Floating Leaves #2. Montjuic, Barcelona, 2013
Ten “Likes”
1. Great food…variety, taste, quality, very natural…Sea food, mountain food. Even “fast food” is great–unless you do the unthinkable and go to Burger King or MacDonald’s. They value the food experience here and take the time to enjoy it. Too often, we seem to think of food as a nuisance that has to be ingested periodically on our way to our next appointment.
2) Great bread. Sort of a corollary to #1. Why can’t we get good bread in the States without paying five bucks a loaf? Yes, the bread here will turn hard in a day–but that’s because it is real bread…you buy it fresh for each meal!
3) The mass transit. No need for a car here and that is quite liberating. You can get most anywhere using the metro, buses, trains and taxis. No need to worry about parking or maintaining and feeding that ball and chain of an internal combustor. For photography, I love the freedom this gives me to move about the city.
4) Culture…business is important, but not at the expense of losing the culture. There must be at least one hundred different museums in Barcelona, ranging from the Museu Picasso (possibly the one with the longest lines at the door), to more esoteric ones like the Museu de l’Eròtica and the Hash Marihuana, Cáñamo & Hemp Museum. Then you have the Liceu for theater and opera…and hundreds of other musical and theatrical venues. And, of course, the many Catalan traditions… the human castles, or Castellers, the Tió de Nadal that “shits” Christmas gifts, the Caganer, the shitting shepherd in the Nativity scene (a scatological trend here?), the sardana, a traditional dance, the many festivals…and on and on…
5) The history…2000+ years old. For us, anything over 100 years old is “old”, so this is quite a challenge to our brains! There is plenty to explore here both intellectually and photographically.
6) The cycling. The city itself can be a challenge for a cyclist trying to train (although it is very possible), but it is quite cycling friendly for simply exploring and for recreation. Outside of the city, you’ll find some of the sweetest, smoothest cycling terrain around–from the sea coast to the mountainous Pyrenees. No wonder many pros make Girona, just northeast of Barcelona, a key training base. Stage 6 of the 2009 Tour de France finished on the summit of Montjuic and there are plenty of amateur races to jump into if that is your thing.
7) Languages, I have always loved learning languages and here you have two to learn: Spanish (Castellano) and Catalan. A couple of hours north and you can practice your French. Und achtung, mein Freund…on the beach, in the summer, you can also practice your German to your heart’s content.
8) The balance between work and play. They work, but their play (vacations, tourism, etc.) is also very important. I think they have the balance about right. My experience: in South America (as an example) a little too much play (mainly on the part of their leaders) and not enough work…in the U.S. too much work (on the part of everyone) and not enough play.
9) Their health system. Yes, it may have its issues but, to me, these problems are–by far–preferable to the problems we have in the U.S. We spent a year here dealing with doctors for my wife’s mother and the experiences were nearly always very positive. (How often have you had a nurse, doctor and psychologist visit your home–all three at once–to see how you were doing caring for a dying relative?) When I would ask the doctors their opinion of the U.S. system, most would express a combination of pity and disbelief.
10) Their sex-violence philosophy. We in the U.S. think it’s OK to show films of spurting blood, chopped up gore, explosions, killings, beatings, shootouts and such–yet we get all beaked when nudity (especially male nudity, oh mah God!) and sex are depicted. To European sensibilities we have things backasswards (so to speak), That is, sex and nudity are quite natural, while violence is to be abhorred, not admired and taught as it seems to be in the U.S.
Here is a fun, violence-related, note: my Catalan in-laws think it is completely ironic and other-worldly bizarre that no one is allowed to smoke anywhere in our Boulder, Colorado apartment building–including within our own flats–but we are free to own as many firearms and boxes of ammo as we want and store it all in under our beds. A weird definition of personal freedom, they thought (they are almost all non-smokers, by the way).
Another fun nudity-related note (and leaving the many topless and nude beaches aside for now): At a traffic light in downtown Barcelona, with masses and multitudes of pedestrians rushing all about, I once found myself standing next to a nude guy–well tanned all over–on his way to the beach. I saw no outcry from anyone. It was basically a non-event. Can you imagine the reaction in the States? “Honey, the kids! Cover their eyes!” I have seen no evidence that being “exposed” to such things has corrupted the Catalan kids in any way–in fact, their attitudes seem quite healthy, generally.
Finally, a bonus “like”:
11) Chocolate croissants and xuixos (the latter a crème filled pastry of about a gazillion calories). Yes, I know I talked about food at the beginning, but these need to be mentioned apart.
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