On Monday, Jonah and I went to a park in the Ribera neighborhood that was once a citadel, hence the name—Parc de la Ciutadella. It’s the largest open space in the city center and home to a lake, beautiful fountain, plant houses, two museums, the city zoo, and a great playground. We spent almost all of our time at the playground, where we met a lovely woman (Raquel) and her four kids (three her own, the fourth her brother’s daughter who she cares for during the day). Raquel and her family were living in San Francisco until just recently, when they moved to Barcelona (back home for Raquel). We had an instant connection and talked for the next hour plus…not about our kids, which was a nice change. Meeting other moms in the park usually leads to lengthy conversations about one’s kid(s). It was nice to have a conversation about the rest of life for a change. Raquel and I have since made plans to meet up next week.But back to the park… This playground has a similar program to the London one o’clock centers. Every day from 11 am until 2 pm and again in the late afternoon to early evening, the parks department puts out tricycles, play kitchens, little slides, and other outdoor toys for kids to enjoy. There’s also an indoor area for play, although with Barcelona weather being what it is I imagine that’s used less frequently. Jonah spent about 45 minutes scooting along in little cars, climbing up and going down a toddler slide on his own, and playing in the kitchen (mostly trying to figure out if the water faucet would turn on and opening and closing the cabinet door). He loved it. We strolled around the park for a bit before heading back home to meet Jeremy for lunch. I can’t remember what we did after his nap, but it’s a safe bet that we went to the little park by our apartment.
On Tuesday, Jonah and I went to the beach near Poble Nou. I needed to get more diapers for Jonah at the organic store by the Poble Nou metro stop, so we made a morning of it out that way. Jonah loved, loved the beach as usual. He’s really a beach and boats guy. We bought him a little basketball on the way since he’d been attempting to take other kids’ balls at the park. He was thrilled and immediately learned to say “basketball”. He says it very slowly with each syllable pronounced quite clearly. It’s very cute. This morning he was running around the apartment looking for it, yelling, “Bas-et-ball! Bas-et-ball!” He played with his ball at the beach, throwing it around and pretending to fall over trying to get to it. He was so silly and kept making me laugh. He also loved finding shells and pushing them into the sand with his little index finger. After an hour or so at the beach, we headed home for lunch.
I took that afternoon to myself as Jonah napped and then played with Jeremy at the nearby playground. With Jeremy leaving the next day, I needed a bit of time sans Jonah. Of course, I immediately headed over to Dunkin Donuts for a coffee before walking into the Gothic neighborhood to stroll through the narrow streets and spend a bit more time admiring the architecture and taking the elevator to the roof of the cathedral, La Seu, for a view of the city (not actually an interesting view from there, it turns out). The interior of the church is stunning. The choir area is made from exquisitely carved wood. The organ was playing, so I sat for a while to enjoy the music. It was nice to have time just to walk down any random street without a destination and being able to head part way down a street and decide, no, I don’t want to go that way, I want to go this other way. No need to either have a conversation with Jeremy about it or make sure there weren’t any stairs or that I hadn’t kept Jonah cooped up in the stroller for too long. Just letting what was pleasing to the eye direct my journey was quite nice, relaxing, rejuvenating. I wandered the neighborhood until meeting up with Jeremy and Jonah at El Corte Ingles for a big grocery shopping trip to stock our fridge until Jeremy returned from his trip.
Jeremy left the next morning at 8 am for Princeton to give a couple of talks. Shortly after, Jonah and I left to discover a new park out in the suburbs called Parc del Laberint, an 18th century estate with lovely terraces, gardens, paths, and fountains. The former estate mansion is being restored, so we could only take a peak at it from behind a gate. The best part of the park is the maze of shrubs with a statue of Eros at the center. We took several wrong turns, and I kept saying, “Oh, no.” Eventually Jonah started saying it as well.Before tackling the maze, we spent an hour at the playground, which had different types of features than the other parks we’ve visited. It had tires in which to sit and spin and half circles in which to wobble around. Like most playgrounds in Barcelona, it also had a café kiosk right next to the play area. This is a fabulous addition to playgrounds in my opinion, one designed to keep both parents and children happy. I decided we should try to sit at a table and enjoy a coffee and milk together. Jonah just recently started climbing up onto chairs, and he appears quite proud of the accomplishment and very much enjoys just sitting in the chair with no booster. So I ordered milk for him and a coffee for me. He sat long enough for me to enjoy my coffee and for him to finish his milk. Although I had ordered in Spanish, Jonah pointed at my cup and said, “Coffee.” He certainly knows his mama. (One strange thing I’ve noticed every time I order milk for Jonah is that they serve it with a packet of sugar. How crazy is that!!?? I guess that’s the only way to make some kids drink milk. Sounds disgusting.) The café also had a resident cat that Jonah tried to talk to. “Hi,” he said a few times to it, not realizing I suppose that animals can’t respond in the same way.
Right before we were about to head to the maze, Jonah discovered a play car (one of those machines in which you insert money to have it move like you’re driving it). I cannot emphasize enough how much Jonah loves these little cars, and he doesn’t even know that they can move!! We’ve never actually put money in one. But even without the movement of the thing, I’m pretty sure Jonah could stay in one of these cars for the better part of a day. He just loves turning the wheel and pressing the buttons. He wasn’t pleased about leaving the car at the park, but a new little ball from a vending machine made him happy enough to stay in the stroller when I put him in. (I’d been thinking he needed a ball he could actually palm…perhaps to help with his aim. Right now he releases the ball so it goes behind him rather than in front of him. It’s very cute but makes it a little hard to play ball with him.)
Jonah decided not to nap on Wednesday, I think because he was concerned that Jeremy was gone and probably wondered if I might slip away while he was sleeping. I imagine Jeremy’s going is a bit scary for him because he’s lost half of the only constants in his life right now. No nap, so off to the waterfront we went. We took the bus down to the main port by Barceloneta and walked along the path by the boats. We came upon a fabulous group of musicians performing. We sat and watched for over 30 minutes, and every time I even shifted Jonah’s stroller, he complained because he thought I was going to make him leave. The music was fabulous, so we bought their CD. We walked along the boardwalk before heading back to Avinguda del Paral·lel to make a quick stop at the supermarket and drop off a video. It was early to bed for Jonah that night.
Yesterday we took a day trip to Sitges, a lovely beach town about 35 kilometers south of Barcelona. It’s apparently the beach resort people from Barcelona go to because it has beautiful, clean beaches with little protected coves, one right after the other, making the water calm and easy to navigate for kids especially. We caught a 9:30 am train and arrived about 40 minutes later. We strolled through the town before getting to the beach, where Jonah became quite excited when he saw the sand and ocean. I let Jonah out of the stroller, and he walked along the sand (and fell several times) as I dragged the stroller down toward the water. He played in the sand for a while before hitting the water. I think now that he’s gone in the ocean there will be no staying on the sand to play with his bucket and shovel. He doesn’t recall our trip to Maui just before his first birthday. He loved the ocean then too, but he was a little bit more cautious with the water. Yesterday he wanted to run right in, but there was a little drop off that made this a little dangerous. He wasn’t thrilled about having to hold my hand, so we made a game of it as I swung him in the air and plopped him into the water and quickly pulled him out. The water was colder than I had expected, but he seemed okay with it. After getting drenched, he immediately proceeded to roll around in the sand, happily flopping himself on the leftover bits of a huge sand castle. Jeremy would not have loved this part. I thought it was quite cute, although I wondered how I was going to get him to leave the beach, walk with me while I dragged the stroller, and clean him off. After returning to and playing with his ball, bucket, and shovel, I managed to entice him with talk of a fountain where he could get in the water. Twenty minutes later he was rinsed off, dry, in clean clothes, and ready to head to lunch. These are the mommy moments when I'm quite pleased with myself.
We found a nice café with an ocean view, where Jonah stayed occupied with a children’s place mat and crayons. Mostly he wanted me to draw for him, but he did some coloring too. The waiter gave Jonah a toy truck, which he later snuggled with in his stroller while falling asleep. We took a long walk along the very nicely maintained boardwalk, and Jonah snoozed for about 40 minutes. Away from the main beaches, it was so quiet and peaceful. As Jonah slept, I enjoyed the sounds of the waves crashing. It was warm but not too warm. There were enough people out to keep it interesting but not too crowded. It was just perfect.We took the 3:30 pm train back to Barcelona and headed straight for our neighborhood playground. We arrived at the playground just as the entire world seemed to be descending upon it. One minute no one is there (usually around 4 or 4:30 pm) and the next minute the place is flooding with people (usually around 5 pm). I met a British woman who has been living here for the past 14 years and has a one-year-old daughter. As fine as I feel not being connected to a social network here, it was nice to chat with her for a little while and interesting to hear about her life. Jonah warmed to her quickly, I think in part because there was finally another person talking to him in English. Plenty of people talk to him in Spanish, and he basically disregards them as though they just have bizarre noises coming out of their mouths. He should know the word “guapo” by now though because that’s usually one of the words people say to him (letting him know how handsome he is). I’ve accidentally started speaking to Jonah in Spanish on our walks a few times. Not that my Spanish is in good shape. I’m quite rusty, but I’m remembering more words and different aspects of the grammar with each passing day. I find myself thinking in Spanish sometimes, which reminds me of our time in Peru. When I first starting thinking in Spanish in Peru, I realized I was really starting to get it.
This morning Jonah and I checked out a new park, Parc de l’Espanya Industrial, which was built on the site of an old textile factory and is about a 35 minute walk from our apartment, just beyond the Placa d’Espanya. The park was nice enough—would have been much nicer had the lake been filled with water—but the playground was great and right next to a café kiosk. So first we played a bit on the bouncing truck and bicycle before sitting at a table with our milk and coffee. Then Jonah discovered the very large play structure, which I was initially a bit reluctant to let him go on. He’s usually pretty good about being careful not to get too close to a drop off, so I decided to let him play on it. When it was just the two of us there, he did fine. He definitely likes to test my comfort level though, carefully watching me as he steps a bit closer to the edge. I do a good job of hiding whatever anxiety I may have about it, so he usually carries on with something else. The unfortunate fall took place after another boy came to play on the structure. Jonah got very excited and was sticking his head out a big opening in the structure to look at the boy, and he very quickly moved himself backward and slipped right off. He fell feet first and ended up splayed on the ground. I obviously felt awful…After the play structure incident, we watched a few guys play ping pong to help distract Jonah. Several parks here have permanent ping pong tables, and players need only bring their paddles and a ball. We then went to watch the kids on break from school playing on the basketball courts. Jonah immediately headed for the fountain, where there were about 10 elementary school girls playing. He was interested in the water; the girls were quite interested in him. They kept calling him “guapo” and fawning over him. It was very cute. They held the water faucet so Jonah could play in the water, and then a couple of girls starting washing his hands. Several of them gave him kisses. One girl even tried to pick him up. His reaction was pretty amusing. Given his love of water and fountains, he was more interested in the water and just sort of allowed all of the attention to be bestowed on him. He was smiling and happy, but I think it was mostly because they were indulging his water interest. A couple of girls wanted me to say the ABCs. They then sang back to me the ABC song. It was very cute. They must have just learned it.
From the park we took the bus home—“our bus” as Jonah calls it. Whenever we pass a bus, he says, “Our bus.” On Monday when we were waiting for a bus to take home from the park, a bus that wasn’t going our direction stopped to pick up passengers. Jonah couldn’t understand why we weren’t getting on, so I had to explain that we were waiting for our bus. Later that day he started calling every bus that passed us “our bus”. I started telling him that a bus that isn’t ours is “another bus”, so sometimes the scenario goes as so – Jonah: “Our bus.” Me: “That’s not our bus. That’s another bus.” Jonah: “Other bus.” Sometimes I’ll just say, “That’s not our bus. We’re not taking a bus right now.” And he’ll say, “Other bus.”
This afternoon it poured. I’m talking torrential down pour. Unfortunately, we had to skip the playground and stay inside from about 4 to 5 pm. Our apartment is fine enough, but it’s too small to keep Jonah from going a bit stir crazy after a few hours. So I dreaded the possibility that it might rain all night (and that I’d have to make dinner tonight…I did it the last two nights, and that felt like enough). Once it let up, we zoomed out of the house to a restaurant we’d gone to in the Gothic neighborhood earlier in our Barcelona stay. On our way there, I witnessed a drug deal going down right in front of us as we were strolling along the narrow streets of the neighborhood. Three teenagers were walking casually before a guy in his late-30s appeared out of nowhere and started walking with them. I saw the guy hand one of the kids something on the down low, while the other two kids were hanging back a bit trying to get money out of their wallet (which was then passed to the guy). I couldn’t believe it. The whole thing made me realize that my alternative career as an international spy probably wouldn’t work out that well for me given how ever so slightly paranoid I was seeing this deal go down and thinking that I might be targeted as a witness. I guess I’ll stick to the environment and law.
Tomorrow morning Jonah and I will head to the science museum before lunch and his nap. And Jeremy comes home in the late afternoon. Yippee!!
Picture descriptions: A common scene at many Barcelona parks - men playing bocchi ball - here with the Arc de Triomf in the background at the Parc de la Ciutadella; Jonah pretends to fall while catching the ball at Mar Bella beach by Poble Nou; choir area of La Seu cathedral; playground at Parc del Laberint; play car at Parc del Laberint playground; group of musicians (band name is Made in Barcelona) playing at Barcelona waterfront; Sitges beach; Sitges beach with cathedral in background and amazing Homer Simpson scene created in sand in foreground; Parc de l’Espanya Industrial playground.
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