Category: Catalanya

Sagrada Familia

Berniece was saying that when she saw SF it had no roof. I was the same. When Logan and I went to Barcelona about 10 years ago the place was just a shell, no roof at all. The floor was dirt and had cement mixers and things in it. I guess after 10 years you get things done, if you have the money, because now it is a regular cathedral. Only about 10-20% of the stained glass is in but lots of progress.

When I saw it I thought it was a shame that it hadn’t been completed because it is a good example of a classical design done in a modern way.

Foreign Languages

Wynette and I are in a foreign country, and I don’t mean Spain. It is hard to understand the signs. The menus are especially hard since they seem to have a language of their own. You see a different national flag.

I am speaking, of course, of Catalonia and Catalan. Many signs are only in Catalan, which seems to be a mixture of Spanish, French, and Italian, and maybe some Basque, who knows. The words have lots of Xx and double Ls. Often there are cognates with Spanish but they seem to be far enough off to be hard to get. We learned the Spanish menu words but they are useless for Catalan and often the dishes are something like partridge Catalan anyway which doesn’t give you much information.

The desk clerk at the hotel in Barcelona said that the schools teach only in Catalan. English and Spanish are taught as foreign languages. She wants her son to be a native Spanish speaker so he can easily live anywhere in Spain, so she has to work extra with him in Spanish.

I still have some high-school French so sometimes I am better at guessing the words than Wynette with her Spanish.

Meditating in the Center of Barcelona

Post by Wynette: Our first night in Barcelona (April 3) we walked down to La Rambla and then, on the way back, through the Plaza Catalonya which is near our hotel.  Paz, who checked us into the hotel and gave us a long  and delightful introduction to the sites in Barcelona including how to get to them, told us Plaza Cataloyna is considered to be the center of Barcelona.  As we walked through the plaza we spotted a circle of young people who appeared to be meditating, sitting in the center of the circular plaza so, the very center of Barcelona.  As Charlie mentioned in an earlier post, the first day we arrived in Spain we encountered what they called the “Huelga General”, a country-wide strike, I think having to do with the terrible economic situation here in Spain.  It affected us because all the trains and 80% of buses and metro were shut down.  We saw a large peaceful demonstration in Toledo.  Paz told us that in Barcelona the protest turned violent and some of the violence was just outside our hotel — people were not able to leave the hotel for hours.  I think, perhaps, these young people meditating is part of all this.  But, emphasizing the peaceful part.  It was nice to see them.  We’ve heard that the unemployment among people younger than 24 in Spain is around 46%.

Gaudi

Post by Wynette: I haven’t posted any yet except for small comments on Charlie’s posts.  It’s overwhelming.  Hard to single in on one thing. But, we are in Barcelona so have to talk about Gaudi.  Or GaudI (accent on final syllable) as they pronounce it here.  Yesterday we toured the Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral Gaudi started and didn’t get to finish.  But he left behind plans and the people here are slowly finishing it.  The cathedral now has a roof and much of the interior seems finished. Charlie said that when he was here 10 years ago the interior was filled with cement mixers, etc.  I knew Gaudi made beautiful and strange sculptural places but didn’t realize how well designed the places were with respect to light and comfort.  Our first day here we toured his Batllo (sp?) house.  So worth the 16 euro each admission.  Below is picture taken on the roof. Pointy things on the left are chimneys.  Roofline on the right is meant to look like a dragon’s back (St. George’s dragon). It looks like people are talking on cell phones but those are the audio guide phones. Even though this looks whimsical, everything is designed to be extremely functional as well.