Barcelona lightning-fast tour

I had an odd conversation with a man in the steam-room at the Hilton in Birmingham, England.  I know, what a great life I have.  I swam first in the glass covered pool while prom kids fluttered by in dresses of every color.  When he found out that we lived in Spain and I was visiting England for a writing class, he said, “So you guys must travel a lot.”  I said, “No, hardly ever.  We have only made two trips in Spain.”  He kindly let that go without comment.  We talked about other things, such as that this gym is his normal gym (lucky guy) and that he had two kids.  I said we were going to China next and then added that yes, I guess we do travel a lot.  Duh.

 So here we are in Barcelona because everyone says you HAVE to see Barcelona.  If it were up to me, I would stay home.  I prefer to LIVE in a foreign country, not travel in it.

Here is the more Gaudi that the tour guide promised.  This one does not have the characteristic tile work, like the one above, but they are worth seeing.  Gaudi’s first commission was for a magnate of a tile company, and Gaudi liked it so much he stuck with it for the rest of his career, decorating with brilliantly colored tile mosaics, that is.  The photos seem cartoonish, but the real thing is breath-taking.

 The overlook was a lot more interesting with a guide to explain it.  He pointed out the old part of town, the shipbuilder and the customs office.  Now they are a quarter mile inland, because the shoreline has been built up and a beach added.  It was all spiffed up for the olympics and both guides here and at the church credit the olympics with making Barcelona a world class tourist destination. 

 The present shipyard lies in the other direction.  Shipping is and always has been the source of Barcelona’s wealth.

 We stopped at the beach, but I was hungry and feeling pressured, so I forgot to take any pictures.  It was crowded and had no waves, but we went because that was Wyatt’s top priority.  With a private tour, the kids can have more say.  I thought the tour would take the pressure off of me, but the pressure was almost unbearable anyway.  Looking back, I can’t think why, but that’s how it always is.  

 

Photo credit: http://brightsidetours.com/dev/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/DSC005802.jpg

The highlight was our guide and cool van. A guy on a scooter drove alongside and hollered, “Que furgonetta mas chula!”  He thought it was awesome too. 

  

We finished up at the chocolate museum.  I’m thinking, “I can’t possibly send this picture out because I look ridiculous,” and you are thinking, “Who’s that cute guy?” and “Look at all that chocolate.”  He is our guide, Joa.  He set us up with a private class.  The cute girl is our teacher.

You would be surprised how necessary the gear is.  Winston had chocolate everywhere, including the hat.

Look through the window into the courtyard.  The building used to be a monastery.

Troy has been tormenting the ladies at the embassy with descriptions of all-you-can-eat chocolate.

Her:  How was your trip?

Him:  Great.  You have to go to the Chocolate museum.

Her:  No, I can’t.  It would be too dangerous.

Him:  Bags of chocolate, bars of chocolate, a fountain of chocolate, spilling-down chocolate…top quality dark chocolate...

Her:  OK!  I’ll go.

Why does melted chocolate turn chalky even though I use a thermometer?  Because you have to heat it to one temperature and then cool it to the working temperature, while mixing it.

And last of all, here we are filling truffles.  Behind Wyatt’s head is the machine that keeps the chocolate at the proper temperature while mixing it.  We took a break while the truffle filling cooled to go to the museum part of the chocolate museum.  Our teacher explained the whole process.  Cocoa pods are the size of a small papaya.  I had no idea.  Plus there were whole scenarios carved in chocolate from Legoland and Asterix.  We left with plenty of chocolate for the rest of the trip.  Maybe traveling isn’t so bad after all.

Barcelona: Thoughts on choosing where to stay

Our place in Barcelona had a disco ball and a dance floor.  It was described on AirBnB as a ‘Loft.”  The kids loved it and grudgingly I did too.

AirBnB, if you don’t know, is a way to rent apartments from people who have space to rent.  It used to be a cheap way to have more space as a family, plus a kitchen.  But it is a lot more expensive as they have added more fees, to the point that we may go back to staying in hotels.

 I say grudgingly because this is what it looked like out front.  We got there early, so we had a while to wonder if we had the right place.  City apartments on AirBnB rarely have parking, so Troy dropped us off in the street with our luggage and left.  The mirrored glass upstairs was our flat.  We had a whole slice of the building all the way to the back.  That orange sign has a painter’s pallet and says, “Open Space, Artist Studio.”  I don’t know how it works, but I suppose you can go there to paint.

 What a dump.

 But then we got inside.  The old doors add wonderful character.

 Troy is reading in the lovely modern kitchen.  We didn’t actually cook here, as there was an Ethiopian restaurant 5 blocks away.  We weren’t going to pass that up.

There was definitely a college crash pad feel to the place.  The beds were on the floor or on packing pallets.

Our host (the guy who rents the place out and lists it on AirBnB) was a 28-ish Russian guy.  There was a connecting door to the next building over:  this old brick one.  He said that was where he would be.  At night there were twinkling multicolored lights leaking out of the shutters and what appeared to be another dance floor.  There was music, and one group came in whooping and hollering.  Then they started singing.  I mean choir practice with a piano and a do-re-mi warm-up.  It was a lovely thing to fall asleep to, and how would you ever get something so unique at the Hilton?

 

Barcelona: Thoughts on visiting Churches

The first thing we saw in Barcelona was the Sagrada Familia church.  You pop up out of the metro and there it is!  It is so close you can’t even get a good picture of it.  It was started 100 years ago and the city has grown up around it.  The entrance they use at one side is not even the proper entrance because now there is a major street where it should have been.

 

Trumpets against the sky.  Note the girl with the bassoon to the right.

Every inch is encrusted with artwork.  The work stopped during the Spanish Civil War and the post-war years of poverty.  But work is moving right along now.  It is the most-visited attraction in Spain and all the ticket money is going towards finishing it.  The Alhambra in Granada is second.  We got to go up in the towers.  You can see the catwalks connecting them.

The afternoon side above has warm afternoon colors and the morning side below has cool morning colors.

You can tell when we were there by the dazzling orange glow.  The organ was playing when we first went in, but shortly after it was replaced by loud power tools.  There is net and scaffolding up everywhere, but it doesn’t detract much.

I definitely had a crick in my neck, but you just can’t stop looking!  None of my pictures go anywhere near the top.  It goes up and up.

We had a little tour. That’s our guide standing in black.  She focused on the progress of the work, the religious significance of various details and the architect Gaudi who took over the planning in 1929.  It was his life’s work.  Downstairs are lots of photos and architectural tools and models.  Gaudi was a math genius and figured out a new way have vaulted ceilings without all the flying buttresses.  For that reason (I think, no one said this) the city can come in so close.  The whole thing soars up at the top and not out at the bottom.

Resting while we wait for our time slot to go up the towers.  Note the cute Korean guy showing something to his (girl) friend on the next bench.  The tour was only an hour but it seemed longer.  I joked to the kids, “We have three more churches to visit tomorrow.”  They groaned.  We were all pooped.  Then the next morning, our tour guide said, “We aren’t going to see any more churches, but more Gaudi, yes." 

 The towers are awesome, magical, worth the extra money.  The stairwells dart up, down, across, around.  To have the run of the place without the workers and minders would be amazing.  Though some doors opened onto two foot ledges over a 30 ft drop with no railing.  They were locked, but had clear glass panes to look through.

Those massive lights pointing up into the towers made me REALLY want to see the church at night.  We didn’t get to, though because where we stayed was in another part of town.

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Tristan thought the church must be 1000 years old because of all the different styles.  Some parts were simple because they aren’t finished yet.  I suppose you could sponsor a stained glass window if you wanted to, unless you have to be catholic.  This part seemed simple by design.  Those star-shaped things are supposedly part of Gaudi’s revolutionary vault design.

 Here we are back where we started.

 

Camping in Devil Grass

We went camping way back when and I never posted the pictures.  Troy assured me that this was a very nice campsite, suitable for first-time campers.  Famous last words.

Tristan slept under the stars.  We went with the Akeys, scouts and experienced campers.  Another family was supposed to meet us the next day, and in fact, this whole trip came about because they asked us to take them camping.  Of course we are evangelical about camping and got right on it.  The walls and old roads run everywhere.  Someone built a flagstone terrace here way back when.  That did not stop it from being overgrown with this grass that was the bane of this trip.

That is the car to the right, with hayfields behind.  The campsite is to the left, which meant we had to go down the gorge, across a rivulet overgrown with more vicious weeds, and back up the other side.  

Troy was here in WINTER before, with a scout group and it was perfect.

Ah, how beautiful, how peaceful.

Really, really beautiful and peaceful.

We do it right whenever possible, with bacon and eggs.

 Troy was trying out a new alcohol burner.  It is the size of an espresso cup inside the thing with holes.

He sent ME off to find 90% alcohol at the liquor store.  I was scolded by not one but two twenty-somethings about how only young people drink that to forget everything about what they are doing.  First the clerk at the store told me, and then when I forgot it at the cafe, the waiter, who had kept it for me on the counter, tsk-tsked, shook his head and said, “Es gasolina.”  I said, “Exactly so.”  The stove worked great, by the way.

Thunder, Australian Cattle Dog, my favorite dog that is not my own, is 100% at home on the prairie.

This is why the grass is so awful.  It has a barbed point like an arrowhead and a twisted tail that works it’s way into everything.  They poke you through your clothes and you have to reach inside to get them out.  The tails twisted into Cuddles’ fur and drove the heads into his skin.  I had to shave him and pick the heads out with tweezers.

Weird wall in the middle of nowhere that I think was natural.  

Troy saw a deer bounding away and I said, Let’s go look for traces.  He is a lucky man.  Patches of earth were completely dug up, which he recognized instantly as the work of pigs.  I was busy trying to think why people might do such a thing, just wantonly tearing up the hillside.

Troy had a massive allergy attack, the kind where you sneeze so much your chest hurts.  So, after a nice morning cooling off in the river, we called it quits and cancelled with the other friends.

But we couldn’t let those s’mores go to waste.

I’m not coming out even for s’mores.

Madrid Writer's Club

Tristan has now had his first writing experience as an adult.  I enjoyed the class, but it was Tristan who completely knocked my socks off.  That's him behind the guy in blue.  More about our interrupted photo shoot later.

Tristan did a better job of fulfilling the assignment than the adults did!  It was to write a paragraph of “omniscient conflict” as opposed to character conflict or internal conflict.  Omniscient conflict is when the cat stalks the bird, smacks the window, knocks the papers off the desk and the blue envelope ends up hidden behind the planter.  The reader knows, but none of the characters know.  The peg coming loose from the train engine or any other machine failure would be another example. It is like foreshadowing but has to involve a change that will cause problems later.  The letter is missing, the boiler is blocked and pressure is rising, the root beer spilled onto the gun and we know later it might not work (that was Tristan’s).

If, as you are reading this week, you come across something like that, tell me about it.  Leave a comment.  We sat around six in a circle and couldn't think of any examples, though I know I have seen it lots of times. 

We take turns reading what we write.  I thought I would die the first time I had to.  My hands shook, my chest constricted, my voice cracked.  But Tristan didn't seem to mind.  He read clearly, though a little fast.  I was going to tell you how elegant his prose was, etcetera, but I will get him to send it to me so you can all read it.

• When my son spilled some Root Beer all over one of our many tables I did not care. but my old nine millimeter from the war sat untouched and trapped in the musty old drawer under the spill. Somehow the sugary soft drink penetrated the thin top and dropped down onto the action of the gun, rusting it so it was unusable. Now for some reason my two years experience in Europe didn't carry on till now and the gun was never examined or cleaned and so it sat uncared for for many months.

The group consisted of four guys plus me and Tristan.  They all said that they started writing at 14 and announced to everyone that they were going to publish a book.  Some of them have succeeded and the rest of us are still plugging away.   David organizes the group and he is very positive and encouraging.  There are some bossy women who fail in this regard, but overall being with other writers is so refreshing.

Winston and Wyatt meanwhile were doing something on their tablets involving earphones and emitting little bursts of "he-he-he," probably at the comic Asterix, in which Gallic buffoons with super-strength taunt the Romans in ancient times.  Winston LOVES Asterix.  I had them all in tow because we went to a friend's house all the way across town at 5pm and I would not have had time to take them home before 8.  I told them to please trust me, that in years to come, they would remember a night out in Chueca as something fun and interesting.  They were highly critical of the funky fashions.

Wyatt:  "That guy wearing platform boots looks ridiculous." 

Me:  "But imagine if they had rocket boosters in them..."

Wyatt:  "But they don't."

Me:  "We can imagine."

Wyatt:  "Yeah (-:  You're right."

Then there was the older guy stalking along purposefully like the movie villain,  or the good guy who has been nice until it was time not to be nice.  He was wearing cowboy boots, an ammo belt, a dixie flag tank top and scarves trailing down from his belt like a tail.  I have seen him before with another guy dressed the same, so he must be on his way to or from work with a gypsy-rock-country-flamenco band.  I would tell Wyatt to go ask, and Wyatt would do it, but the guy was tall and fast and seemed intensely busy.  I guess if you are going to dress like that you have to be intense to pull it off.

Back to the photo. You saw what Wyatt got a photo of.  What did he NOT get a photo of?  We waited a bit for the guy in blue to buzz off, but he didn't.  He lit that cigarette and canoodled with his partner.  In my opinion it was way to hot for canoodling outdoors.  Downstairs is lots of canoodling, gay and straight, unless someone is busy on a laptop or there is a game on.  Upstairs is where we meet.  You can see a balcony with wrought iron and shutters. The shutters were closed against the afternoon sun and the lights are never on until we ask.  The bartender comes up when he gets a minute.

Lance who is jolly like Santa Claus and so hot he carries a rag: "Should we go ask him to come up?"

David: "I already did."

Lance:  "OK. We'll sweat here in the dark."

So yes, I took my kids to a make-out bar.  But like Deborah and Barak (Judges 4), I trust God to go before us and after us and all around us.  

Wyatt, after watching the guys rub all over each other like cats:  "I got ONE picture."  And that was that.  Very mature, I thought.

Dogsitting

Nothing much to report here.  We dogsat for this Australian Cattle Dog.  And I am getting the hang of the big camera.

Blurry.

Dark.

Perfect.  She looks like a wild dingo, but is super playful, nice and thinks she is a lapdog.  A good time was had by all.  By the end she was even playing chase with Cuddles, though all she wanted at first was ball, ball and more ball.  That is a blowgun, by the way, in Tristan’s hand.  That was their project for the weekend.