An acquaintance of mine from Toronto, Blake Field, now lives in Barcelona and I made sure I had his contact information before I left. Yesterday was too crazy, with Sonja’s sleeping in, picking up the bikes and looking for a place to stay, but today we are more in control of our schedule. I call him at work and arrange to meet him at Café Zurich at 8:30 this evening. Then Mike and I go about breakfast and our morning chores.
Llorenc is still in the shower when I call at 2. He says he will meet us at 3 at Café Zurich as well – popular place, that café – but it is more like 3:20 before he arrives. He is looking flushed and exuberant as he greets us. He leads us to Gran Via and beyond where some of Antoni Gaudi’s architectural wonders could be found. I had only heard vague mention of Gaudi before and I had no idea of the scope of his work. What an eye-opener! 
First we see Casa Vicens and then the more famous apartment building Casa Batilo with its wavy walls, its ginger bread Mansard like roof fronts, crazy stairwells and animated, mushroom-like
chimneys on the roof. Walt Disney must have used Gaudi as an inspiration at some point. His ironworks are wild too, sometimes thickly ornate and at other places swirling scrawls of iron strips 
that are definitely not functional. No doubt his buildings were not cheap. Though we did not have time to get to his famous Guell Park, but we did make it to his greatest and still unfinished Sagrada Familia.Sagrada Familia is a cathedral that was begun 108 years ago in 1883. After all this time it is still only 20%
finished. The eight perimeter towers are finished for the most 
part, but the centre towers which will be much higher, have not even been started. Still, we could see the towers from quite a distance above all other buildings in the area. When it is finished it will be 50% higher than St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, though smaller in volume. 
The cathedral was Gaudi’s life-long obsession. He lived on site until his death at age 74, when he was reportedly backing up across the street to have a better look at it and was run over by a streetcar. The stairs to the top of the towers are steep and almost endless. 
There are slits that act as air vents that are large enough to slide out of it one wanted to and the walkways between the towers have low walls that got my knees shaking. Gaudi definitely didn’t care if people fell out of his buildings.
Mike leaves us to explore the cathedral on his own. I stay with Llorenc and pay his admission as he has seen the building a thousand times showing visitors around. He says it’s just another church but I firmly disagree. Llorenc has no fear of heights, unlike me. I marvel at his coolness and am enthralled by his sparkly blue eyes. He is so self-effacing too. As we reach the top I have the strongest urge to kiss him, but he doesn’t seem to register either avoidance or acceptance my subtle advances, in spite of his friendliness at the bathhouse yesterday. I content myself with a picture of him instead, and he takes one of me. 
We meet Mike at the base and browse through the museum. Then Llorenc takes us up the Ave de Gaudi to a hospital designed by one of Gaudi’s contemporaries. We finish up at a café on the Rambla, the famous pedestrian way in the centre of the city, for coffee and some traditional Catalan desserts. A handsome fellow at the table behind me is shifting his chair and his hand keeps brushing my ass. He’s trying to pickpocket you, Llorenc explains. Don’t tell him I’m wearing a money belt, I whisper, as his hand keeps trying to find my non-existent wallet. 
After we hug our goodbyes with Llorenc, we ramble up the Ramble to Café Zurich to meet Blake. I make a bet with Mike that he will be late, but I lose. He has been there fifteen minutes when we arrive. He spots me first. I hardly recognized his as he has aged a lot since he was a 22 year old glamour boy model. That was almost three years ago. Blake was a friend of a friend, one of those handsome, untouchable Torontonian gay men with an attitude that prevents anyone from getting close, but here we are Canadians far from home and for the first time he gives us his full attention. He seems so changed, so relaxed and comfortable in his new life. He is glad to meet up with people from “home” but insists he’s never going back. “Never another snowflake,” he declares.
He takes us to a local restaurant. I order baked rabbit in garlic, which turns out to be garlic oil. It is too greasy to finish. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself. In a week I’ll be eating French cuisine.
I agree with Blake that Barcelona is the nicest city we have visited on the trip so far, though several places have been charming. It has its expansive ancient Gothic section, the beautiful Rambla, a wealth of ancient and semi-modern architecture and a handsomely-designed street grid, easy intersection being diamond-shaped. It’s easy to find my way around and there is so much to see.
Mike is in agreement too, and tells us Barcelona is the true capital of Spain. I haven’t seen Madrid, but I suspect Barcelona would be happier being the capital of an independent Catalonia. Blake says that next year’s Olympic Games here is one way of bringing world attention to the fact that they speak Catalan here first, not Spanish, and as a first step to promote independence from Spain. He doubts the Olympics will bring that but it will bring in enough federal money to relocate the railway corridor inland. At the moment, it severs the city from its beach, a real curse for a Mediterranean city with so many other interesting features.
After dinner we say our goodbyes to Blake. He is moving into a new house this week so he won’t have time to meet with us again. “It’s nice to meet someone whose head is screwed on right,” Mike comments to me. We are both a little envious of his life here as he has described it to us. It’s been a wonderful and very full day. We head back to the hostel.
PHOTO 1: Casa Vincens
PHOTO 2: Casa Batilia
PHOTO 3: Gaudi ironwork at Guell Park
PHOTO 4: more crazy ironworks
PHOTO 5: Llorenc
PHOTO 6: Sagrada Familia
PHOTO 7: two spires of the Sagrada Familia
PHOTO 8: Jesus been ignored by bystander
PHOTO 9: inside the entrance
PHOTO 10: Jesus above the door
PHOTO 11: details of decorations at entrance
PHOTO 12: hollow facade from inside
PHOTO 13: me, taken by Llorenc
PHOTO 14: Llorenc, taken by me
PHOTO 15: front of the Sagrada Familia
PHOTO 16: Sagrada Familia as it should look when finished
PHOTO 17: Hospital designed by one of Gaudi's contemporaries
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