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!

Barcelona Television

Is there anything more "Barcelonian" than a TV Channel like BTV?
Who hasn't been tempted to talk in front of the cameras of Videomaton?
Who doesn't remember the fish tank they used as the test pattern? And the eye they had as a logotype?
And what about emblematic shows as Telemonegal, el Temps del Picó or the literary Qwerty?
BTV is turning 18, and by the way...someone working there, Albert Muñoz, contacted me some time ago and told me they wanted to prepare a little note for BTV's web about this blog. So here you have the video. It is always a bit embarrassing to see and hear oneself, but that's life, I guess...

http://www.btv.cat/btvnoticies/2012/09/16/blog-barcelonins-coses-barcelona-aitor-aretxaga/

Rooftop antennas

The image that any city shows, just like with most things in life, is not unique, and it often depends on the viewer's gaze. Above the asphalt of sidewalks, pedestrians and shops at street level there is another reality that is only noticeable by birds or from high places: the rooftops.
Anyone who has lived on a high floor of Ciutat Vella, Gràcia or Poble Sec will probably know  what I am talking about, a very specific image that fits naturally in the chaotic Mediterranean spirit of Barcelona.
These roofs are used for many things: hanging clothes, holding neighborhood meetings or sunbathing, but what I like to see are the antennas. And I do not mean satellite dishes, but the traditional aerials, which look like small twigs of fragile static trees.
I know that for many people the antennas are "dirty" visual elements, and that they have many drawbacks, including the difficulty of access, the higher maintenance costs and a lower quality of reception of channels, and I know that they will gradually disappear.. that's why I like looking at them thinking they are an endangered landscape.
I leave two images: a Picasso painting titled "Roofs of Barcelona" (1903) and the cover of a very good album: El món en un cafè, by the band 4t 1a.

PROVISIONAL MARKETS

One of the good things that Barcelona has done in the last years is the recovery, refurbishment and modernization of fresh produce markets in all the districts of the city. Through its history, Barcelona developped a special small-store model, which is getting now hard to maintain. Many of us like this model, compared to having huge, impersonal malls in the suburbs.
Some time ago I posted on this blog about the Born market and its eternal building works, but now I want to write about other elements that accompany us for years: those fresh produce markets that set provisional big tops while the building is refurbished
Among others, the city has refurbished in recent years the market of Barceloneta and Santa Caterina (Ciutat Vella), Clot (Sant Martí) and Llibertat (Gracia), and during the works, the big tops have been placed in nearby open spaces.
Some of these works last so long that the concept of "provisional" seem to become "definitive" but generally we know that the tops will only be there for a certain time. And then they will disappear to leave free way, again, to the original market.
Now Sant Antoni market is being refurbished, and I am looking forward to the ending of the works because a building as spectacular as this one, inaugurated in 1872, will be for sure gorgeous.

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!

The Blue Tram - El Tramvia Blau

I know, I know, it is clearly something for tourists, but ...is there someone from Barcelon who never used the Tramvia Blau (Blue Tram)? And if there is, what is he waiting for?
I remember nothing that made me as happy as boarding the Blue Tram to, and then the Funicular to take me to the Tibidabo amusement park with my family!
Obviously, for me the most important thing was not that we were riding the only tram left in the city, or travelling in a wagon built in the early twentieth century, but getting closer to my dream destination, the amusement park. Specifically, the 1276 meters it takes, bridging a height gap of nearly 100 meters, from Kennedy Sq to Doctor Andreu Sq, who, for the record, was the driving force behind this tram line.
The Tramvia Blau was the only one circulating in Barcelona from 1971, after the other lines were replaced by buses, until 2004, when the Trambaix started to circulate. 
Of course, if someone came from another planet and saw these two trams, he surely would doubt that the modern tram along Diagonal Avenue and the old one in Av Tibidabo are individuals of the same species!

Cobi (the best mascot)

We recently celebrated the 20th anniversary (yes, twenty years already!) of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Barcelona. Those of us who are old enough have a big amount of mental pictures and memories of those two weeks that changed Barcelona.

And we all have in mind which was the mascot of those Olympic Games, Cobi. We must admit that there were very few who loved him from the beginning. Perhaps we were not prepared to love that groundbreaking, cubist-inspired, Catalan shepherd, who apparently had no volume and had his nose on the side of his face.

But gradually we were able to overcome the cold welcome (to say it in nice words) welcome and get to love him, to the point that he became one of the most popular mascots in the history of the Olympics. Then came Petra, Jordi, Olivia and Forçut, who formed the Cobi troupe.