When I was a kid, I had a friend whose family was really keen on football. Sometimes, problems arose because his father was a big fan of Espanyol, while the mother was an inveterate "culer". Moreover, at that time it wasn't very usual for the women to be football fanatics, so the situation was curious.
The point is that, sometimes, my friend's father took us to see the Espanyol match at the Sarrià Stadium. I was not really very interested in football, but I recall having a good time everytime I went there. I had no idea that the Stadium was set in a place with a long history: it was opened in 1923, on the road leading to the village of Sarrià, which was later annexed to the city of Barcelona. Its cost was over 170,000 pesetas, and the Sarrià was the place where the first goal in the history of the league was scored. In the 1982 World Cup Sarrià received the powerful selections of Italy, Argentina and Brazil.
Now, every time I walk around that area I can not help thinking of those football games I saw there. At the Sarrià Stadium.
Some connections between lines in the Barcelona Metro network are virtually instantaneous, some others are quite short, some are long, and then we have, in a category of its own, the one in Passeig de Gràcia. I do not know what you do, but I avoid it whenever I can. I prefer not to walk the equivalent of three blocks of the Eixample on a narrow tunnel..
Perhaps you don't know that the tunnel where we walk nowadays to connect between lines takes up part of an underground car park, which is actually behind just a wall of separation. Specifically, we walk along its second basement. If we could get through the car park, the connection would be a little shorter, but the parking was inaugurated in 1967, before the construction of L4, and the best solution they found was going along ots edge.
In order to reduce the distance the existing underground halls would have to be modified, and some new entrances would have to be done, in addition to a new corridor, that would go below the parking lot. Due to its cost you can imagine that this project is waiting for better times.
I think we'll still have a long connection distance for a few years.
"Hello, good morning", "Hi", "Looks like it's hot again!", "Goodbye, and have a good day".
I have never lived in a building with a doorman, but I was imagining what it's like to have one. I guess it must be something you get used to and then you miss when you stop having it. It must be nice to get to the hall of your house and find a familiar face that greets you at that special moment when you leave the private sphere and go to the street, or vice versa.
Many will say, and they are probably right, that doormen and porters are known to be very nosy and gossip, but... I guess it's perfectly normal to know the lives of all residents of the building! They see them come and go, they know with whom and at what time, what they carry in their hands and if they arrive by taxi or bus, and even the mail they receive.
And we must admit that some of the porter's lodges of Barcelona, many of which are in the buildings of the Eixample, are magnificent. They make you want to stay a while there to watch how people come and go!
