Barcelona, where I was meant to be born (...not that Rochester isn't great)

Speaking of birth... happy birthday, SARA!

Okay, so, I went to Barcelona for a long weekend (Friday morning to Monday night). I flew into Barcelona's Girona airport via RyanAir... I was wondering why it was relatively cheap and I found out why! Girona is more than 100km away from the city's center! Luckily, there is a pretty cheap bus that travels frequently between the airport and the city! And I even made a friend on the busride... an American exchange student at Madrid's Compultensive University.

Anyways, Barcelona is an incredible city. There was not a cloud in the sky for the majority of my trip and the sun was mostly shining (except for in the pictures I'm posting apparently ha) . There are a lot of tourists, and a focal point of the tourist area is a walkway called the Ramblas, with people performing, souvenir stands, flower stands and all types of jewelry and such. The Ramblas lead directly to a statue of Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus, who is allegedly from Barcelona -- although it is highly debated). Beyond Cris C is the port of Barcelona, a gorgeous mess of sailboat masts, mediterranean blue, and booeys that look like statues... Below is a picture of the port, the ramblas with a view of the Columbus statue...

Here is a picture of my dad's cousin Octavio's son, Enoch. He is feeding the palomas in Placa Catalunya. For the record, every sign in Barcelona is in catalan; so, you can navigate your way around with castellano (spanish as we americans know it), but you'll find yourself asking information booths for help.
ALSO for the record, Enoch and Jemima (his sister) thought I would enjoy this activity, but they didn't know about my fear of birds AND the fact that their palomas (direct translation:doves) are PIGEONS, something I would not call a dove. but rather a rat with wings.....


Here is a picture of a guy in blackface, yes, blackface and horrible fake dentures pretending to be FC Barca's Ronaldinho. He was in the Ramblas juggling and such. There were a lot of portrait artists in the Ramblas who do caricatures and a lot of them used Ronaldinho as their sample caricature... poor guy.














Other cultural landmarks in Barca obviously center around the grand design of Gaudi. This year is actually the 100th anniversary of Gaudi's death. Gaudi was so devoted to his craft that he was standing in the street sizing up a building and was run over by an oldschool trolley. That's how he died. Crazy, huh? His work is so respected because of the way he makes stone look malleable. The Casa de Gaudi (below left) has some cool mosaic crystal statues on the roof that I didn't get a good shot of and the Church of La Sagrada Familia (below right) is still under construction. Furthermore, some city builders are pushing to get a metro station built underneath the Church. It is highly contested because nobody really knows if the church will cave in or not, and obviously a lot of time and energy (and MONEY) has gone into the church so... we'll see how that goes!

I actually spent most of my time in Barcelona in Sant Cugat, a suburb/village about 40 minutes outside of the city. This is where Octavio's family lives. Its relation to Barcelona is analogous to Oakville and Toronto. A lot of families live here and there are schools, and a lot of the parents work in Barcelona and commute by train or car. It is essentially much cooler than Oakville however hahaha.... well, it is. It has a 9th century cathedral that's freaking gorgeous, even if a groundskeeper was urinating right in front of it when I went to visit it.

I spent a lot of time in Sant Cugat walking around and I found it to be quite cozy. Octavio's family was really quite nice; although, the 17 yr-old daughter spoke so quickly and she mixed in catalan with her castellano... I could not understand her or her brother. And, for the record, I probably spoke 7 words of English the whole time I was there, struggling to understand Catalan, Portuguese, and French, while I used castellano as my STRONG language.... wow, is all I have to say.

It was easier to understand my dad's Tia Esther (who only speaks portuguese) than to understand the Catalan. Mike Stancs might even come in handy(!) if you guys make it over to Barcelona.

Though in retrospect, it is possible that Esther was easier to understand because she dwelled on the same topics. She is a lovely woman of course, loves her family in a teasing way. Fortunately the Tierney women have made me accustomed to the tough love of a matriarch hahah.

Anyways, as nice as she is, she's also very old-fashioned and wears her indignation on her face. She's very disappointed my dad never had me learn portuguese ("why castellano? why not portuguese?!" she implored). She wondered MANY times about why I do not have a nice Goan boyfriend (...all the Goan guys I know are family, Esther)... She was very funny though, and has such a spontaneous, girlish giggle. She's a lot of fun to be around, and she absolutely loved me because I look so much like her sister (my grandmother Zamira).

The first time she saw me, she broke down into tears. She and my grandma Figueiredo were best friends until my grandma died ("minha irma Zamira nao tenia maldad" she kept saying... "you couldn't say anything bad about my sister Zamira" etc.)

I've always heard that I look like my grandma, but this really confirmed it for me. I guess I look a lot like her when she was younger, and I have the same eyes and facial features.
It was an eye-opening weekend, and I figured out where my dad's fear of dogs comes from (the Fernandes side of the family)... and where his illogical generosity comes from. These people had me living like a queen for 4 days.
They do the traditional Spanish meals, in which they stuff you with multiple courses at lunch. The food is mostly some sliced baguette, a cut of fish or chicken with lentils or potatoes and a salad. Then they finished off the meal with a yogurt, flan or piece of fruit (the pears here are my favorite). Also, they do shots of espresso with steamed milk and sugar at the end of the meal.

Here is a recipe I found online that is similar to my favorite dish that they gave me. It was cod.
http://www.canyellespetites.com/food-main-ajoarriero.htm She didn't shred the cod, and she served it with baked queso de cabra (some sort of UNBELIEVABLE Spanish cheese)... it was beyond phenomenal.

For dinner, they would have something as simple as toast and yogurt or... one night they sliced up a baguette and put mashed tomato, olive oil and salt on top of it and called it a day, or they put a cheese platter out with sliced up baguette and olive oil.

Barcelona was incredible. It is a city that is so surrounded by art in its everyday landscape that I think the people who live their don't even notice sometimes!! I found myself taking snapshots of random houses and stuff because I just couldn't even believe my eyes. Anyways, I recommend the city, and I hope to return with people my own age when the weather is maybe a little bit warmer so I can hang out and walk around downtown.

And, YES, I am aware this post is rife with errors in grammar. Deal with it!