Circus tents

Have you ever been to the circus in Barcelona? I have, but just to one of those big and "modern" circuses focused more to attract adult audiences. The truth is that I would have liked to go to a circus as a child, one of those traditional ones, those who assemble and remove their tents in the few open spaces left in the city.

Those circus in which artists arrive in trucks and vans, the ones that exercise a fascination among those of us who do not live on the road, the ones that make us wonder what it is like to live in a special community, a nomadic family.

The truth is that circuses have changed a lot since I was little. Luckily, they still visit us. For the record, I like that they are adapting to changing times. And by the way, there is a circus school working in the Parc del Forum. It is called La Central del Circ, and is meant to be a space for developing circus activities that the City Council prompted, and where training courses are held, in case if anyone is thinking about it!

Barcelona Taxis

When I was a little boy I thought that taxis could only be yellow and black. Later I discovered that in most cities they are white, and many of them have a colored stripe so you can detect them. Even later I learned that there are other cities where taxis share colors with ours, as Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Mumbai, but they are an rare.

In 1906 the first motorized taxis appeared in Barcelona, with one single station in La Rambla, and they coexisted with the old horse carriages. Motorized vehicles finally prevailes and at one point it was decided that they should show a yellow, blue or red strip in the back, depending on the rate they charged. In 1934, though, it was necessary to organize the sector, and rates and colors were unified, so yellow was adopted as a common hallmark. this is the origin of the color of our taxis, with yellow doors while the rest is basically black.

As a curiosity, let me tell you that the person who took all this measures was Jaume Vachier, a municipal councilor, who tried to arrange the chaotic traffic of Barcelona in the 1920's, and planned underground car parks, promoted the first crosswalk of the city (at Balmes-Provença) and also the first traffic light at the same intersection.

Currently there is an EU directive that suggests that taxis should be painted in ecru color, as they are in Germany. For the time being noone is paying attention to it. Can you imagine the disappearance of the yellow and black taxis of Barcelona?

Winter storms

One of the good things people often mention about Barcelona is its nice weather, especially its soft winters. This is basically true, but sometimes we are visited by a phenomenon that makes the beaches empty of bathers and surfers. I am talking about storms coming from the East.
The northern wind known as Tramuntana is renowned for its vigour and intensity, but the east wind, which is more constant, sometimes gets mad and destroys beaches and boardwalks of our coast with heavy its rains, low temperatures and strong waves. Sometimes this combination even makes snow pop up near the coast of Barcelona.
There are storms like this throughout the year, but the most common time is for them are spring and fall. One of the most famous is the one that happened during Boxing Day 2008, but in 1911 there was one that affected the entire Catalan coast and Barcelona and caused 28 deaths only in Barcelona. As the singer Raimon says, rain doesn't know how to rain in our country...
To protect the beaches and prevent regression caused by eastern storms during winter, the municipality built between 2006 and 2010 three dams that stabilize the shoreline.
The storms, however, continue visiting us.

Tricky floors in Barcelona buildings

When I pay a visit to someone who tells me he lives on the first floor, I usually walk up the stairs. Sometimes there is no choice, since the building has no lift. But then, often, especially on the floors of the Eixample and Ciutat Vella, this first floor easily ends up turning into a third!
The stairs of the buildings in Barcelona are full of semi-floors, mezzanines and main floors (principals). Moreover, in the past the heights of these floors were greater, so it is not strange that you have to climb considerably to get to that "first floor".
Previously, the most wanted floor was the first one, in order both to avoid the discomfort of the street and to not having to climb too many stairs. Up from this floor you could progressively find the families with more limited purchasing power.
This way, it was most prestigious to live on a first or a second floor than on the fourth floor. Naming the first floors as "mezzanine" and "principal", the third floor suddenly happened to be the first, and so gradually. Thus, all social classes could be at the same time in the same building, the city's social hierarchy was translated to the distribution of families in the buildings.

Snowflake (Floquet de Neu)

One of the most visited post of the (short) History of this blog is the one about Ulysses the Orca, that I wrote and published about a year ago. The visits to the Catalan and Spanish version of this post has almost three times the ones to the next one, about the chocolate of Petritxol street, in second place.
Ulysses the orca has probably been the second most famous resident of the Barcelona Zoo, in dispute with the elephant may Avi, the first one to come to our zoo. They both are defeated, and I think there's no doubt about it, by our white gorilla, Snowflake.
I remember seeing Snowflake on several occasions when I was a kid, and I must say that I loved him but he was not specially friendly. I always attributed this to the fact that he knew he was special, and that many of us visited the zoo just see him, so he was aware he was quite famous. Perhaps it was just my imagination.
Although he had 22 children before dying in 2003 at the (approximate) age of 39, none of them inherited his albinism. Maybe that's why the zoo of Barcelona continues to receive letters asking to clone him, something that is theoretically possible because there are the samples of his DNA. What do you think? Would you like to have another Snowflake through clonation? Perhaps the new one is a bit more humble :)

Eixample corners: Sea or Mountain? Besòs or Llobregat?

"Let's meet at 10 in a bar at the corner of Bruc and Diputació streets".

If you are a true Barcelonian, you will notice that there is something missing in the sentence above. What is it? Very easy: you need to say in which of the four corners of the intersection is the bar where you are supposed to meet if you don't want to be waiting in different places!

The code we use is simple: Sea side or Mountain side (which meaning is very easy to figure out), and Besòs side or Llobregat side (this may make you think a little bit more; there is even people who prefers to say "Girona side" and "Tarragona side", in order not to mess up the two rivers that delimit the city.

You must admit it is a foolproof method to give directions!

The knife grinder

Some weeks ago I heard on the radio that some traditional trades that were disappearing are now coming back because of the economical crisis. The main reason is that, in hard times, we prioritize fixing things before replacing them with new ones.
Among those trades that are surviving there is one that is very related to our streets, a mobile profession associated with a repetitive melody of flute: the knife grinder.
If we have to judge me by the number of times I've sharpened my knives, knife grinders would already have disappeared, but luckily there are people who still do it, and some grinders still survive on the streets of Barcelona. The photo of this post, for example, was taken a couple of weeksago in the Rambla del Poble Nou.
In a city subject to all kinds of loud noises, there are some sounds that do not go unnoticed and that currently resist: that of "Butanoooooo" for example, is one of them. The knife grinder's "Tiruriroriroriro" is another very typical one. Hopefully, after the crisis, there will still be knife grinders circulating with their old mopeds on the streets of Barcelona.

An additional curiosity: Dani Cortijo explains in his blog altresbarcelones, that after the defeat of Barcelona in 1714, it was forbidden to have more than one kitchen knife per family at home, to prevent possible uprings or riots against Spanish troops.
Moreover, this single family knife had to be tied with a string to the kitchen table, and people who didn't obey this law could be punished even with the death penalty. Thus, the grinders did their work moving through the houses of Barcelona, and specifically working in their kitchens!

Flip-flops and socks

I remember there was a time, long ago, when you could walk around the city center and find more locals than tourists. Now that is almost an almost impossible experience, and it becomes more evident during the touristic peak season...although I am starting to think that Barcelona is always in "high season".
By the way, and for the record, I have nothing against tourism itself, I am only pointing an objective fact.
Well, we have always associated the word tourism with another word, which may be a little unfair, "guiri", a word including some characteristic as blond or red hair, extremely burned skin by sun exposure (known as "prawn effect"), flowered-printed shirts, hanging cameras.... and sandals or flip-flops with socks!

The dancing egg (L'ou com balla)

The main purpose of ​​this blog, as its name suggests, is to collect some things that are really typical in Barcelona. And the truth is that there must be few traditions that are more typical from Barcelona than l'Ou com balla (The dancing egg), held on the day of Corpus Christi. although it is also celebrated in other catalan cities and villages, this tradition has its origin in the Cathedral of Barcelona, and is known at least since 1673.

The idea of this celebration is to make an egg dance. The egg has previously been emptied, of course, and you can see it dancing in fountains of cloisters, courtyards and gardens that are decorated for the occasion with spring flowers and fruits.

If you have never seen it before, it is worth going to see the dancing egg, which moves playfully over the water. It is a simple but very mysterious ritual at the same time, which rememorates the consecrated host and has also clear references to the fertility of the egg.
The tradition was lost for a while and the city recovered it some years ago, so now you can go see the egg dance in various locations in Ciutat Vella, as the cloister of the Cathedral, la Casa de l'Ardiaca, l'Ateneu Barcelonès, the Archive of the Crown of Aragon or the Museu Frederic Marès.

The Vain Giraffe

The sculpture of Flirty Giraffe has always aroused some fascination on me.

At the end of the Rambla de Catalunya, on the corner of Avinguda Diagonal, she has seen and keeps seeing all the locals and tourists walking around, with an attitude that I consider at the same time seductive and a bit indifferent.

The sculptor, Josep Granyer, engraver and illustrator was close the style Art Deco, and created an entire universe himself, with surreal and humorous touches, as animals are represented in human attitudes.

Thus, it seems that the giraffe is flirting and relaxed at the same time, waiting for someone to come get her. It could be, for example, the bull that we can find at the other end of the Rambla de Catalunya, meditating at the junction of Gran Via, evoking the thinker of Rodin. The sculptures are in the same location since 1972 but the bull still hasn't had the courage to ask out the giraffe. He keeps meditating...

The Bikini sandwich

Calling "Bikini" the hot ham-and-cheese sandwich is not an exclusive characteristic from Barcelona but from the whole Catalonia, but the origin of the word is fully Barcelonian.

All the locals know the Bikini concert hall, in the district of Les Corts. Well, Bikini opened in 1953 as a dance hall with terrace and mini golf, and also as a meeting place for dining. Among its culinary specialities there was an adaptation of a well-known French sandwich, called croque-monsieur. This snack was becoming increasingly popular and was eventually known as "the sandwich they prepare at Bikini". From that to the current name of the sandwich there was only one step.

Well, or at least that's what I've heard and what I've been able to investigate. If anyone is aware if that is an urban legend, please tell me!

What it is for sure is that I know more than one person who has asked for a Bikini at a bar outside Catalonia and has been looked at as a freak.

The timing of the traffic lights

First, a couple of curiosities about traffic lights: there are about 34,000 traffic lights in Barcelona; the first one was installed at the intersection of Balmes and Provença among criticism about if it was necessary and many people had the opinion that those lights would have no future in the city.

I remember that some years ago there was a controversy in La Vanguardia about the time that the traffic lights remained green for pedestrians. Most people's opinion was that the time for pedestrians to cross was actually too short, especially on wide streets as Aragon or the Diagonal.

I remember that the Council promised then to improve traffic light timing and I haven't heard about the subject in quite a long time. I am not sure if now pedestrians have more time to cross, but what I know for sure is that it is virtually impossible to cross the streets after the green light starts to flash. I am an average, healthy, non-disabled "young adult". I wouldn't like to figure out what it must be for an elder person or someone using crutches, for example!

I have done a little checking myself and it could be said that you'd better start running if the little green man starts to blink while you are crossing the street. In the corner of Sicília and Aragó, for example, you have less than 6 seconds to cross 7 lanes. And in most streets of the Eixample flashing time is about 3 seconds! That is a bit too tight! Is that perhaps to encourage sport among the citizens?

Argentine parrots

I'm sure they do not appear in travel guides, and I am positive that tourists haven't noticed them, but they are also part of the landscape of Barcelona: Argentine parrots are those little birds of the family of parakeets and cockatoos, that emit a peculiar noise.

They arrived in Barcelona more than 30 years ago, from South America and it looks that they have adapted well. It seems that at some time they were fashionable as pets, due to their green plumage with gray belly, and they were much cheaper than the typical parrots. But they turned out to be were unfriendly, they pecked their owners, they shrieked and....were keen on escaping! In other words, they wanted to live in freedom. So some of them escaped from their cages and now we have about 3,000 scattered in Barcelona, ​​living with us.

Some look at them as a plague, but considering that there are about 250,000 pigeons in the city, I think they don'l give any hassle.

And besides, it is funny to think that the birds that have arrived from Argentina to Barcelona  are parrots, which is an animal that has traditionally been used to describe someone who talks too much.

An irony, as well as Argentines (Argentine humans, that is) have a reputation for talking a lot. Of course it's a cliché ....isn't it?