The Beach...A Leisure Activity

 The weather has finally gotten nice enough to go to the beach and lay out in the sun. There's nothing better than after a day of classes heading to Barceloneta Beach, grabbing a sandwich and laying out in the sun. You just can't do that where I go to school in the Midwestern United States, unless laying out in the sun also means laying out in the cornfields. My favorite spot is near the W Hotel because I often find that its less crowded then it is closer to the clubs like Opium. One day I went to the beach and there  was a sand castle competition going on. The picture to the right is by far the most clever sand 'castle' I have ever seen. I watch the artist construct the entire figure in less than thirty minutes and as soon as he was finished                                                  
he began to instruct the Barca figure to the left. I through some change on the hand as I was about to leave and in the next five minutes, three police men came over to the hand and stepped all over it. I was so confused but it's apparently illegal to beg for money using sand 'castles.' The past few weeks in Barcelona have been great weather to relax at the beaches and I'm not looking forward to leaving and going back to Lake Michigan when I've been used to the Mediterranean Sea.

Paella

Of all the food I came to eat in Barcelona, my favorite, by far, was Paella. In class we learned a little but about the history of Paella. Paella was originally a peasant food and depending whether one lived on the coast or inland, there were different variations. Paella made by peasant families on the coast featured seafood such as shrimp and mussels. Paella made by peasant families inland and away from the coast often had meats such as chicken or rabbit. It was a peasant food because it was mainly composed of rice which is a very cheap staple food. Peasants added whatever meat was available to finish off the dish. The first time I ate Paella was in Valencia and I had it both nights while there. The first night I ate paella it was a seafood paella and the second night it was a chicken paellla, or so I thought. After we finished the delicious meal, we got the check and looked it over and saw that the paella we just ate was rabbit paella. At first I was kind of disgusted and felt like throwing up everything I just ate because growing up, my family had a pet rabbit. Then I accepted it and moved on to desert. The best paella I had in Barcelona was with my dad when he came to visit. He had heard from friends and read about this restaurant before he came that the served the best paella in the entire city. The place was called 7 Portes and it really was unbelievable. It was a seafood paella that came out steaming hot and had so much flavor. I didn't even wait to let the rice cool down because it smelled so good. I burnt my throat and tongue but nothing else mattered as long as it ended up in my stomach. Since that meal I've been searching for equivalent paella and nothing has compared. I doubt I'll make it back to 7 Portes any time soon but hopefully one day. The paella in the picture is actually paella made by my RA and it was very good also.

Jewish Quarter

As a class we made a field trip to the Jewish Quarter in Barcelona. The Jewish Quarter in Catalan is known as Call. In Call we walked around and saw the the guilded neighborhoods with the streets named after the guilds they used to represent. Unfortunately the only Jewish remains is a less than significant synagogue hidden in a basement of an old medieval building. Although Barcelona once had a prominent Jewish community in the middle ages, today there is a limited community. The downfall of the Jews in Barcelona came with the rise of the Catholic Kings in Castile. Ferdinand and Isabella instituted the Spanish Inquisition in 1492. The Spanish Inquisition set out to create the ultimate Catholic Spain and Jews or Muslims were not welcome. They were given the option to either convert and assimilate into Catholicism and leave their Jewish roots and culture behind, or go into exile outside of Spain never to return. Many left the city of Barcelona and fled to Morocco and established Sephardic Judaism, while many remained in Barcelona and adhered to Catholicism, at least outside of their homes. Many Jewish families would become "crypto-Jews," or Jews who were believed to have converted, however when at home they practiced their Jewish culture and perhaps even spoke a Jewish language such as Yiddish. When we went as a class to the synagogue it was unfortunately closed and the only reminder that it was in fact a synagogue was the Mezuzah that was nailed next to the door. However I returned to the Synagogue when I knew it would be open to check it out. It's small and modest, nothing like the synagogue's back home where they are gigantic. But it was nice to know that there was still a Jewish presence in the city.

Roman Barcino

At the beginning of the semester we began to learn about the early history of the city of Barcelona. We learned that the  Romans established a city called Barcino in present-day Barcelona and some of the remains can be seen when walking around a particular part of the city, for example the last remaining portion of the Roman aqueduct next to the Barcino sign. However, most Roman Barcino ruins exist in a museum located on top of where the ancient city was located. We went on a class field trip to this museum early on in the semester and we were able to see how and where the citizens of Barcino lived. The first thing we did when we entered the museum was take an elevator downstairs and back two thousand years. At this point no pictures were allowed to be taken so unfortunately this blog won't have any visual components. When we exited the elevator in front of us were old Roman ruins, Roman ruins I didn't even know existed. There was an entire ancient city in front of my eyes and I couldn't wait to walk amongst the ruins. My favorite part of the exhibit was the model house that showed how an affluent Barcino home looked and functioned. The home largely ran on account of the slaves and their barracks were built on the outer section of the home. After the home we saw how the men and women of Barcino passed free time. They showed old board and dice games that they recovered amongst the ruins. After the games there was an example of how the men and women dressed and how they would wash their clothing. I was surprised to learn that they used there own urine to wash their clothes because it contains a chemical that sterilizes the clothes. Seems a little ironic that urine can clean cloths. We saw their ancient 'washing machines' and remnants of their homemade bleach remained in a blue tint that covered the ruins. A final ruin that caught my eye were the large vats that were once used to store and ferment red wine. Again we could see remnant of tint, this time reddish-purple color, where the wine used to be. To come to Barcelona with no previous knowledge that a a Roman city used to exist here and then to be able to walk amongst the ruins was absolutely fantastic.

Poll Shows that Citizens Want Independence

A non-governmental commission has concluded a four-month rolling poll to the citizens of Barcelona. The poll had one question: Would you be in favor of Catalan independence? A minority population of the residents in Barcelona participated in the vote as 18%, or approximately 250,000 people, cast votes. The results showed that 90% of those who voted would be in favor of an independent Catalan state. I don't find this at all surprising because ever since I've been in Barcelona I've been constantly reminded by Catalan teachers and Catalan people I meet, that Catalonia has a completely different culture and language from the rest of Spain and that Catalan's identify themselves as 'Catalan' not 'Spanish.' Though in an article I was reading about the leading Catalan political party, CiU, it states that their ideologies are based off of gaining greater autonomy within the Spanish government, not necessarily gaining complete independence from Spain. My question is that if a poll shows that over 90 percent of citizens in the capital of Catalonia voted for independence, why did they vote CiU into office if their political agenda includes remaining a part of Spain? The people could have advocated a vote for a Catalan nationalist independence party yet they again voted in favor of a party that supports Catalonia within Spain. I'm beginning to believe that Catalans like the idea of independence from Spain more than of how feasible or realistic independence would be. 

A little bit harsh?

It's finally warmed up enough in Barcelona to make a day out of going to the beach. There's nothing better then laying out on the warm sand at Barceloneta Beach while catching a cool breeze from the Mediterranean Sea. Where whatever you want on the beach, practically nothing, but as soon as you walk off the beach and enter the streets of the city, you better be careful not to run into any police if your still wearing your bathing suit. The government of Barcelona has cracked down on beach-goers wandering the streets in only a bathing suit. Fines can reach up to as high 500 euros for nudists but the more modestly dressed beach goers can be fined up to 300 euros. The city of Barcelona has some of the best dressed and most conservatively dressed citizens in the world. It's hard to find a local  who wears shorts or a local who isn't dressed fancy on a weekday. The city has an unspoken dress code and finally the city has taken the steps to officially declare clothing that is unacceptable to wear around the streets. Though I do find it hard to believe that a policeman would stop a beautiful women in a bikini walking down Las Ramblas on a hot summer day and hand her a ticket for 300 euros. I think this is just a warning. 

Antoni Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia, is expected to be completed in approximately fifteen years. The basilica had a close call Easter weekend when a group of tourists saw a 'disturbed' man with lighters around a cloud of smoke. The fifty-five-year-old gentlemen was seen lighting robes in the basilica and setting fire to   some furniture. Over 1,500 tourists were evacuated from the building and the surrounding exterior areas. Barcelona Mayjor Jordi Hereu confirmed there was no structural damage done to the basilica but some furniture was ruined. La Sagrada Familia has largely become the symbol of Barcelona as it brings over two million visitors to the city annually. The loss of the church would have been devastating to the city and possibly a group of tourists is to thank. Had they not seen the cloud of smoke and reacted quickly, the elaborate structure may have seen it's last crowd. Gaudi was a devout Catholic and the construction began in 1882. When he died in 1926, the structure was still far from finished. Almost one hundred and thirty years later, the structure is still incomplete yet construction workers are a fixture outside the facade working endlessly to complete the basilica. The immense detail and careful construction pay tribute to Gaudi's most cherished work.