Sarrià Stadium

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.

Connection L3-L4 Passeig de Gràcia

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.

Eixample Porter's lodges

"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!

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.