Barcelona Behind the Mask

Walk down a residential neighborhood street on a Sunday or during siesta and you may think that Barcelona is a run-down graffiti covered city.  The roll up doors on every street give the appearance that the stores are abandoned, closed down or protecting themselves from some unsavory characters.  Every roll door in the neighborhood is covered in graffiti, some lovely, and some just simple.  Through the lens of the camera the colors are bold and the art is unique and I have come to admire the artists.  Why? While these simple metal doors are covered in graffiti, the buildings remain mostly free of this blight.  The taggers keep their “art” to these doors and don’t seem to deface the beautiful old buildings. Truth be told, those colorful doors only mask the true beauty of a neighborhood in Barcelona

Between 9:00 and 10:00am the neighborhood comes to life.  The doors are thrown open to reveal an amazing world of small boutique shops and the businesses needed to keep a neighborhood alive.  There is no hideous Wal-Mart or other big box building in sight.  The ground floor of all the buildings are businesses and above them lie several floors of apartments.  Within a 5-minute walk of our little apartment we have many bread stores, patisseries, butchers, markets, salons, bars and so much more.  It is such a pleasure to walk out the door and be able to enjoy a coffee and a pastry at any number of little shops in the neighborhood.  You won’t find a McDonalds until you get to the touristy parts of town and sitting down at these little places allows us the time to practice our Spanish or learn more about the nice Ukrainian man that runs our favorite haunt. 

Out our fourth-floor window we hear the cars and sounds of life all around.  Three weeks in, and dare I say, we have come to really love the idea that our feet are the best mode of transportation.  The Metro stop is one block away from our door and most destinations in the city are only ever a 20-minute subway ride away.  Douglas and I took the Metro to the farthest point one day and strolled the entire 7-8 miles back to our place on the city streets.  The 40 Euro/month Metro pass is a steal compared to the cost of fuel at $7.63/gallon, parking, insurance etc., with the added health benefits of walking miles and miles every day. 

My favorite parts: a fresh loaf of local bread every day, watching the fishmonger prepare the days catch at the local marketplace, and enjoying our biggest meal of the day at 2:00 in the afternoon.  Tapas are the afternoon meal whenever we dine out, which allows us to sample many different dishes at each place we visit.

It’s 4:30 pm and Douglas is set to start his US workday and we have done more with our morning than most evenings back in the states and the family and friends on the other side of the globe are just waking up – good morning world.