a flamenco fiesta

The Gothic Quarter of Barcelona

I've traveled all across Europe on a budget, and even when I travel now, I'm still highly budget minded. With every restaurant outing, museum, train ticket or whatever, I'm constantly thinking, "Do we need that? Is there another way? Is this particular experience worth forgoing a future one?" But now that I have a bit of expendable income, I feel it's good to pamper myself now and then, because really, every experience you get while traveling is a unique, one-of-a-kind one thing; one where you'll likely never be in the same position to do that activity again. Regarding Barcelona - it's a great city, but I'm probably never going to visit again without an explicit reason; I've seen it now, and now there's so much more remaining in the world. I'm of course, quite understanding the fact that I will never see the entire world, just as I will never be able to experience the entirety of any city that I visit. American domestic beer is fine if that's all you've got, and our poor bodies on this Earth are but Coors factories of utilization. We pump out a lot, but rarely do we have those gems of a microbrew, but those gems are the moments to hold on to, to let glitter and catch the sun, to split the light in a thousand fragments and bask in their beauty.

While we were traveling through Morocco, I decided to surprise the wife with one of those pampering moments, one that she had long dreamed of, away from my budgeteering mentality: watching a flamenco show. I did a quick search online, looked at all the reviews, and finally decided on Tablao Cordobes at 50 euro a person. It was perhaps one of the most traditionally touristic things I've ever booked - I’ve been traditionally the couchsurfing backpacker type, after all. The advertisements ran as though their target market were the stereotypical ugly Americans who are completely incognizant of the local culture. Even more humorous was the way the "flamenco cave" flaunted being a hub for world famous gypsy dancers such as various people I've never heard of before. I might as well open a bar and tell people it was once the home of the world famous accordionist, the Underground Man. No one probably actually knows who that was, especially those staying in the city just for a weekend. It turns out though that the tablao is actually a hub for famous dancers, so that joke's on me.

Why my weirdness about it? Flamenco doesn't originally come from Barcelona, but rather it comes from the gypsy caves of Andalusia in southern Spain, more towards Seville than Barcelona. It evolved around the 1800s from the gitano - Spanish gypsy - culture, involving snapping, clapping, guitar playing, singing-storytelling and dancing. When traveling through Arabia and Eastern Europe, I've even noticed some surprising similarities between the three in their traditional music, with the one linking factor: the Romani - ie gypsy - people having been dispersed heavily through those regions, spreading from India to Ukraine and Russia, across North Africa and to Spain and France. And of course, North African and Spanish culture are forever mingled together after the long Moorish occupation of the Iberian peninsula. Flamenco is the Romani's biggest contribution to Spanish culture and perhaps to world culture, as now flamenco has been declared by UNESCO as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritege of World Humanity. Quite a title.

Flamenco graduated out of the caves and into performance cafes, or cantatas, sometime in the early 1800s, and then finally to more formal "tablaos" in the 1960s, adopted from the private shows of wealthy winemakers that were hosted at their vineyards. The first tablaos emerged in Madrid, Seville and Barcelona and some can still be visited. In Barcelona, the Tarantos Flamenco show opened in 1963 and Tablao Cordobes, where I went, opened its doors in the 1970s under a structure more favorable and enjoyable to the dancers - the audiences aren't to talk, eat, make noise or in any other way distract the dancers, even photography and video taping isn't allowed until the last five minutes, when acknowledging the fact that you want a keepsake of your experience, they let you have at it. Also on my list was Flamenco y Opera, which actually sounded the most interesting if not the least authentic, a show combining the highlights of both artistic styles in a somewhat unusual sounding mixture.

The Tablao Cordobes is located on Las Ramblas and you have to be quite precise in the time that you arrive. They are running a real flamenco factory in there, with shows and dinners quite perfectly lined up - one dinner goes on while one show is running, then the show let's out and the people in the dinner are let in and repeat. Or you can go the cheaper mode and just do the show, but then you don't get as nice a seat. We opted for the dinner and for the last show, which rumor had it was the best, as the dancers would get tired of doing the regular routines and would start to do even more improvisation and experimentation - which is what flamenco is all about. I don't know how true all that is, but it's a good catch from their website and the show I attended was enthralling and at least convincing in that manner.

The dinner was a huge buffet of Spanish food, with a bit of representation of cuisine from all across the land. I was on a paella kick, and had been suckered into a tourist trap sidewalk cafe earlier, so was desperate for some decent paella. Here's where I helped myself to three or four servings, and then a few more plates of flan. And some fish. And some whatever that was. All delicious. And this all-you-can-eat buffet magic was accompanied by all-you-can-drink wine. I was like 12 year old girl at a Justin Bieber concert, my head was about to explode from all the excitement, and I was about to immediately tweet my undying affection towards all things del marisco. But all during this food chant that was going on through my head, I had to keep interrupting myself with - "I'm going to be sitting in there for two hours without the option of a bathroom, but there won't be unlimited wine in there - what do I do?" It was a kind of first world torture, a torment that I hadn't experienced since some of the worse outhouses during my tenure in the Peace Corps, but of an altogether different nature. This was far worse though, because it was a self-induced torture, rather than the must-face-the-facts-of-your-situation torture. But somehow I made it through the night without having to run for a break.

And that was a gloriously good thing. We were ushered into the performance hall, which despite being on the second floor of a mid-rise was still decorated as a cave in order to get you in the bona fide flamenco feeling. The chairs were tight, too many to put a fire marshal at ease, but enough to crowd people in so that excitement would be easily contagious while you're still comfortably seated, eye level with the clog heeled tap dancing, feet moving so fast they could power all of Barcelona with their energy.

Having opted for the dinner, we were treated to the seats right front and center, so we could see the flaring nostrils of the passionate dancers, catching the wind of their twirls, taking in their seafood inspired aromas, and catching the sweat peel off the tips of their fingers as they wiped away their brows. Also included was a glass of champagne, so be sure said sweat doesn't plop right in. The passion did ripple through the air as the audience clung on to every stomp, sway and fake fall; the British, Americans and Russians who made up most of the audience all playing along with the illusion of being in a cave. But it wasn't a truly authentic experience, looking at those people surrounding me, knowing all of them would be too mild to accept the real opportunity to cram into a cave full of gypsies, knowing that maybe even the adventure in me is maturing and getting older and perhaps, also becoming milder as well. The older you get, the more concerned you become about safety you are, rather than life. Perhaps it's that death is always closer - but the paradox is that by forgoing life experiences, we're only robbing death of it's meaning, and what's worse than a meaningless death?

on the house of bones

A "house of discord". Casa Lleo Morera by Domenech i Montaner

As impressed as we were with the Sagrada de Familia and as impressed as we were with Parc Guell, we decided that it would be best to visit the Casa Batllo. The last we were in Barcelona, before our trip onward to Morocco, we were standing outside the house with our friend, having seen the outsides of all the Art Nouveau houses on the Block of Discord. We had wanted to go inside one of them, but most of them you're only allowed in one or two rooms and it seemed somewhat of a waste. The only one with a full tour of the original construction - I say original, even though Batllo was a renovation by Gaudi and not his construction - was Casa Batllo and that cost an absurd 15 euro just for a walkaround. Since we had seen Sagrada, all of us were content with our Gaudi gambit and decided to move on to the next touristic site. Barcelona has no shortage of overpriced touristic sites, after all, and the outside is an impressive enough view. Many compare the building to a dragon, with the colorful scales of his spine forming the roof and large shaft chimney coming out with a cross at the top, said to resemble St. George's spear, thrust downward into the dragon's back. 

Outside the Casa Batllo and Casa Amatller

As it was now just the wife and I, we decided to throw in the money that it cost. Why not? We're only in Barcelona once. And of course, all the touristic activities are expensive because the operators know that same logic. Why tame your price when there's an endless demand for your historical place and you are the one supply? Simple economics there. And anyways, Gaudi was building his places for the rich, not for poor, backpacker travelers who would end up stinking up the corridors under his rib bone arches and playing pan flute inside his water chamber, in-between moments of talking about the latest Paolo Coehllo book about taming your animal spirit so that you can achieve all your dreams that you were meant to be through the realization of yourself as you are not as you are expected to be by those who don't really know you Iamalion roar. Though to be fair, all the rich Americans and Brits that were populating the halls of Casa Batllo are probably reading Coehllo, though at least they're not piping in the pan flute anywhere around. But this was not meant to be a discourse on bad self-help literature. 

The ceiling in the great hall

Casa Batllo, also known as the House of Bones, is a house that was redesigned by Antoni Gaudi in 1904. It's been refurbished several times since, and now it has been emptied out and serves as a kind of Museum of Gaudi architecture. Josep Batllo had bought the plain and uninteresting house on the Passeig de Gracia, thinking that he would tear it down and have the architect of the Parc Guell make him a new house. But Gaudi insisted that he could save the house in a renovation and quickly submitted his plans to Batllo. Gaudi won the debate and built his beautiful monument of modernisme.

The Batllo family owned it and lived there until the 30s, when they died and an insurance company took over and moved their offices in. In the 70s, it went under a further renovation and was rented out as a conference and meeting center, until recently when they decided they could make even more crazy, gaudi amounts of money as a museum, which is what brings us to the house today.

Audio guides in the Casa Batllo

For 15 euros, you get an audio guide that you can hold to your ear and listen to an alternating man or woman speaking in some exasperated voice about the different details of each room. From the entryway to the first floor they explain the features: the hand rails and handles are shaped to fit a person’s hand perfectly; the curved halls model the structure of natural places like caves and forests; the scaly paint is like that of a snake or dragon; the glass work, that is, the windows, are meant to resemble water or fire. In the construction, Gaudi avoided straight lines as much as possible, so everything seems fluid and changeable. All the materials possible, especially the tiles used in the mosaics, are made from recycled materials that Gaudi found in dumps or abandoned structures, and he tried to garner the laws of physics to make for the best flow of light and air possible, making this 1904 house superbly energy efficient, putting most architects of our day to shame when it comes green construction.

Looking down the light well

After Gaudi's redesign, the family primarily occupied the Noble Floor, which is among the most visually stunning floors of the house, with it's indescribable gallery of windows looking down to one of Barcelona's main boulevards, and with a ceiling that looks like you’re gazing into a whirling vortex. The top of the building though is the most interesting, both in the weird, alien, almost Geiger-esque way the Catenary arches that Gaudi is famous for hold up the corridors and the great halls. Here the different ways of light, energy and drainage are explained, with those explanations continued on the rooftop, along with a near twenty minute discussion on if Gaudi intended for the roof to have something to do with St. George and the Dragon - spoiler alert, the verdict is still out.

The rooftop patio

All in all, the 15 euro is worth it. Especially if you want to see a completed work by Gaudi, one where he was given full reins of the creative and architectural process. The Sagrada fails here, in that he died before he could finish it and was hijacked by less visionary architects in the process and Parc Guell - though with parts that are interesting and stunning - still had some limitations on what he was allowed. And hey, you're only in Barcelona once anyway.

how barcelona wasn't interesting

Back in Barcelona. After Morocco, the Gothic Quarters weren't that interesting. Narrow they were, but in their straightness and levelness, they seemed rather quaint - and in the off-season - so quiet and empty and forlorn. All of my Minotaur comparisons that I had used for Morocco seemed more adequate to the tall, graffiti strewn walls of inner-Barcelona, with all the garage doors closed, shops waiting for periods of better traffic. Or maybe they were only open for two hours of the day - it was impossible to tell as Spaniards do like their siestas. And by siestas, I mean, their long periods of not working. The Spanish clock seems to start at 11 am, lunch at 2, resume work at 6 and off at 8 pm. Then they sleep, have dinner at 11 pm and are out until 6 or 7 in the morning. It's amazing that they even have time for anything with such a rigorous schedule.

We had no time for siesta though, we had things to see in our final two day tour. On this end of our vacation, we would check out Montjuic, Casa Batllo, and a flamenco concert. The first was chosen by myself, Casa Batllo was chosen collectively after standing outside it the last time we were in Barcelona and only narrowly deciding not to see it, and the flamenco concert was on the wife's bucket list, so that was a must.

The entry of Monjuic

The first then was Montjuic. This weird name is either derived from the Catalan for "Jew Mountain" or from the Latin for "The Mountain of Jupiter." Since the pagan European gods often lived up on mountains, I'm more inclined to believe the latter, as the Abramic God only burned bushes while being about a mountainside. And there's certainly no way that any medieval or ancient Europeans would have given Jews such a tremendously nice slab of strategic land either, since Europeans have never exactly been known for their pro-Semitism. But whatever the origin, Montjuic has been the site of a castle for almost as long a time as there's been a settlement in Barcelona, which is a pretty long time, all they way back since it was founded by its namesake, Hannibal Barca, in the 6th century BC, along with his hordes of Phoenicians, Berbers and Carthaginians.

The Great Ball of Selfie

The current Castle Montjuic exists from the 17th century and has been the home of the armies of the Spanish king and at a different point, Catalan anarchists and the French, and has defended Barcelona from pirates and the armies of the Spanish king. It houses several large and now defunct canons, a big glass mirror ball, a cafe, and a museum. One enters through a drawbridge and can see the basic groundwork for a 17th century coastal citadel. Just for that, and it's amazing views of Barcelona, it's worth the trip.

Getting to the castle was a bit tricky though. There is - or was - a funicular that runs from the Paral-lel metro station to the gondola that serves the castle. However, when we were there at the January of 2015, the funicular was out of service and there wasn't much activity going on there. We got out of the metro and searched the neighborhood for the funicular. After about an hour of going up and down streets - indeed, neither the metro map nor Google maps is much clear on where the funicular starts - we finally asked somebody. "Donde esta el funicular, hombre?"

"Funicular no trabaja, muchacho," an old man answered. He was clearly peering at us disapprovingly through his reflective aviator sunglasses. He tilted his white straw fedora back to get a better view of us.

"Ah," I said, then racked my brain for some more Spanish. "Como a Montjuic?"

No answer. A cocked head. I was mispronouncing something. I then realized I really had no idea how to pronounce Montjuic. I was just saying "mont" and "juice" as they are spelled, in the custom of English speakers. So then, different word. "Como a el castel?"

"Autobus trabaja, numero 150." Then he proceeded to say many words in Spanish which I assumed were the directions to the bus stop. Many "izquierdas" and certainly at least one "dereche" had been said.

"Gracias," I said. And then we found our way to the bus stop and then to the gondola - there is a bus stop for this bus both at Paral-lel and even at Universitat. When we found the price of the gondola, roundtrip for 15 euros each, I felt as if someone had shivved me with a screwdriver in the gut - it was not a good feeling. But since we were there, we went ahead and shelled out the price. Chances are, we'd only be in Barcelona once and really, this was our chance to see Montjuic, however it was pronounced.

As I said, the views are worth it. The ride up the gondola is filled with gratuitous sightseeing, and from the castle itself, both the sea and the city can be viewed. And then there's that killer glass mirrorball in the center of the citadel. Can't miss that, naturally.

View from the gondola

View of Barcelona from Montjuic

View of the Barcelona coast from Montjuic

View of the sea and some fortifications

Soviet Jesus and the Gulag work brigade

Sagrada Familia

In the end, we decided that it was impossible to visit Barcelona and not go inside the Sagrada Familia. At first, I was ambivalent - I'm cheaper than most and at 15 euros, I'm even willing to pass up an entry into Heaven - assuming a corporation has bought it and turned it into a private enterprise these days. Some corporate sponsors I'm expecting to see are Starbucks, H&M and Home Depot, maybe a few banks, and in order to get to the more premium parts of Heaven, you've got to pay for the more premium tickets, because as we know, service and quality ain't free folks. Expect St. Peter with a bar code reader; he makes no exceptions when it comes to the mercy of the direct deposit - no less than two a month or your access will be barred. You'll be left sipping your chai tea latte at a grey, run-down has been mom and pop 70s diner over there on Purgatory Street, full of all the people not quite exciting enough to be sent to the Inferno.

However, with two votes a yes and only me being ambivalent, I quickly became ready to enter the eccentric cathedral, always willing to loosen the strings of my money bags when other people are involved - for at least if the experience sucks I can blame someone else for losing my money. Purchase the tickets online and pair the tickets with the entry to the Gaudi House Museum over at Park Guell. Buy this ticket even before seeing the park, though it's best to see the park first, as it was something of his architectural playground where he perfected the techniques he would use in the church.

The Sagrada Familia was designed principally by Antoni Gaudi, from whom we get the term in English "gaudy", which means grossly out of place or extravagant, a meaning that ideally describes his projects scattered across Barcelona like a strong cayenne pepper seasoning on Cajun jambalaya. Gaudi was the 19th/20th centuries' foremost modernist architect, using the new artistic themes of art nouveau and melding them with influences of nature - creating truly bizarre, unique, functional and beautiful places, a convergence of art and architecture that seems to have been lost in today's warehouse chic world. One of his favorite artistic touches was the mosaic - a truly Spanish art - from which he often used recycled materials.

Gaudi took over the Sagrada Familia project in 1886, and though he was the chief architect, he continued on other projects as well, in some ways perhaps to experiment with various techniques and ideas that he had in store for the church. The church was originally conceived as a standard Gothic style church, but when Gaudi inherited it he decided to make it a true landmark and statement of the art nouveau movement. 

Much of his plans were lost during the Spanish Civil War and much of what we see today is actually the work of later architects somewhat inspired by Gaudi. His plans have been recovered though, and now there's been a longstanding debate as to whether to redo much of the work in order to follow his plans faithfully, or continue accordingly. Of course, if they scrap what they've done, it would also mean that there would be no way to meet the latest construction deadline of 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. Interestingly, if technology from Gaudi's time were only used, the completion date wouldn't be for few hundred more years. Gaudi mentioned as to why construction was taking such a long time, he replied, "My Client is in no hurry."

Sagrada Familia rear facade

The facade of the church is - like most Gothic churches - covered in an array of sculptures. But unlike most Gothic churches, the sculptures appear as though they are hanging from the walls of a cave, as though they themselves were stalagmites and stalactites of an enormous entry to a mysterious subterranean complex. The sculptures have been added over the one hundred plus year period of construction, so they have a slight variance of style, but all of most of them seem to follow the harsh lines and angles of the early avant-garde movement, as though to show us a Soviet Jesus, who plans for the salvation of our souls in five year schedules.

Soviet Jesus and his Gulag work brigade

Though the exterior is tremendous and amazing to behold in person - indeed, no picture can truly capture the beauty of the work - it's the interior that's the real beauty. Inside, immense white columns reach up hundreds of meters, as though they were meant to hold the sky. Each column is shaped as an angular tree, with branches coming out to aid in the support of the cieling far above. Everything inside the church is white - not just the columns - but color is added by the huge stain glass windows on either side. Each array of glass follows a particular color, so that the colors beam in, coloring the columns and the ground below, almost in the same way how in a forest the sun beams in its light through the leaves of the trees above, except instead of just being a brilliant yellow, this sun is bright red or blue or green, creating such a rich ephemeral play of colors that I've only seen in animated films.

The organs resemble bishop mitres

The yellow windows of the Sagrada

The ceiling of the Sagrada Familia

Red windows of the Sagrada Familia

Is it worth the 15 euros? Absolutely. I would probably even go again, paying the same amount. I guess if that's all St. Peter were charging to his celestial Disneyland, then it'd be worth it. Not that I'm looking forward to paying for 10 dollar coffee brewed with overcooked beans and served in paper cups for the rest of eternity.  

drinking coffee from a paper cup

The second day of Barcelona still consisted of our gang of four staying at the hobbit-sized Pension Miami - whose location was excellent - not premium - decor was charming, and size was miniature, run by friendly and considerate enough employees who dealt with us despite our despairing level of Spanish. 

A clean restaurant kitchen

Day 2 was a full day. We started off with breakfast at a Spanish McDonald's type place, all the while with me complaining about drinking coffee from a paper cup. "But it's clean," my wife insisted. "But you've never had to work fast food. Sometimes those places that look a little dirty on the outside are a lot cleaner than fast food. But anyways, there is no cleanliness in restaurants as it is, my friend Joseph has taught me that enough."

Next stop was Park Guell, which was an old Catalan noble family who had hired none other than Anthony Gaudi to design the property around his house. Gaudi built pavilions for events, a viaduct for walking, some statues, and some houses, including his own. Half the property - which is now a garden - was planned to be a subdivision of houses designed by the eccentric architect, but they never got around to starting the construction. After Franco took power, the place was turned into a park and Guell's home into a school, while Gaudi's house was turned into a museum.  

No fitness required!

Park Guell is easily reached from Placa Catalunya on the L3 metro line, getting off at the Vallcarca stop - don't listen to tourist guide books, they lie, the other stop has a lot of uphill walking. The metro in Barcelona - though the general plan of the metro is about as confusing as quantum mechanics - is fairly easy to use, since each station and line is fairly simple. Leaving the metro at Vallcarca, it's pretty easy to follow the signage to the Park. The signage takes one to a series of outdoor escalators that go right up the mountainside, making the ascent easy enough for even our fattest of friends.

At the top, one is confronted with going up the hill to the place of three crosses, or going downhill to the actual park. We decided to go up the hill, see the amazing overlook, then descend along the viaduct that winds down to the pavillions. The viaduct itself looks something like a mix between a prehistoric construction and the remnants of dinosaur fossils, built with crawling and sprawling vegetation in mind, perfectly moulded to the sides of the hill. The viaduct utilizes the Catenary arch that Gaudi was famous for perfecting, which only increases the appearance and feeling that your walking through a graveyard of giant lizards, especially with how the viaduct winds its way down the hill like the route a snake might take.

The view from the three crosses

On top of the viaduct

A "leaning" Catenary arch below a viaduct

The viaduct ends at the pavillion, where also is located the official entrance to the park. Tickets are 7 euros and can be purchased online, or about a 100 meter walk away from this spot. It's probably best to buy it online, and then you can also buy the Gaudi House and Sagrada Familia ticket bundle and hit all of this stuff without waiting, if you're your good with your timing. The tickets operate on a time band basis, meaning the park sells a certain amount of tickets for a certain period of time, so that the crowds are never too large and you never really have to wait in line, especially if you purchased your tickets previously online. It's actually quite a brilliant system.

The paid area of the park includes as I said, the pavilion, a walk around the school and the backside of the entrance. It's probably actually not worth the 7 euros, since most of that can be seen from the outside almost as easily, and you can take your Facebook picture in front of the gates without actually paying admission. Besides all that, the viaducts are really the most impressive Gaudi-designed part.

View of the pavilions from the free area

View of the pavilions from the paid area

The porter's house

From there, we took about a thirty minute walk to the Sagrada Familia, the great cathedral designed by Gaudi - a tour of Barcelona really is mostly just a tour of Gaudi's work, as the city itself was a canvass for the architect.

After one look at the line, we decided to look online for tickets, and found that the next available time bands wouldn't be until the next day around noon. This meant that even those people waiting in line for hours wouldn't be able to get in that day. So again, best to book online. At the moment, we decided not to go, since it was 15 euros just to walk around inside. 

Houses on the "Block of Discord", Casa Batllo and Casa Amatller

Instead we decided to go walk down the Passeig de Gracia and see the rest of Gaudi's buildings, in what they call the Block of Discord (in Catalan, Illa de la Discordia, or Bone of Discord), because of all the out of place buildings designed by various modernist architects of various ideas. Most of the buildings have a 5 or so euro charge to enter, where you get to see one or two rooms. At Casa Batllo though - the one designed by Gaudi - you can walk around most of the house, and though it's empty of the furniture (which Gaudi also designed), you at least get to see the basics of his interior design ideas. More on that later.

Last up for the day was the Maritime Museum of Barcelona, which looks far cooler on its pamphlet than it actually is - which is unfortunately all too often the case with touristic sites, the longer I travel, the more I wonder if I should just leave things in the grandeur of my imagination than being let down by the great weight of reality and universal insignificance. What I was imagining was that the shipyard-converted-to-museum would have a bunch of massive 17th century frigates on display that you could walk around on and pretend your a pirate or fighting with pirates - I'll here admit that my mind never matured past the age of 12. But as we started walking around the Drassanes in the south part of Raval, I realized that there weren't any buildings there large enough to contain my dreams.

Be sure to take a look inside!

Outside had a little wooden submarine reminiscent of the Beatles song. You can't go inside, but you can look in the windows and see what's going on inside. In the museum, there is a large royal barge, but you can't go on it, you can only admire the view of the body of the vessel from below. Then there's a large collection of various types of small fishing boats and a section about cruise liners and pirates that has some pictures and lots and lots of reading. It took me a really long time to get through this part, because I end up trying to read everything no matter how not actually interesting the information is - don't get me wrong, the section on defending Barcelona from the dreaded Berber pirate Barbarossa was actually quite awesome.  

Also included is a small shipping vessel that's sitting out in the marina near the marina shopping mall. You get to go inside and all, but if you've been on a boat before, it's not that terribly interesting, except to take pictures at the wheel. For all of that it's 7 euros. To me it's worth it, but then I'm a fan of history museums, from the life of quixotic writers to the maritime adventures of temporarily independant ports. But if you're only going to be excited by swinging on the ropes of the riggings - something I would have enjoyed a bit more - better to find a ropes' course somewhere. The past is dead, and reliving the past seems to be left to Renaissance Faires and Dungeons and Dragons.

on quick greetings and the economics of restaurants

At the end of December, our honeymoon was finally due. We had traveled all across Bohemia for weekends away from the bustle of our new city life in Prague, but we hadn't yet had a trip where our sole focus of attention would be each other and where we could cement together our new marital bond. It was my wife's dream to go to Morocco - and also to go to see Barcelona and a flamenco show - so it was with an easy glance at flight patterns that we decided that we could do both. And to boot, we could also include a short visit with one of her best friends - the mutual friend who had original brought us together in that now defunct smokey Tbilisi bar, Amarcord, where the walls were covered with strange colorful paintings that were coated in a slightly grey nicotine ash and the tables were made from Soviet era sewing machines, which is now an apparently chic thing to do in Tbilisi bars.

After a careful study of the price variations of dates and cities, and some discussion with my wife, we had agreed that we would go to Barcelona for nights days, then fly to Tangers, travel to Chefchouan, then to Fes, spend New Years in Fes, and fly back to Barcelona for another two nights. On the first leg of the trip, we would see my wife's best friend and husband, who stay at the same hotel we would be in.

While walking along a nearly empty sidewalk, headed to the Sagrada Familia, my wife's friend Salome noted, "We all make good travel companions. It's hard to find an agreement with who you're traveling with. Sometimes a person wants to walk everywhere and see as much as possible - like us - other people just want to shop, and others want to eat and drink." As she was saying this, I was imagining sitting down for a cup of coffee and watching people out the window hurry by with their time-dependent consistency, a hobby I had formed and loved since the days of my wandering Europe with no aim or vision or schedule - possibly the freest time of my life. Salome was right, there needs to be consistency on how people travel to make a good trip. I tried best to suit my companions' needs, also wanting to see as much of Barcelona as I could, though I preferred my snails' coffee drinking, wine sipping pace.

A street in the Raval district

We found our hotel with ease. There is a bus that costs 5 pounds 40 one way, or 11 pounds 20 two ways, from terminals 1 and 2 of the Barcelona airport to the city center, with stops at Placa de Espanya and Universitat, ending at Placa de Catalunya, which is the aortic heart of Barcelona, the primary arteries of Passeig de Gracia and Las Ramblas both stemming out of that plaza's ventricles. Our hotel was called Pension Miami, located in the Raval district, about a 5 minute walk from Placa de Catalunya and 2 minutes from Universitat, right behind the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art. The rooms are tiny, but with nice touches of character, like carefully carved woodwork making a kind of mantel over the otherwise Spartan bed. The room isn't much bigger than the bed, the bathroom follows suit, and the Russian couple staying next door could easily be heard with every entry and exit, and one could take pleasure in their snoring while using the toilet with the window to the bathroom's sunwell open. Our bedroom window opened to another sunwell, so we had no view of the street - which after visiting Spain with my parents earlier in the year, I discovered was a wonderful thing. The Spanish don't start their partying until around 11 and finish up at 7 in the morning, every day of the week, and since typical Spanish bars are about the size of that Pension Miami hotel room, most of the partying happens on the street.

In the Gothic quarter

As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we met Salome and her husband Avto, and immediately went out for a walk through the Gothic district. The Gothic district - so-called because of the Germanic influence on the cathedrals of the area - is a tightly packed district of narrow winding corridors and tall, five story buildings. Many corridors can't fit even two or three people shoulder-to-shoulder, so that much of the area is pedestrian only by default. A walk through this large area can show you how people have been living in Europe for centuries, and because of how large the district is, more successfully than any other district in perhaps any other place on the Continent.

It was good seeing Salome again, both because she's a smart woman who's nice to talk to and because of the joy her company brings to my wife. It was a pity that we were in such a rush everywhere, with such a short time for each other and for the city, and we had to balance the time like a man might balance his illegitimate lovers - our spending time exploring the city almost felt like cheating on each other. But we take what we are given and sought to enjoy our march through those Catalonian alleyways.

First up was dinner, and while in Spain, I wasn't going to miss paella - a rice based dish of various sea creatures - which I had fallen in love with while traveling with my seafood-faring parents. This was my one culinary requirement. And we passed one restaurant serving it - indeed, as we'd later see, there are plenty of restaurants serving it - with a guy standing outside, inviting people in. We opted against it. Salome's reasoning for her negative vote, "Restaurants that need someone on the street to convince people to come in can't be good."

Walking along La Rambla

In Spain though, this is the standard regime. It might be something carried on down from their Moroccan heritage, since the Arabs seem to have the same habit about getting people inside, since certainly nowhere else in Europe has this annoying habit of trying to invite people to come in - except maybe in certain, tourist heavy places. Outside of every restaurant stands a "tout", telling you about how delicious their food is, offering discounts, and often blocking your way with their menus and bodies so that you'd quit walking and come inside. Of course, for most people, this has the effect of frightening them off - like in my companions' case, and it would in my case too had I not seen the practice before.

We ended up at a restaurant on La Rambla. I'm convinced that every restaurant on La Rambla is exactly the same and with somewhat poor quality. "But there are a lot of people in them," Salome protested my rambling on La Rambla while we waited for our food.

"Here's something I especially learned in Prague," I said. "Often the most touristic restaurants are the worst. This is because of what they have to compete on. You can compete on location, atmosphere, food quality, service, and probably a few other things. Touristic restaurants are competing on location and often atmosphere. Because they have the location, they know that the thousands of tourists in Barcelona every weekend are going to see their restaurant and come inside to eat, because it's easy, and they see other people in there - other tourists like them - and assume that because other people are there, it must be a decent enough place. But then, because the restaurant knows this, they don't really have to invest on the quality of the food or necessarily the service.

"Every real estate agent will tell you that value is made from 'location, location, location', and for the lazy, uninspired restaurateur, this is absolutely true. They need the location, and the steep prices the location brings, to raise up profits, rather than a strong reputation for quality service and amazing food.

"Better then, I think, the restaurants that aren't located in the primary thoroughfares. Maybe you'll get an occasional restaurant competing on food quality in a touristic location, but then they'll easily get famous being touted on Tripadvisor or Lonely Planet, they'll up their prices or down their quality to make more money. But if you can find something just outside of super easy reach - like being on La Rambla - and preferably not having been on Lonely Planet for too long, then you'll find a restaurant that might be competing on food quality."

The food that night was plain, the paella uninspiring. And to be sure on our return path through Barcelona when we again ate at a paella place on La Rambla, I found the paella equally dull as my wife found her pizza pretty flavorless. This only confirmed my suspicions about the economics of restaurants.