hindi. Interestingly, there’s a huge Indian population just beyond our neighborhood on the way to La Rambla and about three video stores that only rent Indian movies.) Then I found a movie rental place on the street around which Barcelona’s nightlife used to be centered—Avinguda del Paral·lel—which is close to our apartment. But it closes during siesta, so my earlier attempts to go in were thwarted. Finally Jeremy went to rent a move there during its open hours and was told he needed a bill of some sort to prove residency. They agreed that the lease to our apartment was sufficient. When he ran back with our lease in hand, the guy said the store was closing so no go. The next day (Tuesday night) we went back, and after about a 20 minute conversation, a run to a local pharmacy to copy Jeremy’s driver’s license and our lease, and another 20 minute conversation with the store owner, we were given a rental card. We’ve seen a movie every night since then…

On Thursday, Jonah and I explored La Ribera neighborhood in the old town, home to the Picasso Museum and the most beautiful church I’ve seen in Barcelona. We made our Dunkin Donuts stop per our morning ritual, picked up a few bananas at the market, and cruised through the Gothic neighborhood before reaching Carrer de Montcada with its medieval mansions lining the street that leads to a little plaza and the church of Santa Maria del Mar, regarded as Barcelona’s most perfect expression of the Catalan-Gothic style. Before the Eixample was developed, Carrer de Montcada was home to Barcelona’s wealthiest. The gem of the day though was the church with its high ceilings, lovely stained glass windows, and beautiful stone work. I’ve seen many beautiful churches in my travels, but there was something about this one that really took my breath away. We found a nice little playground just beyond the church, where Jonah crawled back and forth through the tunnel of a play structure and threw his Frisbee and rocks down the slide. We also came across the sixth (or so) huge gun store we’ve seen in the old city. Called armerias, these stores stock shot guns from floor to ceiling, wall to wall and exhibit poster-sized pictures of scantily clad women with Uzis strapped to their chests. You can imagine how much I love these stores… Heading home for lunch, we strolled through the antiques market back in the Gothic neighborhood by the La Seu cathedral.

That afternoon we went in search of a little playground that our guidebook refers to as the best play area in Barcelona. Why it has received that designation I’m not sure. It was nice enough, but it wasn’t worthy of the “best of” award, particularly with the expectations this designation set and couldn’t meet. Jeremy met us there before we all trekked over to El Corte Ingles so I could show Jeremy their fabulous supermarket and we could buy organic milk. ;) It rained a bit in the afternoon, so before Jonah and I made our way to the playground we had stopped to take shelter under the awning at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. We found a little spot by the skateboarders, and Jonah was mesmerized by their tricks and kept asking me, “Happin? Happin? Happin?”

On Friday, Jonah and I skipped our Dunkin Donuts trip to head in the other direction toward Poble Espanyol, a traffic-free Spanish village in Montjuic created for Barcelona’s 1929 International Exhibition. It’s a pretty spot, well kept, and, most notably for the parent of a child who likes to pick up random little bits from the ground, clean. It made for a nice place for Jonah to play without his being tempted to pick up cigarette butts, which litter most of the playgrounds here.

On our way home from Montjuic, we stumbled upon a fabulous playground right around the corner from our apartment. It’s enclosed by tall buildings and has two entrances with large, solid gates from which you can’t actually see the playground unless you walk down the long corridors. One of the best things about it is that, because it’s closed at night (closing around 7 pm each night), it doesn’t become the late-night smokers hangout. So, while there are cigarette butts to be found, there aren’t nearly as many as we find at most playgrounds. We went there in the afternoon, and Jonah loved, loved, loved it. He enjoyed watching the older kids doing acrobatics in the sand area, and he, of course, loved opening and closing the gates to the enclosed part of the playground—not just one gate but two. Jeremy met us there, and we strolled over to the Gothic neighborhood to enjoy a leisurely dinner on a beautiful plaza, Placa Reial. Then it was off to get gelato on our walk home.

Yesterday we went to Parc Güell in the northern suburbs of Barcelona, about a 40 minute bus ride from our apartment. A project of Gaudí’s from 1900 to 1914, Parc Güell was commissioned as a private housing estate of sixty homes. In the end, only two houses were built, and the area was opened to the public in 1922. The park combines lovely wooded areas for walking with funky, stone columns and beautiful ceramic and glass mosaics throughout, including on a winding bench along the edge of the terrace overlooking a beautiful view of the city. The park is a wonderful spot but quickly overrun by tourists, so we made our getaway around 11:30 am.

After Jonah’s nap, we went to our newly-discovered, fabulous playground before grabbing dinner on Avinguda del Paral·lel. From dinner, we headed to Montjuic to watch the fountain and light show put to classical music at Font Mágica. Our guidebook describes the show as a bit kitschy, but we actually found it to be quite cool. Jonah, however, got very freaked out by the fountain initially. I was off taking pictures of the fountain with the gorgeous Palau Nacional, also built for the 1929 International Exhibition and now housing the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, as the backdrop. Apparently, as soon as the fountains started shooting up water some fifty feet in the air, Jonah started whimpering and saying, “Mama, mama.” Safely in Jeremy’s arms when I returned, Jonah quickly got past his initial fear. After the show, he went up to the fountain, which was still running, to enjoy the spray from the water.

Today we took a day trip to Girona, an ancient walled city that stands on a fortress-like hill about 110 kilometers north of Barcelona. The forecast predicted rain, but we decided to forge ahead anyway. We caught the 9:25 am train and arrived in Girona around 10:50. Divided by a river (Riu Onyar), Girona is a beautiful medieval city with large portions of the original wall still intact. In fact, you can walk along the wall’s catwalk to get nice views of the new part of town on one side of the river and old city on the other side. We spent all of our time in the old city, visiting the old Jewish quarter, the Museu d’Història dels Jueus (Jewish museum), and the gorgeous cathedral, and strolling through the rest of the old city to appreciate the beautiful stone buildings and architecture. The streets of old town Girona are narrow and many have dozens and dozens of steps. So we spent a great deal of our time carrying Jonah’s stroller around town.

Girona’s Jewish quarter dates from around the 9th century and is regarded as the best preserved in western Europe. Known as the Call, the Jewish quarter was home to around 300 Jews who formed an independent town within Girona complete with their own governing bodies and protected by the king in return for payment. But like most (every?) place the Jews lived in the 11th through 15th centuries, the members of the community suffered persecution, and the Call effectively became a ghetto with Jews restricted to living in the quarter and required to wear identifying clothing when wandering outside its boundaries. We’re talking about a very tiny area. Jews who lived outside the Call had 10 days to move within it. The Jewish museum is beautifully done, has a remarkable amount of information and artifacts from the area’s Jewish history (including parts of old cemetery headstones from the 12th and 14th centuries), and is housed in a building at the location of one of the ancient synagogues. We spent some time in the museum’s lovely courtyard before enjoying a lunch at an outdoor café on a tree-lined pedestrian thoroughfare.

Girona’s cathedral reminded me quite a bit of the church of Santa Maria del Mar in Barcelona with its very high ceilings, beautiful stained-glass windows, and striking old, stone interior. Like the Santa Maria, its interior is breathtaking. Jonah particularly enjoyed squawking in the church and hearing the sound of his echoing voice.

After wandering through the old part of town, we decided to find a playground for Jonah before catching the 4:25 pm train back to Barcelona. We found a great little park by the river, where Jonah enjoyed running around, playing in a little house, and going down the slide. At one point, another little boy fell down. Jonah went over to him and patted him, as if to let him know he’d be okay. A bit later, a little girl fell off the slide and was crying in the arms of her dad. Jonah just stood and stared at her, quite concerned about whether she was okay. It’s amazing that this little guy can be so compassionate at eighteen months! (Another quick bit on Jonah… He came up with his first four word sentence the other day—“I love you, mulk (that’s milk)”. And tonight he said to the baby on the package of diapers, “I love you, baby.”)

We also met a professional American cyclist, Freddie Rodriguez, who was at the park with his son and cousins. (I just looked him up on Wikipedia. He has an impressive cycling record.) About 30 professional U.S. cyclists live in Girona because apparently it’s a nice place to bike. That didn’t seem like a sufficient explanation to me, considering how many lovely places there must be in the world to cycle. So he basically explained that after a couple guys from the American professional cycling community moved there, they were followed by many others because it was a nice place to raise a family and because the first few guys had already established connections with doctors, lawyers, etc., making it easier to set up their lives. The cycling world is so different from my own, but it was interesting to talk to Freddie and learn about his life. He happened to be a really nice guy. Jeremy and I both thought about asking him about the doping scandals in his sport but decided against that…

We had a fabulous day and were quite happy to have ventured out of Barcelona. It did end up drizzling a bit, but it was still quite warm and not wet enough to stop our meandering through the beautiful little streets of Girona. The forecast calls for some rain tomorrow with temperatures near 75 degrees and sunny skies the rest of the week with 80 degrees on the horizon. Yippee! Jeremy is off to Princeton from Wednesday through Saturday to give a couple of talks, and I think Jonah and I will make another day trip, this one to the coastal beach town of Sitges.

Off to watch our movie!

Picture descriptions: Mercat de la Boqueria; building on La Rambla constructed to house an umbrella store in the 1890s; typical old town street (this one near the La Boqueria); old mansions in La Ribera neighborhood; blurry image of the interior of the church of Santa Maria del Mar; Poble Espanyol; Poble Espanyol; our neighborhood playground; Placa Reial; Parc Güell; Palau Nacional; Jonah enjoying his new toy and the Font Mágica; courtyard of the Jewish museum in Girona; Girona street on which one of the ancient synagogues was located; remains of the wall surrounding Girona; typical street in old part of Girona