Europe Day 27 of 59, Barcelona

Sometime last week the numbers lost all of their meaning. When you're away from home for 59 days, and you're somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 way through the trip, your brain silently accepts that all routines and home based comforts are gone forever. And perspective is gone. Corsica feels like last month and Paris feels like months ago. Madness.

This, I have to share.

The coolest sink in the world. Using this sink to brush my teeth and wash my face the morning makes me feel like I have done something very right with my life. Bravo, Hotel Arts.

We walked out of the hotel and a few hundred feet away a double-decker bus pulled up. Time to become bloody tourists.

Along the beach, Barcelona has these cool looking towers. Public art is a good thing.

I took this picture for the "this could totally be..." reason. In this case, this could totally be Marina Del Rey, or Florida.

Lipstick. Suppository. Whatever. Torre Agbar. Personally, I like it. But I will admit that it is emblematic of the Barcelona "problem." I like Barcelona, a lot, but it is disjointed. Things are spread out here and there, and the architecture and city planning is a bit jumbled with different eras. In other words, unlike Madrid and Paris, the city does not have that "feel" that you know just what it is. I can name another city like this, Los Angeles.

Can't tell you what it is, but the nice thing about roundabouts is that they call out for statues, fountains, and sculptures. USA intersections with left turn lanes do not.

Cruising up the Passeig de Gràcia, near the city center.

The Francesc Macià monument in Plaça de Catalunya.

Plaça de Catalunya, which feels like the heart of the city. If you visited Barcelona and stayed near here, exploring mostly on foot the roman ruins and museums nearby, ignoring the marinas and olympic villages and far flung points of interest, I think you might get the best impression of Barcelona. By the way, I learned that they designed this all in the 19th cenrury when they tore down the medieval walls. One gets so attached to medieval walls, and they help define the character of what once was. This does demonstrate Barcelona's willingness to scrap things and move on, which explains why there are so many neighborhoods that look radically unlike the rest of the city.

Plaça de Catalunya fountains.

Across from Plaça de Catalunya you have La Rambla, which is basically Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade times 100. We walked for a few minutes and decided that we are travelling light and do not shop and the whole La Rambla scene is a bit much for us. But there are few places better for strolling and people watching.

I feel a hint of the Moors in this architecture, though historically up here in North Western Spain is the furthest you get from North Africa and it was from here that the Christians lead the charge to take the Iberian Peninsula back from the Moors after a short 800 years.

Casa Batlló, designed by Antoni Gaudí. The roof is supposed to look like a dragon's skin, and it does. A large chunk of Barcelona is all about the architecture of Antoni Gaudí. I confess that I see Antoni Gaudí as a Frank Gehry sort of architect. I respect the work, but I cannot honestly say that I like it. Though I will say this, he did most of his work between 1884 and 1914, and his work looks bold and modern 100 years later.

Antoni Gaudí's Casa Milà, better known as La Pedrera. Inspired by sea coves.

The front facade of Sagrada Família, the masterpiece church Antoni Gaudí designed and began work on in 1882, and they think it might be completed in 2026 for the 100th anniversary of his death. We plan to get better pictures of this gigantic project soon.

There will be 18 towers when it is done; 12 for the Apostles, four for the Evangelists, one for the Virgin Mary and, one for Jesus Christ. I'll be in my 60's when they finish, and I will come back to see it.

You can see these cranes from almost any high point in the city. In fact, the street our hotel is on, Calle Marina, runs directly into Sagrada Família. If our room faced away from the ocean, I imagine I would have taken fifty pictures of it from above.

If you move the iPhone while taking a pic, you get some cool results.

The home of FC Barcelona, for the fútbol fanatics. Real Madrid is spending every penny they have trying to beat this team. Their rivalry is called El Clásico, The Classic. How cool is that? Lakers-Celtics doesn't have a name. Rivalries need names.

House M.D. has passed CSI as the most watched television show in the world. I wonder how much Schweppes pays Hugh Laurie for this?

Obelisk!!! (I thought of Michael Lynn.)

A very large sculpture by Joan Miró, a native son. I used to love Miró equally with Picasso, but now on this visit I don't even feel the need to visit the Miró museum. Fickle.

At this stage we were both tired of being on this double decker bus, and I was experimenting with moving the iPhone while taking a picture.

Anarchy lives! So much graffiti. Youth lives here.

Plaça d'Espanya, which marks the gateway to the park which held the 1929 International Exposition and the 1992 Olympic Games. We didn't pass in front of it, so this is the best shot I got. Wikipedia has much better ones, including one at night from a helicopter.

The Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, housed in the Palau Nacional, built for the 1929 World's Fair and rehabbed for the 1992 Olympics. At dinner I learned from my friend, and Barcelona native, Carlota that the Olympics completely revamped the city.

The Olympic Stadium, where Barcelona's "other" football club, RCD Espanyol, plays. Not sure if they will kill you for wearing a FC Barcelona jersey here, but but not willing to test it.

Colom, a monument to Christopher Columbus. This is where La Rambla ends, or begins, depending on the direction you take. La Rambla is 1.2 km, that's 3/4 of a mile of car-free tree lined shopping and eating.

Punk rock lives! These two had been on our bus hours earlier. Had to take their pic. I wish they'd had a third friend with blue hair. Blue hair is the ultimate.

Port Vell, the original port of Barcelona, has this wooden submarine on display. Would you not take a picture of a wooden submarine from a moving bus?

If you like sailboats, Port Vell is for you.

Home! That is our hotel. After a full day of riding around, we were desperate to get back to our hotel. Me, I was desperate for my fancy sink.

We rested, worked on laptops, and cleaned up a bit in time for my friend Carlota to pick us up for dinner. I met Carlota through my high school friend Shanni in 1995. They visited from San Francisco and I took them around Los Angeles and up to Santa Barbara. It was a wonderful week, and now, 14 years later, my wife and I get to visit Carlota's home city and she welcomed us with open arms. How great is that?

Plaça de Toros Monumental. Yes, Barcelona's home for the bull fighting. Taken from a moving car, on the way to dinner.

Carlota took us to dinner at Opium Cinema, where her boyfriend manages the restaurant. They have a few Opium restaurants in Barcelona, including one next to our hotel called Opium Mar. This I did not know.

Inside, Opium Cinema is clearly an old movie theater renovated to be a restaurant and club. We were eating before 10 pm, which means that the place was not full yet. But I can imagine my 25 year old self delighted to be down there at 2 am surrounded by people holding cocktails and dancing.

The upstairs dining area, which used to be the balcony, of course. All those hanging lights are candles.

First course, risotto. We both had it, and you should know Barbie is a risotto fanatic. She orders risotto as often as I order eggplant parmesan. She said, "This is better than any risotto I've had in Italy." I loved it, too.

Second course was wok fried sirloin with vegetables. Delicious.

Carlota had the fish, so we took a picture. Why not?

My upside down dessert. That mango ice cream was so good, I preferred it to the chocolate souffle, which is bizarre because I'm addicted to these molten chocolate cakes.

Barbie got the lemon tart dessert.

Another attempt to take a picture that captures the atmosphere of this restaurant. It was almost magical, I tell you.

Back at the hotel, Barbie took this pic of Carlota and I. Want to know how cool my wife is? I'd told her earlier in the day that I'd only known Carlota for a week in 1995, but that I would have married her if I had the chance. Barbie's reaction was to say, "Let me take your picture." And when I told her that we'd never even kissed, Barbie said, "You blew it, dude."

Then Carlota took this pic of us, and she escaped from having to try to speak English. She had made a valiant effort to speak English all night, but it was difficult for her and we could tell. She still managed to be a gracious and comfortable host all evening. And it always rocks to see a city through the eyes of someone born there.

Tomorrow is all about the pool. Seriosuly. You'll be lucky to see more than a few pictures of my feet.