Red Army!

One of the few benefits I enjoy living in a house intended for tourist rental is that I have British television via satellite installed.  I wouldn’t have done it for myself.  I lived the first eight years in Spain watching only Catalan television.  But since it’s here, I do watch it and there are definitely some broadcasts that are excellent.

One of those excellent broadcasts was on BBC3 radio recently.  I tuned in planning to listen to classical music while I read, but the host and his guests were talking.  About to turn it off, I realized that they were talking about the Red Army Chorus.

I grew up with the Red Army Chorus.  That is to say, my parents had one of their albums and it was always one of my favorites.  My parents’ musical taste tended towards the Russian and Eastern European, no wonder as they were Eastern European themselves.  We had recordings of Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rimsky Korsakov, Borodin, a lot of Chopin, the Red Army Chorus, and Les Paul and Mary Ford.  (Although they tended to classical and Eastern European, they did (my father especially) have eclectic taste.)

It’s hard to say which of the songs on our Red Army Chorus disk I liked the best.  They were all wonderful, not only the songs and the music, but the voices.  The bass solos were extraordinary, the tenor solos lifted you to the sky, and the whole chorus could move you to tears.

Perhaps one song stood out for its emotional quality.  I never paid attention to what the song was about.  For me all these songs were just beautiful music.  But on the BBC they were talking about more than just pretty music.  This song, the penultimate on our old disk, called Ukrainian Poem, is about the German occupation of the Ukraine in 1942 and its eventual liberation by the Soviet army.  When you know that, the song becomes even more powerful.

The Red Army Chorus (and band, and dancers) were (and perhaps still are) made up of members of the armed forces.  They originally performed folk and war songs for the troops.  Eventually they began to tour the world and broadened their repertoire.  In 1948 they were invited by the international forces in Berlin to perform at a concert devoted to peace.  Thirty thousand people came to stand and listen for three hours.  They can be heard performing It’s a Long Way to Tipperary in the movie Das Boot.

The Red Army Chorus (called the Soviet Army Chorus) on this disk, has had several names and is now called the Alexandrov Ensemble.  Whatever you call them or however they choose to call themselves, I think they are one of the great musical groups of all time.  There are other disks, MP3 tracks, and also a DVD with the chorus and dance troop.  I haven't seen the DVD yet, but it is in my shop and on my personal wishlist.

As with other of my favorites, you can buy the disk in my Amazon shop or use my portal to enter Amazon and buy thousands of other things.  Thanks, by the way, to those who did exactly that last week. 

Dreaming in Terrassa

Terrassa is a mid-sized town with 200,000 people about half an hour inland from Barcelona.  It is where my friend Gracia has the house she inherited from her parents and where I usually go to visit her when she is in town.

Architecturally, Terrassa is famous for its complex of three 12^th century Romanesque churches, Sant Pere, Santa Maria, and Sant Miquel, all three declared an Artistic-Historic Monument in 1931.  These are beautiful ancient buildings, but we didn’t enter the complex to see them.  My photo is from a previous visit.

Terrassa is also birthplace and home of Xavi Hernandez, Barcelona’s outstanding (best in the world) midfielder and one of my favorite players.  We didn’t see him either, although Gracia knows his aunt.  We did, however, enter the 14^th century Castell i Cartoixa de Vallparadis (Castle and Carthusian Monastery) and had a good long walk up and down the Park of Vallparadis, a beautiful park that follows what my architecture book calls the Vallparadis water course.  I thought it was a river that had been channeled underground.  I guess it isn’t really a river but a dry riverbed where water flows when there’s a heavy rain.

This linear park offers a lovely environment for a walk, passing under the castle and the three beautiful churches, lined with lawn and dotted with trees, some of which were in fall color.  The olive, carob, and pine trees that decorate my landscape don’t do fall color.  The Vallparadis park also has two hippopotamuses -- statues that lend a bit of whimsy to the environment, two or three cafes, and an amazing swimming pool consisting of several very large scattered sections that give the impression of a lagoon with clear, fresh water.  No photos of that, my batteries went dead during the walk.

Terrassa grew and became relatively wealthy in the 19^th century when it became a great textile center.  Modern wealth translated into public, industrial, and private buildings built in the modernist (art nouveau) style, although many Catalan modernist buildings (including notably those of Antoni Gaudi) are far more fantastic than anyone else’s interpretation of the style.  This building, by the way, is NOT by Gaudi.

Gracia’s husband Miquel is an architect, but the three of us were more focused on lunch and talking about what we all wanted to do with our lives than with the fantastic architecture of Terrassa.  Gracia and Miquel are here for an extended visit, trying to figure out if they would want to move back to Catalunya, stay in California, or somehow arrange to have the best of both worlds.  Whereas they have more resources than I do, they are unsure of what they want.

I know exactly what I want.  I want to sell my house and move to a small apartment, although where that apartment will be is still somewhat up in the air.  It’s not that I don’t know where I want it to be.  I want to move to France.  But there are some problems with that dream and as time goes on, I am less sure of that plan working out.  If not France, then I will remain in Catalunya but move further north, where at least the landscape will be more to my liking.  Further north is also closer to France so that maybe I will be able to zip across the border from time to time to shop the French markets and buy cheese, even if I can’t live there.

Gracia, Miquel and I had a long lunch, talked about all these plans, possibilities, and dreams, and decided nothing.  Except for that annoying tow truck, it was a very good day.  

Giving Thanks in Terrassa

Sometimes you don’t have to take a big trip or venture far from home to have an adventure.  This I managed to do last week when I went to visit Gracia in Terrassa.

I met Gracia about twelve years ago when she married Miquel and moved from Terrassa to California.  Since then, she’s become one of my best friends, even though we only lived in the same area for a short time.  A couple of years after we met I moved to Catalunya, but we’ve managed to stay in touch and try to see each other when she comes to Terrassa.

Both Miquel and Gracia are from Terrassa, a small city to the west of Barcelona and about an hour and a half driving time from here.  At first Gracia used to come regularly to visit her mom.  Since her mom died, she’s been coming less frequently.  I’ve been to Gracia’s house several times, but I was living in Barcelona then and always went by train.  This would be my first time driving there.

I printed out directions from Via Michelin.  I’ve compared their directions with those of Google Maps and find they do better in Europe than Google does.  ViaMichelin told me the trip would take 1 hour 37 minutes, would be 153 kilometers long, and would cost 39.81 euros in estimated gas and road tolls.  That was one way. 

The trip would have cost considerably less if we were living somewhere else in Spain, Madrid, for example, because Spain concentrates most of its toll roads in Catalunya.  Going by train would have been cheaper, but it would have taken about three hours each way, instead of 1-1/2 and wouldn’t have left much time for the visit.  Ultimately the trip didn’t cost me 80 euros, it cost much more.

There was no where to park near Gracia’s house so she jumped into the car with me to go in search of a parking space.  We went round in circles and finally found one only about three blocks away.

At the end of the day, after a long walk, lunch, a lot of sitting around and chatting, Gracia walked with me as I headed back to the car to start the drive home.  It was about 5 pm, but I wanted to do as much driving as I could before it became dark, plus there was a Barca soccer game on that night that I wanted to get home in time to see.   Coming up to the car Gracia started to run forwards and shout.  I had no idea what she was so upset about.

And then I saw it: my car hooked up to a tow truck!  Good grief!  It turned out that I had parked in a loading zone.  Well what do you know.  Do they actually give parking tickets and tow cars away?  Or was I the first one?

The loading zone extended further back where other cars had also parked, and the sign was somewhat hidden by a telephone pole, but not completely out of sight.  That explained why I hadn’t noticed.  Spanish driver’s license or no, I wouldn’t knowingly park in a loading zone.

So the trip cost me the gas, the tolls, and 73 euros for the tow truck.  I paid the truck, and asked about the parking fine.  The tow truck driver said the fine would, or possibly would not, be sent in the mail.  Since I lived out of town, he wasn’t sure if they would bother to send it.  But until then, I didn’t have to pay the fine.  He was only authorized to collect the tow truck charges.  If and when the fine comes it will be an additional 32 euros.

So it was a far more expensive trip than originally figured.  I had been parked in that spot since a little after 11 am.  I returned at about 5:20 pm.  If I had arrived just a couple of minutes later, the car would have been gone.  Just thinking about what I would have done (my first assumption would probably have been that the car had been stolen), makes me dizzy.  How long would it have taken to find the car and get it back?  There would have been the possible confusion of ownership because even after all these months and the filing of papers with a lawyer, the car is still not registered in my name but in the name of a man who died several years ago.  Would the police have released the car to me?  And then there would have been the additional cost.  Paying for the tow truck to come was 73 euros, but paying for actual towing would have been double that. 

This visit took place on the day before Thanksgiving.  We didn’t have turkey (we had risotto with cuttlefish).  Having just remembered that Thanksgiving was the next day, we had a special toast and said our thanks.  But in addition to what I said at the table, I am thankful that the whole debacle wasn’t worse. 

Chanuka Candles in Barcelona

Five hundred and nineteen years after the Expulsion, I went to Barcelona last week to buy Chanuka candles.  In other years (for instance, in year 517 A.E.), I tried, to no avail, to buy them over the internet (too expensive) or place an order to the shop in Barcelona by phone (staff not interested in sending the goods).  Finally, I arrived too late and there were no candles left.  Instead of using my menorah that year, I used a standard taper in a brass candlestick and lit tea candles each evening, adding one each time to the lineup.  Actually, that worked just fine.

If I wanted to be more authentic (and not have to make these shopping trips to Barcelona), I could get eight small jars, pour in some olive oil, place a cotton wick in each, use a larger container for the shamish, and be more true to history.  But my personal history is of small multi-colored candles of yellow, blue, white, pink and red, and the Chanukiah that I inherited from my parents.  Although in fact, my parents preferred to celebrate Christmas.

The year of the tea candles, hearing my woeful tale, my long-lost and recently-found friend Irene was kind enough to send me a box of candles so that the next year I didn’t have to go shopping.  But a box only lasts one year so I was ready for another shopping expedition this year.  And off I went.

There is no searching involved in buying Chanuka candles in Barcelona.  Only one place has them.  So many years after the Expulsion, not many Jews have returned to Spain, and the kosher shop that operates across the street from the main synagogue is the one and only source.

You would never know that this building is a synagogue.  Evidence on the street is discrete, and without knowing the address, you would probably just walk by.  But if you look closely, you can see the entry grill lined with menorahs and finished off with a Star of David on each side at the top (click on the image to enlarge it). 

In order to buy my candles, I take the train to Barcelona – a two-hour ride each way, €12.20 round trip.  From the train station I walk to the shop, about a half-hour walk.  It is possible that I could take some other form of public transportation, but the shop is located a bit out of the way and I haven’t made a study of it.  Anyway, I love walking in Barcelona.  Each time I head off in the right direction, never exactly sure just where to turn, but somehow I always get there with no great mishap, although my route isn’t always exactly the same.

I am very happy to say that this year, I did find candles at the shop.  At €4.50, they were a lot cheaper than what it cost me to get there.  But they’re worth it.

While at the kosher shop I thought I might buy some yahrtzeit candles.  Ever since I ran out of the ones that I brought with me from California, I’ve been using church candles.  This works fine, yet somehow doesn’t seem quite kosher.  But when I went to take some out of the box (seen on the lower shelf), I saw printed on the face of it “Made in China.”  I put them back, thinking to myself, what the hell, that’s not kosher either.

Positive Attitude and a Man with a Horse

I’m working on a new attitude: Try to seek the positive.  It isn’t always easy.  With my newly acquired (still to be perfected) positive attitude, I have noted two amusing stories that recently appeared on the news.  The first was about a man with a horse.

It seems that about two months ago the man had left his farmhouse on horseback and gone into the local village to have breakfast.  After eating with friends and putting down several beers (beer with breakfast is entirely normal here), the man rode the mare home.  On the way he was stopped by the police and cited for operating a moving vehicle under the influence of alcohol.  His trial comes up soon. 

The man maintains that the horse is not a vehicle and that there is nothing to cite him for.  Given that you can walk on that road and walk your dog as well, I think he may have a point.  On the other hand, according to my dictionary, a vehicle is "any means in or by which someone or something is carried or conveyed."  Hmmm....  I hope they announce the outcome of this story and plan to keep my ears and eyes peeled for it.  I think whatever the outcome, it will be entertaining.

The other story was a cultural piece at the end of the news about a professional dance company that was performing somewhere in Catalunya.   Not your every day kind of dance company, this one includes in its corps some dancers with disabilities.  I thought the performance would appear amateur, but it didn’t.  It looked excellent and I was sorry I couldn’t attend to see the whole thing.  Congratulations to whoever came up with the idea, and to those who are making it happen.  Clearly they have a positive attitude.

Barcelona with Bonnie

Bonnie's recent visit brought up the usual questions of where to go, what to see, where to eat.  I’ve been a tour guide for friends before, but I think that in the past I was in a better, livelier frame of mind.  I was also feeling more positive about Barcelona and Catalunya.  Now, after the divorce and trying unsuccessfully to sell my house, I feel fairly negative, low energy, and trapped.

But I love Bonnie dearly – she’s been a very good friend to me over the years and I did my best to show her and Forrest what I thought would interest them, even though it seemed at times that I was leading them around in circles.  Well, in fact, at times I was leading them around in circles.

Two blocks up from their Passeig de Gracia apartment was Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà, also called La Pedrera.  This is a unique apartment block, all sinuous art nouveau curves and other-wordly shapes.  One of the apartments is furnished for the period and open for viewing and there is also a museum explaining Gaudí’s work in the attic.  The roofscape resembles something from Star Wars.  We didn’t go in because the line wrapped around the block, but it would have been worth seeing.

Although we didn’t visit La Pedrera, Bonnie and Forrest did go on their own one day to see La Sagrada Familia, the large unfinished Gaudí church recently consecrated as a basilica by the Pope.  Bonnie said she thought, judging from the overly decorative façade that she wouldn’t like it, but she found it wonderful inside.  Gaudí was a genius who followed no one’s style, although the sinuous lines of art nouveau (modernism in Catalunya) are evident in his work.  Both the Sagrada Familia and La Pedrera contain museums where some of his innovations are demonstrated and his work is explained.

Bonnie and Forrest also went on their own to visit the Museum Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) on Montjuïc (Jewish mountain).  The MNAC houses one of the most important collections of Romanesque art in the world.  In the early 20^th century, many murals were removed from the small, decaying 10^th-12^th century churches scattered throughout the Pyrenees and brought to Barcelona for safekeeping.  The exhibit has recently been redesigned.  I haven’t seen the new installations, but Bonnie said it was fantastic, with many interactive components.  They spent half a day in that exhibit alone.

Mostly we wandered up and down the small streets of the Barri Gòtic and the Born.  That’s my part of town, where I used to live, and the part I know and like best.  We had wonderful fruit juice smoothies at the Boqueria market.  Many stands have these fruit drinks; there wasn’t a single one when I first moved here.  They are obviously provided with tourists in mind, but that doesn’t make them any less yummy.  The problem, however, is that there are so many tourists in the market, that you can hardly walk down the aisles.  And to think I used to do most of my shopping there just eight years ago when it functioned primarily as a market and barely as a tourist attraction.

We passed through the lovely arcaded and slightly seedy Placa Reial which figures in the story told in The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafron.  That’s a good thriller along the lines of Da Vinci Code but set in Barcelona and much better written, in my opinion.

From the Placa Reial we squeezed through the very narrow street under the balcony of my old apartment where luckily there was no odor of urine that day.  I have fond memories of the apartment and the music I would hear coming from the street musicians who played in the Placa Reial.  The drunks who would pee on the wall as they passed below seem more colorful now than they did at the time.  Interestingly enough, some of them would whistle or sing opera arias as they passed.

We visited Casa Gispert, one of the older culinary establishments in the city located on a small street just alongside the impressive Gothic church of Santa Maria del Mar.  Founded in the 1850s, they continue to sell the nuts and coffee they roast on the premises in the original wood-burning stove.  Entering provides a very pleasant experience of traveling back in time.

We had a disappointing lunch at Agut, what used to be my favorite restaurant.  The food was so-so and the service came with an attitude, although to be fair, my fideua was excellent.  But on our second day we had a wonderful meal at Orio, a new, elegant Basque tapas bar/restaurant on Carrer Ferran that I had never eaten at before.  We stopped to look at the menu because the fresh oysters in the window had called to me.  But we didn’t order oysters. 

We ordered three starters and one main plate and shared it all, washed down with Basque cider and Basque white wine.  The starters were acorn-fed ham with pa amb tomaquet (bread with tomato), an assortment of four Basque cheeses, and a salad.  The main plate was red beans with blood sausage.  We had ice cream and fried milk for dessert.  Everything was excellent, although the fried milk was a bit weird.  The service was good, with our waiter explaining why it is that they pour both the cider and the white wine from a considerable height.  I assumed it was for theatrical effect, but our waiter assured us that it was for aeration, to cut the acid.  It worked for us.  We were three happy campers with aerated alcohol in our veins and well filled tummies.

After the tasty Basque lunch we visited Gaudí’s Parc Güell, up on the hill (what Catalans call a mountain) behind Barcelona.  The bus ride was an adventure in itself; starts and stops, curves and turns all being experiences to endure.  I don’t know how the driver passed the professional driving test.  Once there, another adventure unfolded. 

There were thousands of people everywhere.  What for me has always been a place of peace and quiet and magic, was more like midtown Manhattan but with unusual rock constructions instead of concrete.  Originally planned as a garden city with scattered villas, only one or two houses were ever built and the grounds now serve as a park.  It’s a unique park and one of my favorite places in Barcelona, or used to be.  The columns and arcades built from natural rocks have always given me the sense of entering into one of the fairy tales my mom used to read to me as a child.  I vaguely remember images of toadstools which have somehow evolved in my imagination to be the rock columns of Gaudí’s arcades.

Besides that good lunch, the highlight of our second day together – at least for me – was watching people dance sardanes in front of the cathedral.  Although it isn’t part of my background or culture, for about two years I used to go every Sunday to dance at the cathedral with a group of Catalan friends.  So for me it was nostalgic to watch people dance and to listen to the music, which, as strange as it may sound to some, sounds wonderful to me.  Unfortunately I didn’t see any of the friends I used to dance with, but I didn’t really expect to.  When the couple who was the driving force of the group broke up, around the time that Manel and I moved to Tarragona, the group drifted apart.  Bonnie said she liked the fact that people were dancing right out in the street.  I’ll bet if she had stayed longer, Bonnie would have started dancing sardanes in the street too.

When we set out the first day, the only thing Bonnie knew she wanted to do during her visit was eat a paella.  She never did.  But then, surely that means, just as the legend that says that if you drink from the Font de Canaletes on La Rambla, she’ll return to Barcelona someday.

Bonnie and Hotels vs. Apartments

It was January 1995 when Bonnie suggested I go ballroom dancing.  That was soon after my divorce and I was feeling down.  Dancing would be good, she told me.  It involves exercise, music, socializing, and, if nothing else, gets you out of the house.  In those days, I called her twinkle toes.  So I went and because of Bonnie I met Manuel and from there a lot of things changed and new vistas opened up.  But that’s another story.

I’ve known Bonnie since about 1972 when our two husbands worked together at the university, and last week I had the rare pleasure of spending time with her.  She was traveling in Europe for the first time in many years, toes now encased in sensible shoes, seeing parts of France and finishing in Barcelona so she could give me a hug

Bonnie used to come to Europe every year but it has been many years since she’s made the trip.  She was here with her friend Forrest who was visiting Europe for the first time.  Before coming to Barcelona they had been in Paris, to Normandy, and along the Loire.

Rather than staying exclusively in hotels, on this trip they rented two tourist apartments.  They were very pleased with their Paris apartment experience.  The apartment was operated by the owner who provided good service and well-thought-out conveniences.  In addition to the well-equipped kitchen, they also had a clothes washer and dryer, and an iron and ironing board.  They could comfortably have breakfast at home before venturing out and in fact, they could buy local ingredients and cook if they wanted.  But they didn’t.  After all, they were in Paris and part of the fun is eating out.  Still, it is convenient to be able to keep food at home and eat in if you feel like it and many hotels forbid any food in the rooms.  The apartment was well situated and the owner was friendly and helpful.

In Barcelona they also rented an apartment.  But unlike in Paris, this one was operated by a large rental firm.  When they booked, they were told the approximate location but not the exact address.  Upon arrival in Barcelona, rather than go directly to the apartment as they had in Paris, they had to go first to the agency’s office.  There, after waiting some considerable time in line, they were given the keys and the address.  They had taken a taxi into the city from the airport but now had to venture out again with their luggage to find the apartment. 

Unfortunately, finding the apartment and then getting into it wasn’t as easy as it should have been.  First of all, the rental firm had given them the name of the street in Spanish (Paseo de Gracia) whereas it, as most streets, goes by its original Catalan name, Passeig de Gracia.  There is no reason why someone who isn’t familiar with the city would know these two are the same street.  All the street signs in Barcelona are in Catalan as are the local maps.  How it is that the company would ignore that and use the Spanish name is hard to say.  But after some initial confusion, they figured it out.

When they got to the building, it turned out that they had been given the wrong key.  Luckily the building had the old-fashioned arrangement of a concierge and he was kind enough to help them out.  Otherwise it would have meant a trip back to the rental office, hauling their luggage (two suitcases each), to get the problem resolved.  The first stop at that office, en route to the apartment, had already added considerable time to their arrival and they were worn out.

This apartment was in a wonderful location, right on Passeig de Gracia, facing the Casa Batlló and Casa Amatller and just down the street from Gaudí’s more famous Casa Milà (La Pedrera).  But in addition to there being no one there to welcome them or tell them about the apartment or the neighborhood, there was also no written orientation material.  There was nothing to explain how to dispose of garbage, no tourist information, no information about where a grocery store might be found nearby, nothing but the user’s manuals for appliances and electronic equipment, and that was all in Spanish.  And oddly, there was an iron, but no ironing board.

So what are the advantages of tourist apartments?  Apartments have kitchens, allowing you to eat in as much (or little) as you choose.  Apartments have normal living rooms with sofas and more space than normal hotel rooms, even the generous ones.  Apartments give you the sense that you are actually living in the city that you are visiting and allow you to be more comfortable when you are at home.

What apartments do not have is a hotel concierge who can help you with problems and difficulties.  What would you do if the hot water stopped running or the electricity went out?  And apartments, unlike hotels, do not have someone on the premises who can help you with tourist questions.  Then there is the check-in, check-out procedure to pay attention to.  If you have an early morning plane to catch, checking out in an agency office might present a problem.

With tourist apartments and villas, there is no set way of paying deposits and rental fees.  Every private rental will ask for a deposit to make the booking and usually (but not always) the deposit is not refundable.  I have seen that many British owners who have villas for rent in my area want the full rental payment weeks before the tenant arrives at the villa.  Many others accept payment upon arrival.

When I rent out my villa I do it this way.  I send a signed contract to the tenant.  When the tenant signs and sends the contract back and pays a 25% non-refundable deposit (by bank transfer), the booking is confirmed.  The contract details what is included in the rental as well as the address of the property.  The remainder can also be paid in advance by transfer or upon arrival in cash.  Some owners accept PayPal or even credit cards, but I don’t.

Renting an apartment is sometimes less expensive than a hotel, especially if you consider the possibility of eating in.  It can be a good way to get more into the feel of a place, and renting a larger one, perhaps with two or more bedrooms, allows you to spend your more relaxed moments in the company of your friends or family if you are traveling with others.  And in that case, it will certainly make your stay much more affordable.