What It's All About

Gaudi's McMansions -- Park Guell

I have been enchanted by Park Guell in Barcelona for longer than I've known where it is or what it is. I'd imagine I've seen pictures of it for years, then Vicky Cristina Barcelona must have reignited my passion for the magnificent mosaics and curvy rooftops that adorn the view-rific grounds of this landmark park. Anyway, despite my deep-down desire to forego sightseeing in the interest of our family and the wishes of the group-think, I demanded that we all go together to see this incredible landmark.

We hailed two taxis - as I've mentioned, they'll only take up to four people at a time - and quickly made our way in the evening up to Park Guell, after the heat of the day had subsided. Because it's called Park Guell, Serena hounded me for a slide and swingset,which is not the kind of park that Park Guell is. I tried to explain this -- that Park Guell was actually a master-planned community that Gaudi cooked up with his patron, the textile magnate Eusedi Guell; that the community they had planned, with a shaded pavilion meant to be used as a marketplace and a terraced area with mosaic-ed ergonomically designed benches, was a commercial flop 100 years ago because only 2 of the 60 planned homes sold since it was built so "far" from the cultural center of Barcelona; and that the irony of the project is that the area is now home to many wealthy denizens of the city, proving again that Gaudi was ahead of his time -- but Raf stopped me from wasting my breath.

Still, I was inspired. Gaudi gaudy? I think not.

Travel Days Suck

I love road trips, I do. And as much as I ascribe to the adage that "the journey *is* the destination," Raf and I have found that our travel days with the kids during this long voyage abroad generally suck.
For example, this is us post-check-out from the Hotel Neri in Barcelona yesterday morning, tooling around La Catedral to get to the taxi stop by Starbucks an hour before our train to Narbonne, en route to Toulouse in the South of France. We had to leave early, by 7:45 am, so we had to wake our kids up earlier than they'd had to wake up in Europe (after yet another midnight bedtime) and, worst of all, we didn't get a coffee at Starbucks because we figured there would be coffee at the train station (WRONG!).

Undercaffeinated and underfed, we somehow made it onto the train, where the sweet South African couple sitting behind Emme put their barefeet on the chairs... (This is Emme with the little green frog that has become the star of her pictures on this trip, appearing in front of landmarks like the gnome in those travel commercials.) Life improved somewhat when we discovered the dining car, where an older Spanish man would take an order, go around to the adjacent kitchen, make the toast/bocadillo/whatever, then make your coffee/drink order, then take your money... In that order, for each person. It was quite a lengthy process, but then again, we had a 3-hour tour...

In Narbonne, our train was delayed by a half-hour and literally no one speaks English (or at least, they didn't to us). We were taking a while to find the right car and heard a whistle and I realized that the train was gonna go, whether we were on or not, so Raf and I just pushed the kids on, threw our luggage on, and hopped aboard, hoping for the best. With my mastery of grammar school French (seriously limited), I was able to find our seats and enjoy the ride through vast sunflower fields.

Finally, in Toulouse, we found our way to the car rental office and then to Giant Burger, where we bought our kids a few Burger Max Country's and "churros" (oh my god, I ate one and I have no idea what the F is in it - not good, not quite a churro, not quite a french fry, not quite worth the box it came in). Surprisingly, the burgers were delicious, as was the salad. As Raf said, at least the French are a bit more "civilized" than Spaniards, offering a better food selection at their train stations.

There's not a lot more to tell about the rest of the trip to Floure (a small village about an hour from Toulouse, which even the rental car lady hadn't heard of), and I'll refrain from detailing the mini-hissy I nearly threw (but didn't) when we found our rental Mercedes and it was incredibly dirty and in dire need of a car wash (REALLY! Civilized??), but we are now in the South of France. With all that it took to get here, I am glad we are not doing anything for the next few days except swimming, eating cheese, drinking wine, watching movies on my laptop and listening to the bees buzz.

Ahh... la vie en rose.

Bilbao Airport

You can't really tell from this picture, but the airport in Bilbao, Spain, is amazing. Futuristic, mod in a 1960s/Mad Men sort of way. It reminded me of LAX's Encounter Restaurant, but the whole thing was like that. Very Jetsons without being cloying. Mid-century modern without irony. We never made it to the much-talked-about Guggenheim in Bilbao, designed by our Los Angeles homeboy Frank Gehry, but I'd like to think that the airport, in its own way, gave us a taste of what Bilbao's all about.

Happiness is a Lit Cuban

This is Raf sitting on the 4th floor solarium of our hotel in Barcelona, having a pre-dinner cigar.

What's unusual about this picture is you can see his teeth. And he's smiling. Laughing, even. Most people rarely see this side of Raf, but in Spain he's been all aglow and a-twitter -- it seems that you can buy Cubans (the cigars, silly, not the people) from any gosh-darn Tabac on any corner. That's right: the same cigars he covets for a truly high price in the US, he can just walk on up and buy for a fraction of what he usually pays. It's so cheap, in fact, that right after I took this picture, we noticed that it was time to go downstairs for our reservation and Raf snuffed out the half-smoked cigar without regret. No worries, he said, I can just buy another one tomorrow.

We saw an incredible humidor room in the tobacco department of the venerable department store Il Cortes Ingles, but the best experience Raf had in buying cigars was with a little old man in San Sebastian, Spain. We had asked the Tourist Information clerk if there was a cigar shop and he pointed us down the street, to a small tobacco shop in the Old Town. It's probably closed, he told us, pointing out that it was already 7 pm. But we had nothing much that we had to do so we decided to direct our evening stroll in that direction.

I'm having trouble finding the pictures I took of the proprietor of the shop -- I must have taken the video and pictures on Raf's iPhone -- but he was a short, older Spaniard, white hair, distinguished beard. Raf asked him about Cuban cigars and purchased a few "run-of-the-mill, but better than I can get at home" cigars, as well as a few spectacular smokes that he's never tried because the cost is prohibitive (and you can't just buy Cuban cigars in the US). For each selection, the man carefully pulled down a cigar box and gently uncovered the outer and inner wrappings, gingerly lifting each cigar from its nest, then ceremoniously showing Raf for his approval before carefully placing them into a plastic bag. Sadly, after Raf had made his choices and was about to pay, the man's fingers slipped and one bag (filled with two cigars) fell to the floor. The man made a pained face, like someone was stabbing him in the heart, but didn't say the expletive that surely he was thinking. Instead, he slowly returned to the humidor and retraced the formal steps he'd already taken to help Raf get the cigars he wanted.

It's ironic that generally it costs Raf so much more for cigars (well, when you factor out the cost of our entire trip, I suppose), and yet the ceremony involved in buying these less-expensive cigars was priceless.

Hotel Neri

It's not exactly a kid or a family hotel, but we love it here.

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.