barcelona - don´t you dare call it spain

In the U.S., there has been a media frenzy over the upcoming November elections since what seems like a was a small child. When we landed in Barcelona on Tuesday night, there few to no visible signs of the Spanish presidential election on Sunday. We soon discovered that this was because Barcelonians only grudgingly consider themselves part of the greater political unit that is Spain. While their Basque neighbors to the north get all the hype for their separtist movement, the people of Barcelona have a similar sentiment of distance from the language, culture and governmental structure coming out of Madrid. I knew that people spoke Catalan, not Spanish, as their first language, but I had assumed this was just a Spanish dialect. Not so. It is supposedly a mix of Spanish, Italian and French, which made me think it would be mildly intelligible to me, but in reality, not really. Everyone can and will speak to you in Spanish, but it is not what you hear on the streets, and most of the signs are written in Catalan.

We stayed in Barcelona with Taylor´s friend Kathy in her bright, spacious, hardwood floor apartment that is perched atop six flights of winding worn marble stairs. It was comforting not only to have a place to stay, but to have somebody to show us around. Kathy and her boyfriend Felipe have a whole little group of friends who are almost exclusively immigrants to Barcelona. They are all native Spanish speakers, but still kind of outsiders in Barcelona because they do not speak Catalan fluently. We had a very enjoyable time partaking in luxuries from the western world, including fresh bread, specialty cheeses, the saltiest, fattiest, most delicious ham, strong coffee, cheap red wine and of course plenty of fragrant green herbs.

The city itself is charming and picturesque, its streets lined with apartment buildings from the early twentieth century. Their facades roll and twist and curve in intricate wrought iron balconies and carved stone. The people are well dressed, cool, mostly young and good looking. The vibe in the city is laid back and comfortable, not a fast paced metropolis. We saw many of the important sites of the city, including the most famous pieces of Gaudi architecture and the Picasso and Miro museums. While these cultural items were all very impressive, they all kind of left me a little disappointed, and craving a little more understanding and context. Perhaps my favorite activity in the city was wandering around in the slanting late afternoon light with a head full of thc and just taking in the sights, sounds and atmosphere.

The oldest part of the city was mostly destroyed during the civil war, and the characteristic narrow, winding, crazy little European streets work their way through reconstructed or restored old structures. Apparently, when Felipe arrived about 8 years ago, this area was a haven for anarchists, junkies, people on that margin of society. Now, as seems to be what is happening in every western city, the affluent folks have decided that this former wasteland is to be their new playground, and the anarchists and junkies have been replaced by slick little restaurants, bars and clothing stores. This is not necessarily to say that all of the anarchists have moved on, or that it isn´t still fun to wander around the twisting, gnarled old streets. What is interesting about this gentrification is that the whole development seems to be aimed almost exclusively at tourists, and the language you hear most on the streets in this part of town is neither Catalan nor Spanish, but English. It was heartening, however, to find what appeared to be some sort of anarchist occupied structure a little on the northern sloping edge of town near the Parc Guell. The whole building and adjacent stairs were covered in revolutionary grafitti, including one that read TERRORIST TOURIST.

I could have stayed put for years in the comfort of Barcelona, but after about six days, it was time for Taylor and I to catch the bus south to Madrid.