We arrived in Barcelona on the afternoon of the 14th, having taken the airport bus to the stop near our hotel. With the confirmation printout from the website we used to make the reservation, we walked up Gran Via to the specified address, only to discover that it was the location of a private apartment building. We were not at this Hotel Gran Via, where I thought we were staying, nor were we at this Hotel Gran Via, where Jack thought we were staying. There was no sign to indicate rooms for rent inside. While we were reviewing the information on the paper, a guy walked up to us and asked us if we were staying there. He was the front desk clerk, conveniently positioned in a sidewalk seat of the bar next door to interpret the confused looks of people who make their way to that address. He took us upstairs in the tiny elevator that resembled one of those vacuum pods they use at banks much more than a modern elevator. With the luggage and 3 people, you may have been able to fit a couple of crisp Euro notes between us, but not much else.

He checked us in and showed us to our room. As indicated by the interrupted pattern of the floor tiles, it had obviously been carved out of a much larger space, but it was still enormous: two balconies, a turret-like sunroom, a separate sitting room with an extra bed, and hardly a right angle to be found anywhere. The winter sun shone brightly into the room throughout the day. Since it was around siesta time at that point we hung out in the room for a bit and plotted our next move, which ended up being walking around, as is so often the case.

We were a bit further from the center of the action than we thought we would be, which made for some nice strolling but also some tiring walks. It was also a wee bit nippy out there, which was something we hadn't planned for. While day temperatures were generally in the low 50s, it cooled down much more than it does in Brussels at night, probably due to the lack of a stationary cloud cover from November to March. We made our way down to Las Ramblas, which is a pedestrian-oriented shopping street where all the tourists go. We then ducked into the narrow streets of the old city, wending our way through the maze of streets in no particular direction. Eventually we came face-to-face with our first tapas eating opportunity.

Everyone tells you that no one in Spain eats dinner before 9 or 10 at night, which causes a lot of fretting amongst those of us who get cranky if we don't eat when we're hungry. What they don't say is that, although dinner is late, eating opportunities abound throughout the day, so it's not worth worrying about. Tapas are served anytime. It was about 7 or 8 at this point, and we ended up at a very friendly establishment where we ordered 4 plates of deliciousness. Employing my nearly flawless Spanish hit a snag when the waiter said something incomprehensible after we had ordered. "Do you want toast with tomato?" he translated. Ah yes--they take a piece of bread, toast it, and smear half a fresh tomato over the top with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Of course we want that! We had to order two more glasses of wine to wash it all down.

Subsequently we made our way over to the cathedral, where they were hosting a large Christmas market. Now, many of you have already heard Jack or me excitedly describing our discoveries regarding the Catalan Christmas celebrations: caga tio and the caganers.

Caga tio is a log with a smile. Traditionally, one would go into the forest in early December, chop off a tree limb, bring it home, decorate it, cover it with a blanket to keep it warm, feed it scraps from the kitchen, generally coddling it into a good mood before the holidays commence. On Christmas eve or day, you'd bring it into your living room and shuffle your kids out of the room for a bit. You'd stuff small presents underneath (bigger ones are reserved for the Epiphany), and then bring the children back out and give them sticks. The kids beat caga tio, singing something like "caga tio, [defecate] us some presents, and don't [defecate] us any cod." Salt-cured cod or a hard-boiled egg is the Catalan equivalent of coal. As far as we can tell, they're really saying "[defecate]" and not some euphemistic term like "poop".

The Spanish all take their nativity scenes (belenes) very seriously. There were homemade signs all over the places we visited pointing you down a street or in a door to show the way to a belen. Catalonia once again does something a bit different: they include a figure of someone pooping, called a caganer, in their nativity scenes. It seems that the Man has cracked down on official displays in Barcelona in recent years, removing the caganers. But they are still quite popular in home displays, and can be purchased in the likeness of your favorite current Pope, for example, pop star or football great, or even the current American president.


So aside from the usual accouterments for the nativity display, such as mangers, animals, waterfalls, animatronic figures chopping wood or sewing clothes, mini electric fires burning cheerily in hearths, paper printed like granite, moss, tiny loaves of bread, and on and on, you could also pick up your caganers and caga tios at this market. A good portion of the booths carried one or the other, but never both. We bought one caga tio and 2 caganers for the road.

After the market we continued to wander and ended up in some streets not wide enough for a car where open houses were being hosted in several hipper-than-thou art galleries and clothing shops--the kind that has cable-knit sweaters with bulges in strange places that would make anyone but a model look terrible. We stopped in a few of the galleries, but they mostly seemed to be parties amongst friends, and no one was doing any buying. In one, we ended up in the back where two children excitedly spied us and tried to make toast for us, but we declined, much to their disappointment.

Then it was back to our room to rest up for another big day. The apartment building did not have any sort of climate control aside from natural ventilation, so they provided an electric heater/air conditioner for our convenience. As the windows did not close well, having approximately 100 years worth of paint on them, the heater was a necessity. When you turned it on, a window in the front provided a view of fake glowing orange coals. So soothing.

The next day, after procuring breakfast (Jack ended up with a tuna sandwich) and farecards for the subway (at 68 cents each for 10 rides, one of the best deals anywhere), we took the metro out of the heart of the city to check out the Horta gardens. Even though Barcelona was big into Modernisme architecture, an untamed style that was concurrent with Art Nouveau, there didn't seem to be any connection between the gardens and the architect of the same name from Brussels. Nevertheless, it was supposed to be a lovely walk in the park, so to speak.

Once we got there we discovered the hedge maze was closed, making it not really worth the €2.05 entry fee, but we figured that we'd have the place virtually to ourselves under those circumstances, and we were right. There were grottoes and waterfalls and palm trees--all in all, very much like being in a belen. Sadly, what had been billed as a "fake cemetery" in our guidebook turned out to be just a contemplative seating area reached by going down a few steps with the door to a fake hermit's cabin built into one side of the retaining wall.

Next, using my excellent map, I decided we would walk to the Parc Guell, designed by Gaudi. It appeared to be about 3 km; no problem. The map didn't include topograpy, however, and it turned out that there was a sharp ridge between us and our destination. On our walk we encountered an awesome Claes Oldenburg construction of a flipped-open matchbook. It was more dynamic than most of his stuff, as there were several detached, partially-burned matches scattered around, some across the street from the matchbook, looking like they had been tossed there by a bored giant. Just on some random street in some random neighborhood. It wasn't even pictographically shown on the map the hotel gave us, unlike a floating octopus sculpture by some no-name we saw later.

The floating octopus was just over the apex of the hill. Not quite to Parc Guell yet. I was exhausted and starving and dehydrated by that point (there have been so many subsequent ilnesses since then that I forget whether I was feeling poorly already or not). We decided to keep pushing forward, knowing that there'd be something to eat and drink at the park. What we didn't know was that the front side of the park, facing the sea, was another hill away. We approached it from the back, which is nice and woodsy, but that's not why anyone goes there. After we scaled the hill within the park, we decided to follow the ridgeline to a good view spot, further delaying food acquisition but allowing for some rest. The best views can be had from a rock cairn that has three crosses on top, meant to represent Calvary, where Jesus and the two other dudes were crucified. There was a guy playing acoustic guitar on the spot, which tempered the annoyance of teenagers scrambling all over the place. I tossed €2 in his open case while his back was turned, which naturally led me to think about that Seinfeld episode where George tries to fish his tip out of the jar so he could be seen putting it in. Thankfully I had the strength to stop myself from doing the same.

Finally we worked our way down to the cafe that was carved into the hillside. We got beer and sandwiches--Jack's was a Spanish tortilla (eggs binding potatoes) on a roll, which was surprisingly delicious. The pigeons were fat and happy there, bumping against shoes as they searched underfoot for crumbs, and hopping up on any table that someone had glanced away from--you had to be vigilant at all times. Having been pooped on numerous times in my life, everytime a flock flew over I would shrink down and cover my head, which I think caused a bit of mass hysteria, because it seemed like other women around my age were following suit. Sorry, ladies!

Thus restored, we explored the more interesting side of the park, with the curvaceous walls and the elaborate mosaics and the organic yet unnatural shapes everywhere. Given that it's one of the few Gaudi sites in the area you can access for free, there were people overrunning the entire thing. Summer must be terrible. It was pretty exhilarating, though, to be in the middle of it all.

We returned to the hotel for our siesta and later set out to see some more sights and find dinner. The Magic Fountain near our hotel was supposed to put on a show set to music on weekends, so we went over there first to check it out. There was no music, unfortunately, but the lights playing over the water were pretty danged impressive nonetheless--they did this misty thing that really soaked up the colors well. After loitering around there a bit, we got on the metro and went back into the center to view some more Modernisme architecture by night on Passeig de Gracia. There were two Gaudis and two other Modernisme buildings in close succession, all of which were mysteriously lit at that hour. We then ended up at a friendly yet middling vegetarian place where I accidentally got a glass of non-alcoholic wine--why are vegetarian restaurants so frequently teetotaling? It ain't right.

We started out the next day at the best department store ever--El Corte Ingles. Ten floors of everything you could ever want under one roof. Foie gras? Grand Theft Auto III? Lingere? Milk? Watch repair? Lottery tickets? Bonsai? No problem. On the top floor there was a self-service restaurant right next to the full-service restaurant, so we helped ourselves to rolls, juice and coffee and enjoyed a leisurely Sunday breakfast as I perused the store's lifestyle magazine (do you know they have a combo food processor/cooker now? I'm so hopelessly out of touch). The view from the wraparound windows was amazing.

We lit out for the chilly, narrow streets to go on the walking tour in the guidebook. We were using Lonely Planet this time, and they pointed out various things as we went along, but really didn't give the level of detail I would like (as in Michelin Green Guides). But we saw some stuff we wouldn't have otherwise encountered, so it was all good. In front of the cathedral the festivities were in full swing, with a Cobla band playing energetically, a pick-up group performing Catalonia's indigenous style of dance, the Sardana. There was a giant head walking around projecting candy out of its mouth. And there was the market.

Jack had mentioned to me that there was a bagel shop in the old quarter, so we attempted to go there for lunch only to discover they were closed. In a valiant effort to stave off my disappointment, Jack located the oldest restaurant in Barcelona and we went there for instead. We were a bit on the early side (2 p.m.-ish), I suppose, which was fortunate because they were able to seat us right away. The place was seemingly overloaded with staff members in their 40s and up, and for some reason I expected them to be short with us, but they were all very nice. Since we had heard that lunch was the big meal in Spain, we went with the flow and ordered appetizers and a bottle of wine and entrees. I got sauteed spinach with pine nuts and raisins to start, which is something I enjoy at home and was pleased to find on a menu, but it was an enormous quantity. Jack had a cold mushroom mousse in a spicy sauce. I had been contemplating wild boar for my entree but ended up ordering goose with baked apples, floating in a dish of thin gravy. Jack had a sausage with some of the most flavorful beans I'd ever tasted. We both couldn't get enough of the gravy, and we kept eating it long after we were both stuffed. There was such a performance going on in there with the staff bustling about, people coming and going (and eventually being turned away at the door), and other patrons enjoying their Sunday dinner that it was difficult to tear ourselves away, so we ordered coffees to make it less obvious that we were loitering in order to gawk. A couple of the older staff members were being kept on for some reason, despite their advanced age and resulting dotage. They were mostly getting in the way, but the rest of the workers treated them with patience and respect. We got to interact with the old woman briefly when she attempted to bring us someone else's change. Eventually our time came and we left the restaurant to continue on our walking tour, with stops to check out the Cathedral interior, the triumphal arch, and the Palace of Catalonian Music, the latter being another Modernisme favorite.

We knew we weren't going to be hungry for any kind of dinner so the evening concluded with us back at El Corte Ingles buying chorizo, manchego and wine in case we decided on a snack later on.

The next morning, after grabbing a quick bite, we headed to the Sagrada Familia, the Gaudi church notorious for having been under construction forever. It was strange to pay money to go into the middle of an active construction site, with people preparing plaster molds and driving forklifts and so on. And the church itself is a very interesting place. Anarchists destroyed most of the plans for the church during the Spanish Civil War, so all they have to go on are some vague sketches about how it should be completed. The new architects haven't tried to mimic Gaudi's work but rather make it their own, which has resulted in one side looking like a melting sand castle and the other like a nightmare of robots and storm troopers. But whatever. It's one of the most original structures of its size that I've seen and I look forward to when it's completed in 2026.

Jack was feeling poorly so we took the rest of the day off to chill in the room--a nice change from the frenetic pace of the last few days. I snacked on our provisions and read a novel as he slept. I picked out a dinner place and a backup dinner place, the first of which was impossibly crowded and the second of which was closed. Sigh. So we trudged around for much longer than we had anticipated and finally ended up at this restaurant that serves only one dish: steak with special sauce. It was really a great alternative to too many choices, although not particularly Spanish. It came with fries and a salad, and they serve the steak at two times in an effort to keep the second half warm while you're eating the first, not that it works. They do bring out fresh fries, though, which were great for sopping up the sauce.

That was Barcelona. It's a huge city and impossible to come close to doing everything in that amount of time--we didn't go to the beach or take in the view from Tibidabo, much less get outside of town to see any of the surrounding sights. December was a great time to to because it wasn't crazy with tourists and there was a heightened excitement in the air due to the impending holidays. But it was colder than we thought it would be and it rained periodically throughout our stay, and virtually nothing was in bloom. One can't have everything, though.