Oh Say Can You See

Happy (belated) birthday, America!

A scarf at a corner shop

I started the day by picking up three apple tarts that I'd ordered from Turris, the Top Five bakery closest to my house.  I wanted to share the holiday spirit with my coworkers, and I know how much they like food, so I bought the closest thing I could to apple pie.

Like my flag?  I'm missing a few states and colonies, but I did my best.

You can't see it, but I'm wearing red shoes.  Red, white, and blue all the way!

 The apple tart was a success!  But my celebration also came with a surprise.  Everyone here knew that July 4th was a big American holiday celebrating our independence.  It made me realize that I have no idea when other countries' independence days are.  Oops.  My coworkers didn't seem to sense my guilt, and instead got into the spirit by helping me to plot my next patriotic steps.  And by that, I of course mean hunting down fireworks.
Growing up in Connecticut, the state of Thou Shalt Not Have Fireworks, I had never lit more than a sparkler or two in my life.  Yet here in Barcelona, fireworks and poppers and noisemakers are everywhere.  Just take Sant Joan and the post-EuroCup celebration as examples.  If it's legal, why not?  I decided to go to Petar2 (the whole fireworks family is called "petardos" and 2 is pronounced "dos" in Spanish... get it?) so that I could blaze my patriotism across the Barcelona night sky.  Or just act like a 5-year old, legally.

 Entering petardos is like entering a fully stocked warehouse of explosives for the purpose of fun.  Shelves are lined with fireworks of every kind, color, noise, height.  Packages for light- and noise-lovers include samplings of choice products.  A catalogue in neon colors boasts their flare times (in seconds), the height of the sparks, the decibels of noise... it's a bit overwhelming.  Luckily, I'd been well-advised by Ellie, labmate extraordinaire (she just stocked up on fireworks for Sant Joan, so she's very well-informed when it comes to these things) and was able to wade through all my choices and select a few.  I also took the advice of the store lady (which I sort of regretted later, but c'est la vie) and ended up with a mixed multi-pack and another package of four mini "fountains" which spray light, well, like a fountain.

Before meeting up with Naaman and her flatmate Gaby, I took a break from my American Spirit Day and returned to SuperTourist mode.  This stop took me to the Texidor shop, a beautiful example of Moderniste architecture that has been preserved despite its new incarnation as an eyeglasses store.

 The Texidor shop was built by a Catalan architect, Manuel Joaquin Raspall.  The shop was built for the business Articles of Drawing and Painting, which was founded in 1874 but moved to this location a few generations later in 1909.  The shop was a work of art that sold art supplies, a testament to architectural prowess that supplied drawing materials to architects.

 The current owner, Arense Jurado, was convinced to preserve the beautiful Moderniste interior (I can't imagine destroying anything so beautiful, but it's a terribly common) by his father, a sentimental old man who loves Barcelona's history and art.  While it was wonderful to walk freely around the beautiful shop and take pictures as I pleased, I did get a lot of stares from the customers trying on sunglasses or waiting for eye check-up appointments.

 Just around the corner from the Texidor shop is a pedestrian street called Avinguda del Portal de l'Angel which is lined with numerous clothing shops but also a few cultural gems.  One of them is a bakery and sweet shop.  These two facets of the business occupy two separate spaces, side by side.  While the bakery side was filled, the half that I was interested in was conspicuously empty.

 I was here in search of turrones, a nougat made of honey, sugaar, and egg white with almonds or other nuts (almonds are the traditional nut to use).  The confection is shaped into rectangular blocks and served as a traditional sweet at Christmastime in Spain (apparently in Italy, too, and in slightly modified forms in Latin America and the Philippines).  I had feared that I wouldn't find any while I was here (Christmas in July is apparently not one of Barcelona's 32 public holidays), but I got a tip from a coworker that this place was great and open year-round.

 I bought two blocks, one of each major type.  Alicante has whole nuts incorporated into the nougat, while jijona involves finely ground nuts that are then incorporated into the mixture.  I'm going to try them tomorrow at work with my coworker Antonio.
My plan had included a stop at the Motorcycle Museum, which is home to 600 square meters of motorcycles.

 Barcelona is, after all, the city with the highest number of motorbikes per capita and is apparently famous for its love of two-wheeled, motorized transportation.  When I actually got to the museum, however, I realized that I had no desire to look at motorcycles.  Heck, I've never even ridden one (EMTs call motorcyclists "organ donors" for their low survival rate in crashes.  I think that I'd have to have a Lizzy McGuire Movie moment before I'd get on one.  For those of you who haven't seen this tween movie, this would involve me being mistaken for a famous movie star and living a charmed life in Rome where I am seduced by the current hot pop star in a very, very tame way).  For those of you who have a motorcycle appreciation, the collection includes around 190 specimens from every brand that produced motorcycles in Catalonia since 1904.

For some pictures form inside, check out this, this, and this (photos stolen from other websites).
And then, the Fourth of July celebration started in earnest.  Naaman, Gaby, and I made our way to the Betty Ford Bar (see this post for a view of the outside and some general overview).

 Despite the American decor on the walls depicting everything from surfers to movie icons, the American movie playing on a flatscreen, and the custom English phrase coasters

 the place had the feel of a Spanish Starbucks-like hangout.  There were people with Macs (this is big, as there are far fewer Macs here) lounging together in corners like American Starbucks-frequenting hipsters are wont to do.  People sat around having a beer the way people in the US meet for coffee.  I, for one, felt a bit out of place sitting down to order an official dinner.  Then again, bars here are sort of an all-around thing.  You can get your coffee, you can get your tapas, you can sit down for dinner, you can have a beer.  You watch your soccer games but also just meet up with some friends for a few hours.  So I guess it was fitting that we adapted one of these jack-of-all-trades little bars to our purposes.
And then came the most American sight of all:

 Ketchup and mustard!  The American couple of fast food, proudly united in all their colorful glory.  We took the menu, which included about 30 cocktails and 6 types of burgers (it is a bar, after all, even if we were just there for the food), and took the plunge.  Gaby and Naaman shared two burgers: one with guac and bacon, the other with the works, BBQ-wise.

 I got a burger with blue cheese and cranberry sauce.

 While it did feel a bit more American than my other meals, I was profoundly disappointed.  A smear of some blue cheese-flavored sauce and a slice of solid, canned cranberry sauce?  HUGE disappointment.  The meat and burger were also sort of average, even mediocre.  I know I'm spoiled by Prime 16 in New Haven, which I sort of consider Burger Mecca, but I'd hoped for a little bit more.
To finish the night off right, we made our way to Plaza Catalunya for our personal fireworks show.  Now, none of us have set of fireworks in Barcelona and we were uncertain of the laws governing such things.  I had asked everyone at work and the saleswoman at the Petar2 store, and all assured me that lighting fireworks in public was completely okay.  Plazas and the beach were preferable, since nothing was flammable.  Large fireworks needed to be shored up with rocks so they didn't fall over and shoot fire sideways, but the ones that I'd bought were fine.  With these assurances in mind, we set forth.
While the fireworks were small and burned out quickly, it was a nice gesture and a few of them were fun.

 We drew a lot of attention from the under-7 inhabitants of the square, who kept covering their ears in anticipation of the loud noise (I hadn't gotten noisy ones, so they were a bit confused) and trying to touch the fireworks after they were lit (we advised them against this.  Fire is fire, after all).

 But even better, we attracted a large group of American students who were visiting Barcelona and had felt rather America-deprived on this patriotic holiday.  They caught the tail end of our little show, and we all cheered together.

Me with my fireworks!

Gaby and Naaman behind the fireworks

Happy Fourth, everyone!

Spotted: a Harley festival in Barcelona this weekend!

What does a girl want more than some rip-roaring motorcycles to spice up her weekend?
Then again, let me take this moment to clear up your zipping-around-Barcelona/Europe-on-a-vespa/motorcycle fantasies.  Especially since my Lizzy McGuire Movie moment may have fanned the flames.
In the US, you hope that the motorcycle riders will be these hunky bad boys who will show you the wild side of life, right?  And what are they?  Mostly slightly overweight, hairy, sweaty older men.
In Spain, the demographic of motorcycle riders is similarly not limited to really attractive, scruffy bad boys with hot accents and wild lifestyles.  When you pull of someone's helmet around here, you're just as likely to be looking at a woman (unlike in the US, where the proportion of female riders is fairly small).  And that bad boy image?  Vespa riders are more likely to be on their way to work at a bank, a cafe, or some other reputable, tame occupation.  But it's going to be okay, because that means that you can rent a vespa (most places minimally check your past experience) and take yourself on your own adventure.  That's right, self-empowered tourist.  Take yourself on your own adventure.