Sunday, July 29, 2012

What ethnicity am I?

As we deplane in Amsterdam, the flight attendant bids each traveler farewell: "Goodbye, goodbye, thanks for flying with KLM."  But to me: "Adios, muchas gracias."  Then back to English.  Apparently I look Spanish to the Dutch.

To Americans, too: on the flight from New York to Madrid at the beginning of this trip I sat by an American kid who, when he asked me where I was from, was surprised (and a little disappointed) to learn that I was born and raised in America. He had thought I was going home to Spain.

I didn't look Spanish to the Moroccans, but they didn't buy the American bit either. When we first met our guide in the desert, he gave me a quizzical look when I said I was American. Midway through a multi-hour drive the next day, he turned around and just had to know: Was I born in America? Were my parents really American? Both of them? Because if I hadn't said otherwise, he'd have sworn I was Arab. "From Rabat or Casablanca. Listen on the street, I'll bet people say hello to you in Arabic." (I paid more attention after that: Some people did; I had no idea how to respond.)

Said wasn't the only Moroccan to wonder. A shopkeeper in Fez was similarly skeptical. He asked my origin, my genealogy, was clearly dissatisfied with my responses (American and predominantly British, respectively). So I asked what he would have guessed: South American. Or maybe even Moroccan.
(By way of contrast, there was never any question as to Amanda's nationality.)

This is one of my favorite parts about traveling, finding out how I appear to other people. Spanish isn't new or particularly surprising. Nor is South American. As far as I know, though, this is the first time I've been taken for Arab (although I did get lots of unwanted attention from American airport security guards when I returned, very tan, from a trip to Martinique in 2003). In other travels people have asked whether (or just assumed that) I was from Israel, China (or Asia, more generally), La Reunion, various countries in South America (usually Argentina or Venezuela), and western Europe (generally France, Spain, Italy and England; never Scandinavia). Once, in France, a friend's father saw a photograph of me and asked, "Who is this African?"

Where this comes from, I do not know; all I see is the face in the mirror and the names on the family tree.  But I do enjoy this ethnic ambiguity -- as much for what it reveals about the assumptions people make about the appearance of race as for the chameleon-like feeling of being able to play with my identity, at being "from" someplace else. (Part of me wonders whether I should have gone into espionage or some other supposedly glamorous field that could capitalize on this...)

Homeward bound

Sitting in the Barcelona airport. It's spacious and bright and curiously free from PA announcements - so different from Madrid! In an hour or so we'll board the plane to Amsterdam and then on to Washington.

Two weeks is a good length for a vacation, but they always go so quickly. I will be happy to be back in my own bed, and to resume certain aspects of my routine (like regular exercise), but I will miss the adventure of travel. I guess it's time to start planning the next trip!

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Barcelona, Day 3 - Flamenco

We had tickets tonight to see a flamenco concert at the Palau de la Musica Catalana.  The primary motivation was to see the interior of the concert hall, especially the famous stained glass ceiling.  They were impressive in their fanciful, Modernista way, but clearly designed by someone more interested in making a pretty building than a hall with good acoustics -- there was so much glass and tile in that room that it sounded like singing in a subway station.

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The acoustics didn't affect the flamenco concert, though.  In fact, the super liveness of the room helped the dancers' stomps and claps ring out clearly in the room.  I'm no expert on flamenco, but the dancers and musicians seemed to be very good at what they did.  It was all extremely intense and passionate.  Kind of like soap opera characters on steroids.  Pictures, naturally, were not allowed, but here's roughly how it went:

Two guitars strumming, one singer hollering incoherently (except for the words "mi nino!"), two more singers clapping, occasionally joining in with the song.  Two dancers, a man and a woman striding to the center of the floor, glaring intensely at each other . . . then STOMPING! TWIRLING! DEVOURING EYES! RUFFLES! and then stop . . . circling in slow motion . . . very s-l-o-w  m-o-t-i-o-n . . . until STOMPING! GLARING! KICKING! POLKA DOTS! WRISTS! . . . and now posing dramatically . . . even more dramatically . . . then circling again . . . slow wrists . . . snapping fingers . . . maybe a clap or a little heel tap . . . and then STOMPING! ARMS! FRINGE! IT'S TOO MUCH TO BEAR BUT IT'S THE FINALE SO NOW EVEN MORE STOMPING!! MORE ARMS!!! EVERYTHING FASTER!!!!!  SO MUCH FRINGE!!!!!!!! -- and stop.  Wild applause from the audience.  Standing ovation (they've been waiting to give a standing ovation since before the lights first dimmed).  Best. Thing. Ever.

It was fun enough, as concerts go.  The real drawback was the staging and the audience.  The whole performance took place as far forward on the stage as possible, which meant that for most people in the room the dancers' feet were below the heads of the people sitting in front of them.  So everyone spent the whole night straining to see around those heads, causing a ripple effect as one person's movement forced another to move as well.  People didn't understand that if everyone would just sit back and hold still, everyone would be able to see a lot better.  (Granted, I still blame the presenters for not raising the stage or moving the show further upstage to mitigate the problem). In addition, many people in the audience just didn't understand etiquette:  They were clapping or stomping along with the music, taking flash photos, checking their cell phones, talking, draping shawls over their heads and around their boyfriend's neck so that they could lean in and whisper and/or kiss during the show.  It was annoying and indicated that these were not concert-going folk.  I found myself wishing I was in the opera house in Paris, where people know how to behave.

Barcelona, Day 3 - Beach, glorious beach

Beach day today!  We took our time in the morning, had a leisurely breakfast and then took the metro to the Barceloneta beach.  By 11am we had rented an umbrella and a pair of lawn chairs from an African man in a Mets hat and were set for the day.  The weather was perfect (mid-80s with a light breeze and no clouds), the water refreshing, and reading material plentiful.  Except for periodic dips in the sea and a short run to a nearby grocery store for some baguettes and ham, we didn't move from that spot until just before 6pm, when it was time to get ready for the concert later.  After two weeks of active, intense traveling, it was glorious to just relax and do nothing but lie in the sun for a day.  What a great way to finish this vacation!

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Morning view from our spot -- this is what the beach looked like at 11am when we arrived;
by the time we left at 6pm it was body to body
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View to the left

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View to the right

I'm reading Hilary Mantel's new novel, Bring Up the Bodies, about
Thomas Cromwell

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Friday, July 27, 2012

Barcelona, Day 2 - Dinner at Hisop

If you're alive and have taste buds, you can't help loving the food scene in Barcelona.  The city has great restaurants -- unlike our experience in Paris, we found that even the places where we walked in from the street without further research have been decent.  So if the run-of-the-mill places are good, just imagine what the real stars are like.  Or, stop imagining -- get out your Michelin guide and try one out first hand.

That's what we did.

During an afternoon break in our sightseeing, we spent about an hour poring over the Barcelona section of Amanda's "Best of Europe" Michelin guide.  Some of the restaurants were out of our price range; others out of business.  Of those that would work for us, several were already completely booked or wouldn't take reservations online.  But then we found one that was still accepting reservation requests online.  We submitted our request for 8:30pm (practically lunchtime by Spanish dining standards) and invoked all the saints we had seen in the cathedral that morning to weigh in on our behalf (come on Saint Eulalia, show us what you've got!).  About half an hour later, we received confirmation that our reservation was good (yay!), which was very lucky because, as we discovered later, the place was tiny and totally booked.

We arrived at Hisop at 8:30pm sharp, suspecting that we might have to wait a couple of minutes for the restaurant to finish opening up and getting the kitchen up and running.  But no -- we walked in and they were clearly expecting us.  They welcomed us (would have been by name had the name been legibly written in the ledger) and seated us at a table for two.  The ambiance was minimalist and modern, very clean and cool.  Small tea lights on the round tables with white floor-length tablecloths.  We ordered the tasting menu and let the servers and kitchen take over from there.  The meal was fantastic -- everything we had hoped it would be.

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Bread with two types of Spanish olive oil: one from Catalonia, one from Jaen
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Asparagus sorbet with tomato, mussel and olive oil
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Sardine with almonds and almond sauce
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Mackerel with chanterelle muschrooms, Iberian ham and shaved green apple

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Squid with truffles and basil

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Monkfish with mashed potatoes, sea foam and a bonbon of saffron
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Suckling pig with carrot, garlic mayonnaise and ginger sauce
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Assorted Spanish cheeses, arranged, bottom to top, from mildest to strongest
The third and fifth cheeses were exquisite

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Lychee sorbet, melon cubes and peach puree

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Grilled milk with sea foam; underneath the foam was a brown paste of bacon,
caramel and something with a citrus tang -- definitely the most unexpected
flavor combination of the night


Barcelona, Day 2 - Gaudi, Gaudi, Gaudi

Barcelona was an economic powerhouse in the 19th Century, and it had a lot of money for building.  At the turn of the century, while Europe was in the midst of the Art Nouveau movement, the Catalan architects in Barcelona decided to take off in their own direction.  Antoni Gaudi is the best known of those architects, and his work literally transformed Barcelona, adding private mansions, public parks, street lamps and a massive cathedral that was begun in the 1890s and is still being built (estimated date of completion: 2040).  Some of the buildings resemble the Art Nouveau buildings in Brussels and elsewhere -- Gaudi shared the affinity for natural forms and a union of beauty and function that characterized the Art Nouveau aesthetic.  But he also incorporated gothic, moorish and other elements into his work, as well as fantastical shapes and colors that seem more akin to the Austrian expressionism of the mid-20th Century than the rest of 19th and early 20th century architecture.  I had seen pictures of Gaudi's buildings and wanted to see them in person.  They were amazing -- better in life than in pictures.

Palau Guell
This mansion is an early work; it doesn't have as many of the fantastical elements as Gaudi's later work.

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La Pedrera
I liked this building particularly well.  The undulating lines and quasi-floral balcony railings are most reminiscent of the Art Nouveau style, but Gaudi's exploded the carefulness of that style into something more wild.

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Casa Batllo
Only a block from our hotel, this house was the most outlandish that we saw.  It evokes a dragon (see the roof) and skeleton-like masks (see the balconies). Very cool at night.

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La Sagrada Familia
This cathedral is Gaudi's masterpiece and Barcelona's crown jewel.  It's a massive church; when it's finished it will be the tallest in the world.  As noted above, construction began in the 1890s and won't be finished for another 30 years or so (fingers crossed).  I expected it to be strange, a modernist curiosity more a testament to man's creativity than a reflection on religion; I did not expect it to be stunningly beautiful or to present a thoughtful take on Christian theology -- yet it was and it did.  It's one of the most remarkable modern interiors I've ever seen.  I definitely hope to come back when it's finished. 

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The Passion Facade

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The pillars are meant to evoke a forest of trees
with the vaulted ceiling as a canopy of leaves

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Eventually all the windows will be filled with
stained glass for a dark, reflective space

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Given the vibrancy of these existing windows,
I can't wait to see the finished building

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The Nativity Facade

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Detail of Nativity Facade



Barcelona, Day 2 - Las Ramblas and the Gothic Quarter

Barcelona!  We saved this city for last, hoping -- based on everything we had heard about it -- that it would be a highlight of the trip.  It has been that and more:  Of all the cities we've visited during the past two weeks, this one has won my heart.  Architecture, food, beaches, vibrant city energy and weather that couldn't be better.  I could live here and be very happy.

With only two full days in Barcelona, we knew we needed to plan our time carefully to make the most of our time.  Plugging our ears against the siren song of the famous Barceloneta beaches, we decided to devote the entire first day primarily to seeing as much of the city and its famous Modernista architecture as possible, and also eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant.  The second day, we promised, would be consecrated to beach and sun and nothing else.  Well, almost nothing else.  Halfway through the first day we ended up buying tickets to a flamenco concert for the second night so that we could get inside the famous Palau de la Musica Catalana and see stained glass ceiling in the concert hall.

The plan went off like a charm.  We've seen and done everything we wanted to do and had a great time doing it.  My writing about it, however, is complicated by some unwelcome developments; namely, my nice camera broke, forcing me to rely on my phone for photos and use a much more cumbersome mechanism for inserting them into the blog, and now I'm running out of time.  We fly home in the morning and I still have to figure out how I'm going to pack everything (why did I think it was a good idea to buy ceramics?).  So, I'll do the best I can.

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We began our exploration of the city on foot, with a promenade down La Rambla.  La Rambla is one of Barcelona's most famous streets, and for good reason.  It's a broad, shady boulevard devoted almost entirely to pedestrian traffic. With shops on either side and little roads leading off into lovely plazas and winding medieval neighborhoods, the Ramblas is a flaneur's paradise. 

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Filling a small plaza off to one side of La Rambla is the awesome Mercat de la Boqueria.  This covered market is filled with nuts and dried fruit, gorgeous produce, giant sea monsters and butcher shops where you can get little cones of Iberian ham.  After the flies and smells of the food markets in Morocco, the clean and orderly feel of this market was very refreshing.

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On our way out of the market I spied a gaufre shop, which as a matter of principle I could not pass up.  So, quick detour for a yummy gaufre liegeoise. 

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At the end of La Rambla is an impressive monument to Christopher Columbus.  Apparently Barcelona is where he came first after his voyage to the Americas. 

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From there, we crossed along the waterfront of the harbor and then turned up into the Gothic Quarter.  Barcelona had quite a heyday in medieval times and the Gothic Quarter was described as a must see.  The cathedral was certainly remarkable, as were the Roman walls.  But otherwise I have to say I wasn't that impressed -- I've seen better gothic neighborhoods in France.

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Roman walls
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La Catedral
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Crypt of St. Eulalia, whose various tortures at the hands of the
Romans were detailed in bas relief near the entrance
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After a quick bite to eat (lest we expire in a gothic gutter) . . .

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we found our way to the Palau de la Musica Catalonia.  Completed in 1908, it's an outstanding example of the Modernisme architectural movement (about which I will write more later) and a UNESCO World Heritage site.  The interior -- particularly a stained glass ceiling in the main concert hall -- is even better than the exterior, but we couldn't see it without going on a guided tour or attending a concert.  We inquired about ticket prices and discovered that tickets to a flamenco concert were only a little more than a guided tour, so we bought two tickets in the balcony section and took a rain check on seeing the interior.

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Palau de la Musica Catalana
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And that was it for the general walking tour of the city.  From the music hall, we sauntered home to make restaurant reservations for dinner and then went to see Gaudi's Sagrada Familia cathedral -- and both the cathedral and dinner merit their own posts, so stay tuned!

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