Shops, Houses & A Beach

What is in a day? Several states of mind, many different scenes and an endless flow of choices, multiplied by the number of people. Writing as the heat of day climbs to its holding temperature, 83 F, the gang is preparing for a city day.

On the agenda: the rug design store  Nanimarquina, other nearby design stores,  Gaudi's Casa Mila and Casa Battlo, all in one neighborhood, and an idea of the beach in La Barceloneta at the end of the day (there's a towel in our bag) with possibilities of a dinner out by the sea.  The boys want to shop today and go to a club tonight. How will all this fit together? What will we actually do?

We set out together just before noon, walking over to the designerly neighborhood in the middle of L'Eixample. On the way, we looked at watches, barber shops and such, buying a corkscrew in a housewares store. The rug shop was closed for vacation. Jesse found a beautiful men's clothing store, snagged by the shoes in the window, even trying on a pair of 140 Euro swim trunks! The shop staff were friendly and informative, and we left with good feeling even though we bought nothing.

The Gaudi houses were so touristic that we couldn't bear to go inside them. Rob and I remembered our only other visit to Barcelona, 27 years ago, when there was none of this feeling: no signage, no lines to buy tickets, no crowds. It was off season, rainy, dreary, and the building facades had not been cleaned, nor their first floors turned into gift shops and cafes.

Antonio Gaudi Casa Milla

Antonio Gaudi Casa Battlo

Lunch was a success, having been picked from a hat, well actually from a piece of tourist literature left in our apartment by our hosts. The hype was true, that the ingredients were fresh, the arrangements inventive, and the prices reasonable. We all had daily menu choices - the three men ate the lamb with sage sauce, and I had the "golden bass" with asparagus sauce (same color as the sage sauce but very different flavor!).  Everyone enjoyed the meal. Russell's first course was an interesting pasta with seafood dish - one that we encountered on menus but didn't know, fidueas.

An Exhibition of the collaborative work between  David Bestue and Marc Manoz, Gallery Vicon 

At this point in the day we divided into older and younger pairs. The older pair walked back to the design stores, and then all the way down past the church of Sant Maria del Mar, to the Picasso Museum, and then to meet the boys at Gehry's fish sculpture on the walkway by the beach. We have achieved that moment in our visit to the city when we begin to know our way, pass familiar landmarks, and recognize sites. The younger pair also wandered, having beers at the Mercat Sant Caterina, buying a special candle, and trying on a few things before also arriving at the beach. Then we had a typical tourist experience -- wandering in search of an authentic dinner in a touristic site and basically failing. A pleasant breeze, the rising full moon, the pleasant wine made from the local grapes of the area we had just visited, and the seafood in the paella was fresh and sweet.  The tables around us represented tourists from all over the world. After dinner the boys came home to collect themselves and then went out around 1:30 AM returning before 4AM, while the parental unit attempted to sleep through the noises of the night and the ever-steady warm temperature.

Frank Gehry Fish for the 1992 barcelona Summer Olympics

Days like this one remind me that I really have no business here in Barcelona. The days are basically motivated by a wandering curiosity for this or that, the collection of images and vignettes of interactions with natives and each other, attending to the details of maintenance like laundry and groceries, and putting together a structural frame in which to understand the life of a big city in a different part of the world.  There have been a few moments when the life I live in Brooklyn has pierced through the time difference and cultural shifts. It is remarkably hard to understand that other life from here, but soon enough I know that I will be attending to the details there much as I do here, relying on my wandering curiosity in my chosen work, those tasks of daily maintenance, vignettes of interactions and the developing framework for understanding what makes up daily life anywhere.