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PETrudeau departure gate
Uncle David snapped this before we cleared security to board the plane. We were fortunate that Will's godfather David Pepper chauffered us to the airport as we enjoyed his stories of his recent trip to Poland.
Needless to say the night flight delight for the kids trumped any notion of la-la land so aside from the occassional fitful doze, all of us were awake pretty much through the night. I managed to stay alert in the face of Air Canada's best sleep-inducing measures - interminable Hugh Grant films - it is to weep.
Why I love Barcelona - 1 in a series
Seamless, cheap, safe ande frequent public transport. In our bid to only use public tranport in cities this trip, nothing can beat our experience here thus far. Out of the terminal onto big comfy modern airport shuttles to the Renfe train terminal which whisked us past farmland into the City proper and we disembarked at a downtown terminal which is also the BarcelonaSants metro station which deposited us a block from our apartment in the utterly stunning Eixample district. Chatted with a student from India who gave his seat to Marika en route. Total cost for the trip for the four of us - less than CDN $2. Part
Marika's midair snooze
Marika having a rare snooze en route. of this was good planning - knowing all of our stops, transfers and which subway exiits to take and tips like buying T-10 tickets at an airport kiosk to save metro costs...
We met Begonia at the apartment, paid her in cash and had a tour of the lovely bright modern digs. Most of the day was sleeping and exploring the neighbourhood - the Eixample district we chose (an internatioanlly-reknown urban design project of the 1800s for which the term urbanisation was coined and the precursos to Jane Jacobs-style vision of urban space) is a true neighbourhood - have yet to see one other 'tourist' in our many forays into the 'hood. And, we feel safe here on the streets after midnight.
In true Mediterannean fashion we headed out to La Rambla and started dinner at 10PM chatting with the next table of Briish youth - at miidnight we were just finishing our stroll through the enormous wide breezy people-filled centre of town. Subways back to our digs chatting with a couple visiting from Graz Poland, and the kids settled in to bed at about 12:30 while Kim and I had a game of crib over a glass
Barcelona colours
Barcelona flags and football team colours adorn the whole City following their big victory over Manchester United Saturday. No Spanish flags to be seen attesting to Barcelona's unique political and cultural history. of rioja.
Why I love Barcelona - 2 in a series
Balconyville - the Eixample district is all about people and community - no intersection has corners of buidlings - it is as if a huge knife sliced off all of the corners so that all the buidlings at street corners have flat sides facing the intersection - creates an octagon of buildings and streets so instead of corners it is living space, eating space, retail space and playing space - turns ever street corner into a big wide open community where people engage and hang out - chairs and tables everywhere. Cafes and restaurants throughout so you don't have to go to the market or Elgin or Preston - each neighbourhood has an outside life of people who know each other or simply connect besause this is their community- hard to describe the feeling. (Marika just came in the room with her sleepy-face and hair - first time in her life she is waking up at noon!!! She just came to me from standing on the balcony and said "Dad there's three Ps - Porches, people and plants").
The design of the neighbourhood also sees every block
Before midnight
During our after dinner stroll in one of the countless public squares and plazas. with a big open square in the middle where the backs of the residences and workkplaces face each other - ours is full of balconies and plants - women mopping terraces and hanging out laundry as I write- a palpable sense of sharing space. I know I am going on aboout this, but as Kim will attest to it is hard to put this into words.
Today we are exploring the Mediterranean waterfront, the Barceloneta Beach and Aquarium and we will find some Catalan seafood to enjoy. No idea where we will explore later tonight. Time to go and wake Will up !!!
I asked Will to tell me what he saw from one of our balcomnies and he said "clothes hanging from people's lines, several yards with CDs hanging from string and one backyard with 30 different kinds of plants". Now off to the aquarium and beach!
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David
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Successful landing!
Way to go Team Tate-Meimaroglou. You landed safely, plunged in and have already taken a huge bite out of Barcelona (are you ensuring it is pronounced properly? -- Is there a story there?). Enjoy -- and you are not going on about anything Bruce -- your detail and passion is seeping through -- I feel like I am there...but sadly am not!