Last week in Barcelona

This experience has been amazing and I have learned so much about Spanish and Catalan culture.  Barcelona is an amazing city and it has so much to offer! This experience has really opened my eyes to a whole new part of europe and culture that i was not familiar with before.  I have been able to travel all over spain and Europe and learn tons of new things and have lots of new experiences.  I have visited so many cool places all over Barcelona yetI still feel like there is more to do.  I have found so many places i love, like Cuitadella park, the beach, Montjuiic, and all the restaurants.  I have fallen in love with Catalunya and its culture.  My experiences have made this one of the best semesters of my life and I am so sad to be leaving soon.  Barcelona is wonderful and so are the people.  Thank you to everyone for contributing to this experience and making me love this city so much! I have learned so much throughout my semester here and I am leaving a better person.
I'll be back soon Barca!

I'll miss this!

BARCA vs. Real Madrid

This wednesday my friends and I went to the Barcelona bar called L'Ovella Negra to watch the Futbol Club Barcelona vs. Real Madrid champions league game.  Obviously this is a huge rival because Madrid and Barcelona are the two largest cities in Spain but its more than that.  The soccer game represents the constant conflict between Madrid and Catalunya. I think it was awesome that the semi finals of the champions league game were between such fierce rivals.  L'Ovella Negra was a great place to watch the game because it was a nice mix of Spanish people, tourists who were unfamiliar with the rivalry, and American students.  I am now a Barcelona fan after spending a semester here and I have really enjoyed learning about the team and going to games.  I am excited to watch barcelona play Real Madrid here in Barcelona and I really hope they win.


The game was good and although it was a little dirty because they are such bitter rivals it still was awesome that Barcelona won.  After the game the bar went wild and we rushed out to las ramblas to see the party in the street.  My friends knew about the water fountain that people climb on when Barcelona wins big game or against real Madrid.  I looked it up online and what i found was that During the Franco years it was one of the few places where it was possible to hold public debates and was often the scene of many arguments among Barcelona fans. It is thought that those who drink from this fountain will return to Barcelona. Although I dont think the water is clean i'm going to have to get a drink from that fountain so that I can return to barcelona some day.It was a really exciting  experience to see Barcelona beat Madrid and I hope that Barcelona wins against Madrid this week so that i can experience and even crazier party in Barcelona.  

This was the fountain after Barcelona won!
GO BARCA!!

Some Spanish News

Before I came to Spain I was really concerned about all the cigarette smoke.  I am allergic to smoke so I knew this experience could be less than enjoyable.  But a few days before I left for Spain the new smoking ban was put into effect and I was thrilled.  No meals with people puffing smoke in my face. I didnt have to worry about all my clothes smelling like cigarette smoke all semester and no coughing fits when i went out for dinner.  I was reading El Pais, a spanish newspaper, the other day and I came across this article on smoking clubs.  I thought it was really interesting and a unique concept.  I don't think that people should be able to smoke in Bars or restaurants because they have proven that second hand smoke is just as dangerous. This article presents and unique alternative to being able to smoke in a bar or restaurant.  I am curious to find out if there are any places like this in Barcelona?  

Smoking clubs prove to be puffers' loophole

While skirting around Spain's tobacco ban, registered establishments must not sell drinks or cigarettes

SAMIRA SALEH - Madrid - 26/04/2011

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One hundred days after the new, tougher smoking ban went into effect, a combination of ingenuity, lax oversight and word of mouth has created an unofficial list of establishments where one may bypass the law and light up a cigarette, no questions asked.

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The Royal Smoking Club calls itself the city's only "pub-type" smokers' den

The results of a survey released on April 4 by the consumer association OCU shows that, despite a high compliance rate, Madrid does not respect the law fully at any of the venues included in the study. The Madrid region also leads the list of complaints over non-compliance with the smoking prohibition, according to another consumer group, FACUA.

Some of these establishments take advantage of legal loopholes to circumvent the legislation, which took effect on January 2. A provision of the law allows for the existence of smokers' clubs, not-for-profit organizations that cannot hire workers or sell tobacco products. These clubs are also required to have a charter and a member registry.

Before the ban took effect, there were five such clubs in the capital - three for cigar smokers and two for those who prefer a pipe. Since January, two more clubs have opened in the city for cigarette consumers.

The Royal Smoking Club is one such establishment, which defines itself as the only "pub-type" smoking club in town. It opened on April 4 in Madrid's Tetuán district and already has 180 members. For a monthly fee of 10 euros, club members can smoke their cigarettes without fear of fines or complaints, between four in the afternoon and three in the morning. The club entrance and the management team is shared with the contiguous drinks bar, which means that club members can buy a drink at Kerala, then hop over next door to enjoy the drink and a smoke (the club thus observes the law in that it technically has no employees and sells no products).

The owner of both, Guillermo Castañares, explains that both establishments have a different legal status and that the club is open to smokers of cigarettes, pipes, cigars and even hookahs.

La Loca Casa de las Lilas is another venue that holds a smoking club license. It describes itself as "convertible and bizarre" and allows members to smoke for just one euro and "forever."

Yet besides the clubs, it is still possible to find restaurants where smoking is allowed undercover. "I would like to make a reservation for a party of five. Could you put us in a smoking area?" this newspaper asked one restaurant in Madrid over the telephone. "Yes, no problem," was the reply.

This confirms that a few restaurants get around the smoking ban with tricks like using the areas that were formerly reserved for smokers. The owner of De la Riva, Pepe Morán, notes that some clients threaten him with going over to bars that break the law if he won't do the same.

One client admits that he eats at restaurants that willfully ignore the legislation so that he may play cards, have a few drinks and smoke after his meal. "They sit us down in the same dining room formerly used as the smoking area, and that's that," he explains.

As for drinks bars, the most popular formula involves pretending to be closing down for the night. When the blinds are rolled down, people know it means they can light up.

Critics of the new law use the internet to share information about places where smoking is allowed. Three months after the ban took effect, a hospitality industry association, Asociación La Viña - which has 3,000 members in the Madrid region - says that the measure caused a 31-percent drop in turnover at 87 percent of establishments in the area. Meanwhile, a group called Libertad Sin Humo (Freedom Without Smoke) is planning a street protest against the new law on May 9.

Goodbye Naked Biker

I found this hysterical article in the NYTimes the other day about the famous naked biker guy in Barcelona who sadly (well its actually not that sad) we dont see around anymore.  I thought this article was really interesting and Mr. Ribas has a really unique story.  I was told about him before I got here but thankfully i never had to see him riding his bike naked...a 62 year old naked man on a bike doesnt sound pleasant.  I think this is an interesting article because it is in an American newspaper and obviously americans are a lot more modest and reserved when it comes to nudity.

Too Much of a Sweeping View Nudges Barcelona to Shed a Law

By JOHN TAGLIABUE

Published: April 12, 2011

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BARCELONA, Spain — Each year since 2004, Jacint Ribas has taken out his bicycle in March, and wearing nothing more than his salt-and-pepper hair, has pedaled it through the streets of this port city. By now he reckons he has covered about 4,800 miles, opening the season for going undressed in public.

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Charlie Mahoney for The New York Times

Jacint Ribas, 62, takes his bike out every March to pedal through Barcelona in his birthday suit.

One year he was stopped by the police 30 times, and released again each time because he was not breaking the law. “I do it to show that it’s normal,” said Mr. Ribas, 62, a retired bank employee who is president of the Association for the Defense of the Right to Nudity, as he sipped wine and munched ham slices.

The annual exercise began in 2004 because that was the year that the Barcelona City Council subsidized a brochure with the intriguing title, “Expressing Yourself in Nudity.” Illustrated with photos of ordinary citizens naked on the street, in the subway and in the city’s parks, it affirmed categorically that the law “does not contain any article for sanctions against public nudity.”

It went on to say that the city respected “the right of the citizenry to nudism,” and boasted that one year earlier, in 2003, no fewer than 7,000 people volunteered to undress together in Barcelona.

It was a vast unclad art project organized by the American photographer Spencer Tunick, who had already photographed massed nudes in New York, Melbourne, São Paulo and Santiago, Chile.

To be sure, neither Mr. Tunick nor the city council brochure the following year set off a wave of public nudity. Asked how many Barcelonans took advantage of the law’s liberalism, Mr. Ribas sheepishly replied, “Very few.”

But even for those very few, the season for legal nudity may be drawing to a close. Earlier this year, a committee of the city council approved a draft resolution empowering the police to stop people on the street who were naked or improperly dressed and to require them to cover themselves or face fines of up to $700. The full council is expected to approve the measure in late April.

A deputy mayor from the governing Socialist Party, Assumpta Escarp, acknowledged almost apologetically that the law was aimed not so much at nakedness in the streets as at improper dress. “In recent years it’s been not so much nudity, but semi-nude attire,” she said, “people going from the beach to the city, to museums and churches, in beach attire.”

Mr. Tunick’s art event (in which she did not take part) was “an artistic expression,” she said. “It’s another thing to visit the Sagrada Familia in a bikini.” That was a reference to the church by the architect Antoni Gaudí, a major tourist destination.

Barcelona has its nude beaches, she said, but nudity on the street was not an acute problem, though there was one well-known activist who habitually rode the subway in the altogether. “There are three or four activists of nudism” in all, she said.

Pamela Oliver, 28, who works in a restaurant behind the town hall, agrees. “I’ve seen maybe three or four people in the street, but they’ve never come in here,” she said, adding that Barcelonans, mostly singles, frequent nude beaches along the Mediterranean when they have the urge to undress. “It’s quieter, there are no kids running around,” she said. “Your typical Spanish family’s not going.”

Natalia Casado, 35, a language student, said she had seen few people undressed in the city, though she had heard of the unclad subway rider. “Imagine with all the people there, how uncomfortable,” she said. “Not only the sights, but also the smells.”

Indeed, nudism’s few local proponents are themselves divided. Just Roca, 56, a specialist in sexology who participated in Mr. Tunick’s mass photo, quit Mr. Ribas’s association over “philosophical differences” about nudity and founded his own group called Aleteia, a rendering of the Greek word for truth. Nudist beaches and camps, common enough in Spain, he said, “are born of a culture that says being dressed is normal — I say nudity is the natural situation.”

Mr. Roca compares the campaign against nudity to a parallel proposal to ban the wearing of the Muslim women’s veil, often called the burqa, in public places, as several nearby cities in the Catalonia region have done and as the Barcelona City Council is considering. Mr. Roca called both measures forms of segregation. “It’s like ‘No Negroes,’ ” he said. Just as politicians fear that a burqa-clad woman has something to hide, he said, “they imagine an undressed person has something to hide, too.”

Guy Reifenberg, 37, whose travel agency, Kokopeli, organizes adventure tours, said that the proposed sanctions were less a crackdown on nudity than a way to rein in the excesses of mass tourism, which is currently swamping Barcelona.

“The city’s afraid of the kind of tourists it’s attracting,” said Mr. Reifenberg, a native of Israel who has lived here for six years. These tourists, he said, go for “cheap alcohol, partying, hanging out in the street, and not spending money.” As a result, the city’s business community — hotels, restaurants, bars and retail outlets — has put pressure on the mayor, Jordi Hereu, a Socialist who faces an uphill battle for re-election in May.

The charming Old Town, with its famed Gothic Quarter, was the focus of the trouble, Mr. Reifenberg said. “In the Old Town, lately, there’s been a big rise in light drugs,” he said, pointing to banners hung from the balconies of picturesque buildings reading, “Out With Drunkards,” “Tourism = Cancer” and “Mayor Hereu: We Don’t Want Drugs or a Pigsty.”

On the charming triangular plaza named for George Orwell, who lived here during the Spanish Civil War, stone steps once invited young tourists to sit, drink themselves drunk and make noise through the night. The steps were recently removed, and in March a large round children’s playground was opened, in an effort to deter unruly loitering.

Joaquim Mestre, 50, a member of the liberal Green Party who is the city councilor for civil rights, said that backers of the new sanctions hoped that they would give the police and courts a legal tool to control abusive behavior by tourists. His party opposes the sanctions, as it does the proposed burqa ban. Just as Barcelona’s undressed are only a handful, the number of women who wore the burqa in neighboring Lleida, the first city in Catalonia to ban it, “are about three,” he said.

As for nudity in Barcelona, Mr. Mestre said, go in summer to the affluent quarters of the city, north of the broad Avinguda Diagonal, which cuts it in two. “You will see affluent joggers every morning in the skimpiest of clothing,” he said. “Will the police pursue them?”

Tibidabo

This past weekend my boyfriend and I visited Tibibado mountain for fun.  It took a while to get there but the view was amazing and it was really worth it! Although there isn't much up there I really enjoyed seeing the whole entire city.  Tibidabo had a amusement park and a big church, the Temple of Sagrat Cor, that you can see from all of Barcelona.  I think that Tibidabo is an icon for the city and it something that if you are studying here you should visit.  ALthough we did not go into the amusement park (too expensive) we still walked around and saw all the fun rides.  The church was pretty and I'm glad that I went up there.  It took a metro ride, then a tram car ride, then a funicular to get all the way to the top.  Since we needed the exercise we decided to walk down.  The church took over 60 years to build and the amusement park is the oldest in Barcelona and still has most of its original rides.  One thing I thought was cool was the Panoramic view of Barcelona. Since it was a pretty clear day we could see everything, from the Sagrada Familia, to the beach all the way past Montjuiic.

I thought this was a really cool photo with the plane ride and the view of Barcelona in the background

A little smoggy

The Church

CARNIVAL!

TIBIDABO blocks!

MACBA museum

For a field trip for another class I visited the MACBA museum which stands for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Catalunya.  I really think the outside of the museum is the best part. I am not a big fan of contemporary art and I had a really difficult time understanding a lot of the pieces. My teacher gave us a tour of the museum which was somewhat interesting but I think that the museum building itself is more interesting than the actual art.  The surrounding Plaza del Angles is really cool with all the skateboarders and young people.  I think the culture really lies in the plaza as opposed to in the museum.  The museum seemed stark and dry to me but the plaza was lively and exciting.  I loved all the little kids running around and spending time with their families.  The plaza really overshadowed the boring museum for me.   


I was curious if Barcelona has embraced the skateboarding in the plaza or if they forbid it, because it the united states many public places dont allow skateboarders? I think that although it is an art museum it really doesnt do a good enough job of representing Catalan culture.   
I didnt bring my camera along on this field trip but I found this really cool photo online that shows the skateboarders in the plaza.  

Paella

These past few days I have been craving Paella.  All I have wanted to eat was that burned crunchy rice stuck to the bottom of the pan, mixed with fresh seafood and a big glass of ice cold Sangria. So i went in search of yummy but inexpensive Paella.  As I was walking down the road in Barceloneta I saw a couple eating the most magnificent yellow, hot Paella i have ever seen. Unfortunately I have forgotten the name of the place now but I am going to hunt it down so next time i crave Paella I can go there.  The Paella was amazing, with tons of seafood, lots of rice and just the right amount of crispy pieces stuck on the bottom.  The Sangria was good but not the best  I have ever had.  I asked for the recipe and how they cook it but they said it was  a secret so instead i looked up my own recipe online.  I have attached it here:

• Broth:
• 3 cups water
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 teaspoon saffron threads
• 2 (8-ounce) bottles clam juice
• Herb Blend:
• 1 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon dried tarragon
• 2 large garlic cloves, minced
• Paella:
• 1 pound monkfish or other firm white fish fillets
• 16 unpeeled jumbo shrimp (about 1 pound)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 cups finely chopped onion
• 1 cup finely chopped red bell pepper
• 1 cup canned diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 cups uncooked Arborio rice or other short-grain rice
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 16 littleneck clams
• 1 (7-ounce) jar sliced pimento, drained
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Here are some pics i took of the yummy Paella

YUMMY!

This is me sucking on the head of the shrimp...the Spanish way apparently...Kinda gross!

Almost gone

Too much food!

 

Casa Batalo

Pretty Stained glass window

The back of the Casa

such pretty tiles

Amazing Mosaics

Inside the House

Chimneys on the roof

The Dragons back

Chimneys

This past week I visited Casa Batalo on Passeig de Gracia.  It is probably one of the coolest houses I have ever been in and i cannot imagine living there.  It is truly a Gaudi masterpiece and one of a kind.  The architecture is amazing and I really think all the attention to detail was incredible.  The rooftop and back deck were probably my favorite part of the house.  I think that Gaudi was a amazing artist and this is one of his best works! The house has so many cools tiles and i thought that it was amazing how the house has almost no straight lines.  Gaudi is an emblem of Catalan culture and the modernsime movement.  Casa Batalo is an excellent example of the Catalan modernisme style.  This really was a catalan cultural experience.

CAVA!

This weekend I had friends from out of town come to visit and I used them as an opportunity to try some new restaurants and eat some Catalan food.  Since the weather was nice we decided to go to Barceloneta.  I have always wanted to go to the Champagneria near Barceloneta so we all went there.  Mistake number one was going there on a saturday afternoon in the middle of the lunch rush, mistake number two was bringing a claustrophobic girl and mistake number three was wearing sandals.  I absolutely loved this place and felt like I was at a totally Barcelona establishment.  The food was amazing, the people were so friendly and the rose Cava is amazing.  I forgot what the exact name of the sandwich i had but it was some type of  Catalan sausage with cheese.  It was amazing tasting and i really like it with the two sauces.  I think the best part about this place is the ambiance.  Everyone is speaking catalan, the food although not typically catalan incorporates typical catalan food like fuet.  My friends really enjoyed going there and my recommendations would be get there early, dont wear sandals (the floor is dirty and people break champagne glasses on the floor) and be prepared to be pushed around.  I would recommend this to someone looking for a good, cheap and relatively fast fun place to eat.  Nothing fancy but just really good food!

Really crowded!

I thought this was a funny sign...you must "taste" the sandwiches to drink the cava

El Born District Field Trip

I thought that this crest on the building and the saint in the window were interesting. 

This is a tile that shows what guild the family was in.

This a traditional workshop house.  It was hard to get a good picture standing so close to the building.

For our second field trip we visited the Born area and observed the guild areas, the workshop houses, the church of Santa Maria del Mar and the Llotja.  I think the most interesting part of our field trip was learning about the workshop houses and their layout.  I thought it was unique how the workshop was in the ground floor of the house.  As we walked around the Born Xavi also pointed out how some houses had extra floors which were later added if a family member got married.  I think something that is interesting is that similar to houses in Paris and other parts of Europe the higher up the house you get the smaller the windows are.  Which is obviously because the family didnt want to spend the money for the help to have such big windows.  I think it is nice that the workshop was on the bottom floor of the house so that everything could be centrally located for the family.   As seen in the picture the workshop houses have balconies on the windows which were obviously added later.

Another thing we saw on the field trip was the Church of Santa Maria del Mar.  The Church unlike the Barcelona Cathedral was built for the working class people of the neighborhood.  It is built in the catalan gothic style with towers instead of spires. In my opinion the most beautiful part of the church is the huge stained glass windows. The large eye window above the door is really beautiful and its amazing how big it is.  Its amazing that the church doesnt look that big from the outside but once you go inside you realize how big it is.   I think the coolest part about the church was the grave stones in the floor.  There was one with a skull and cross bones on it which i thought was interesting.  I thought it was funny that people in our class didnt like that they were walking on top of dead people.

Although the weather wasnt ideal this field trip was still really interesting.  I enjoyed it because i like knowing more about Barcelona so that when people come to visit I can explain things to them