22 de Julio - Sagrada Familia y Mucho Vino a Almuerzo

After courting the idea several times and even walking up to and around La Catedral de la Sagrada Familia , Gaudi’s landmark thumbprint on Barcelona’s streets, we actually got in line, waited an hour, and paid to enter. It was worth it. And that, my friend, is an understatement.

The Passion Side of La Sagrada Familia

The giant redwood-sized columns on the Passion side of the church gripped the ground at nearly a 45 degree angle. Their massivity (my new word for giant columns that boggle little minds like mine) and detail in the midst of their massivity made me feel the way I feel when I look at stars on an open Kansas night - small.

We stood briefly and tried to point out each station of the stations of the cross but missed a few, mostly due to our lacking memory of three or four events along Jesus’ way to crucifixion.

Once inside, the cathedral opens up with even more massivity than the columns that support it on the exterior. For the most part, the roof is finished, and this makes it possible to have Mass in the church now. The lofty ceilings are nearly painted in their entirety and much of the stain glass windows have been placed, but the estimation as to when the Cathedral will be finished looms between 2020 and 2040, and this depends on funding.

Just one of those things I can do my best to describe, but the pictures do the best justice.

Maybe it was being in a huge church and thinking about the unconsecrated wine that made me order the pitcher of vino at Alfonso’s Restaurante in the heart of the Eixample Barri. In the most direct translation, Mary and I shared the meat plate: cured meat, ribs, pork loin, steak, and peppers. Fue perfecto. I may not need to tell you this, but we napped that afternoon and were very unproductive that evening. But man, you can’t beat some great meat.

Can't beat that meat (and yes, we finished the wine).

Inside La Sagrada Familia - That lady loves her hat.

21 de Julio (A Mary Post)

Sometimes in life, on the day after you had a weird, utterly-displaced and nearly penniless experience in a foreign country, you gotta get back in the saddle. Embrace your inner Pau Gasol and rebound like a Spanish maniac. That’s what we did on Wednesday, July 21st. It had to be done.


Back-in-saddle Task 1: Run. We started the morning hoping to get in a 6.2 mile tempo run, and ended up with a dehydration-inspired 4 miler. Could this relative failure stop Mary and Kase Johnstun? Nope.

Back-in-saddle Task 2: Eat a Spanish-lunch standard. A quick jog across the street for a hearty boccadillo, croquette, and café-con-leche lunch added a little bounce to our step.

Back-in-saddle Task 3: Off-road tourism. We hit the streets again to do one of our LP Guide’s walking tours – a three-mile Modernista archeticture tour of L’Eixample, our neighborhood in Barcelona (see 2nd post for more info on this…such loveliness shouldn’t be tainted by any sort of post-displacement negativity). It felt amazing to be a tourist again…to stick nose in weathered guidebook again and get lost in the amazing and surprising of Barcelona.

Back-in-saddle Task 4: Good ol’ fashioned white-collar labor. Work for both Kase and I called our names for quite a few hours after that, and it lulled us into a nice, regular rhythm like only work can. Sometimes, it’s really comforting to answer email, solve problems, and write boring documents.

Back-in-saddle Task 5: On-road tourism. I left Kase (who’s seen enough European churches to last a lifetime) behind to check out the ancient century Born District Eglesia de Santa Maria del Mar and the equally old La Catedral. There’s something about 14th century structures, being built before the Americas were even discovered, that made me and my 21 hours of displacement seem small in comparison. And they were quiet and beautiful, and the lovely hush, low lighting, and little details were like churchy comfort food.

Back-in-saddle Task 6: Shopping. After visiting churches, I hit the shops in the Barri Gotic and Born to load up on gifts. The hunt to find the perfect item for each of our completely unique family members was putting me one step closer to complete contentment.

Back-in-saddle Task 7: Starbucks. Yes…I visited a Starbucks in Spain, where lovely coffee is even more accessible than in the Pacific Northwest. But nothing says “home” to a tourist from Tacoma like a latte and a slice of bread.

Back-in-saddle Task 8: Tapas and Gelato. This mode of eating (in San Sebastian, mobile; in Barcelona, not as mobile, but pretty fabulous) is the comforting Spanish standby – anything outside this has almost come to feel as if you’re cheating on Spain with another food genre. We feasted at the Bar del Pla in Borne on our favorites – roasted peppers, pan con tomate, blue cheese croquettes, patatas bravas, cava for me, and vino tinto for Kase.

All in all, it was more than a full day…it was a day full of our favorite Spanish things, favorite US things, favorite life things. Most of them probably seem pretty mundane and mind-numbing, but that’s exactly what we were looking for – a regular, run of the mill day for two Spanish tourists pretty comfortable with their city.

19 y 20 de Julio - Homeless and Broke

The story of these two days will be written and revised and rewritten. It will not be finished until multiple drafts have been edited, and it will find its meaning far from today. It  has already begun to stew, to take shape as a narrative, and its layers have already started to form in words, but it will take much longer to flesh it out.


But I will give you the long and short of it and promise to show you the narrative at full length, once I figure out how to shape it, and if you ask to see it.

We lost the keys to our apartment at the beach after our property management company had closed. Since Mary’s hackers stripped her email account of the manager’s cell phone number, we could not contact anyone to let us in to our apartment. We had been at the beach, so we did not have three necessities: ID, money, debit or credit cards. We did have: Sunscreen, towels (which proved extremely useful), metro passes (even more useful), and a bottle of wine with no opener (probably for the best).

“There is not much you can do,” said the late-night Embassy man said from Madrid.
“Do you know of anywhere we can go? Is sleeping on the street really our only option?” We asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Know of any place that would be best?” We asked.
“I’m in Madrid, not Barcelona. I don’t really know,” He said.

I said before that we had no money. That’s not completely true. We had seven Euros, which we spent on water and wafers. We slept (tried to sleep) on the train-station benches, then on the concrete outside the train station when security closed the building up, and then on the beach until the rental office opened. We got into our apartment the next day at two - exhausted, dehydrated, and hungry, but we got in.

There is more. So much more. There are lessons learned and good decisions made. But the flesh of these will not completely bud, grow, and flourish until it has had time to be seasoned. The story’s shape, right now, has no edges, no beginning, no end, and no defined colors. But it will.

16 a 18 de Julio - Laughter, Picasso, and Estrella

Sam and his Estrella

Our friends Sam and Misty and thier daughter, Maire, came to see us this last weekend, and looking at how this entry is titled, it is a bit underdeveloped. Estrella is the yellow beer of the Barcelona locals. It is best served cold, and it is best downed quickly. Knowing that, the title would be better illustrated if I could have written it as such: Estrella, Laughter, Estrella, Picasso, Laughter, Estrella, Repeat. I want to describe the weekend in one of the simplest sentence structures because it was perfectly simple in nature, as it nearly always is with great friends: We had fun!


Many of the things we did with our friends we had done before. But our eyes had changed. Some necessary touristy sights looked different the second time through, even richer than the first, the smaller details unmasked behind the façade.

We sandwiched Picasso. And it rocked.

Jamon Iberico is the special bocadillo of Barcelona. The meat, Jamon Iberico, is extremely simple but salty and soft, cured and sliced to sit between two pieces of French bread.

The Picasso Museum was our Jamon Iberico that sat between laughter and Estrella. The museum shows an intimate picture of Picasso’s time in Barcelona and his connection to the city through paint strokes. His most famous pieces are not here. They sit in the Louvre or the MOMA, but the work that lines the museum walls directly reveals Picasso’s triumphs, struggles, and growth as an artist in Barcelona. If you ever come to Barcelona and you need meat, the Picasso Museum has been delicately cur(ate)ed to give visitors a salty experience of Picasso they may not have tasted before.

The weekend: we had fun. Simple and true, and I love the simplicity of laughter between friends. It should always serve at the beginning and the end.

15 de Julio - Ode to Jamon ‘Chips’ (Ooh Bacon Chips!)

On July15th, we got some beach time and traveled six hours on the train back to Barcelona.

On the train, however, we ate a few bags of our favorite Sabor de Jamon ‘chips.’ The chips, either made by Ruffles or Lays or a local brand, are truly amazing. They taste like bacon. Really good bacon. Not overcooked bacon or turkey bacon or lean bacon, but good, thick bacon with lots of greasy fat. All in a chip.

The question is why hasn’t this flavor made it to the U.S? We love our bacon. We put bacon on burgers; we wrap steak in bacon; we love BLTs; we even wrap fruit and vegetables in bacon. Why doesn’t the U.S. have bacon chips? Ruffles and Lays make and distribute them in Spain, and they are the most common flavor of chips on the market; a scan of the grocery aisle proves this.

Those beef ads on the sides of the U.S. interstates have been highly successful: ‘Beef, it’s what for dinner.’ Chick-fil-a has done extremely well with the ironic ‘Eat More Beef’ slogan. It is time the U.S. adopts bacon chips. It’s for the country’s own good. We will be a happier people because of this explosion of flavor. I am currently a happier person because of my daily consumption of bacon chips.

I thought of ten ad campaigns for the introduction of bacon chips:

1. Bacon chips - perfect with themselves.

2. We put bacon on fruit; let’s put it in a chip.

3. Ruffles have bacon ridges.

4. Bacon chips: they’re what’s for breakfast.

5. Want more romance in your relationship? Lost that fire? Can’t remember your husband’s name? Add bacon chips to your love life and at least you’ll have some good chips.

Ruffles/Lays: You can contact me directly at 555-JAM-CHIPS.

14 de Julio (A Mary Post): Triumph over Tapas and Nigerian Hackers

Sometimes in life, on the day after you finally reclaim your email and favorite social networking site from Nigerian hackers who want nothing other than to take your friends and family for all they are worth, you just need to chill out, shop, and eat a lot of amazing food. This is what we did Wednesday, our last full day in San Sebastian. We slept in, got a bit of work in, drank too much coffee, and got a late start to the day, all of which means that we’re really becoming Spaniards.

From the point we stepped out of the hotel and onto the street, we were primed to enjoy the day. We ate lunch and had a glass of wine at a cute little spot by the 16th Century Gothic San Vicente church. We shopped a bit in Zona Romantica (an old area dominated by loads of clothing and other stores near Parte Vieja), and I convinced Kase to purchase cool Euro-clothes (which he may or may not wear when we return to the States). We stopped often to take photos of all the details I’m so fond of – the small fountain in Parte Vieja that reminded me of Slytherin House, well-behaved dogs wandering about, the sprawling Basilica de Santa Maria that casually hides its grandeous self away in Parte Vieje, and the cute kids kicking soccer balls down the small streets.

At about 6 p.m., as we walked around, we started to notice tapas bars changing out their plates and adding to their selections from their late lunch service. Most restaurants don’t even open for dinner until 8, or even 9 p.m. at night. But because tapas are often meant to be a snack before dinner (think…happy hour), or enjoyed slowly throughout the night (see references to “mobile dining experience” from July 12th entry), tapas bars were already open for business for the night.

The night of the 14th, we were determined to have an even better tapas experience than we had a few nights prior. By this point on our trip to San Sebastian, we knew the drill – walk in confidently, scan the array, try to identify the place’s super-specialty, request a plate, load up (but not too much) on cold tapas, request that hot tapas be prepared, order wine, and return to the server who gave us our plate and ask to pay.

We learned on our first night what NOT to do. Do NOT just grab a plate from the counter and go…request one from someone behind the bar. Do NOT approach any server to close out your check…go directly to the person who gave you your plate. Do NOT serve yourself for hot items…if the tapa looks like something that would be better warm, point to it and they’ll plate it and warm it for you.

In addition to this new savvy from two days’ serious tapas study, we were also armed with some recommendations from a local at our hotel and were ready to actually pica-pica like pros.

And pica-pica, we did. Sip, sample, declare the best thing in the world, move on. Eating like real Spaniards – knowing the pica-pica rules and digging into some of each bar’s more exotic-looking tapas – felt pretty amazing to a set of mind-weary travelers. We triumphed over the experience and with each heavenly bite, we said “Suck it, Nigerian hackers. You can’t bring us down.”

13 de Julio - Corriendo Larga, HACKERS, Que Romantica (Po-try)

Ten miles on a loop on the San Sebastian coastline feels more like six. Runners get this. With the temp at 75 degrees and surrounded by sun bathers and volleyball players and the rocky hillsides that form La Playa de la Concha, I looped back and forth to complete my ten mile run, and the hour and a half got swept out to sea with the pull of the tide. The sight of a tiny island just of the crescent-moon coast kept my eyes focused on the waves and my mind off my legs. There is no other way to write about that morning run. I try to avoid excessive use of adjectives in my writing, but as a good friend of mine, and a writer of a much higher caliber, would say: “That’s po-try.”

Two more long runs to go and I will have completed my training in Barcelona without a hitch. Besides carrying a little bit of extra weight around the mid-section and on my jowls. But those aren’t hitches, they’re symbols of my unending dedication to taste everything that is put in front of my face (thank God Spaniards rarely cook with onions and when they do, they tell you).

Mary finished her eight-miler on a run through old parts of the city. Her training has been very good. But when she opened up her computer that day slightly after noon, she saw that she was having an IM conversation with a relative and asking him to send her money because she got held at gunpoint in the London airport and needed a way to get home. Bastards - that’s all I have to say. We spent the next four hours making sure all of our financial passwords, emails, and all were secure, and Mary spent the day telling people she was just fine. Bastards - she had a great run that morning and they ruined it.

Five hours later, we ate cheeseburgers and drank wine and tried to forget what happened that day. Then we rolled up our pants and held hands and walked on the beach and watched the sun drop down over the green and brown mounds of earth that created the bay. Yes, Mag: Po-try.

12 de Julio (A Mary Post)

Monday, July 12th, was a day of transition for us – from the craziness of Pamplona and San Fermin, to San Sebastian (aka Donostia), the place where Spaniards and other Europeans go to take fancy getaways.

We woke up in our teeny tiny twin-bed pension in Pamplona, sweaty and exhausted. You see, the night before, we celebrated a lot. After we celebrated, we attempted a small amount of sleep through the noise of the celebrations on the street. It was bittersweet sleeplessness that amounted to taking power naps in between startling, but so intriguing, fun noises outside.

Anyway, a two hour train ride took us from lovely, but a little worse for wear Pamplona, to impeccably clean, beautifully designed, seaside San Sebastian. Two cities of contrast. In San Sebastian, people wore clothes of all colors, they looked rested, they sipped their vino tinto and cerveza as if they had all the time in the world, they napped on the beach, they shopped for lovely clothes, they took in the near tropic scenery, and they ate many wonderful, heavenly things (imagine the classic café scene in When Harry Met Sally). We assessed the new locale immediately at the train station and on our taxi ride to Hesperia Donastia Hotel, our home for the next three nights, and vowed to go with the flow. You know what they say, when in San Sebastian… Oh, yes, the next few days were going to be really challenging for us.

But first…a siesta…then San Sebastian nightlife. Our hotel was located a little ways from the heart of San Sebastian, but Buses 5 and 25 were fast, cheap, and took us right to Parte Vieja (Old Quarter). It was a lively, historical part of town and a small area (6 tiny blocks by 8 tiny blocks) where we spent a good portion of our time there. The streets were old, narrow, made for foot traffic only, and were filled with cute clothing stores, pastelarias and gelato shops, and…tapas bars.

TAPAS 101: I’m pretty certain we’ve mentioned going to a tapas bar before in Barcelona, but eating tapas (there’s actually a verb for it – tapear) in Northern Spain, Basque country, is a whole different experience. A tapas bar/restaurant is merely a place to eat (standing or sitting); where they dishes are prepared constantly; where the flavorful food is made in appetizer-sized portions (1-3 bites); where the food is presented along a bar on cute plates and platters; and where the custom is to just ask for a plate, grab a few individual tapas per person (cafeteria style) and a drink; consume loudly (many exclamation points); pay; and then move onto the next tapas bar. It’s a mobile dining experience. It’s also a fantastic way to sample mucho-mucho delicious flavors and items (looking for each bar’s super-special item), have a small glass of wine (the pours are tiny – to promote the mobile experience), and then work off a few calories by walking to the next bar (really just a few steps away – perhaps 1 calorie). NOTE: There are tapas bars in Barcelona, but it’s not nearly as much a part of the food culture as it is in Northern Spain. We’ve found that most Barcelona tapas places are also more sit-down experiences, than sample-n-scoot. This is not to say they’re not good, it’s just not quite the experience of tapas in the North.

So…we took a first stab at tapeando (also referred to as picar, meaning “to go on a tapas crawl,” or pica-pica) on our first night, wandering a little aimlessly, but sampling quite a few yummy, bite sized treats – crunchy on the outside, creamy on the inside croquettes; peppers wrapped in anchovies; mushroom-filled tarts; and fresh cod on even fresher bread. As newbies to the experience, we enjoyed it immensely, but we got the sense that we were missing out on the inside scoop – the best and brightest tapas stars in Parte Vieja (see July 14th entry for our second grande tapas experience). But, we went back to our hotel room full and enjoyed the contrast of our current 4-star lodging compared to the Pamplona pension we just left, and dreamt of the days ahead – of beach time and more tapas.

11 de Juilo Dos - El Copa

La Fiesta de San Fermin took second stage for a little more than two hours on Sunday night. A giant screen stood in the center of the main square and waves of red and gold replaced the fiesta’s red and white. The finals for the World Cup began and though we could see very little, we could feel so much. The bouncing, singing, clapping crowd sucked us in to the center of apprehension. There was NO celebration until the first and only goal, and that celebration was subdued compared to the goal celebration during the quarter finals a few nights earlier. The crowd did not let go of their apprehension until the final whistle on the pitch blew. But when it did, and when Espana had scored the only goal, the square erupted, and mixed with the Fiesta de San Fermin, few slept until morning.  

We felt very fortunate to watch the game with the Spaniards, a warm, welcoming people. It says so much when three or four fans stood in Orange in the center of the crowd, and the Spaniards just let them cheer for their country’s team with no hassle. Imagine a Red Sox fan in a crowd of Yankees fans or if BYU was a country and the U was a country and one Cougar stood in the middle of Ute country; I doubt their reception would be so amiable. It says so much.

Viva Espana!

11 de Julio - El Encierro

Alarm: 5:40 am. Shower: 10 minutes. Entrance to balcony: 6:30 am. Bulls run: 8:00 am. Bulls past our balcony: 8:01:30. Completely worth it.

We heard the horns. We saw the runners come around the corner of death, and from above, we heard the pounding of the bull’s hooves on the brick streets of the city. We made bets as to who we thought would get gored below us. The guys who had not stopped drinking from the night before had our money.

The bulls never made the corner and slammed hard into the barrier and the wooden slabs that owners put in front of their tiendas. And then the bulls were gone. They ran down the street with gobs of red sashed people around them.

The experience makes me think of the Minutemen album titled “Why Do Men Start Fires?” I wonder, why do men run with bulls. And why do Tacoma based couples on balconies secretly wish someone might get tossed?

The night came, and with bull fight tickets in hand, we entered the Romanesque stadium. The perfectly circular coliseum filled with red and white. We brought chips and made another red wine/coke concoction. We sat with our backs against the concrete edge of the back wall of the stadium.

With gigantic fanfare and show, the matadores, picadores, banderilleros entered the stadium. The match began. The picadores and banderilleros did their thing, weakening the bull with spears and flags. Then the matadore comes to kill the bull after several acrobatic moves. He stabs the bull through the heart with his sword.

When I entered, I had told Mary all the stuff I felt necessary to help her stomach what happened in the ring: it’s just a dumb animal, it dies quickly, we kill cows and bulls every day, and they don’t even get to run or fight. By the end of the killing of the second bull, I repeated all these things to myself. The little words of rationalization worked for neither of us – we left after the second bull. We did not stand and clap. We drank our wine and ate our chips and left early.

10 de Julio - Mardi Gras, Pamplona, and hombre pequeno

The streets of old town Pamplona blurred with red and white and brown. When we neared the street of our pension, I thought Mary and I had been transported back to the piss, shit, and puke streets of Mardi Gras from seven years ago, a trip we loved for the experience, but one we decided to never return to. At 5 pm on the 10th of July, it smelled as if we had. The square was covered in vomit, broken bottles, and drunks. I have to admit, I was a little turned off on the Fiesta de San Fermin. You with me? Puke and piss aren’t the best smells to rise off the ground in near 100 degree weather. But we were there, we had our keys, and within minutes had changed into our all white outfits and bought some red sashes to drape off our waists.

We bought beers. We walked the main square. We saw so many more drunks passed out on the grass. We were still turned way the hell off by the scene that lay all sticky and smelly out in front of us. One guy nearly puked on my shoes and one lady did her best to hold up the side of a bar by herself. We found the Bourbon Street of Running with the Bulls. So in the late afternoon heat we bought bocadillos and big beers to numb our disappointment.

We sat down on a bench in the square. A little old man in white and red sat next to us. Mary asked if he lived in Pamplona, and he never stopped talking after that. The tiny old men told us about his experience of the last 43 years of the running of the bulls. He took us from the square down the old streets of the city. He sung the traditional San Fermin song while telling us about the path of the bulls. We followed the little man down the long hill to the bull coral. He talked the whole way – I translated about 40 percent of it, but he continued to talk and gesture and smile.

With kisses and hugs, he said goodbye, and immediately, our view of the festival changed. We walked back up the long street and away from the main square. In this square, we found a completely different festival filled with families and dancing and children. We made our wine and Coke concoction in an empty water bottle. We danced in the square. I spun my wife to the music of the festival and we laughed.

9 de Julio - Montjuic

Mary didn’t think it was that funny, and to tell you the truth, she didn’t get the pun until a couple days after I started repeating, “I would like some Montjuic with my French Dip.” It’s really not that funny but every time I said it, I laughed in my head, or out load.

Mary took July 8th to tour things we see on our run. I took July 9th to finish up my critical essay for school, do research on Capote’s In Cold Blood, and finish writing the last 12 pages of the essay. It was a riot. I bounced off the apartment walls with excitement every time I wrote the word nonfiction. Just kidding. The morning kind of sucked. But we escaped to “Au Jus.” Okay, it’s a dumb joke. But I’m gonna keep trying.

Montjuic sits high atop Barcelona. Its cannons and brick walls face the Mediterranean Sea. The thick brick lays still beneath the feet of thousands of people looking out toward the different barris of the city of Barcelona. We saw La Sagrada Familia push its giant pillars into the skyline of the city and the popping skyscrapers on the newly constructed Forum area. Like a panel from a giant spaceship, the football field sized solar panel that faces the morning sun sat on the edge of the sea.

The city of Barcelona is as diverse to look down upon as the mix of people that walk beneath the plunging fortress that sits above them. We waited on top until the little man came around and told us, “Cerramos.”

Our tired feet took us to Barceloneta for a night cap. Nude men walked on the coastline, and I wondered where they would dip their roast beef.

Off to the Fiesta de San Fermin!

We are jumping the 1:10 train to Pamplona!

We are wearing white and red!

I will give a full update when we get to San Sebastion on the 12th!

8 de Julio...a Mary post

I’m a fan of the city park. Any city or town’s city park is usually the best place to find magical details of a place’s character and people. Barcelona’s Parc de la Ciutadella is no exception. It’s nestled in what I’d consider to be the city’s more lovely areas, with the old (I’m talking 14^th-15^th century) and fabulous La Ribera and Barri Gotti areas to the park’s southwest, beachy La Barcelonetta to the southeast, the new (or newer than the 19^th century, at least) L’Eixample to the northwest, and the muy nuevo and posh Villa Olimica to the northeast. In the early 1700s, the Parc was once a controversial fortress designed to be a Big Brother to conflict-ridden Barcelona. Now, it just houses lots of old stuff, art, green, and interesting people. In the morning, it’s owned by cute, semi-active retirees and in the evening by hipsters, athletes, and artists younger than 55.

The first, second, third, and fourth times Kase and I visited Parc de la Ciutadella, we did so at my slow 10-minute-mile pace, running by things with a quick “Whoa! What’s that?” or an introspective “Wow, these people really take table tennis seriously.” After nine years of togetherness, I’ve realized that 75% of the time, Kase is essentially a traveler on the spectrum of Anthony Bordaine meets Clark Griswold. He’s the traveler you’ll spy chilling with the locals and really taking in the full cultural experience. He’s also the guy who’s pretty satisfied with a run-by viewing of monuments, public art, and intricately designed lamps (*Sigh* I love them so). Imagine us jogging in place (there is no stopping on a Johnstun run) outside the modern, early Gaudi (i.e. gaudy), Parc de la Ciutadella fountain Cascada. I’m pointing, wondering aloud, and making many Ooohs and Ahhhs. Kase does his best Clark G head bob and says, “Let’s go, Kid. There's a pitcher of sangria waiting for us.”

Eight days into our trip, it had to be done – I ditched Kase and his homework for a city park adventure of my very own. On the way to the park, I busted out my rusty Spanish to order the typical coffee and pastry from a cafeteria; I worked on perfecting my charming “I’m really trying, can you pleeeeeease give me a break” face; and embraced my Type A personality and stuck my nose in our BCN Lonely Planet for some preparatory reading.

From that point onward, as I walked through the Passeig de Luis Companys promenade entering the park and through the park itself, I became the tourist that most natives probably despise – Ipod plugged in, nose in guidebook, camera in one hand, and Flip video in the other. Sure, I did my best to not run into anyone, but I meandered like crazy – looked at everything, tried to read every sign, and appreciated every detail. From the random old and new public art dotting the park (the Cascada and the unmarked wonders) to the historic structures and buildings (like the Arc de Triomf, the Castell dels Tres Dragons, and the Parlament de Catalunya) to the handful of park arboretums (like the L’Hivernacle and the L’Umbracle) to the unnamed structures I could never identify from my book – the Parc was all mine that morning, and it was heavenly.

This is not to say that my time that morning was strictly by the books. Our runs through the park had deprived me of valuable people watching time, and that morning, I stalked lovely, old Spaniards at their finest. Even though there are five bocce courts for the playing, a group of 30 or so white-haired men will huddle by one court to watch one heated match play out. Old women will walk their old dogs and stumble upon each other in the park; they’ll make surprised “Oh, your dog is so precious!” noises to each other and then gesture to a park bench so they can sit and have a nice visit. Old women and old men will push chubby Spanish children around the park; I’m guessing these chubby babies are grandchildren but am working on a theory that these old folks are all still reproducing J.

Then there are the little things – the lamps, the metalwork, the artistic detail around every corner, and the million other details I loved about my morning that film and video can’t capture. But enough of that…I’ve hijacked this blog long enough.

7 de Julio - Copa de Mundial Fiesta

Did we plan for it? We couldn’t. Did we hope? Absolutely. Did our wish that Spain would make it to the quarter finals during our month in Barcelona come true? Si, si, si! They did even better than that, as the team, along with the country, prepares for the final on Sunday. I’m not sure of the exact Spanish translation, but the excitement here in Spain is “Off the hook.”


I sat with my wife and some friends at a tiny Irish pub in Tacoma, WA a week before the World Cup began. With a Guinness in front of me and a giant World Cup schedule behind it, I said, “It would sure be cool if Spain made to the quarter finals because we’ll be there.”

The win last Saturday night sent fireworks into the air and fans into the streets until the sun rose the next day. Sunday’s streets were empty. The city slept happily beneath the comforting blanket of a quarterfinal win.

On July 7th, my wife and I followed locals around downtown Barcelona until they ducked into a local bar to watch the World Cup Semifinal match. We were fan stalkers. If fans weaved, we weaved. If they tried to lose us or caught onto our scheme, we played dumb and feigned interest in a local church’s façade. But when they ducked in to a bar 20 minutes before kick off, we didn’t care if they found us out. We wanted to watch the match with them. We desired to breathe in the air of their fanaticism. It worked. By match’s end, we chanted “Viva Espana! Viva Espana!” When the ball hit the back of the net for Spain, you could feel the win.

The bars emptied into the streets. Fans flowed like water from rivers to a central lake of screams and chants and cheers on the corner of a tiny street just off the historic center of Las Ramblas. For a moment, we felt like Spaniards; we shared their victory. The people of Spain see their chance at World Cup victory, and hopefully, come Sunday, we can share a piece of it with them.

A video of the celebration can be seen at http://goodmenproject.com/2010/07/08/they-know-how-to-party-in-spain/ right below the James Franco interview.

6 de Julio - Un Dia de Trabajo

Many have asked in the last few months how we are able to take a month out of the year and live in Spain. It’s really quite simple. And it is a two-fold answer.
First, we are savers: We set up Barcelona Approved spending throughout the last six months. For example, if we ate out, it had to be at happy hour prices.

Second, we have to have days like July 6th while we are here. Mary spent eight hours working, and I spent the day doing homework. It’s that simple. We need at least two days a week like this to keep our heads above water.

But we did find time to hit the beach for an hour. Life isn’t too bad.

5 de Julio - Casa del Ossos

There are multiple sights you can skip when you travel to any spot like Barcelona. In Dublin, Temple Bar comes to mind. In Seattle, the Space Needle is not a necessary visit - overpriced and the hamburgers aren’t so great. In Italy, the Leaning Tower of Pisa no longer leans by itself, and so it is now “the supported tower of a long, worthless day trip.”

However, in Barcelona, Gaudi’s Casa Battlo can not be skipped. Standing outside and taking pictures won’t cut it either. The entrance fee of 17,80 euros is stiff, but like a stiff drink, it is hard to ingest it at first, but is worth the price.

The winding staircases and blue-tiled walls of the light well made me stop, look, turn around, and look again. I did this little stop, turn, turn around dance when I saw anything new in the house: the archways, the façade, the stain-glass windows, and the clean lines of the cool, ventilated attic. My hokie pokie version of sightseeing.

Gaudi didn’t just design crazily-artistic and mind-blowing aesthetics, but he ran far ahead of his time as a developer of sustainable architecture. He recycled tiles from other buildings and used archways to save on materials. He was Phoenix-like in his construction, building new from the ashes of the old.

But enough of my writer’s undying need to describe things; only photos can do the trick when discussing one of Barcelona’s must sees.

4 de Julio - Corriendo Larga, Tapas Fanasticas, y La Playa

To celebrate the 4th of July, I ran nine miles before the heat of the day came. The run took me from Eixample to Barceloneta, and I watched the sun rise over the Mediterranean Sea. I was tired - it was remarkable (Mary ran her scheduled seven - woo hoo!).

Then we hit the beach. Not the best idea for an already dehydrated couple. Sunday beachgoers covered the sands - old men drinking beer and playing cards, children running in and out of the sea, women bathing in the sun, and me, sweating like crazy, my body temperature high from the morning run. We didn’t last too long out there, but what we took in made up for our short venture to the water. In Barcelona, Sunday at the beach seems to be a mainstay, a long-standing tradition amongst families. They arrived three and four generations deep. Great grandmothers sat beneath their shades and their great grand children ran to them buck naked - except for their floaties. Grandfathers held out oranges to their grandchildren and teens plopped down in the sun next to their parents to talk. While the reflection of the sun off the sea enamored my eyes, the vision of tight knit families together on a Sunday afternoon made a deeper impression on my mind.

Since we haven’t quite figured out a good sleeping schedule, our day began at about 5 am and basically ended around 4 pm, after a lunch of tapas and wine at Tantarantana, a great little tapas bar in the center of the Borne district (http://www.tantarantana.es/). Seasoned vegetables, baked and marinated chicken wings, the staple bread with tomato, and Patatas Bravas.

Video of the Born district.

I can’t believe we’ve only been here four days.

3 de Julio

3 de Julio - Una Busqueda y Las Ramblas


A lady flashed me today, or was it yesterday - I always wanted to start a post that resembled Camus’ start to The Stranger. Las Ramblas really is a tourist trap, and she was a prostitute, as mentioned in yesterday’s blog post.

After our siesta, we headed out to find the World Cup match between Spain and Paraguay. We searched and we searched. We walked through our barri, and then to the next. We jumped on the metro and headed to BCN Sports Bar in Las Ramblas to find they were charging 10 Euros just to enter (about 15 U.S.). I knew there had to be a place to watch it for free. We found an Irish pub farther down La Rambla. We made our way in and watched the screens from the outer edge of the smoky pub. At half, when people headed out for a quick breather, we wormed our way to back of the pub. We didn’t hear one Spanish speaker in the entire crowd, so we bailed and watched the second half at home. Yes, we bailed. But what we got at home was much cooler than what we could have witnessed in a touristy bar.

GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLL! Fireworks! Screams from all the balconies in the courtyard. Yells from the street below us. When Spain scored, the city erupted. We watched the flickering lights of televisions from our balcony and the silhouettes of raised hands and kisses and hugs. When the game ended, we could hear the city open up. Doors flung open. The streets became avenues for celebration. When I woke up at 4:00 in the morning the next day, Spaniards were barely making it home, still waving the flag in the streets, and cheering for a goal that happened half a day before.

(We are already making preparations to find a genuine Spanish bar to watch the match on July 7th. We will not be put down. For those who are following my training - we hit the streets for three miles today.)

Views from the run.

El Segundo De Julio

July 2nd was really just an extension of July 1st, due to the fact we hadn't slept in more than 24 hours. But we felt good.

After checking into our apartment, we went out for wine, which ended up being beer because of the midday Barcelona sun and the sweat that dripped from neck to heel. The local brew, Estrella, fue perfecto en el sol. So we had two before heading back to the flat for a siesta. When I unfolded my body on the bed, I guessed I would be up in a couple hours to mosey around, drink some coffee, and stare out the window into the gigantic courtyard outside our living-room window, full of balconies and drying clothes that hang from wires outside windows, but when my eyelids finally broke free of the crust in the corners, my wristwatch read 9:30. We slept for seven hours and woke up hungry.

Barcelonites eat dinner around 10:00 pm, so we showered and headed to the metro (fantastic, beautiful, wonderful metro system that is sooo easy to use and right outside our door). We headed to the Borne district, a district known for great food and locals. We avoided, and will continue to avoid Las Ramblas - its high prices, prostis, and kitschy shops with shirts that read "My sister went to Barcelona and all she got was this lousy shirt."

We stepped out into the Born District from the Metro. Packed. Full of locals. Full of street side bars and restaurants. Full of life at 11:30 at night. We wandered. We gawked. We searched for food. And we found it - un botella de vino, seared squid, fried fish, and chorizo.

They kicked us out around 12:30 - full and happy.

El Primero Del Julio

July 1st we travelled. The early rise came so soon. I tried to sleep until 4:30, but the thought of the travel day pushed open my lids and kept them open. It was a day filled with planes, trains, and automobiles. Although I wanted to, I never got to say "You're messing with the wrong guy" or "You're f***d." We slung (hoisted slowly) our 45 pound backpacks over our shoulders, dropped them into the trunk of a taxi, moved them to the seat of an express bus from Tacoma to Sea-Tac airport, checked them in, slung (even more slowly hoisted) them over our shoulders at baggage claim in Barcelona, dropped them down in front of us on the train to Passeig De Gracia, threw (achily carried) them for seven long blocks to our new apartment, and finally set them down. It was a long travel day for our packs, but they did just fine.

The most notable part of the catalyst to our trip had to be the disconnect. By disconnect, I specifically mean the shutting down of the Blackberries for a month. The moment we shut them down in Toronto was the last moment they would be used for 30 days. This may not seem so interesting to some, but to Mary and I, it was unbelievably freeing. No texts. No emails, Facebook updates, or Twitter feeds sent immediately to our phones. No telemarketing phone calls. A disconnect. It felt good. It feels good. My pockets are lighter and I'm not checking the damned thing every minute. It took years for me to really use cell phones and texting, but, oh yes, I got sucked into the vortex of constant connectivity. Not now. Gone. Phew.

At one point on the train ride into town, I thought I felt my pocket vibrate. I instantly dropped my hand down to check a text. But it was just a jolt of the fast train that rumbled down the Spanish rail line.