LLB Note #8.5: Hogueras

We took the crowded tram down to the Malvarrosa beach late in the evening. It was Midsummer's night, and small celebrations honoring St. John were cropping up all along the Catalan and Valencian-speaking coast of Spain. Both Ana and Dr. Thompson joined us tonight at our nice bonfire spot, Mediterranean-adjacent.

The light posts of the promenade gave off a yellow-orange glow that bled through the dark and musty summer night. By the time you got to our beachfront bonfire, though, the lights from the far away esplanade had all but faded, leaving only the coarse features of our faces sketched out by our small fire.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bonfires sparkled on the beach, from the nearby southern pier to the dark nothingness of the northern cove. Families, friends; close knit groups all of them, sharing a cup of wine or beer, stories and a laugh. A light sea breeze constantly blew from the east, collecting the smoke from all the bonfires and carrying them inland and upwards, a thick mist that made the night a surreal, magical landscape.

About five minutes from midnight, the talking and laughing dimmed. Silhouettes along the beach were wading into the ocean and waiting for the stroke of midnight. We followed suit and waited as well, as it was customary to jump nine waves at the stroke of midnight for good fortune in the coming year.

In what seemed like a moment, we found ourselves in a group of people our own age, the younger and older groups both having gone to sleep late on a Tuesday night. The pagan origin of the celebration was never as clear to me as when the music hit a sharp crescendo and I found myself holding a magically-refilling clear plastic cup of tinto de verano. 

Four hours later; a large gypsy, a fight, a fat lip, undercover officers with batons, and a visit to the police station capped what would be the single most eventful night in the ensuing 366 days. I must have not jumped the waves right or something.

LBB Note #9: Barcelona

It has been far too long since I last wrote. A full year in fact, since I was on Spanish soil; and I still haven't finished with my blog. It has been comfortably sitting on the back burner my entire Junior year, and while I have visited this site often and made a few revisions here and there, I have been reticent with the last three weeks of my adventures in Spain. Now that I am on another summer adventure (albeit much, much, MUCH closer to home) I feel like I need to revisit my memories now, and write from a much more removed and pensive point of view. While I feel the fact that I am not in Spain anymore takes away from the "in the moment" narrative, a more removed perspective can also add depth to my experiences. Maybe even filter out the excess and leave me with a more concise and powerful story. At least I hope it will. So, in the grand Classical tradition of writing about stuff that happened WAY too long ago for anyone to remember and approach with any semblance of reliability, I now present the second part in the Spanish saga. 

I mentioned in my last post that Alicante would be my last trip off to parts unknown. That's because the next two weekends, in my mind, were going to be spent travelling on the beaten path: Barcelona and Madrid.

Barcelona always has been described to me by anyone that visited it, without exception, as a beautiful city. I am worried that, already having been a month here and having traveled through a large part of Spain, I'd start to gather an immunity to the country's charm. I was wrong.

Dani and Miguel were my token Spanish friends from back home in Arlington. Dani was the first person I met at UTA, at our very colorful and diverse International Freshman Orientation. A native of Barcelona, he proudly represents the Mavericks as part of the Tennis Team. His family was kind enough to offer me a room during my time in the Ciutat Comtal. Mild-mannered and mostly quiet, he walked Barcelona with a quiet pride in his city

Miguel, on the other hand, was the most recent friend I made at UTA. A one-year exchange student, he wandered unto our soccer's team walk-on practices and hit the ground running, both figuratively and literally. His charisma and up-for-anything attitude fit well into the group, as he quickly became the guy the prods others into questionable choices. He was from northern Spain, but was taking classes in Catalonia for the summer. They were both in town for the weekend.

After the three hour drive up the scenic seaside Costa Brava highway, I was dropped off in the western part of Barcelona. I was already surprised by the size of the city.

En route to Barca

Up to this point I had only been in large towns and small cities in Spain, Barcelona was the first real city I found myself in (it's more than twice the size of Valencia). The very familiar feeling of stepping out unto a place you barely know; a mixture of anxiousness, wonder and the unshakable feeling of being lost, had already sank in. I managed to navigate the much more complex metro system to get to the large Plaza Catalunya within an hour. The city at this point was a perfect chessboard layout of nearly identical Art Deco buildings. It was the Eixample, and I was on the lesser known of the city's Ramblas, to the north of the much more disorganized old town. After meeting up with Dani outside the metro station, he recommended we go into one of his favorite restaurants, a corner door at street level on Rambla Catalunya. A Twenties-style restaurant, it was significantly larger than it looked from the outside. Nonetheless, it was still very cramped and loud. When we finally got a table, we were escorted to a much quieter room with old French movie posters adorning the walls. For the first time in the whole trip I wasn't calling the shots, and it was probably for the best.

That first meal in Barcelona was the best one of my entire time in Spain. The omnipresent Patatas Bravas, along with Spain's answer to the IHOP breakfast: sunny-side up eggs on top of shredded fried potatoes with a healthy helping of the ambrosia that is Alioli. The MVP of  the meal was without a doubt the grilled cuttlefish smothered in olive oil, pepper and salt. Best. Dish. In. Spain.

We then headed up to Dani's apartment. His childhood home, it was in a much quieter part of the city; in the hillside neighborhood of Sant Gervasi. Streets were steep and the neighborhood was full of parks, away from the busier parts of town. He was pretty much alone at home with his mom and his dog, so I got a bedroom all to my own. His mom was extremely welcoming, and she made sure I had everything I needed at all times. Light-years away from staying in a crowded hostel.

The next morning we met up with Miguel. So far I hadn't visited any of the tourist-heavy destinations that Barcelona has, I was just doing "a day in the life of a Barcelonan" kind of thing, and I wasn't complaining. While walking around to get lunch, or to pick up a package, or to go shopping; one of Gaudi's buildings would sneak up on us, complete with the €50 fee and a line out to the corner of the street. I was happy just looking at the facade made up of natural waving patterns sticking out against the more traditional buildings of the Eixample.

Gaudi's La Pedrera

At one point I found myself in a heavily crowded area, a bustling area of foreign people with cameras around their necks. I asked my makeshift tour guides where we where. "Las Ramblas", they answered nonchalantly.

We walked down all the way to the Columbus statue, where I cracked a few jokes at the expense of our former Spanish oppressors, and then through the crowded neighborhood of Barceloneta to the Olympic beach for a sea-side summer Mediterranean drink. The beach was crowded, and the coarse grained sand shone white and bright in the summer sun. The sail shaped W Hotel seemed to take in a gust of wind, and I expected it to move away at any second. As the light softened and the morning beach-goers turned into locals on their afternoon walk, we agreed to meet up in a few hours for dinner at Plaza Real (an inlet off the main Ramblas) for dinner.

Olympic harbor

One of the things that stuck out the most to me was the language. In my imagination (and according to what I had experienced so far in Valencia) Catalan was an extra language, one that was taught for heritage and occasionally spoken to older members of the family. As we met up in the early evening with Dani's friends I saw that the language was alive and well, their go-to, everyday language.

Dinner was again tapas, this time a much more standard-issue Spanish menu. Bravas again, calamari rings, and a few rounds of beer. We then went out to the busy, expensive and surprisingly international beach-side clubs. Exhausted by the end of the night, I found myself sitting in the same spot I had been at 12 hours ago, as a hint of dawn discolored the indigo sky. The cafe we had visited during the day apparently moonlit as an exclusive club.

A single green light blinked in the old Olympic harbor, as the silhouette of the sail-shaped hotel became starker.

My last day in Barcelona was short. I still hadn't seen the Sagrada Familia, so I had to suck up my pride and ask to be a tourist for once. The structure is massive, a lot larger than I originally thought it would be. Detailed carvings on the facade showed different aspects of the Catholic faith. I remember it as being overwhelming. Overwhelming in its sheer size, overwhelming in the intricate details added to different points of the facade, and overwhelming in the magnitude of its scope and what is yet to be built. I had my last meal in Barcelona in its shadow, as a light pasta and a glass of wine treated my midday headache.

After lunch, I crossed downtown to get to where my ride back to Valencia was going to pick me up. Old town was cramped, disorganized and with really close quarters. It had the look and feel of a medieval city, mainly because it was a medieval city. Its Gothic cathedral a traditional anchor to balance Gaudi's trailblazing style, a good metaphor for Barcelona's position at the crossroads of old and new.