Barcelona, twelve years later

How is it possible that we are only two weeks away from the end of our adventure? With this snowballing threat of reality rushing ever closer, we boarded a plane from Venice to Barcelona on June 28, 2015. I couldn't quite believe my good luck in returning to Spain after twelve years, and was so excited I naively ignored the weather forecasts. My return to Europe has heralded a heat wave that approaches the severity of what the continent experienced the last time I was here, in the summer of 2003. That summer, while I sat blithely in my Florentine apartment in my underwear crafting top level dance moves with my flatmates, people were dying by the thousands. We had no idea it was that serious since we only watched MTV, and only managed to hydrate ourselves with cheap cocktails and the occasional watermelon.  

exhibit A: sweating and drinking in 2003

exhibit B: erin and a watermelon in 2003

Sally and I are much more aware and prepared this time around. However, there is just no way to avoid a long hot walk from the bus stop with your 30lb "I packed so light!" backpack. We stayed at the Rodamon Barcelona Hostel off of tres chic Passeig de Gracia, quite close to Gaudis two outrageous townhomes, Battlo and Pedrera. And although the temps were bordering on 95F, I'd promised Sally a rare treat in Spain: bagels. Twelve years ago I visited Barcelona with a raucous band of friends from my study abroad program in Sevilla. We were also known to walk endlessly, but in Barcelona we found a bagel shop and parked ourselves there for two, yes two meals. Sally would have sold all her belongings for a good bagel at that point, so we found the shop online, got some sketchy directions and headed straight over. Like I said, we aren't museum fanatics.

 

Me the Sevillanas at La Pedrera, 2002

The good news is that the bagel shop is still there...the bad news is that it was not open, per internet promises, and Sally clung to the metal cage the street wailing for her lost love. Perhaps she wasn't quite so dramatic, but only because we made a beeline to a pizza shop across the plaza.

*Ed. Note: I forgot to bring my camera for this whole day. Here is a stock photo depicting Sally’s reaction: 

Now full of her second favorite food, we slowly made our way up to Parc Guell, another Gaudi project. On the way we heard 50s music in the streets of Gracia, and followed it to a plaza where a spontaneous swing dance party was taking place! We watched the dancing and enjoyed the music for a little while before trudging on. In the interim between my visits to Parc Guell, Barcelona wised up to the money-making opportunity they had, and began charge for access to the architecturally developed areas of the park.  Eight euros was a bit dear for our cheapskate traveling goals, so we traipsed through all the free parts of the park and eyeballed the rich people sitting on benches in the paid access part.

After some quality people watching in the park, we descended, ate popsicles, and hiked across town to La Rambla. This boulevard falls under the category of “you must see this, even if you don’t know why.” La Rambla was historically a central trading, meeting and market place, and religious center, but now it is really just an outrageous tourist trap. We thought we might sit for an afternoon liter of beer, but upon seeing the TEN EURO price tag at each of the outdoor restaurants, we ran screaming down the road to the waterfront.  The waterfront is rather commercial as well, complemented by a towering monument to Christopher Columbus, whom Barcelona claimed as their own, and are still apparently not embarrassed by that completely unsubstantiated claim.  Anyway, I tease, but Barcelona has plenty of lovely sights that were new to me entirely, and which we discovered our second day on (you guessed it) our Sandeman Free City Tour.

The general region of Barcelona and Tarragona were settled by the Phoenicians in early 500 BC, though there may have been small tribes living there when the Phoenicians arrived. Three hundred years later the Romans came to Spain’s east coast and set up Barcelona as a functional city, though still very small. The tour started in the Gothic Quarter, which was built by the invading Visigoths of the mid-sixth century AD but still has walls from that Roman period. 

  

We headed to the Call Judeu, where we learned that Barcelona’s first synagogue was built in approximately the third century BC, the remnants of which can still be seen in the Jewish Quarter of Barcelona. We didn’t go in the old synagogue on our tour, but read more about it here and see some neat photos! For all the religious tolerance during the Roman period, the Jewish story takes a predictably tragic turn in the Dark Ages, when the community was able to avoid the Black Death due to their hygiene practices and of course the fact that the Christians had walled them into their own ghetto and thus didn’t come into frequent contact with the infected. Obviously that meant they were somehow responsible for the plague. Then of course Jews lived through a series of forced conversions to Christianity, culminating in the Spanish Inquisition in the late 15th century. Traveling through Europe really is a history of how terrible humanity has been to Jewish populations, geez.

The most important thing to know about Barcelona is that it maintains a fierce sense of independence from Spain, maintaining that it should be a separate nation. There are a few reasons for this, so I’ll try to outline them briefly.

First of all, Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya, a province that became part of the territories belonging to the Crown of Aragon in the 12th century. Barcelona would have been the western-most part of that territory, as it covered both sides of the Mediterranean. So yes, nearly 1,000 years ago Barcelona was independent. I’m not sure that’s a legitimate claim to sovereignty now, but let’s go on.

Second, the most understandable reason separatists hate Spain is that under Franco’s fascist leadership (1936-1978), Barcelona was shockingly oppressed. Franco believed in one Spain, and squashed any displays of regional pride, language, culture, and leadership.  Not only did Franco set up puppet courts to try citizens for falsified crimes (then execute them), he invited his fascist friend Mussolini to test out his bombs on the city, which he did in 1938. And it is troubling that still Spain doesn’t decry these atrocities as vociferously as it should. And I know 1978 isn’t terribly far in the past, but I still think there can be a balance of provincial autonomy while sharing in the greater nation of Spain for international prominence and stability. 

Lastly, the ugly side of Barcelona’s independent streak: rumor has it that they think they are better than the rest of Spain. They believe they are smarter, financially stronger, and ultimately more European than their campesino countrymen. They pay more taxes than other provinces but receive the same benefits as those lazy Andalusians, and are not equally represented in the central government. Taxes and representation, that is a call to independence that any US citizen can understand. I think the regional bigotry is pretty harsh, but then I’m from Northern Virginia, an area that would also like to separate itself from the rest of its commonwealth.  I suppose I just think that it is better to try to change Spain’s political leanings from within than to write off the country as a whole. 

I’m sure what I’ve boiled that argument down to is grossly insufficient, but I’ve got to move this post along, so please forgive me.

When the free tour ended, Sally and I went to the meeting point for the Gaudi and Modernism tour, which covered a much different Barcelona experience. The tour didn’t enter any of the buildings we learned about, but gave us a good overview of important architectural works in Barcelona. The Modernisme era was Barcelona’s answer to Art Nouveau in France, a twenty year period at the turn of the 20th century that sought creativity, nature represented through architecture, and a rejection of the bourgeoisie. Ultimately, of course, the bourgeoisie would appropriate the style and end the movement. Our first stop was the Palau de la Musica Catalan designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner in 1905. It is still a functioning music hall today, with a spectacular interior dominated by a stained glass ceiling representing the sun in the sky (here’s a photo on wikipedia). We went on to see a number of other buildings including Casa Battlo, Antoni Gaudi’s homage to Barcelona’s patron saint, St. George, La Pedrera, his last completed project before his death, and finally La Sagrada Familia, which he worked on until his tragic death in 1926 (hit by a street tram, then left in the road for hours because passersby thought he was a vagrant). 

A note about La Sagrada Familia: this cathedral is in its 135th year of construction. That sounds ridiculous until you realize that Notre Dame de Paris took 182 years to build initially and has been under constant renovation since the 1300s, and that Brussels Cathedral of St. Michael took a cool 900+ years to finish. So all in all, La Sagrada Familia is right on track. Now, that doesn’t mean I want to pay 20 Euros a second time to see a still unfinished building. Still, in 12 years I can see a difference from the outside. And a follow-up note: while this cathedral was originally designed in its entirety by Gaudi, his original plans were lost in a fire set by Catalan anarchists in the early 1900s, so what is being built today is perhaps based off of his original design as remembered by architects of the time who saw the plan. I don’t know, for some reason I am just not a fan of this “big deal” tourist site. Call me when it’s finished. 

2003

 

2015

Okay you guys, I know this is a LOT about just Barcelona. Here are some pretty photos of Catalan street art and then me with my brother Mario who lives and studies in Barcelona and with whom Sally and I had tapas on our last night in town! The next morning we all met up again and went to the beach for a few hours, but I have no photos of that. I could tell you all about how Barcelona got its beaches, but at some point we are all going to die from old age, so let’s just move to Sevilla.

 

We do not speak your language, and other roadblocks

I have to say, I had virtually no expectations for Germany. Seriously, what do you think of when you hear the word "Germany"? Beer, sausages, and the Holocaust. I vaguely remember seeing an Anthony Bourdain show on Berlin, and he seemed to like it...

We stayed at the Wombats City Hostel, which had a great kitchen, a rooftop bar, cheap breakfast, and en suite dorm rooms. We arrived in the early afternoon and made it to the 4pm Sandeman Free City Tour. The thing about a Berlin city tour is that the focus is pretty exclusively World War II, and at one point we stood in the parking lot of an apartment complex and learned that we were about 12 meters above what was once Hitler's bunker, which was dug in front of his massive chancellory. "And over there, about where that willow tree is, is where his body was burned after he committed suicide." Grim. 

Equally as grim was hearing about the events that nearly spurred World War III between the USSR and the USA, namely the October 1961 standoff that was caused by US diplomat Allan Lightner who refused to show paperwork to Soviet officers when crossing Checkpoint Charlie to take his wife to the Opera in East Berlin. This minor debate of border crossing procedure escalated over the course of a few hours, ending with Army generals on either side lining up tanks on either side of the wall and waiting to hear if they should start firing. 

To lighten the tone of our visit, the next day we did an Alternative Tour, which focused on street art throughout Berlin's neighborhoods. It was unique and interesting, and ended in a really cool abandoned warehouse-complex-turned-artist-community that housed restaurants, beer gardens, clubs, a skate park, an antique shop, a rock climbing wall, and lots of space for local artists to come graffiti to their hearts content. We spent the afternoon with fellow American traveler Mandy hanging out in the beer garden watching a possession arrest and generally enjoying the good weather.

 

On our last day in Berlin, we visited the museum underneath the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, which offers an exploration of who the persecuted Jewish families were, and whether or not they made it home from their imprisonment. There were letters and poems written by prisoners as well as lots of photos and backgrounds about people from all over Europe. I had read a New Yorker article that skewered the above-ground memorial for being too abstract in concept, and complained that it wasn't explained who the murdered Jews were, which would lead to us all forgetting. You can read the article yourself if you are interested, but the spoiler is that the author didn't bother visiting the attached museum, which is poor journalism and renders the argument entirely invalid. You don’t stand outside a library shaking your fist because no books are printed on the building. 

Berlin has owned up to its sordid history, it doesn't ignore it like the US has done with Japanese internment camps, or Disney-fy it like the US has done with Williamsburg. This was a very well constructed experience, I absolutely recommend it. We also visited the Topography of Terror exhibit in an excavated Gestapo prison, and that was also fascinating because it highlighted the experience of the common man living in Berlin throughout Hitler's reign. Even walking around Berlin and knowing that the history you've learned about happened right here isn't as jarring as learning that the street your hostel is on was subject to attacks during Kristallnacht, and that the park you are walking through was effectively a refugee camp for Berliners who were homeless and starving through the last few years of the war. I guess you think only of two groups: the persecuted Jews and minorities or the wealthy blonde "Aryan" families.  Of course the truth is so much more complicated.

 *Ed. Note: I've just looked at my smugmug photos again, and I don't want to trivialize what we saw at the two museums I mentioned, so I'm not posting them here, but you should really look at them in full size because they are heartbreaking. We can never forget that humans did this to each other, and still do.

Whew. Well to lighten up our moods, Sally and I walked from downtown Berlin all the way to Kreuzberg, referred to as the Brooklyn of Berlin. It wasn't nearly as full of hipsters as I imagined, we found quiet leafy streets with cafes at which to take a break, plus shops and restaurants.  About 12 miles into our day, we got an email from a traveler friend, Andrew, about a bar with a great view of the city. It was sort of hard to find, he said, but a local had told him it was worth it. We weren't far and it was 7pm, so we followed the directions...which led us to a rather uninspiring indoor mall. We went in and got in an elevator to the fifth floor...which turned out to be an empty parking garage. 

Just as Sally and I thought we were going to be murdered, I remembered that Mandy had mentioned this place, so we walked around the bend and there it was: a gorgeous rooftop garden bar with live music and, as promised, a great view of downtown Berlin! Andrew and Joe showed up about an hour later and we had a great time watching the sun set, talking about our travels and real lives. And when Andrew said he would take us to the best curry wurst spot in the city at 2am, of course we went. Sally even ate one bite of curry wurst and didn't die, so all in all it was a spectacular visit.

Until the next morning. The lesson we have learned, which we probably should have known all along, is that you don't go raging until 3am when you have to be at a train or bus station early the next morning. On the upside, you'll be able to sleep on the train, right? Nope. Because even though you bought two tickets from Berlin to Prague, you didn't buy reserved seats, so if none are available, you get to stand crammed into a two-foot wide hallway on the train for the first two and a half hours of your trip. Thanks for that Germany.

When we finally reached Prague we were 100% sober and 100% cranky. We checked into the Hostel Downtown and thanked our lucky stars that our hostel experiences are only getting better and better. Our sixth floor 8 bed dorm was enormous and had a huge window overlooking the beautiful Prague Castle. It also had computers and a great kitchen, helpful staff, delicious breakfast, and loads of activities for guests, so our moods improved significantly upon arrival. We of course did another Sandeman tour, which was a great introduction to the city because truly, I know less about Prague than Berlin!

Prague was initially settled in 500 BC by a Celtic tribe called the Boii. They moved to the area and called it Home of the Boii, aka Bohemia. Fast forward 1900 years and Prague was the site of a Protestant revolution before Luther even had one thesis written down. In the early 1400s, followers of Jan Hus believed in increased access to religion for the common man, translations and full communions, etc, and regularly threw opponents out of windows to highlight their feelings (I love that it's called defenestration). And 400 years after that, Prague was home to the largest Ashkenazi Jewish population, and built a Jewish quarter so iconic that when Hitler took over Prague, he planned to leave the neighborhood intact to serve as "a memorial to an extinct race." Yikes. By the end of World War I, Czechoslovakia divorced itself from the Austro-Hungarian empire by writing a Dear John letter of independence, which was only the first of many citizen-driven revolts. The next came on May 5, 1945, when Czechs took to the streets armed with whatever they had and absolutely destroyed the local Nazi regime, killing thousands and sending the rest into retreat. Three days later, the Soviet army came to town to "liberate Prague" and found the job already accomplished...so they took over themselves. Poor Czechs. In 1989, they initiated another revolution, against the Soviets, and freed themselves of communism since no one else was going to help. And finally, when the Czechs and Slovaks decided they were better off as friends, they amicably divorced into separate countries in 1993.

So to boil it down, for a region originally settled in 500BC, it is crazy to think that the Czech Republic is technically the same age as Sally.  

This tour set off a fun few days in Prague. We walked and walked, seeing weird statues on the Stare Mesto side of the river (two robotic men statues that actively urinated streams of water that wrote out Kafka quotes, giant faceless babies on their knees that people were riding), watching a tv show being filmed, and dining at an Asian vegan buffet where Sally, traumatized from lack of pizza options, was proud of herself for eating white rice, corn and peas, and battered cauliflower. I was too. We also conducted extensive and thoroughly researched beer comparison experiments. One night, for example, we shared a tasting of 15 different local Czech beers! Then, to be fair and balanced, we sought out the local cocktail scene, heading to Bar and Books, a swanky lounge that was empty at 9pm, and consumed what trip advisors called "London-level expensive" cocktails but was in reality no more than $7.00. 

The night of our educational imbibing tour, we also went to one of the famous club complexes everyone raved about. Partying till six in the morning is pretty standard for all the hostel-goers we met in Prague (and everywhere else to be honest) and though we enjoy a good night bar/pub hopping until the wee hours, this sort of dance club was just beyond us. It had five floors with different music on each level, an ice bar on the ground floor, a eastern european lady in a bikini writhing on a stage on the R&B floor, and then a chill-out floor for, I don't know, taking a nap or having an orgy during your visit. We didn't recognize any of the music on either the R&B floor or the Radio Hits floor, and the electronika floor was packed with 15 year olds, which I mean literally, not figuratively. A guy tried to hit on Sally by telling her she was too old. Cool guy. We were pretty much done there by 1am, right when the hordes of supremely drunk British and German bachelor parties started arriving. 

We weren't just pickling our livers though; we visited Prague Castle, the Lennon wall, the Bone Church of Kutna Hora, learned about Czech generals who defeated dozens of invading armies over the centuries, saw the world's oldest Astronomical clock which performed an exciting spectacle on the hour, I tried wild boar goulash with gingerbread dumplings and a traditional kidney bean dish, we drank coffee in an endless stream, and Sally ate more pizza.

Before we knew it we were waiting for our train to Munich. Which became a train to a random town, then a bus from that town to another town, then back on the train for half an hour because Germany is literally trying to kill us.

We were relieved to arrive in Regensburg to see the smiling faces of Holtgrieve family friend Alex and his mate Nick, who prepared a sign for us with obligatory beer stein. We knew immediately that we'd be good friends. Sally and Alex had met in Virginia ten or more years ago, when she was a scampering forest child and he was a quiet German who didn't speak much English, so they had a lot to catch up on as we drove through the city to the family homestead. We were warmly received and shown around, and after a quick shower we headed back out with the guys for a welcome drink at a few local pubs, then over to a friends house for cards, beer, and conversation. I clearly remember going to bed at 1:30am, after saying goodnight to Sally before she went scampering through the Bavarian forest until dawn. 

The next morning Alex and Nick were kind enough to show us around Regensburg, a beautiful medieval city spanning the Danube river with sandy-colored cobblestones, a sunny town park, and a crazy architecture story. I know you're dying to hear it! Apparently in the 13th century two architects challenged each other to a construction competition. One would build the town cathedral, the other a very important bridge, but whoever finished first would be the winner. First of all, a bridge is a lot easier to build, especially if it's not detailed with carvings, so I'm not sure why anyone was surprised when the bridge guy won, but they say he bargained with the devil to finish faster, and the first four souls that crossed would be sent directly to hell. So the architect sent four goats across when the bridge was completed. Cheeky! Also, since the cathedral architect was so distraught he'd lost that he threw himself to his death in the river. Germans are serious about their bets. 

 

 While in Regensburg, Alex and family brought us to a local German restaurant/biergarten for a traditional Bavarian meal of Schnitzel. The portions of pork schnitzel and french fries were so large Sally and I could share, and she actually ate some and liked it! This is when we developed our hypothesis that she would eat anything if it were fried. Good policy. Then home again for a quiet night in; we broke the news to Alex that we were going to sightsee in Munich the next day...at 8am. He immediately regretted offering to go with us.  Off we went, and spent a full day in Munich doing the 3 hour Sandeman city tour, watching the glockenspiel performance in Mary's Square, eating Kass Spaetzle at Durnbrau (Sally tried it when I told her it was German mac n cheese), checking out the electricity demonstration at the German Museum, and of course, just walking around for miles. 

On our last day with the family, we went on a five mile daylight hike through the Bavarian forest, and I was rather disappointed that it wasn't filled with trolls and gingerbread houses. In Munich we walked through the Englischer Garten and marveled at the brave souls surfing on the city's man-made wave in an otherwise placid creek. Lined in concrete, and the wave itself formed between concrete berms, surfing here seems dangerous, but people were queued up to give it their all. We drank beers on the bridge and watched them admiringly.

 

Germany decided to send us on our way with a final twist of the screw in regards to train travel: though I purchased my tickets over a month ago, and had them mailed to Regensburg for simplicity's sake (printing was not an option, unlike every other ticket I've bought for this trip), the postal service has been on strike and our tickets never arrived. So though I had paid for two tickets, reserved two beds, and even had the car and bed assignments, I was told the only way I would be able to leave Germany was to pay 300 additional Euros for two brand new tickets. My rage and impotence in this matter cannot even be spoken of coherently. At least we got to leave.