Sagrada Familia (3/5: Barcelona, Spain)

Today, there is only one thing on the agenda: The Sagrada Familia.

For the full back story, go here. The short version goes something like this: 1866, the Sagrada Familia is dreamt up. 1884, Gaudi takes over as architect. 1914, church runs out of money, Gaudi continues work with a skeleton crew of 30. 1926, Gaudi is hit by a trolley while crossing the street, and dies (not kidding). Construction still continues to this day, and is scheduled for completion in 2026 – the 100^th anniversary of Gaudi’s death.

The church is breath taking. So far, 8 of the eventual 12 bell towers (one for each disciple) have been built, and the remaining 4 are to be even taller than the 8 existing ones. Inside, the church space is dominated by scaffolding and work space. In fact, other than a 5 foot wide walk way around the outer edge of half of the church, the whole thing is closed off. So, Christie and I walk around, taking in all the stuff that is done: the stained glass, the ceilings, and the three facades (each representing a stage in the life of Christ: the nativity, the glory, and the passion). Then, we take the elevator up to the top of one of the towers, walk around up there, and then climb the stairs back down.

A picture is worth a thousand words. So, like the other Gaudi stuff I’ve seen, go look at the pictures. In this case, I also have to say that actually seeing it is worth far more than a thousand pictures. If any of you plan on going to Barcelona, lots of people will tell you “if you do one thing in Barcelona, see the Sagrada Familia.” They are right. I’ve seen six of the 14 modern and ancient wonders of the world, and that this isn’t on the list is mind boggling.

From the church, Christie and I headed back to El Borne one last time for… wait for it… more tapas. This time we ended up at a place that the first time we came through here had been super packed, so assume that it must be pretty good. I’m not sure if I was just tapas’d out at this point, or if the food wasn’t that good, but either way I’m under whelmed. From here we head back to the hotel, get Christie’s stuff, and I walk her to the Placa de Catalunya where she catches a bus to the airport to head back to London. I walk back to the Hotel to take a nap.

After napping, I finally give in and head to McDonalds. Honestly, I don’t think I can even think about another tapas restaurant, and I just want something I can bring back to the room, and eat while watching TV and/or reading my book.

Around 10, I head down to the lobby, thinking I’d continue reading my book in the lobby bar, instead of my room. I get down there, and suddenly I’m surrounded by some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I’m astounded, shocked, and confused. I ask one the hotel employees what’s going on, and he tells me that L’Oreal is having a conference in the hotel. So, I plant myself in the lobby bar, pretend to read my book while taking in the view, and start practicing pick up lines in my head. Eventually I realize that 1) I don’t have any pick up lines (that work, anyway), and 2) even if I did, I don’t speak Spanish or Catalan, and that’s all anyone around me speaking. So, around midnight, I finish Moneyball, and head back up to my room since I have to be on a train at 8:45am.

New Camp (3/4: Barcelona, Spain)

Up and out around 10:30, today I’m headed to Camp Nou (New Camp), home of FC Barcelona – one of the most famous soccer clubs in the entire world. Find my way over on the Metro, and finally get there around 11.

It’s awesome. I don’t mean that just in the sense of “cool”, but also in the sense of awe inspiring. It doesn’t look like much from the stands, or even sometimes on TV, but standing on the field (ok, next to the field), imagining the stadium fool of fans, it’s easy to see why New Camp is considered one of the best stadiums to see a game. I take the full self guided tour (11E), which gets you into the visitors locker room, up the players tunnel and onto the field level (but not actually on the field), the second level of seats, the press box, and finally the FC Barcelona Museum, where they have (a replica?) of the UEFA cup trophy they won last year. After the tour, you exit by causeway to the gift shop, which is really part FC Barcelona gift shop, and part Nike shop. I bought a sweatshirt... mostly because I like it, but a little bit to annoy Michel (Barca bought Ronaldinho from Paris-St. Germain, his favorite team).

After, I head back to the metro, when I realize I’m starving. There’s a McDonald’s right next to the Metro station. I can’t do it. I may be hungry, but I’m not that hungry! Anyway, hop the metro back to the hotel, meet up with Christie, and we’re out and on our way back to the El Borne district for lunch. We stop into a tapas place (noticing a trend?) called “El Rivoli” that also has really good tapas. Since it’s still early afternoon, we skip the wine, but I manage to stuff my self into a coma and have to drag myself out of the restaurant. From there, we head over to the Eglise de Santa Maria del Mar, which, after all the Gaudi stuff, is really quite boring. So, we head over the Picasso Museum instead. Now, had I known before hand that the museum focused mostly on his “early works”, and not on any of the stuff for which he is famous (which is mostly all in Paris), I probably would have skipped it. I’m glad I didn’t. I never realized that 1) he was so prolific, and 2) early in his career he really did a lot of very “classical” style painting… illustrations, portraits, etc. It’s really cool to see how he started out as a “classic” painter, and then slowly started to break out of the mold and into all the cool other stuff he’s done. I think later Christie put it best by saying “it was neat to see how he had to learn the rules before he could break them.”

From there we headed back to the hotel for naps. Since we’d been out late the night before, and had been powering through site seeing for the last two days, we decided to take it easy for dinner, and just went to one of the touristy places near the hotel. I had the tapas version of a burger and fries (she had some more adventurous stuff), and we shared a pitcher of pretty good Sangria.

One thing I need to make perfectly clear (based on some comments): Christie is one of my best friends; and even though we’re not into all the same stuff, we usually have a great time hanging out together. If in places it seems like she’s “a drag”, it’s only because I haven’t elaborated on:

1. how much I’m putting her out by making her go do all this sight seeing stuff she’s mostly already done.
2. what a pain I’ve been about taking pictures. I swear, there are more than a few pictures that in my attempts to be “artistic”, I’ve made her wait at least 20 minutes while I tried to get “the shot”.
3. that there have been more than a couple situations where I knew going in it was something she didn’t want to do, and I dragged her along anyway.

The occasions (in Barcelona, at least) where she’s put her foot down and said “we’re doing this” have been minute compared to the number of times I’ve said the same thing, made her go along with it, and she did without complaining. Clear?

Gaudi, Gaudi, and more Gaudi (3/3: Barcelona, Spain)

One of the things I did yesterday while Christie was getting some work done, was make a list of all the “sight seeing” type stuff I wanted to see in Barcelona. Three of the things on that list are: Casa Batllo, La Padrera, and Park Guell. All three (2 buildings and a park) were designed by the architect Antoni Guadi (a.k.a. “God’s Architect”).

We head out, and our first stop is the Casa Batllo, which is pretty much a block away from our hotel. I can’t really do justice to how crazy/cool Gaudi’s designs are, so just go look at my pictures.

Next, we head out to Park Guell via the metro. Park Guell is a public park with a plaza area designed by Gaudi. The main entrance has “houses” modeled after the Gingerbread house from Hansel & Gretal. Inside the gates, there are stairs up to a room open on three sides, filled with columns supporting the roof. The main feature of the stairs is a large fountain down the middle modeled after a salamander. The ceiling of the columned room has all kinds of beautiful tile work, as does the outside of the terrace above. Up another set of stairs and there’s a huge terrace, with amazing views out to Barcelona. Again, I really can’t adequately describe it, so just go look at the pictures! Anyway, spend a few hours wandering around the park, stopped for a bite to eat at the snack bar on the terrace, and then headed back out to the Metro.

Our final stop was La Padrera. Unfortunately, after the grandeur of the park, and the craziness of Casa Batllo, this building just seemed kind of boring. There was some neat stuff up on the roof, and a great view out to the the Sagrada Familia (more on that later), but at this point in the day it was pretty much just a building. So, back to the hotel and crashed for naps.

Back up and out around 10ish for dinner. First we headed over to a place called Cal Pep in the El Borne district, but it was completely packed, so we walked back out to another place (forget the name), and just got a few small plates and a glass of wine there (like last night, basically a big appetizer). Walked back over to Placa de Santa Maria, and wandered around a bit looking for our next stop. As we were walking around we got to see part of the lunar eclipse! We were going to stick around the Placa to watch it, but after waiting 20 minutes or so, and nothing seeming to have changed, we decided to just keep wandering in our quest for more food. What did we find? A restaurant called “Cheese Me”. If any of you thought there was any chance I was passing this place up, you clearly don’t know me well enough. So, we head in, order the Spanish cheese plate, and a bottle of cava, and chow down. After cheese, we decided to get dessert (I know, most places the cheese plate is dessert. I’m on vacation. Don’t judge!). Christie gets a “fruit gratin with ricotta foam”, and I get a flourless chocolate cake.

So, now, it’s about 1am. We jump in a cab, and head over to a club – The Sutton Club -- and not only is it dead, but they want 15E each cover. However, the two bars near it are both packed. I’m flummoxed. Why are the bars packed, and the club dead? I’m hemming, I’m hawing, and Christie pretty much just wants to go home. In my confusion, Christie decides she has to go to the bathroom, so we head into one of the bars. She goes to the bathroom, and I sneak off to get a drink. Drinks are big. Tall glass, filled to the half way point with ice and vodka, and they give you the can of red bull: 5E. So, obviously I don’t finish it before Christie gets back. When she does, we start talking to the guy next to us at the bar. Neither he nor his friends really speak any English, so he calls over his brother to do the translating. We end up talking to them, and eventually find out that everyone hangs out at the bar until 3am or so (when they close), and then people go to the club. So, we hang out with them, and then around 3am we all head over to the club.

Now, there’s a huge line. Luckily, one of the guys we’re with (Eduardo, the English speaker) seems to know someone, has a card of some sort, and just like that we’re in. I don’t know what he said, I don’t know what he did, and I don’t really care: I hate waiting in lines. We all head for the bar in the back, and Christie sets up camp on a sofa nearby. Get a drink, talk to Eduardo and his brother/friends for a bit, and I get the urge to wander. Now, I know that you’re never supposed to leave a girl (any girl) alone in a club for very long, but we’ve been hanging out with these guys for a few hours, and Christie has been talking to them just as much as I have, so I figure she’ll be ok to hang out with them for a bit. I tell Eduardo I want to walk around for a bit, tell Christie I’ll be back in 5 minutes, and wander off. Huge mistake.

I end up at another bar across the club, talking to some people, when I get a text message from Christie that “we are leaving. Meet me at the front of the club. Go back and get your jacket on the bench.” Crap. Something has happened. I find Christie at the front of the club, and ask her what happened. She tells me to go get my stuff, and she’ll tell me when we get outside. I run over the back bar, grab my jacket, run back to the front. We get outside. “What happened?!” No answer. We get into a cab, and she starts explaining that after I left, she started talking to Eduardo, and he starting hit on her. First he says something like “So, is that guy your boyfriend?” (No). “Do you have a boyfriend?” (No) and then says something to the effect of “I think you’re cute.” Now, never mind that she should have seen this coming a mile away – I don’t think any guys has ever asked a girl her availability without some sort of motive – but we have to leave because someone starting hitting on her? Really? Now, granted I ended up being gone more like half an hour than 5 minutes, but still, no “help! Need rescue!”? No, “where are you?”? The situation escalates straight to “we are leaving.”? So, in one of the biggest party cities in the world, those were my 30 minutes of clubbing.

I want to be pissed about this. Going clubbing was of two things on my "must do" list for Barcelona. I want to be *really* pissed about this. Just one problem… it was my fault:

1. You never leave a girl alone at a club.
2. I’ve been dragging her around Barcelona sight seeing all day.
3. YOU NEVER LEAVE A GIRL ALONE AT A CLUB.

*sigh*

I'm an idiot.

Barcelona! (3/2: Barcelona, Spain)

Woke up late morning, packed all my stuff up, and Christie and I head off to Heathrow to catch our flight to Barcelona! I won’t be coming back to London until the end of my trip, so this time I have to take all my stuff with me.

Get into Barcelona late evening, and head to the hotel. Christie had some work stuff she needed to finish up, so I read a little (“Moneyball” by Michael Lewis… can’t believe I haven’t read this yet) and then fell asleep. Around 9ish, we head out the door for our first night out in one of the biggest party cities in the world. Think I’m excited?

First we head over to a tapas place called Taktika Berri about 5 blocks from our hotel in the Eixample. Tapas here is different than from in the US. In the US, you order a “tapas dish” off the menu, and they bring you a small plate of stuff. Here, they put plates of the different tapas on the bar, each in an individual serving (usually on a slice of baguette), with a toothpick through it. So, you get a plate, a cup of red wine, and just pick what you want from the bar. At then end, they just charge you based on the number of toothpicks (one or two euros per) you have accumulated. This would probably never work in the US… you would just find a small mountain’s worth of toothpicks outside the restaurant. Anyway, the result is chaos. You have people seated at the bar, drinking, eating, having conversations, etc. You have people behind the people at the bar, drinking, eating, having conversations, and reaching over/around/through the people actually at the bar to get to the tapas. Behind the bar, not only do you have the bar tenders serving up drinks, but there are also waiters cycling in and out the tapas. It’s loud, it’s full contact, but it’s all pretty friendly. So, I head over to the bar to get plates and wine, and, of course, the bar tender speaks only Spanish and Catalan. I speak neither. Christy speaks neither. Luckily, the owner’s son is there because he is possibly the only other person in the bar who speaks English. So, he relays my order to the bar tender, explains to me how the whole things works, and sends us on our way. Christie and I probably have 4 or 5 each (a big appetizer, basically). Oh, and it was *excellent*.

After, we head down to La Rambla (the uber touristy area), and walk around for a bit, before getting sick of it. So, we duck into a little bar for a drink while going through the trusty Lonely Planet book looking for a decent restaurant nearby. We find a Mediterranean place called “Es” that’s just 5 blocks away, and head over there. When we get there the place looks a little dead, and has that look of “look how trendy we are! Red lighting!”, so we were both a little concerned how good the food was really going to be. Turned out there was no reason to be concerned. Prices were reasonable, food was really good, and the wine was pretty cheap too.

From there, back over to La Rambla, and basically walk it all the way down to the water. At this point, I’m ready to find another drink, but Christie is convinced we are near the beach, and insists we find it. We walk on and on and on, and we’re on the water, but it’s all marinas and piers with hotels, etc, but no beach. Finally we stop and look at our guide book to discover that we really are close to the beach, we just have to walk a little farther. So, to the beach. We hang out there for a while, Christie soaking it all in – I’m just waiting for her to finish so we can leave.

One of the funny things about being brown, is I have a very utilitarian view of the beach. There’s no magic to it. There’s sand, there’s water, and that’s it. I have no desire, and even less need, to go and sit on it for hours to get a tan. If we’re going for a bbq, play in the water, kick a soccer ball around, or something like that, I’m all for it. At night, if we’re going for a bonfire, to watch the waves, or something, then I’m all for it. But the bottom line is, I need a reason to be there.

Anyway, Christie wants to just sit there and be reminded of being at the beach back in Orange County, or to be reminded of previous trips to Barcelona. For the first ten or fifteen minutes, that’s fine – I’m enjoying the waves – but, then I’m just standing around getting bored. Once she’s done with that, I find myself stone cold sober, tiredness is starting to catch up with me, and my “window of opportunity” to keep drinking and keep the night going has closed. So, back to the hotel and crash for the night.

Maneesh's Moving Service? (3/1: Cambridge, England)

Today, I have to do laundry. While no one has dryers in London -- and the ones at the laundromat are expensive -- here in Cambridge, they have them, and they're cheap. So, laundry.

While my laundry is running, a guy stops by with a bunch of (flattened) boxes and wrapping paper for Vikram & Swati's upcoming move to the US. Some of these boxes need to find their way over to Vikram's office. Since I've already helped one friend move, I figure what the heck, and end up carrying a bunch of them over. What were the chances I'd be even tangentially involved in helping two people, in the UK, move?

Around 1ish, laundry done, Swati and I head over to the Engineering building to meet up with Vikram, and then we all head over to a pub called "The Eagle" for lunch. They get the fish and chips, I get the bangers and mash. In the US, the fish part of fish and chips is usually 3 or 4 smaller pieces, over here it's just one big piece, so it's not even really finger food. After lunch, Swati and I wander around downtown... stop in at the Borders, she checks out a clothing store, and eventually we get to "The Copper Kettle". It used to be a proper tea house, but now it's really just a cafe. What it is sort of famous for, is that Watson & Crick (they of the discovery of DNA) used to come here a lot. The tea is good, but it lacks any of the ambiance or character that Auntie's had. Apparently it used to, but the space was so large that they couldn't get by as a tea house alone, so they remodeled and made it a full service cafe.

I understand that they did what they had to do to survive, but it seems like such a waste when places with real character or forced to modernize. This is one of the things that really gets to me whenever I have one of my internal "east coast vs. west coast" debates. On the west coast, since nothing is really that old to begin with, there's no real compulsion to hold on to anything. As soon as something out lives its usefulness, it's torn down to make way for whatever is coming next. Sure, they might keep one wall for permitting purposes (renovation vs. new construction), but for all intents and purposes, the old is very readily discarded for the new. I think only in the last couple years has there been more of an interest in preserving the character of older buildings, but even that is only because it's trendy (eg. "historic" warehouses converted into lofts, etc.). On the east coast, whether it's by design or bureaucracy, there is a much stronger connection to the past. Buildings and houses from the 1800's are fairly common, and it is far more likely for such buildings to be gutted and remodeled on the inside, than for them to be just torn down.

Anyway, after tea we headed over to the "Porter's Post" (reception) at Pembroke to pick up the wines Vikram had ordered for me: 4 Burgundies (ie. Pinot Noir), 2 from 1996, 2 from 1995. Not bad. Headed back to their place, packed up, hugs and good-byes, and got back on the train to London.

Couple points I wanted to clear up from previous posts based on some emails I've gotten:

1. When I say "Christie is dying", I don't mean that literally -- she's just sick.

2. I understand that a lot of the taxes/fees they have in London are what pay for so many other services. I wasn't complaining about them. In fact, if were able to get anything at the level of quality of the BBC, I would *happily* pay a TV licensing fee. If SF built up a truly effective public transport system, I'd happily pay/support congestion charges (and I think we need to increase the taxes on gas to support public transport and/or alternative fuel research).

Getting out of London (2/28: Cambridge, England)

Today I'm heading up to Cambridge to visit my cousin Swati and her husband Vikram, who's a "fellow" (professor) at Cambridge University. Due to some hot water issues at Christie's new place in London, I don't get out of the house until around noon. Take the tube from the West Hampstead station over to King's Cross, and at 1:15 hop on an express train to Cambridge, arriving around 3.

Drop of my stuff at Swati's place, and we head out for a tour of the colleges (Cambridge is made up of something like 30 VERY independent colleges), and then of the downtown area. Stopped in at a cell phone store to find out when the Nokia N95 is being released, and I was very excited to hear that the release date is April 2, the day after I leave. I'm glad for that because the phone will probably cost around $700 and will probably never be available in the US. I don't even want the temptation. Dropped into a wine shop, and discovered that Absinthe is now legal pretty much all over Europe. I'm going to have try that while I'm over here. Finally, stopped in a tea house called "Auntie's Tea Shop" for afternoon tea and scones. I'd heard of scones before, but I wasn't *exactly* certain of what they were. So when the waitress asked what kind of scone I wanted, I really had no idea what I was being asked. I took the safe route, and just ordered the "fruit" scone. This was probably the first time I felt like I was doing something very British.

After tea, we walked over to Vikram's office, met up with him, and then headed out for dinner. First to "The Granta", a pub near where they live, for a pint, and then over to a restaurant called "Rice Boat" for dinner. Since it was Vikram's birthday, and thus far the both of them had refused to let me pay for anything (tea, pints, etc.), I decided to be sneaky, and excused myself to go to the bathroom. Got the attention of a waiter, gave him my credit card and told him to just bring me the receipt for signing at the end -- don't even bring the bill. We had a really good south Indian dinner, where I got to have two of my favorite Indian dishes: dahi vada and masala dhosa (no idea if I spelled any of that right). Over dinner, I found out that each of the colleges has it's own wine cellars, where they purchase really good french wines before they are labeled (either in the barrels, or unlabeled bottles), store them for years, and make them available to the fellows for either their cost, or L10, whichever is lower. I don't really have any what the quality of the wines is, "really good" could mean pretty much anything, but Vikram is going to pick up 3 or 4 bottles for me, so that should be pretty cool. In general, had a really good time at dinner with them... Vikram got a professorship at UC Santa Barbara, so they were asking me lots of questions about getting things up and running in the US (utilities, credit cards, etc.), Swati teasing me about lots of different stuff, Vikram and I both teasing Swati about different stuff... good times all around. After dinner, headed back to their place, hung out a bit longer, then crashed around 11.

Hanging out with family is always good.

Lazy day (2/27: Lisbon, Portugal)

Today was my lazy day. I was still sore from my surfing adventure yesterday, and we're headed back to London tonight, so I'm not feeling terribly motivated to actually "do" anything.

Finally roll out of the hotel around 11, and just head down to the Baixa district. Wander around for a while looking for a cafe with wireless, fail miserably (seriously? No cafes with wireless? Even the bar at the beach offered wireless!), and end up at a dedicated internet shop, sit down, and spend about 2 hours checking email, (finally) posting to the blog, paying bills, etc. Wander around some more, stop at a plain cafe for a coke, look for a "Maniche" Portugal jersey, and before I know it it's 4:30 and time to head back to the hotel to catch a 7pm flight back to London. Hang out with Christie, more free beer on the flight (I like British Airways).

That's it. That was my whole day. I rule.

So, some mental house cleaning:

Don't do the Math: Everything here (England & Portugal) appears to cost the same as in the US. Let me rephrase that, all the numbers are the same. A coke that's $2 in the US, is L2 in London, and 2E in Lisbon. Of course, that means in London my coke was really $4, and in Lisbon it was $2.50. With a coke, that's no big deal, but now apply it to meals. My $20 meal in the US, is now $40 in London, and $25 in Lisbon. A cab ride from Gatwick to Clapham that feels like "40", is in fact L40, which is really $80. Don't do the math. You'll feel much better. Things cost what they cost, and if you start doing the math, you'll just start to feel like you're getting screwed (and you probably are).

London vs. US cities: a point that Christie and I have spent some time going back and forth on, is that so far, being in London doesn't really feel like being in another country to me. While it's certainly very different from San Francisco (and even more so compared to Orange County, where she grew up), it doesn't strike me as all the different from Boston/New England: narrow and windy roads, the bare trees in winter, the weather, the underground and, the mostly brick construction, the architecture, rotaries... all very New Englandish. I have enough friends with different accents, that I barely even notice the British accent when I'm out and about. In fact, I'd say the only time I really notice the accent is when Christie's sometimes falls out, but that's only because I have a preconceived expectation of how words/sentences should sound when she says them. The sports fanaticism is relatively similar, just with various football/rugby clubs instead of the Red Sox/Patriots/etc. I haven't even had a problem with the whole "driving on the wrong side of the road" thing. Doesn't everyone look both ways before crossing the street? So pretty much everything that I see around me feels very familiar. The differences I am noticing are more in the category of "day to day life". For example, while it is very common for people to have washing machines in their flats (more so than in the US), almost no one has a dryer. So, it's fairly common to walk into a flat, and see clothes draped over the radiators. Another would be that consuming alcohol is socially acceptable pretty much all day (remember my beer on the flight to Lisbon at 11:30am?). A last example would be that things we pretty much take for granted in the US, all have some sort of tax or fee associated with them. Buy a TV, and you have to pay a "TV License Fee" to the BBC. Buy a car, and not only do you have pay the crazy gas prices, but there's a "congestion fee" of L5/day if you want to drive it in central London.

Public Transportation: why on earth can't we have better public transportation in the US? I think I go on this rant every time I'm in Europe. I know the public transportation systems on the east coast are much better (ie. subways, accela, etc.), but why don't we have any of that on the west coast? Why isn't their a train from SF to Tahoe? Or SF to LA? Or SF/LA to Vegas? Where's our TGV? Ugh.

What's wrong with the Women?: In London at least, I've been very underwhelmed with the "quality" of the women I've seen out and about. Granted, I haven't even been into Central London yet, but having been on the tube a few times now, and just walking here and there to the various pubs, on my run, etc. I think I can count on one hand the number of genuinely attractive women I've seen. Lisbon and Cambridge, I've seen plenty, but, thus far, London has just been dreadful.

Verizon sucks: There are all these really cool phones available in Europe that never even show up in the US because Verizon, the dominant carrier in the US, uses a different technology (CDMA), and Cingular/AT&T -- which is GSM -- uses a different GSm frequency than Europe. So not only is the market segmented by the different technologies, but even the people that are GSM are a different GSM. I have verizon, I love verizon, and they either have to switch over to GSM, or die.