Church for Jewish Girls

My kids aren't religious, mostly by virtue of being born to a dad who's Jewish and a mom who's Methodist. But our hotel in Barcelona is literally steps (maybe 30) from the entrance to the venerable Catedral. It was important to me, for artistic and historic reasons as a tourist, that the girls and I visit. Raf is not much for churches, so he went in search of a UPS place (to ship back a few boxes of our excess crap to lighten our luggage before our big train travel day on Monday) while we toured the church.

It was hard for me to explain to my girls why people would erect such a gorgeous building to celebrate the brutal death of a man (even if that guy was Jesus).

Serena: But Mommy, who was Jesus?
Me: The son of God.
Serena: But how did they know?
Me: I don't remember. But he was Jewish, too.
Serena: Well, that doesn't even make sense. Is this a Jewish church?
Marlowe: Mommy, who's that girl?
Me: Mary, Jesus' mom.
Serena: So she was married to God?
Me: No, she was married to Joseph.
Serena: Wait a minute...(thinks about it, tries to wrap her pre-sex-ed mind around the idea of Mary and God hooking up) What?
Marlowe: Why is that girl Mary holding a bleeding guy?
Me: That's Jesus. He was dying.
Serena: What? How?
Me: Uh, on a cross. He, uh, starved to death.
Serena: But why is he bleeding if he only starved to death?
Me: Uh...
Marlowe: Look! Geese! (Kids run outdoors to the courtyard.)

As beautiful as the church was, and there were choirboys singing like angels inside, I think we were all happy to step back out into the sunshine.

Beach Day

We love the beach. When we saw San Sebastia (strange coincidence that it's so close in name to San Sebastian, eh?) from the aerial cable car yesterday, we decided to spend our Sunday morning there and get a feeling for yet another beach on another shore of another body of water. Plus, the water temperature was supposed to be about 78 degrees, so we suited up and hailed taxis and were off to experience the Mediterranean Sea-side for ourselves.

This is a family blog, so I am only including a few pix of my family, but it really doesn't give you the flavor of the crowd on the beach. You may remember that on the first morning in Barcelona we had seen a naked guy walking on the street. Well, the beach offered that sort of a view...but from every gender, culture, age, level of attractiveness... We saw topless women playing ping pong with their kids and naked men using the outdoor shower. There was one girl with an all-over tan who was walking on the beach with her bag slung over her shoulder, next to a naked guy with a tan line from here to there. I guess what I'm saying is that my kids don't need National Geographic anymore. And I guess I need to say that the idea of a nude beach is WAY MORE interesting than the reality. Who really wants to see a geriatric man swingin' his junk in the open air, then diving into the ocean?

But that's the weird part. The beach and water was actually glorious, once you got past the sharp, rocky entry and quickly crashing waves. Since the impact zone was only a few feet from the shore, you could easily dive in and then just bob your way along in the warm waters of the Med, sunning yourself as you float along. Serena and I loved it - she didn't want to get out, not even to get a popsicle. For a family of beach-lovers, it was a necessary break from the hot and sweaty touristy sections of Barcelona, even if it meant a front-row view of its residents' beachside peep show.

Give 'Em What They Want

Yesterday Raf and I decided to do what the girls would like most, so we took taxis (our family is too big for just one, so we have to split up and take two) to the top of Montjuic/Miramar Gardens to ride the "cable car" that suspends over the city and down to the port. Raf is a trooper - he doesn't like this stuff, but took one for the team.

Next, we took a hop on/hop off double-decker bus tour of the city... which the kids tolerated for a few minutes, then Raf took them back to the hotel in a taxi and I stayed on for another 20 minutes. Later as the afternoon cooled a little, we all rode on the "blue" route to see some famous Gaudi sites, kind of a Modernista drive-by. I would have liked to have spent much more time at each of Gaudi's buildings - La Pedrera is a fantasy city block of whipped-cream-capped towers and Casa Batllo was like a Dr. Seuss illustration come to life. Nothing prepared me for the scale of Sagrada Familia, the church that Gaudi designed but knew he wouldn't live to see finished. It is an ongoing construction and each dollar donated will help finish it -- though even Gaudi imagined that it would take generations to complete. The upstairs of the double-decker bus ride was worthwhile because it enabled us to crane our necks high enough to see the colorful ceramic tiles on the turrets and study Gaudi's mastery of the three dimensions.

But it was clear that we couldn't ride the bus for very long after the church - the kids were getting restless. We taxi-ed back to Placa de Catalunya and shopped at H&M, where the girls bought "souvenirs" (that I might actually find back in Woodland Hill, but whatever, right?). Serena and Marlowe bought matching outfits (a phenomenon we've seen on several non-twin siblings throughout Europe this summer). We were feeling confident, so we even went so far as to talk the kids into a cute but pricey & touristy cafe on a 2nd floor terrace, where the service was too slow and the menu items too weird for the kids... and we eventually just stood up and left. Serena talked us into trying a place down the street that said "pizzeria"... all of us hemmed and hawed, but they had a free table so we went for it.

And it was the best meal the kids have eaten in over a week! Emme ate two platefuls of spaghetti bolognese and two platefuls of paella; Serena barely looked up from her plate of spaghetti long enough to drink a cup of water; and Marlowe was using her fingers to shove buttery pasta into her mouth. It was like they hadn't eaten for ages and the mood definitely shifted.

So the phrase must be changed: if the kids are happy, everybody's happy!

Barcelona Gastronomica

We have eaten two different ways for dinner in Barcelona. For the most part, we've eaten at our hotel's little desk, eating food we've bought from the amazing Il Cortes Ingles (a 3-location department store -- each location is a few blocks from the others, and each houses different sections; for example, one location is just kids, denim and hombres and another is for the supermarket, perfumes, etc.).

I love buying food at the supermarket because everything is sort of familiar and yet so foreign. You can buy juiceboxes and fruit and sundries, but if you want fresh milk, you're kind of out of luck. Better to buy the boxed variety. The irony is that there are THREE whole sections of yogurt in the dairy area - heaven for a yogurt-crazed woman like me.

So, for the most part, Raf and I have snacked on manchego and brie cheeses with fresh bread, apricot jam, nuts, tomatoes and dates, washed down with a bottle of wine (which is so dang cheap here, even for the yummy rioja wines). Add a little dark chocolate and it's more than enough for a good meal. The kids have been good with sandwiches of fresh bread and butter, a few pieces of fruit and some almonds, and a little boxed apple juice.

But then Raf and I had an amazing idea. Since our 20-or-so-room hotel is closed to the public (you have to be buzzed in) and there's an incredible restaurant on-site, two floors down from our room, we thought, Hey, Emme can "babysit" and we can eat downstairs while they watch TV. So we made reservations and did just that.

We ordered a bottle of Cava (Spain's sparkling wine) and the 60-euro per person "gourmet tasting menu" which had seven or eight courses - I cannot even tell you what we ate, exactly, but it was one gastronomic feat after another. For example, one appetizer course came served in tiny shot glasses; there was a layer of an orange-pink fish pudding topped by a layer of wispy cream. Another course featured small pieces of seafood and vegetables artfully placed on a shallow dish; once the dish was placed in front of me, the server poured a cold gazpacho soup over the seafood and vegetables, then dusted with black truffle shavings.

Our pre-main dish was served on a piece of slate (pictured above). It was a gold brick of mashed potatoes (the "gold" probably was real gold dust molded into a kind of fondant), a single snap pea, cuttlefish, a scallop, and a swipe of gold dust. Seriously. And it was surprisingly good. The main dish was a beef filet with cherry confit on top - incredibly melt-in-your-mouth good.

For dessert, there was a mango or papaya pudding floating in an almond cream and topped with an "herbed ice" -- crushed ice that is infused with herbs like rosemary and mint and god-knows-what. Then a deconstructed tiramisu and finally a plate of unusual chocolates (infused with chili and wasabi and some sour Asian fruit) and coffee.

We don't normally eat gourmet food, so this was a chance to step outside of the Cheesecake Factory zone. It was like the taste bud version of a crossword puzzle, to keep my appetite for gourmet delights sharp. We couldn't have afforded El Bulli (touted as "the best restaurant in the world," and it's here in Barcelona), but this was, for us, just as good.

The best part? The kids only called the restaurant once.

The Agony and the Ecstasy (Traveling with Kids)

This is Raf, in line at a Starbucks that we found right off La Rambla in Barcelona. We didn't want to go to Starbucks -- frankly, we didn't even know it would be an option -- but we were dying for some hard-core caffeination. The kids are now on European time, which means that no one goes to bed until at least midnight and they tend to wake up so late that we routinely miss the breakfast (and coffee)downstairs in the hotel restaurant. But the idea of just kickin' it around Barcelona sans cafe sucked as much as the idea of navigating three kids into a stand-up coffee bar. And so we found ourselves in line at Starbucks with other Americans and Brits, buying both American-style VENTI (yes!) coffees and "real" banana bread for Emme. Since our kids aren't eating a great deal beyond bread and butter, croissants, ice cream and the occasional apple, getting them to eat something while we're out feels like we're being "good" parents.

And so, an hour later, we had "Rambla-ed" into Subway, in search of American-style sandwiches. We didn't find those exactly, but there was enough of resemblance to a sandwich that the kids were sufficiently fed (though Serena kept asking why Spaniards have such brown lettuce... Raf explained that they don't put lettuce on their sandwiches, so they just don't know...). (She also didn't catch on that the "turkey" in her sandwich was ham... they didn't have turkey, which is her usual order, so Raf said that in Spain the turkeys are darker...)

Raf and I agree that we would never have wanted to end up at American chain restaurants on this trip, but I am grateful, GRATEFUL with a capital "G." If my kids can eat anything while we're here, I'm happy. If it buys us a few more minutes of sightseeing, I'm grateful.

The fantasy is that our kids will, on their own, point out interesting gastronomic delights and steer us toward tables so that we can sample them as a family; the reality is that we are raising ultra-American kids in a mall-centric society in the greater Los Angeles area and they (like us) are used to having many of the same restaurants and shops available at all times. And that's okay. I'll admit (happily) that I'm addicted to Starbucks like most Americans; but for this trip, I'm stepping outside of that routine, allowing myself to be surprised and delighted by the different options that Europe offers.

And so we continued to ramble La Rambla and Emmeline found the area that, on my map, was called "La Rambla of the Little Birds." Seeing the vendors with their cages of small pets -- since most Barcelonans are apartment dwellers, they don't have dogs or cats, preferring birds, bunnies, rodents and lizards -- all three girls ran to pet the miniature pigs and baby bunnies.

Another minute later, they pooped out again, but soldiered on toward the port, then begged for a taxi until we'd already walked the entire way back to the hotel. They cuddled up to my laptop and some Disney shows we'd downloaded onto iTunes and smiled as they drifted through siesta time.

Raf and I keep saying to each other, as we pass one amazing sight after another, "This would be a very different trip if it was just you and me." Which is true, but that's not reality for this particular trip, nor is it what we'd truly wanted. We wanted to expose our family to a new way of life, a different culture and language, and this is what we're doing, with liberal doses of American-style down-time (computer, TV, iPods, etc.). The girls are being as good as they can with all that Raf and I want to see, but they are still just kids -- American kids -- and we can't expect them to (happily) walk everywhere when they're so used to a car-centric society.

So today we're going to make their wishes a priority. We're going on a "sky-way" cable car above the city, shopping at H&M, and taking a tourist bus around the city so that they don't have to walk it. Work with what is, I keep reminding myself, trying to channel Eckert Tolle. If "what is" is we're traveling with three young kids, how do we make Barcelona magical for them? Shopping, thrill rides and mobile sight-seeing. If we're lucky, one of those will imprint a memory that will make them want to return later in life... perhaps even with their kids.

My Kid and Salvador Have a Lot in Common

Marlowe insisted on putting this hard-boiled egg into her silver purse before we left San Sebastian for the Bilbao Aeroporto. She doesn't like hard-boiled eggs, so the very fact that she had one in her purse, next to the play Euro money set we'd bought for her in Biarritz and the stuffed animals she'd brought, was troubling. Why? I wondered. Why an egg, for God's sake?

Perhaps the odder discovery was this enormous egg at the entrance to a massive exhibition of Salvador Dali's work, housed at the Artist's Circle in Barcelona, off Avenida Portal de l'Angel. I'm guessing that people throughout dear Salvador's life were like me, wondering Why? Why an egg? Why bent clocks? Why, on God's green earth, do you wax your dang mustache, Sal?

I'd been dying to see a museum on this trip, even though I know it's not a super-duper museum-heavy excursion. With kids, the expectations cannot be that you'll get to all the wonders of the world -- I'll do a post on toting the kids around Barcelona, too, to show what we actually have done -- but I was aching to see some of this Spanish art. It is so modern and fresh, despite the fact that it's old. I am also struck by how different it is from the art I've seen in Florence and in Paris - it's irreverent and sensual and erotic in nature, but witty and funny and human.

So the very fact that a Dali exhibition was literally down the avenida from our hotel kept nipping at my heels. I asked Raf if we should take the girls, to expose them to the fantastic Senor Dali, but he insisted that I go alone, save the cost of three wasted admissions and enjoy wandering alone among his legacy, so I did.

For 8 Euros, it was a bargain - a warren of cave-like rooms, each curated thoughtfully to give breadth and depth to Dali's many artistic whims and periods. One room showed off his fascination with sparse drawings of mythology, another was dedicated to his packaging and product design, another was strictly nudes. I followed two small arrows on the floor past a small bronze sculpture and through heavy red velvet drapes -- it was difficult to even find the opening -- into a womb-like room filled with small bronze sculptures with biblical symbology, each illuminated by its own spotlight. I was alone in there, which was both creepy and exhilarating. To see the work of a master artist up close like that was breath-taking.

And the exhibit went on like that. I found myself utterly drawn to the small-scale version of a sculpture that Dali had created for the 1954 Fallas de San Joseph in Valencia; by "small," I mean that it took up a small room, but was the model for a large-scale installation piece for a festival in Valencia where, once a year, artists would create a piece of art to show and then blow up with fireworks, letting it burn while the crowd celebrates. It is the ultimate statement of "art for art's sake." (Although, since Dali kept the mini version, perhaps he knew it would be valuable, no?) The black and white photos lining the walls around the model are incredible in and of themselves, with Dali directing a team of metal workers and sculptors in a warehouse, then assembling the model at Fallas, then the darkening sky filling with sparks from fireworks, then the entire crazy thing going up in a blaze of smoke and flames.

Another thing I liked about the exhibit were the simple photos of Dali and his love, Gala, at their home with friends, Dali in a bathrobe or naked while painting, Dali floating in the sea water near his home in Figueres, Dali in his coffin during the magnificent bit of performance art that was his funeral. I read that Dali not only painted and sketched, but sculpted, directed films, wrote a novel... A true Renaissance man.

So okay, maybe I don't *get* the egg, but I like it. And that's "art," isn't it? You don't know what it is -- and you don't have to -- but you like it.

Fashion in BCN

So I made Marlowe get this hat the day before we left for Europe, but the sparkly silver bolsa (bag) is something she insisted on buying before we left San Sebastian. Because, you know, it matches her shoes.