After the Church we went to get Tapas at a place Jose knew.
Natalie and I both said: no idea, no preferences, no objections. Order away. We’ll eat it. The dishes came one after the other - croquettes, calamari, shrimp, jamon and eggs. All miraculously good.
The waiter was an eager lad named Alberto who was strongly keen on visiting the United States, and he wished to talk, he wished advice. Where should he go? Which state was my favorite? He wanted to go to Chee-cago. Was that a good place to start?
Interesting questions. I told him to go anywhere, and that when he got there he would be in America, but that other state and regions had different cultures, and they were America too. Anodyne bromides. But he enjoyed the chat and I enjoyed meeting someone who wished to come to my country. Note: wherever I went and whomever I spoke with, the US was a cool thing, an aspirational objective, and since I wasn’t a boorish guiri, well -
Okay, we’ll get to that.
After the meal we repaired to the sidewalk tables for coffee and Catalonian firewater.
I have no idea what it was; should google. It’s the after-meal liqueur, but it’s not liqueur - more like Aquavit. Harsh hit on the first sip, incrementally more mellow as you go on, probably because it nuked-and-paved your tastebuds.
After a big meal and a shot of Catalonian Joy Juice, why, it was time to walk some more. I cannot say exactly where, except to say it was everywhere.
As you may know, the expanded portion of Barcelona, the part built when the city decided to enlarge and modernize, is regarded as a masterwork of urban design. To some the view looks "dystopian." We call these people "wrong."
Blocks of equal size with angled corners, great diagonals, broad sidewalks. The blocks look different. Style, hue, and so on. A constant: the balconies and the shutters. The bottom floors are all shops, block after block of shops. It is just so damned urbane.
One of the things I noticed: these glassed-in rooms.
Show-off rooms? A place to sit and observe the world? Most seemed vacant and undecorated, as if placing objects in full view would be inviting a rock through the glass.
Another landmark: the HOUSE OF PAIN |
