barcelona time

hola folks, garrett here. i thought i'd give kathy the night off and take the helm for a moment. it's our last night in this city, and as happens everywhere, we've seemed to have developed something of a routine. it's a bizarre routine to say the least, but a routine nonetheless.

every morning begins extremely early--usually before sunrise--with what sounds like the gods throwing buildings down the street. we've been visited with the loudest, most bombastic thunderstorms, and they've been happening mostly in the morning and late at night. this startles us--and i imagine every other resident, recently passed out on cheap local plonk or not--out of sleep for a couple of hours, as we watch the flashes, count down to the explosions, and listen to rivers of rain pelt the streets. after passing back out we wake up as though drugged at 10 or 11 (hey, we're on vacation here!) only to find everything has dried out and the sun is back.

after the requisite morning cafe con leche (cappucino--no drip coffee in these parts) and ham/croissant, the days are passed with me leading kathy on a death-march around various buildings, parks, neighborhoods, tree-lined streets, museums, etc.. although there is no way to completly 'do' any city this size in the short time we've been here, we've made a valiant attempt. kathy's patience with my curiosity has been notihing short of saintly, as i think we've both identified some sort of disfunction in my mental state that makes me think that, like sharks, if i stop i'll die. i'll keep to the general in this note and let the specific sights and places be represented by the photos we include, if you don't mind.

we collapse back in the hotel room at around 7, take a few hours to recoup, then head back out among the throngs in search of sustenance on the spanish clock. creatures of habit that we always are, we've discovered a tiny little corner of narrow blind alleys in the gothic quarter and keep coming back to two restaurants hidden there. one seems to be in all the guidebooks as i coudn't spot a spanish speaker who didn't work there. no matter. it's called the cafe academia and they have this calamari dish that is unreal. the menu said it came with rice, so i questioned its appearance when i was given what i thought was a bowl of flat pasta. that actually wasn't a pile of noodles but a pile of calamari COVERING a small mound of rice, infused in squid ink. yes, perfectly cooked and tender, yes full of flavor, yes yes yes! the other is a slick little restaurant called 'que bec' where they will give you a three course meal of incredible creative and flavorful dishes plus 2 glasses of wine for about $13. this meal is easily big enough for two, and both times we went, they seemed to have forgotten to charge for the extra glasses of wine. when queried in broken spanish why their food is so good and so cheap, the waitress/owner said (at least i think) she believes that food isn't a commodity but a necessity, and that it isn't any more difficult or expensive to make it so good. i don't know the economics of restaurants, but after such an amazing meal and deal, i was ready to believe anything this woman told me.

ah yes, back to the routine: the night usually wraps up with a walk from one of these two restaurants back up the ramblas to our hostal/hotel. this ramblas is barcelona's most famous street, and at 1am is doing it's best impression of the vegas strip for all the drunken youth of the european continent and beyond. needless to say this walk becomes a slalom around swaying knots of kids looking much less cool and tidy than they think they do. ah, youth. of course kathy and i are the very picture of sobriety and decorum, so we have no idea why all these people are having such a time of it, yes. this walk is of course also puncutated by the surreal sky, bruise-colored, and periodically flashing lightning, gearing up for the next morning's big bangs. i just wonder about all those kids passed out on the beach...

so our plans have changed and we're accelerating our move to san sebastian by 3 days. it's not because we really WANT to leave this fantastic city; it just turns out that my old archi-school pal hayden is going up there from madrid this weekend with a friend, and it's our only feasible chance to meet up with him. and why is hayden going to san sebastian this weekend? because of course the surf is up. very up. and we'll just leave it at that, shall we? ok back to you, kathy.