Ah, Barcelona!

To sum up: Barcelona has great architecture, I love tapas, Joanne is a fabulous Barcelona tour guide, Joanne & Brian together are incredibly fun hosts, Gaudi was a genius, Spanish wine is good and really cheap, festivals are fun, and two in one day even more so.

Our first full day in Barcelona Joanne took us running in the morning and then for a long walk around the city. Every year on April 23 there are two things going on: a) festival of Sant Jordi (Saint George, as in "…and the dragon") and b) Dia del Libros (day of books, for the anniversary of the deaths of Cervantes and Shakespeare). For the Sant Jordi festival, there are a jillion rose sellers all over the streets, as that's the traditional gift, and for Dia del Libros, there are lots of bookseller stalls all along the streets as well. Many people on the streets are carrying roses, and it’s fun to speculate whether they’ve received them or are on their way to give them. The confluence also leads to sights such as a big kinetic dragon-head sculpture wearing reading glasses and holding a book (and guys on small stilts dressed as roses). And very crowded streets as well, although it's not actually a public holiday.

We also swung by the market and bought a few things for dinner, admired the marvelous displays of produce and

sweets, and marveled at the pigs.

We took an excursion on the weekend to Montblanc (no, not the French one), a village with an ancient walled part of town, which had a medieval festival with a Sant Jordi focus (a bit like a renaissance faire).

They did a play of the George/dragon tale, but it was in Catalan and so we really only understood the end. Which we already knew, but so it goes. Then there was a parade of drumming and guys running around with fireworks, including showers of fireworks from the aforementioned dragon –- we got really up close and personal to the festivities, as they wandered through the cobblestone streets repeating the firework showers (you’d never see this sort of thing in the US due to liability issues).

The next morning we went back for a continuation of the festival, which was "market day" -- more food to drool over. We bought cheese and bread and empanadas and some meats and had a fine picnic at a beautiful monestary in the countryside. Then back to the hotel for 2.5 hours of tennis -- exquisite exhaustion. Joanne and Brian can plan my excursions any time! (Brian Schlottmann, not Cargille -- well, either one, actually!)

The food in Spain was fabulous – another key benefit of visiting friends somewhere is that you don’t make tour-guide restaurant mistakes. We of course had a great paella, and many meals of tapas (I love eating little bits of lots of things). And hot chocolate (ultra rich and thick, almost like pudding) many days. With churros...yum. The best one was chili-spicy.

Our best food experience was calçots, sort of a cross between a leek and a green onion, local to Catalonia, and only available for a short season – we were so lucky to be there at the right time. This was out on our weekend adventure, and we actually stayed in Valls, the epicenter of the dish. You get a bib and plastic gloves, they bring you a pile of fire-roasted calçots, you strip off the outside blackened layer, dip it in romesco sauce, tilt your head back, and eat...yum! (Sorry, no camera with us that day.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calçot

We did the requisite Gaudi tour of Barcelona, including Parc Guell, the Casa Milà apartments (aka La Pedrera (Catalan for 'The Quarry') (we toured the interior as well), and of course the Sagrada Familia church. I’d been here 20 years ago (ahem), and it’s absolutely amazing how much additional construction they’ve completed on Sagrada Familia. They may actually finish this baby some day! (It’s scheduled for 2026.) One can stand looking at this building for a long time and not notice everything there is to see -- it’s just fantastic, in the true “fantasy” sense of the word. (Sorry, no camera with us that day either.)

And we get to go back to Barcelona in August, as our flight back to California is from there – yay!