Holy Guacamole! Our neighborhood, Barrio Graçia, is in the midst of it’s annual festival right now. This is the Festa Major. Every barrio in Barcelona has one of these once a year, but Graçia is where all of the cool kids hang out, so ours is the best, of course.

And holy shit, is it ever! The long-term residents of the city spend the entire year planning what their street is going to do for the festival that year. About two weeks ago, large power cables began appearing all over the neighborhood, then wires began being strung across the roads, about one story high, for canopies to be built from.

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You have never truly experienced living in a big city until you have been pickpocketed or mugged.

At first glance this post may seem to you just a very bad story, but do read on, it has a silver lining.

Last night I witnessed the bad side of Barcelona. I got robbed. Now it wasn’t by weapon point, the coward just grabbed my purse from my hand and starting running. Luckily I didn’t have credit cards, my passport, or my huge assortment of odds and ends that usually follow me everywhere in my “Mary Poppins” bag. I just had a small coin purse. Unfortunately the stuff that was in my purse was my cell phone (brand new and expensive), keys and 70 euros in cash.

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What is better than a cake on your birthday? A massage by a very well muscled “Tony” that involves 30 minutes of scrubbing from neck to toe with a seaweed and sand mixture, a shower, and then a hour of heavenly relaxation, and a massage too. Welcome to Spaland at Gran Hotel La Florida. A beautiful hotel atop of Tibidabo, a small mountain that caps the basin of Barcelona. Jason and I arrived a half hour early and had coffee on the terrace that looks out on the city. Wow, the views, the pool, the cabanas were gorgeous and as we found out expensive! Jason wanted to swim in the pool while I got my treatment, the hotel said gladly for 100 euros! Jason decided to go off wandering, but that is another story.

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Oh joyous day…Jason turned 35 on July 18th. To celebrate we met a few friends at one our favorites plaças (Virreina) for a few drinks. Monica got us the greatest gift….a small BBQ for grilling (we have been unable to break it in though, the access to the rooftop is locked) Well the fun didn’t stop there. The surprises this town holds…cool bars hidden on small streets just a stone throw from our apartment.

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Hear ye, hear ye, come one, come all to Summercase. A two day event with !!!, Air, Bloc Party, DJ Shadow, The Flaming Lips, James, LCD Soundsystem, Editors, Phoenix, Arcade Fire, The Maccabees, PJ Harvey, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and on and on and on.

Summercase is, above all, a sonic banquet of the highest order, a Homeric gourmet feast for all tastes where you can discover the delights of James, tragic toasts from Arcade Fire, multicolored feast from the Flaming Lips, and disco burgers flipped by LCD Soundsystem.

Above is from the program, I think there is something lost in the translation. If you are really interested in finding out all the details about the event you can go to their webpage summercase.com .

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I have to say “muchas gracias” to the two most helpful resources we have found since moving to Barcelona.

First is Anna and Meetup.com….they have been not only welcoming but loads of fun!

Second is Moleskine.
Thank you Ed & Paul for sending it to us. It has been a lifesaver and a memory saver on more than one occasion. We have already amassed quite a good list of shops, bars, and restaurants throughout the city.

Moleskine website
Moleskine City Blogs
Detour /moleskine exhibition

Jason you absolutely amaze and frighten me. Corrie what did he have to do to get you to let him keep this thing?

Maybe I should bury it in a box next to the dead pigeon in the back yard. Or may it should just go in the trash. Or maybe I could take it to the the hazardous materials disposal place.

Christ.
LOL

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We thought having Casey Moore’s 3 blocks from us in Tempe was cool…for drinking & walking. Well now we have something even better! VELCRO. Not just walking distance, but actual 4 steps door-to-door staggering, we can see the entrance to the bar from our balcony (and spit on it if we wanted too). It is a very trendy little bar, with surprisingly a lot of English speakers hanging out in it. Oh, they make the best pina coladas (coconut around the rim, and a real cherry not that maraschino crap)! (Jason has to jump in here and mention that they make a totally tits caipharina, too!) Can’t wait to become a regular….

So sprinkled throughout Graçia (the district of Barcelona we live in) there are a number of large open squares hidden until you turn a corner and stumble into one. Most of the buildings in the city are several stories tall and the streets very narrow, so you cannot tell that there is a square around the next corner. But once you find them, they are a very interesting place to sit drink and coffee or beer, and people watch.

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I have successfully navigated the murky shoals of the Spanish import customs system. And it was neither easy nor cheap!

My new buddy José and I headed for the airport in José’s cab and arrived around 10:00, about 20 minutes after the plane had landed. Just finding the customs area was hard – I called the shipping company and had them talk to José. That worked well, there’s no way we would have found it otherwise.

After talking with the shipping company on the phone, I was estimating I’d be about 45 minutes, so José and I contracted for him to hang around for an hour. Yeah, whoops – my first encounter with Spanish bureaucracy consisted of puzzled looks from them and claims that they had no idea what I was talking about. It finally turned out that they did know what I was talking about, but the paperwork hadn’t arrived yet. They told me to “go smoke a cigarette or drink a beer” and come back later. As an aside, the crap-ass cafeteria in the Spanish customs building has better sandwiches than most gourmet places Stateside.

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