First Day

Our hotel was in the Eixample neighborhood. It was a giant neighborhood that had buildings that all looked similar to these. The Eixample is The Expansion, and is the area where Barcelona expanded when it could finally grow beyond the city walls.   The traffic moves really fast on these rather narrow streets - and is completely unforgiving to pedestrians.

We arrived about 10am on the first day and in order to stay awake we walked 3 miles to the Sagrada Familia, a church that is not yet finished by the architect Gaudi.  There were thousands of people in the area around the church.  We were so tired it was very disorienting.  My cell phone ran out of battery power there, so we had to figure out how to get back to our hotel using old fashioned maps (which was rather difficult after being awake for about 35 hours).

Forbidden Culture Presentation

I was invited to Barcelona to speak as part of Forbidden Culture week. Below I am with Lluis, Martine (the French librarian who also spoke), and Carme. The sessions took place at El Born, Barcelona's big cultural center just on the edge of the Gothic district of the city. The presentations were translated from English to Catalan using a simultaneous translator. We had ear phones and translations were instantaneously provided. The US Consulate in Barcelona arranged for my trip and all of the translation services.   After the presentations I went to lunch with two reporters who interviewed me about censorship for about 2 hours.  It was a really good but exhausting day!

May 26 - ‘L’Ou com Balla’

May 26 was the day of Corpus Christi. In Catalonia they celebrate with L'Ou com Balla - the Dancing Egg. So while I was speaking, Joel was on a mission to locate dancing eggs. The dancing eggs are placed in fountains in churches. The fountains are decorated with lots of flowers. Here is one that we saw together that weekend in the courtyard of a church in the Gothic District.

Bike Tour

The next morning we got up early and took a bike tour of the city. It was really fast paced - and we received no instruction on traffic signals or safety (very different from any bike tour I have taken in the US). Four people on the tour got lost along the way. We never saw them again. We rode for about 3 hours and I would guess it was between 10 and 15 miles of riding in traffic and among pedestrians.

Here we are riding on the sidewalk. 

This is a fountain in the largest park in Barcelona.  This fountain with all of its ornamentation was part of the 1888 Universal Exposition in Barcelona.  This Expo would have been right before the Chicago Worlds Fair in the 1890s.  It was interesting to think about what each city retained from the fairs and how they are incorporated into the cities today.

Below is a helmet structure (that everyone thinks looks like a fish) from the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.  This whole beach area was developed as part of the Olympic Village.

As part of the bike tour, we had a short rest at this bar on the Sea.

Our bike tour included a fast circle around Sagrada Familia.

After the bike tour we slowed down the pace and had lunch at a cafe in the Gothic District. 

Looking Around Town

Very out of place - we enjoyed seeing this "low rider" car parked on the street.  We weren't the only people taking pictures of it.

Signs for the Fobidden Culture Week activities were all over the city.

This is a dinner we had right on the Mediterranean Sea.  We watched the ships and yachts come into the harbor.  We had seafood paella.  I liked it a lot, Joel just thought it was ok.

This is a buoy art sculpture called Miraestels by Robert Llimos.

Joel meeting a painter on Las Ramblas.

Another sign for the conference on Las Ramblas.

Joel buying pastries.

We also went to the Picasso Museum at the end of the day.

Los Caracoles

We were walking down the street and we could smell good food and hear people talking so we looked through the holes in this vent to see what was going on.

When we took a peek in we could see a whole kitchen staff preparing meals.  Really fancy food, so we stood around and watched them for a while and smelled the good tasting foods.

Gaudi House - La Pedrera

This is a house that was built by Gaudi for a wealthy family. They lived on the bottom part and then rented the upper floors as luxury apartments. The tour entrance was on the first floor - but we were immediately directed to an elevator that took us up to the roof.

Rooftop views

These pictures are in the attic just below the roof-line.  The brick arches show the organic shapes that are supported on the top part of the building.  The attic space was really beautiful.

In the La Pedrera Neighborhood