Barcelona, Spain

Like A Jewel In The Sun

The rain in Spain may have been misrepresented in its typically logistical falling point.

People who don't live in California perhaps take summer rainfall for granted. There is something wonderful in the midday downpour sweeping away dust and sweat, leaving the world glistening and dark beneath the suggestion of promptly returning sunlight. Or at the crest of a warm summer evening, invisible storm clouds in the starless night yawning wide and drenching the city in unanticipated deluge. Paving the streets with mirrors and filling the air with the sweet scent of the sea.

I love the rain. Seeing its international variants is incredibly enjoyable.



Barcelona feels more alive than most places I've been - in two distinct definitions of the adjective.

This seems a city in the adolescence of self-discovery - youthful energy is its most readily apparent trait. Midnight to dawn finds the many district plazas filled with drinking, biking, juggling, and thousands of wanderers selling canned beers for a euro a piece.

The juxtaposition between ancient environs and modernity always feels a bit awkward, and Barcelona is no exception to that. However, watching kids deftly slide their skateboards along centuries-old stonework feels strangely fitting. There is a new appropriation growing here, and it fills the city with a sense of exhilaration.



And in another take on "being alive" - the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí were one of my favorite glimpses into Barcelona. Walking a hallway in Casa Batlló feels like creeping through the belly of a dozing behemoth. Obviously inspired by nature, his structures seem to have a pulse that matches its visitors' footsteps.

I spent 45 minutes with my camera playing on refracted shapes through the circus-glass windows. The whole place is just fun. Except for the complementary audio guide: "Look, here's the dining room. This room is nice. Oh, and next is the stairway. Isn't this nice?"

I guess you get what you pay for.



Sagrada Familia is ridiculous. Trying to look at it (or more accurately, its proposed final form) is like getting drunk and trying to do one of those Magic Eye things. There are crazy spires coming out of twisty spires, a mess of shapes that shouldn't exist in the third dimension, and an infinitum of little tiny details covering the entire structure. Creativity and madness have a close relationship. Maybe they're never meant to finish the thing, lest madness find form...

I totally hate Magic Eye. "Oh, it's an airplane!" "Oh, it's a pony!" How about "Oh, it's a hoax and you're all in on it!"



It is 7:13pm and I am sitting on a narrow 10th floor balcony, which slants slightly and terrifyingly toward the 30 meters of empty space between me and the street. Storm clouds tumble visibly on the distant horizon like boiling water - you know when clouds shift quickly enough that you can see it happening? I guess that means it's really windy somewhere.

I'm sipping a Chianti that I've carried here all the way from Tuscany, happy with both its deep plum finish and the fact that my bag will finally be a little lighter. The bassline to Radiohead's "National Anthem" is stuck in my head from an hour earlier when Austin was using it to assail his guitar strings, but I think I've got one of the notes a little off and it's bugging me enough that I've got it on perpetual repeat.

The street is uncharacteristically quiet in this small time between jackhammers and nightlife, and my maddening internal melody goes undisturbed. It's still very early, by local standards, and diffused sunlight seems to linger at the edges of the cloud cover in respect of that fact. In a few hours the night will begin, and the world will change, as will the tune in my head.



Everything is a subject, and each subject contains a rhythm. Discovering that movement, that little bit of energy - it's like catching a silhouette through the curtain of the world. A tiny hint of how and why everything works. A suggestion of divinity.



I won't expand on this thought because of its weight, but watching the world fall apart through the eyes of a different country every week makes the whole of humanity seem comically surreal. Moreso than it normally does, I guess.



Instead of newspapers, I've been reading the things I've always meant to read but for some reason never did. I think this has me internalizing my thoughts more than usual, if that is at all possible. I'll provide more witticism next time.