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!
I was 10 and I had fallen asleep in the back seat of the car. Back then, it was not mandatory to fasten your seat bealt. I was accompanying my mother to run errands around Barcelona.
Traffic is chaotic, perhaps even more than usual for a Friday afternoon in June. Sirens began to sound. Ambulance, police, firefighters. Something has happened. My mother turns on the radio and confirms her suspicions.
She looks at me through her thick glasses and cries.
Surely many locals have memories of that fateful day. I usually write other kind of entries for this blog, but it is still part of our recent history. Twenty years later, fortunately, the scenario is completely different. The future is unwritten but that kind of past will not be repeated.
I like seasonal products because you have to wait to the right time of the year, and when they arrive, they are much more appreciated. Furthermore, we link them to certain habits and ideas, so you are transported to that time of the year just by remembering them.
That happens to me with horchata. Its season is limited to summer, and that is why it is inseparable from the heat, the sun and the muggy weather.
And in Barcelona it is clear that drinking horchata is already a tradition, especially at a terrace. There are historical horchaterías, like "Tio Che" at La Rambla del Poble Nou, which this summer celebrated its Centennial! The founders were Joan and Josefa, who, coming from a village in the province of Alicante, began serving horchatas in the Born one century ago. And their family is still cooling the hot afternoons in Barcelona with this nutritious drink. Congratulations Tío Che!
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.
When the good weather starts, one must assume an objective fact: Barcelona, in the summer, is a hot city.
And long before there was air conditioning, it was already hot. So the locals had to protect themselves against the sun. And they found a solution that is ideal from my point of view: the shutters on the outside, leaving them hanging over the balcony.
Thus they stop direct sunlight, but they also let the air in in order to get the natural cross ventilation (if there is a little breeze blowing, the heat is more bearable) and, unlike horizontal blinds, they preserve a certain degree of privacy.
I will not say I thank an air conditioner in the summer in the city, but if we don't have one... what could be better than the these typical blinds?
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...
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.
