Kazan — summer 2012

One of the things that first strikes me about Barcelona is the trees. Streets often are lined with them, and the ones that seem the most common are the planteros (sycamores), with their spiky seed pods. They give a green-gold shade to the pedestrians below. But I'm particularly struck by the the number of trees in bloom right now. Everywhere you turn you see the brilliant yellow flowers of the tipuanas, a South American tree that grows well here; the flowers are the brilliant yellows of Arizona's palo verde trees.

Then there is a tree with beautiful purple flowers, whose name has eluded me so far.

From some vantage points the city seems like an indistiguished urban mass.

In the midst of it, though, you see odd building rise up unexpectedly, like the Barcelona Water Department Building that penetrates the sky like... um... a corn cob. Yes, that's it. A corn cob.

The Ciutat Vella (Old City) has narrow streets like most old European cities.

But then there is the area called L'Eixample, which was shaped by a 19th century urban planner. The gist of it is this:

The Eixample is characterized by long straight streets, a strict grid pattern crossed by wide avenues, and square blocks with chamfered corners (named illes in Catalan, manzanas in Spanish). This was a visionary, pioneering design by Ildefons Cerdà, who considered traffic and transport along with sunlight and ventilation in coming up with his characteristic octagonal blocks, where the streets broaden at every intersection making for greater visibility, better ventilation and (today) some short-stay parking space. (Wikipedia)

Essentially from above it should look like this.

So when you look through Barcelona and see a long street, stretching forever, garlanded by trees, that's part of the Eixample.

Here are some shots where you see how the corners shape the experience of the whole.

The combination of old city, Eixample and modern city give Barcelona a type of fascinating grace that is unique in my experience of Europe. When thinking of next year's vacation time, I've seriously considered going to Scotland, Iceland or Greece, but having now been here, I will seriously coming back here instead. After all, it would be great fun to work on my Catalan.

I wanted to head back to the market today for a couple of reasons. First, there are some packed lunch stands there that are always full of people, but alas, when I arrived, I was still full of veal from last night and breakfast from this morning, so no lunch.

The market is amazing. Let me give you just a few shots. First off, the juice venders make an amazingly colorful presentation. Mostly they sell fruit juices for a euro a cup. I got myself and honeydew melon and mint juice. Very tasty.

Many of the stalls sell fruit salads, really just chunks of fruit cut up and neatly packaged. Again, beautiful presentation.

Spain is known for its pork products, and their are butchers everywhere.

But my main goal was to find a couple gifts. There are two women who I gave perfume to last year. Don't want to do that again. The gifts went off well, but giving perfume is always a risky business. Plus you don't want to be boring in your gift giving. So I had settled on some of Barcelona's chocolates. Barcelona is an incredible chocolate city; I can't imagine it's outdone anywhere except perhaps for Austria or Switzerland. Anyway, there is a confectioner at the market that caught my eye. I wanted to get one of their ½ kilo truffles, basically rectangles of layered chocolate, but then I worried that I wouldn't successfully transport them. Too much heat or getting crushed in my backpack amid boxes of iPads and computers... Tricky. So I asked the saleswoman which ones would travel well. She pointed out three types of turrones. A turrón is a nougat, which in this context means an almond paste. I chose turrones that additionally had some hazel nuts and hazel praline intertwined with them.

I'm hoping that makes them happy. After all, it's not every day an American brings a Russian a Spanish confection, right?

And last but not least, I want to show you the t-shirt I bought. I actually bought it in the old city on the way back from the chocolate museum, but I'm too lazy to make an independent entry. It's a mosaic lizard, not really like the one at the entry to Park Güell, but I liked it nonetheless.

Here I am in Spain. I've spoken Spanish for over thirty years, so why the hell do they speak to me in English once I get two or three sentences out of my mouth? I mean, I have studied thirteen languages. Why don't they try my first in German or French or Spanish or even Finnish. (Only Finns speak Finnish, so really that one is not reasonable.) I mean, the first words out of my mouth in Barcelona were Catalan. At least the woman checking me in at the hotel had the decency to do most of the presentation in Spanish.

The situation has irritated me so much, that I've started asking around. The other night I asked the waiter how he knew to give me a menu in English. He paused and said, “We have menus in Spanish, Catalan and English, so when we see the blond hair, we give you English.” They do the same thing with Germans and Swedes and Finns because those nationalities have all studied English, and you simply can't produce menus in all the languages. Hmph. I really want to be offended, but I can't because that makes perfect sense. In the Frankfurt airport cafes, the Asian waitresses all speak in German or English, but when they encounter a Frenchman or a Hungarian, they go for English. Damn. English really is the most significant international language. That kind of pisses me off. So often you hear Americans say something like, “You can get by in English when you travel. You don't have to study the local language.” And they are so very often right. Alas, it leaves us in the position of making so many assumptions about people that you probably won't figure out are wrong if you don't have to deal with people in their own homes and their own languages.

For instance... last summer there was an issue in one home stay where the guys thought they weren't getting breakfast. One commented to me, “We don’t want anything complicated. Just cereal and milk would be fine.” He had no idea how assinine that comment was. Of course the host family wasn't giving them milk. Milk is for children, and they wouldn't insult a grown-up guest who has trained to be a warrior in the army by giving him milk. It's not manly. (I've actually heard Russian men say that men should only consume fermented milk products, not sweet milk.) And of course they didn't buy them breakfast cereal because (a) no one in Russia eats breakfast cereal so it just wouldn't cross their minds, and (b) breakfast cereal is prohibitively expensive in the stores that sell it, so a low-paid host family is not going to spoil their potential profits by buying such a wasteful item. The host family had in the fridge cheese, sausage and eggs, and they had bread and tea on the shelf. That's what a normal Russian eats for breakfast. Milk and cereal? Stupid Americans!

I picked the brain of another Spanish waiter. First I wanted to know whether he preferred to be addressed as tú or usted. To my surprise, he prefers tú, although he will address his customer as usted. My acquaintance Dale says that in Germany the distinction is also being lost. Everyone under 30 addresses everybody else under 30 as du. Next I wanted to know whether he could tell from my accent where I was from. He couldn't. Then I asked where he would think I was from judging by my clothes, and for that he said America. Okay. That all makes sense to me now.

Speaking of words... now, don't ask me how I got into this conversation, but I came across the Spanish word vicioso, which sounds like ‘vicious,’ but the context didn't support it. Turns out it means something like ‘sex-crazed.’ No, I was not the subject of the conversation. I also came across the word morboso, which looks like ‘morbid,’ but again the context didn't support it. One waiter gave me an explanation, but it didn't make sense to me. So I did some internet research and at last found someone who said, “It's an adjective that describes someone who undresses you with his eyes.” That actually does fit the context. And no, again, the conversation was not about me. Still, what an interesting word to have in one's language.

As long as worldwide travel is relatively easy, I predict that English will continue to be the dominant world language. No, Chinese won't surpass it. The English writing system, though ridiculous, is nowhere nearly as ridiculous as the Chinese system.

If you take Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Barcelona, you will arrive in terminal 1, which is the smaller terminal. To get to the train that will take you to downtown Barcelona, you need to take the Green Bus to terminal 2.

The Barcelona card gives you unlimited public transport for the period you buy it. All days are calendar days, not 24 hour periods. Even a five day Barcelona Card is worth the price if you can use it to get to your hotel and back. Taxis are pricey. It also gets you a boatload of freebies and discounts. It was entirely cost-effective for me this time.

Returning to the airport from Estació Sants is easy, but you do have to read the electronic signs to figure out where/when the train is coming. They go about every 30 minutes. Your clue will be that they read ‘Aeroport.’ Once you arrive at the airport the signage is good to quickly return to the green bus and terminal 1.

Seriously consider the Torre Catalunya again. It was actually reasonably priced compared to many other places. The breakfast buffet was solid enough that I never really wanted lunch. Yes, I ate like a pig at breakfast.

Alternatively, get the website from Dale where he found a room to rent. You could be ten breakfasts a day with the price difference.

Don’t forget that pulpo means octopus.

The chocolate museum really isn’t worth it, but the many chocolate/coffee shops are, and there is one amazing chocolate stand at the Mercat Sant Josep just off Las Ramblas.

Sunday half the town shuts down.

Yes, many places still have a siesta.

Don, if you wear a t-shirt and blue jeans and white shoes, they will immediately assume you are an American. Wear a grown-up shirt instead.

On the other hand, many men your age wear those nasty European sandals. You could do that. Not. I’d rather be caught in a pink Easter dress than in European sandals. But maybe black shoes and khaki pants and a patterned shirt. Hm. That sounds close to what I would wear in the States on a work day.

Lots of young men wear flip-flops here in the summer. That looks a lot more comfortable. And they wear shorts or capri pants, the latter seems very Iberian. Of course, I'm hardly a young man.

Don’t forget sun screen next time.

I returned to the Frankfurt airport in transit from Barcelona to Kazan. First I took some time out to see if I could find some free wifi. No go. In the meantime I glanced over at some recliner chairs, and a young father was nodding off. His daughter climbed onto him and fell asleep as well. I was so touched. Family scenes like this make me, a childless single man, very... hm... what is the word... it's like nostalgic for something you have never had. The decisions that have made me single in life were, for the most part, wise ones, but sometimes the could-have-beens do have their impact on me.

After that I again went to eat at the Käfer’s, the restaurant where I had had the wonderful veal the other day. Today I ordered the “Frankfurter schnitzel vom Schwein” (Frankfurt-style breaded pork cutlet) which comes with bacon-fried potatoes.

Notice in the upper left there is a square container with a light green sauce, a specialty of the house. Ohmigoodness, so interesting and good! I've been trying to figure out what it is. It's a very light sauce. My first sense was of freshly minced celery (not powdered), followed by a minced parsley impression, and the sauce must have been based on yoghurt or perhaps buttermilk, and then there was the slightest taste of banana, like the hint one gets from a not-quite-ripe avocado, and maybe the slightest taste of lemon, but that could be acidity from buttermilk or something else. One puts the sauce on the pork. Very interesting flavor.

From there I got onto my plane to Kazan, where I came to the conclusion that Russia has really changed. When I first went to Russian in 1986, most Russians never got to travel. In 2010 I was struck by how many Russian teenagers were travelling. And this time I was struck by how many Russian children are traveling. There were at least ten children between the age of 12 months (yes, I asked) and seven traveling. They wandered up and down the aisle, and Russian strangers and friends laughed and played with them. The Russian adults allowed themselves to smile in front of strangers. It was marvelous. To be honest, I have never had a less stressful flight, and the lower stress was mainly due to the presence of children that everyone would allow themselves to love.

There are moments when I think the world might be becoming a better place. This was one of those moments. And no, I'm not going to try to qualify that statement. Though criticism is necessary in life, it's also necessary at times to simply enjoy the good without double think. This is one of those times.