Geography 237: World Industries

            This evening, I had the extraordinary pleasure of patronizing the Palau de Música Catalana, a gorgeous music hall designed by Lluís Doménech i Montaner, a contemporary (rival?) of Gaudí, and a Catalan himself.  Keeping with the traditions of both my home country and my adoptive one, I arrived just before the 8:30 curtain call, stormed up the steps, and yelled “¡rápido, rápido!” to the bartender as he took his dandy old time pouring the milk into my pre-show espresso.  I rushed into the dark Sala de Conciertos, and after confusing some poor German high-school girls with my Spanish, found a seat on the end of the row.  It was only after the music started that I remembered how to say, “seat number twenty-two”—zweiundzwanzig—in German.  

The first performance by the Salzburg Chamber Orchestra was a selection of Haydn, a very mind-altering experience, which was my first professional classical concert as an adult.  As Haydn gave way to Mozart—and naturally, being the classical aficionado that I am, I was able to identify each composer without first consulting the program booklet—I found the café slipping away, and ended up dozing peacefully in and out of consciousness throughout the performance.  Of course, I found the strength to remain fully awake only at the end of the last movement, after which we had an intermission.

            I was briefly confused by the intermission, as there was no sign that it was not simply the end of the concert.  Indeed, I would not be surprised if the lady seated next to me was just as confused, as she did not return to her seat for the last performance.  But I, being quite astute, checked the program, and found, much to my own surprise, that there was a full symphony of Beethoven that had yet to be performed.  So I slipped back into the bar, and after waiting for several minutes and watching one of the German kids get yelled at for touching the 2-euro pastries, I finally managed to order another café cortado just as the bells started ringing for the end of intermission. 

            So again, I gulped down the café, only this time burning my tongue (I told the barmaid to hold the milk, thinking that it would save time; it apparently also cools down the coffee to make it more drinkable), and dashed back into the Sala for the last performance.

            I found the Beethoven piece fascinating and relaxing, yet also stimulating.  As the classical sounds floated in and through my ears, I took some time to look around the enclosure and marvel at the architecture, the sculptures, and the elaborate mosaics of the Palau.  Soon enough, this gave way to a philosophical introspection, and my mind wandered from subject to subject: thinking first that, perhaps I shouldn’t have quit the trumpet in fifth grade; then moving on to Napoleon’s egotism; then to the nature of psychology; onwards to the self-fulfillment of the wanderer; wondering next why Americans are so fascinated by multilingualism and code-switching, while the rest of the world thinks nothing of it; at last to arrive at a veritable epiphany.

            The epiphany had really occurred to me earlier in the day, but it hadn’t fully clicked.  Just before my excursion to the Palau, I went to a Comparative Politics class for the first time (we are now in the third or fourth week of class, but my schedule is still quite a snafu).  While trying to decipher the professor’s slurred words, and in a desperate attempt to make conversation with a Spaniard (and a girl), I turned to my neighbor to ask a question for clarification.  After a few more exchanges, she asked where I was from, and after deciding not to lie and say “Canada”, I fessed up to being from “los Estados Unidos.”  The expected response followed: a shrug, a grimace, and then she turned rather brusquely back to her notes. 

            However, I was not to be dissuaded, and after our break (yes, most of my classes here have a ten-minute cigarette/coffee break), I pursued my new friendship with her.  I asked if she was from Barcelona, and after her answer in the positive, asked if she was Catalana.  She smiled (smiled!) and said yes.  It would seem that I had discovered the way into the natives’ heart.  Alas, in my very idiosyncratic manner, after scoring points with my very apt question, I had no response and no further questions, and turned awkwardly back to my own notes.  But a few seconds later, she asked where I was from, and with a hint of that Midwestern pride, I replied “Detroit.” 

            Now, I expected the blank look on her face.  Several times before, I had told Spaniards and Catalans I was from Detroit and received a similar look of desperation.  Every time, I patiently explained where it is located, and then proceeded to tell them about the automotive industry, which usually makes a connection for them. 

            I never expected anybody to know where Detroit was, or even to recognize the name.  But what surprised me—and still surprises me—is that my landmarks never seemed to work out as well as I had expected.  I had originally decided that the best way to pinpoint Detroit’s location without a map was to say that it is mid-way between Toronto and Chicago. 

            Apparently this is a mistake. 

            Nobody in Europe seems to have heard of either Toronto or Chicago, unless they’ve seen the movie with Catherine Zeta Jones and Renée Zellweger, which still leaves out Toronto. 

            Even the first time, this struck me as odd, but I never fully realized why.  The several Spaniards that I have spoken to knew where New York and Los Angeles are, but not much else.  My friend Adrian didn’t even know where Washington, D.C. was; he thought it was on the West Coast, somewhere near Seattle!  And it would seem that the same goes for Canada; that only Quebec City and Ottawa make it onto the map, if that.  The other industrial and commercial centers—Miami, St. Louis, New Orleans, Toronto, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, Boston—these don’t even seem to be relevant.

            Americans are berated for being the most geographically ignorant citizens of the world, yet it would seem that everybody else is just as oblivious.  I can name at least two or three major cities in two-thirds of the countries in Europe, even though I might not be able to pinpoint them on a blank map.  This may not be very impressive, but consider this: Europeans and the rest of the world have a strange fascination with the United States.  It may be a disgusted fascination or a horrified one, but it is a fascination nonetheless.  Yet despite the surprisingly central role that the US plays in international political discussions, the place that it has in the university classrooms, or the way it dominates television and cinema, it would seem that the rest of the world still has only a very basic understanding of the geography—physical as well as human—of the United States.  Despite the verifiable cultural, political and economic hegemony that America exerts over the world, it is still perceived as a blank-faced mass with only two major population centers. 

            Whether or not people like us, if they have an opinion about us, it would be worth their while to know a little more about us.  They should at least know the location of more than just two of our largest cities.

            Now then, if only I could find Teheran on a map….

            

Something To Be Proud Of

            The Barcelona planning board has done an excellent job of hiding parking, of making it invisible: on the inner courtyards of residential blocks, in middle-sized parking garages hidden behind the façade of some early-20^th century Modernist building, tucked away underground, under the plazas and parks of Fort Pienc, Parque de la Ciutadella and Grácia.  The only visible parking in Barcelona is the street parking; both sides of every one-way street lined with neatly-spaced Euro-sized vehicles, interspersed with Vespas and motorcycles. 

            That’s why I was astonished—appalled—to discover an actual parking lot in Barcelona.  Maybe it was just an “inner courtyard” type of parking lot, and I somehow managed to wander through the gates, but either way, the sight destroyed the verisimilitude of Barcelona.  Heretofore, it had been a city where cars were secondary, where pedestrians, cyclists and metro-riders ruled.  But the brutal reality must come out: automobiles are everywhere, and their ravenous need for space still dictates the structure of our cities and our society.           

            The sight recalled my bus rides to and from the Seville and Barcelona airports.  People often talk of Europe as a land of “city” and “country,” and a huge distinction between the two.  As if there is a line that one crosses, and is suddenly in the pasture lands.  As if there is no suburbia, no urban sprawl, no vast industrial landscapes.  But on the bus ride out of the city center, the old beauty of the ancient cities dissipates into that which is least expected: residential slums, ragged apartment buildings, huge manufacturing districts, and that landmark of the modern age: the parking lot.

            Yes!  Rare as they are in the city, they predominate outside the municipal jurisdiction.  It is a marvel to see such meticulous conservation of space within the city, and such flagrant disregard for such conservation outside.  Parking lots abound, along with one- and two-story warehouses and manufacturing plants.  To think what it would cost to build such a building in L’Eixample, to use up all that lateral space, and not expand it vertically to a six-story building!  And between these buildings and the parking lots: empty space!  Some of these abandoned fields, littered with scrap metal as they are, nearly resembled those one sees outside Detroit, or tucked within the cloverleaf of some Interstate exit ramp.  Space that is no longer valuable, that has no use for construction or extraction.

            That’s when it hit me: this is my people’s legacy.  Not just my people the Americans, but even closer: my people the Detroiters, the exporters of cars and steel and coal and the relentless ethic of American industry. 

            That this sight recalled my home, a city falling into industrial decadence, here, in one of the cultural capitals of the world.  That it should be my homeland that exported the technology and the lifestyle that would absorb every other nation in the Western world, and impose it on the rest of the world.  That there should be no place untouched by the sooty hand of industry.  That the green places, the country-side, the sea, the red sunset over the hills, should all be poisoned by the emissions of automobiles, the scraps of factories, the uranium and coal waste of power plants; by that black heat-mirror, that little square of desert, flat and sterile, upon which we park our cars. 

            But it is a process that we cannot end.  We are forced to embrace it as well as we can, as our predecessors did.  Perhaps by embracing it, we can change it.  Perhaps.  But it is no longer in our hands.  The model invented and propagated by the British, Americans and Germans has been adopted and improved upon by the Indians, the Chinese, the Russians, the Japanese, and others.  It will be these nations who decide the future of industry, and hence, of the physical spaces of humanity.  It is they who will take up the chain, so that the inexorable gears of progress might turn within that marvel of clockwork that we call Civilization, on its indefatigable march towards the Future. 

              Will there be nothing left?  These civilizations, as the Western civilizations, have adopted the mantra that “nothing is sacred.”  Anything material is fair game.  Humankind’s land, air, body: all of this can be acted on and used for the expansion of industry.  It is omnipresent: in Mumbai, Shanghai, Rio, London, Detroit, Barcelona.

            Where now can I turn?

            Patagonia?  Tibet?  Sub-Saharan Africa?

            Perhaps.

            But in these places, I will be flagged as an outsider.  By my dress, by my skin, my mode of conduct and speech.  The very places that I would seek for sanctuary, by their very nature as sanctuaries, would turn me away. 

            There is a chance that I will be welcomed.  But then, only as a forerunner—or harbinger—of the arrival of the Grand Western Civilization. 

Breath of Fresh Air

Like a breath of fresh air for a drowning man!  Ah, Sevilla, city after my own heart!  Indeed, arriving in Seville, I immediately felt a little more at home than in Barcelona: it just has a little more grit to it, a little less of the hustle, even less of the pomp.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Barcelona, and intellectually speaking, it’s where I need to be—modernism, utopian socialism, art and architecture—but it just isn’t quite as friendly as Seville. 

And oh, the Español!  Yes!  They speak Spanish here!  What a refreshing experience, to walk around town at 1 a.m. on a Thursday night and ask directions from three different thirty-year-old couples and get a polite response in Castellano!!!  Immediately, I knew I was going to like this town.  Of course, the Catalan presence provides much of the impetus for me to live in Barcelona, as well as well-grounded fodder for my prospective thesis, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy visiting a place where I speak the language.  Although, given their accent, saying that Sevillanos and I speak the same language is kind of a stretch….

Regardless, a time away was just what I needed before I hesitatingly go back into the high-speed, bump-ridden flow that is Barcelona.  A break from not only classes and L’Eixample, but also from the other CASB students, a time to clear my head and connect with kindred spirits in Seville.  I did much of the sight-seeing alone: the Catedral, the Alcanzares Reales, Plaza de España, the Archives, the Roman ruins of Italica; but I did meet up with the Barça crowd, visit with Emma and Krystina (so good to see them both!), and make a new Latvian friend.

Miks added an interesting twist to the weekend, and was probably the only thing that kept me from burning down my hostel (Two dormitories on each floor, one bathroom on each floor: sounds reasonable.  No.  You need to walk through my bedroom to get to the bathroom, which reeks of human refuse.  And of course the guys in the other dormitory find it necessary to take showers at 4:50 a.m. and leave the lights on and the door open after they leave.  Add that to the mattress that served as a sink-hole for my back, and Olé Backpacker Hostel asked for the brutal review that will be shortly published on Hostelworld.com).  Miks, the Latvian Theatre Groupie, was my roommate in the hostel throughout the weekend.  We connected on the first night, after I told him that part of my ancestry was Lithuanian.  He replied “We are all like brothers, our three little countries,” and promptly invited me to a theatrical performance, which itself was the purpose of his visit to Seville.  I took him up on it, and he got me a free front-row ticket to the show “Long Life,” which has been touring Europe for a while now.  A fantastic cultural experience, not lessened by the fact that there was absolutely no Latvian—nor Russian nor English nor Spanish—spoken throughout the entirety of the performance. 

A relaxing and edifying experience: A few hours by the riverside, several exercises in photographic creativity, a couple scribbles in my notebook, 100 pages of Foucault, and a thousand deep breaths later (there would have been a thousand more had my allergies not started acting up Saturday night), I just might be ready to go back to that barely-avoided heart-attack called “daily life” here in Barcelona. 

Maybe I can go back tomorrow.

Speaking of Tongues... 31 enero 2009 [archive]

Last week was the end of my pro-seminar, which was meant to introduce me (and the rest of the program) to the culture of Barcelona.  As it turns out, all three classes we took were more or less useless; however, I found that the three-week adjustment period did yield two excellent learning experiences. 

            The first came about last Monday.  We had no classes on Tuesday, and so the natural thing for my friends to do was drink a bottle of cheap wine each.  In the middle of this, I had decided to do my second load of laundry (first time for my jeans—so good to have them clean!), and so I would periodically prance from my quarters down to the laundry room in the basement.  There, I encountered Adrian, a Spaniard from Aragón, who was duly impressed with my fluency in Spanish. 

            I of course explained that, when tipsy, I am much better at foreign languages.  It would seem that a bit of the nerves are diminished, and besides, alcohol is known to stimulate the language process in the brain, thus giving way to loquaciousness and fluency in tongues.  This explained, Adrian continued to insist that he originally thought I was Spanish, and even remarked as such to our next new friend, Catalina, who was from the Canary Islands.  The three of us sat in the laundry room and discussed classes, politics and elections (Obama is the natural topic of discussion between Americans and Europeans) for over an hour.

            The whole experience was quite an ego boost, which I assured Adrian on multiple occasions—¡mi ego está subiendo!  I was pleased to discover that I do in fact have what it takes to converse with native speakers (albeit drunk), and even convince them that I am a native speaker!  Additionally, I was elated at his friendliness: the local people actually might be friendly!  Granted, both Adrian and Catalina are Españoles, and not Catalans, but their openness was very encouraging.  Hopefully, I won’t have to settle for Americans and other foreigners as my only friends.  

           

            Then, this past Wednesday I finished my Catalan class (after learning hardly anything), and went across the street to celebrate with a beer and a game of foosball (or futbolín).  The bartender was quite friendly, and after we explained to him that we had just finished our Catalan class, he spoke to us for a few minutes in Catalan, asking our names, where we were from, and various other beginner-level questions.  But even as we were playing foosball, he continued to talk with us, looking over his shoulder occasionally to check on customers.  He was very enthusiastic about talking about Catalan and Spanish, and, of course, fútbol. 

            The bartender, we discovered, is Catalan.  So far as I can tell, the only requisite for being Catalan is knowing the language, living in the area, and generally disliking Spaniards.  Even still, they have a fierce pride in their language, and the bartender definitely displayed it.  It is his son’s first language, he told us, as it was for him.  During Franco’s regime, the use of the language was strongly discouraged, and banned from official state use, yet the people—his parents included—continued to use it.

            It was not only informative to learn about his pride in and continued use of the Catalan language, it was also very encouraging to find that even trying a little bit in Catalan can yield amazing results.  Apparently the aloofness is a façade reserved for tourists, but the true immigrant can break that façade with a little interest and a bit of effort. 

           

 

What's the Deal with Water? 25 enero 2009 [archive]

One of the major differences about living in Barcelona is the portioning of food.  Eating in Spain is either a luxury, or it is a chore, depending on the context.  At dinner-time, usually about two in the afternoon, one can buy the “Menú del dia,” a one-price meal consisting of a first plate, a second plate, a dessert, wine, coffee and bread.  Each Menú has several options for each plate, none of which I can identify from their Castellano/Catalan descriptions.  This meal usually takes an hour to an hour and a half, costs around ten euro, and is presumably meant to be enjoyed along with good conversation and close friends.

The other option is the café, which is the poor Spaniard’s substitute for a deli.  At the café you can purchase a croissant, sometimes with a hot dog inside, or a bocadillo, a “sandwich” consisting of a hard baguette cut in half, and sprinkled with dry salami.  This is to be consumed with a café con leche or a far-too-small bottle of water.

It is this last that I find the most frustrating.  Because, while the Menú and the Bocadillo are opposite extremes of the eating (decadent and hardly-subsistence level, respectively), at least both leave you satisfied for the moment.  Additionally, a stop at a bar can leave you substantially filled with Tapas of a large variety.  Food, when in small tapas and pastry servings, can be multiplied over several small meals, or it can be gleaned from one large meal.  But drink cannot.

Drink, regardless, comes in ridiculously small packaging.  Wine and beer: no.  But any drink that actually satiates one’s thirst will not come in a bottle large enough to do so.

Normally, I would circumvent this by ordering a glass of water.  What American wouldn’t do the same?  Once you have finished your beer/wine/juice/virgin daquiri, you can just hydrate on free, fresh water.

Wrong.

In Spain, as, I am told, in much of Europe, water comes out of the tap a solid white, as if someone had dropped Alka-Seltzer into the drain.  Only instead of the putting it in the drain, they shoved it up the faucet. 

But, you might say, appearance has little bearing on taste. 

You may be quite right.  After all, V-8 may look like partially-coagulated blood, but it still tastes like super-salty, delicious carrot pulp.  Yum.

Euro-water is the same.  It looks like soap.  It tastes like soap.

So when you want water at a restaurant, they don’t even ask: they bring out a bottle.

A 200 mL bottle. 

For two Euro. 

For those still heavily on the English system, a 20-ounce bottle contains approximately 591.47 mL. 

So for about twice the price of a standard American serving you get a third of the liquid.  Now I’m on a budget (which somehow never seems to apply on Friday or Saturday nights…), and I’m already rather tight-fisted to begin with, so I only ever get one bottle of water per meal.  This, needless to say, leaves me quite dehydrated throughout the day.  Dehydration leads to fatigue, hunger and irritability, all of which make me a rather disagreeable person to deal with. 

Assuming that all residents of Barcelona undergo a similar cycle of dehydration, we can conjecture the origin of the legendary Catalan aloofness.

            Couple the price of water with the extraordinary cheapness of wine, and it explains even more.  As my mother so aptly pointed out, the modern siesta is no doubt a result of the price differential between wine and water: if you only drink wine all day, you are bound to need a nap.

            To return, though, to the problem of water: I really don’t think my frustration is a result of my weakness as an American.  After all, Americans are known for having large serving sizes.  If Wendy’s really wanted to be health-friendly, they would have the Biggie Size, the Large, the Medium, the Small, and then the Euro Size.  While I may be inherently partial to the larger, more comfortable serving size, I really don’t need all that much. 

I don’t need or want a Biggie Size. 

I want a beverage that won’t leave my mouth tasting dry and nasty.  I want just enough water, at a reasonable price, that I can feel satisfied without feeling fleeced. 

Into Barcelona: 22 enero 2009 [archive]

Often, when you think of Spain’s modern culture, you are actually thinking of Barcelona.  Ironically, this quasi-separatist province of Spain, historically separate from the rest, has been the center of much of the country’s most famous intellectual achievements.  Not only was it home to such artistic legends as Gaudí, Dalí, Picasso and Barceló, it was also the epicenter of the Socialist movements of the 1930’s, and the last stronghold of the Republic in the Guerra Civil.  Such a rich cultural and ethno-linguistic heritage has made Barcelona the ideal place for me to begin work on my thesis, but also a place where doing such research might be self-contradictory.  Coming to Barcelona to experience Spanish culture is like traveling to Montreal to experience Canadian culture—it just doesn’t translate onto the whole.  And the nationalism of the Catalans—my central focus—has made them a historically difficult group to get along with, as the Spanish Crown has found for centuries. 

After a week and a half in Barcelona, I seem, however, to be adapting quite well.  This is a considerable feat given two considerations: one, that I have never before lived in a large city, and two, that the Catalans are notorious for being rather cold to foreigners.  And in Barcelona, the term foreigner designates not only foreign nationals (i.e. Americans and other Europeans), but also the Españols, the Castellano-speaking imperialists from outside the region of Catalonia. 

For most residents of Barcelona, Catalan, a language somewhere between French, Spanish and Latin, is the mother tongue, while the language we call Spanish—Castellano, or Castilian in English—is spoken as a second language.  And if not speaking the first language weren’t enough, I still speak Spanish with a stuttering American accent, making me an eternal outsider (my first experience speaking Castellano, the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, ended with the taxi driver unilaterally switching into English).  The most embarrassing situations are those where I start a conversation sounding fluent with a well-rehearsed phrase, and end stumbling through what should be simple Spanish, but is in fact quite difficult given the immense pressure of the Catalan stare, and the fact that I am trying to form words and sentences on the fly (not something I generally have to worry about in a Spanish lit class).  That being said, I am gaining a little bit of practice speaking with our program directors, as they are both very slow and patient speakers.  However, since the general public spends little time speaking with fresh-off-the-boat American exchange students, this practice still leaves me ill-prepared for the real world (i.e. ordering food at restaurants.  Ironically, that is the thing we do the most, and yet the one thing we really don’t learn in class.  The menu at any restaurant is a labyrinth of meats, vegetables and sauces, some in Castellano, some in Catalan, and I none the wiser.).

Despite the difficulty of speaking the language(s) of Barcelona, I have found it a very easy place to fit into.  The newer parts of the city, my neighborhood included, are laid out in a grid, an urban design introduced as L’Eixample (which I translate to “the Example,” though I may be wrong) by a socialist city architect.  Street corners are cut (which makes it hard to cross streets, and even harder to feel like I am walking in a straight line), and there are few edifices higher than six stories.  The idea was to create a socialist utopia, where every neoclassical and ornate modernist building was equally as beautiful as the next, and none was higher than the rest.  While the architectural concept seems intellectually valid, the end result is a pretty, if monotonous city.  Indeed, it is often quite easy to lose one’s way in L’Eixample, as nearly every broad avenue appears the same as the others.

However, the regularity and uniformity of L’Eixample have a fantastic contrast in the winding, narrow streets of the Barrio Gotic (Gothic Neighborhood, or Medieval Town).  These streets hark back seven, thirteen and twenty centuries to the earliest eras of the fortified history of Barcelona.  Steep-walled buildings face off across tiny canyons, as people and motorcycles trickle through down below.  The Gothic Quarter has an atmosphere all to itself, a little more modest than the grandeur of La Rambla, yet still as sophisticated and avante-garde as the name Barcelona lends it. 

Thus far, we have spent more time on La Rambla than in the Barrio Gotic, and have yet to venture into Grácia, the more bohemian part of town.  La Rambla, though, is infamous in Barcelona as the center of the night-life, and is a center of after-midnight activity throughout the week.  It is also known as a hotspot for pickpockets, drug dealers and prostitutes, the last of whom seem to be in love with my roommate, Adam.  As a six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound, blond Pole, he sticks out as an American from a hundred meters away.  Even if he didn’t drunkenly approach every person he encounters after a few glasses of cheap wine (and yes, we did manage to find and buy the rumored .80E box of wine), Moroccan whores would still walk up to him and grab his privates, call him from across the street, or harass him from behind, all the while ignoring the rest of the men in our group.  Having him around always makes for an interesting night. 

I have spent much of the past weeks trying to settle into the Spanish, specifically Catalan, lifestyle.  When it comes to work and pleasure, they are a laid-back people who value long meals, good wine, chain-smoked cigarettes, and their daily siesta.  Coming from the industrious nation of America, where everything is always open, it has been hard to adjust to a schedule that accommodates eating and shopping only at certain hours.  But to compensate for the rigidity of store hours, drinking is permissible, even normal, at all hours of the day.  Indeed, the liberality of alcohol consumption is reflected in that of other drugs, especially the hash cigarettes that one can smell while strolling through parks and cavorting down La Rambla. 

For the youth culture, the schedule is even more difficult, as it mixes late nights with early mornings (out until 3, up at 7), long classes, and late breakfasts.  While I am notoriously nocturnal at Cornell—I generally eat my first meal at 11am, and my last at 2am—even I have found it difficult to empalmar, or stitch-together the days, drinking until morning, then showering and going to class without sleep.  Perhaps if I could find a good cup of American Joe, I might be able to make it through the day—or at the least through the morning to siesta-time—but here, the closest approximation is café con leche, and it is never to-go.  Coffee is a slow luxury, to be sipped, as everything in this strange and distant country. 

Because the days have been so busy, the coffee so rare, and the sleep even more so, I have still seen little of the city.  Granted, I have made several solo excursions into various parts of the city, and taken program-sponsored tours through others, but all in all, I have a very cursory understanding of the city.  Where it took me five days to memorize the metro map of Santiago de Chile, I still have difficulty figuring out how to get to the three (3) buildings where I am taking pro-seminar classes.  And while I have a very general understanding of my own neighborhood—Fort Pius, in L’Eixample—I often get quite lost on the walk home.

A few highlights are definitely the Barrio Gotic, the Parc de le Ciutadella (only a ten-minute walk from my residence), the Temple of the Sacred Family, and a visit to the beach on my first full evening here.  The Temple itself is visible from the front door of my apartment building, and the Arc de Triomf is only a five-minute walk.  Possibly my favorite part of Barcelona is this smooth integration of the old and the new, the sacred and the mundane, with modern businesses inhabiting old gothic buildings, and new towers rising up on the outskirts, framing the passage to the sea.  And in with all the rest is a eye-pleasing sprinkling of the work of Gaudí, whose genius as an architect I am truly beginning to admire.  As the days grow longer, I hope to seek out more of his work, as well as the many and various art museums and galleries showing the various works of Barcelona’s artistic greats.