juanzqui

May 5, 2010 Geneva
From the very beginning, one of my main concerns about this trip was security. I had read too many warning signs, in guidebooks and newspaper articles, about bands of gypsies and hoodlums crowding around you, then dispersing and leaving you without your wallet, watch and other prized personal possessions.
So, throughout, I was extra careful, constantly checking for my wallet’s and cellphone’s presence, in my front pocket, and always in the lookout for would-be depriver of all that is dear to me.
It is ironic, then, that on my next to last leg of my journey, in what conceivably is the safest city in the world, I lost my ring.
Nobody took it; only my carelessness is responsible. I’m pretty sure it slipped out as I dried my hands in one of my trips to the bathroom. It was fitting a bit tight on my ring finger, so I switched it to my little finger where it was, off course, it was too loose. I should have put it in my pocket instead, but I foolishly didn’t.
And now my ring is gone, that beautiful silver ring with a tiny green stone I bought in San Miguel several years ago, at a neat little shop owned by a friend of a friend.
I hope a good person finds it and I hope that he gets as much enjoyment from that ring as I did. I can’t mourn over its disappearance. It was a thing and things are not meant to be mourned.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011 | Neyruz, Switzerland

IT RAINED MOST of the morning yesterday and so the bits of sight-seeing allowed a view of the Swiss countryside through a misty prism as we drove from place to place along narrow country roads. The clouds hung low over the hills, some so low that at times it appeared as if the woody hills were on fire and it was smoke rising from the trees, not wispy clouds dragging their extremities beneath and behind them.

Our first stop was a stained glass museum and workshop, the Musee Suisse du Vitrail, in the town of Romont that surrounds an old fort, or castle, on top of a hill. The museum is in the old fortress, which has been nicely restored, its thick stone walls and sturdy wooden beams acting as a quiet backdrops for the art work. While it had a number of ancient windows, the highlight was a collection of windows by the British architectural artist Brian Clarke, who has installed his work around the world. His windows are a mixture of the old with the new, combining bold geometrical shapes of alternating colors with free-flowing shapes that give the windows a sense of movement.

But there were other windows that simply incorporated photographs. One featured Paul McCartney and, displayed on an elevated enclosed walkway connecting two exhibition areas, was a series of windows featuring men in brief swimsuits. Alls, b

eautiful, beautiful work.

The next stop was the Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu, not far from Lamont. We got to the church just as the nuns, in their white habits and black veils, were finishing one of their daily prayer sessions, and the ritual at the end where, as the other nuns sang a chant, one of them walked to the middle of the church where a rope hung from above, falling through a hole in the roof. She pulled on the road with a couple of strong tugs and suddenly the bell in the tower gave out a loud clang, then another. Then, instead of just continuing to pull on that rope in one steady rhythm, she began to alternate the rhythm, much like a percussionist, and the bell responding accordingly. It was music, not only for the ears, but for the heart and the soul. Then, suddenly she stopped pulling on the rope and the other nuns stopped singing, and the abbey became a vault of silence as, one, by one, they all walked out, leaving Isabelle and me standing there, gaping in awe.

We recovered soon enough and began to gape anew, this time at the windows, all done by Clarke during a recent renovation. The windows were very similar to the ones in the museum, but the sense of movement, of the spirit rising, is much more pronounced in each.

I took some pictures, which didn’t come close to capturing the glory and magnificence of the sacred art of those windows.

When we walked outside we were greeted by a Siamese cat in its white furry vestment and black head, looking very much like a nun on four feet.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 | Neyruz, Switzerland

I WENT TO church again this morning, with Isabelle and Jean-Maurice. I had suggested to Isabelle when I arrived that it might be a good idea to honor our dead friend, Rogelio Reyes Cannady, by attending a mass together, so she got on the internet and found a nearby church that offered daily masses.

It was a beautiful old church constructed of what appeared to be limestone. Nice, restrained architecture and great lighting that made it appear as if the church was flooded with brilliant sunshine, even though it was raining.

It was a good mass, and even though my French is not that great, I was able to rely on my knowledge of the Catholic ritual, my Spanish and the Latin I remembered from when the liturgy was all in Latin, when I was growing up in the pre-Vatican II days to follow along. Except for the brief sermon; I was totally lost there. I was even able to join in on some of the hymns.

It was an emotional experience and throughout the service I kept picturing Rogelio smiling, pleased that two of his favorite people and closest friends, and Jean-Maurice, whom he never met but was fond of nonetheless, were sharing this special time together. With him.

However, there was also a sense of disappointed because I didn’t feel any real emotional intensity. I was touched and I was moved, but I wasn’t shaken. It was not the cathartic moment I had hoped it might be. Except for those few minutes around 6 p.m. in May 19, the day he was executed, when I let the tears flow in the privacy of my home, I had felt little emotion about Rogelio’s death, other than an unsettling sense of guilt over not having been able to be with him on his final day on earth.

Maybe I thought this mass would purge me of this emotional baggage regarding Rogelio, and that was probably an unfair and unrealistic expectation. It was asking something of a ritual that I should be able to provide on my own.

Despite that, it was a special hour nonetheless. Being there with Isabelle and Jean-Maurice, listening to that sacred music did wonders. And after the mass, when the priest led the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament service, I felt I had come close to accomplishing my mission.

In particular, it was when the priest led the final hymn, a Gregorian chant written by Thomas Aquinas, Tantum Ergo.

It had been years since I had heard that haunting chant, which had always been among my favorites. I don’t think I ever learned the English translation of the hymn (and I’m sorry I looked them up now because they in now way hold the magic that the Latin does), but, as a kid, I always thought that the first line of each of its two stanzas had a special beauty.

The first is, “Tantum ergo Sacramentum.”

The second is, “Genitori, Genitoque.”

The last two words, in particular, always sent my heart soaring. And they did so again this morning.

May 3, 2011 | Neyruz, Switzerland

TONIGHT WE HAD raclet for dinner. Raclet is a firm, buttery Swiss cheese. The way my friends eat it is melted, using a heating contraption that melts the top portion of the cheese round half. When there is enough melted cheese for a portion, the head of the family removes the cheese round from under the heat and, with a knife, slides the melted cheese onto his own plate and places the cheese back under the heater. According to Jean-Maurice, it is the host’s duty to determine if the melted raclet is good enough to serve to the rest of his family and/or guests. When there is more melted cheese, he serves the next person, and then the next, so that at no one time are all people around the table enjoying the delicious cheese. The melting and the servings continue until everyone says, “no more,” or until there is no more cheese.

The melted cheese, over which black pepper is sprinkled, is eaten with boiled potatoes and small pickles, and with white wine. And good conversation is essential.

Neyruz, Switzerland | Monday, May 2, 2011

I’M SITTING OUTSIDE, on my friends’ patio, looking west toward the setting sun and a lovely green meadow. A small woods, or forest, as my friends call it, is about a quarter of a mile away. It is part of the town’s park. Jean-Maurice and I took the dog for a walk there this morning. El Nino. That’s what the beagle is called. The house is on the edge if a tiny town, a suburb of Fribourg. You can’t see them from the house, but from the edge of the woods, if you stand at the right place, you can see the Alps, far on the horizon. I don’t remember having seen them on my previous two visits here, but it may have been cloudy or foggy. This is the first time I’ve been here in the spring. The other times I was here in late October and early November. The first time I visited here was on my way to Milan, Florence and Venice. The second time was after a visit to Paris.

We had lunch on the patio, a wonderful meal prepared by Jean-Maurice and Isabelle. He grilled some steaks outside and she made the pasta, the salad and grilled the vegetable. The bread came from the local bakery and the wine came from Jean-Maurice’s wine cellar, of which he is very and rightfully proud. And the wines came from his beloved Valais region, south of here – a wide fertile valley created millions of years ago by the Rhone River, which begins not too far from there, as it meandered through the Alps on its way to the Mediterranean.

The Delezes have a small chalet on the mountainside way above the valley. Jean-Maurice was born in that area, before it became a ski resort.  I’ve been there both times I’ve visited them and I’m always amazed by just how massive and high the Alps are. Standing on their terrace, you can look down over the valley and you often see small airplanes flying over the Valais, and it is always a bit disconcerting to note that the planes are flying below you!

I HAVE KNOWN Isabelle and Jean-Maurice for about 10 years. I first met Isabelle by mail when I was working in San Marcos for a magazine there but also writing a monthly column for USA TODAY. One column, about growing up Mexican in the U.S. caught the attention of Rogelio Reyes Cannady, who was awaiting execution on Texas’s death row.

(Jean-Maurice just brought me some nice white wine and a plateful of breadsticks, chips and peanuts and other nuts. And here comes Isabelle with the Spanish olives. Friends are good to have, don’t you think?)

Isabelle and Rogelio had been corresponding for several months. They got to know each other through LifeSpark, a European organization that pairs Europeans with death row inmates in the United States. Rogelio sent the column to Isabelle and mentioned that he liked it and that he was interested in learning more about the subject. Isabelle promised to try to find some books for him. She tracked me down and asked if I could recommend some books for Rogelio. She didn’t say so in her letter, but I go the distinct impression that she would be very pleased if I came into contact with Rogelio. And after my recent conversations with Isabelle, I wouldn’t doubt if he specifically asked her to write to me.

I didn’t. Even though I was strongly against the death penalty, and remain so, I really wasn’t interested in getting involved with a death row inmate, so I simply wrote down a list of books and sent them to Isabelle, hoping it would be the last I’d here from her. It was – for a while. Soon after I moved to Washington, I received another letter from her, and this time she didn’t beat around the bush. She really wanted me to become friends with Rogelio, or to at least correspond with him. I resisted it but after thinking about it for a long time, I couldn’t come up with any valid reasons for not at least writing to him once. He wrote back, and so began an almost-10-year relationship that ended about a year ago (May 19) when Texas executed him.

As the letters between Rogelio and me increased in frequency, Isabelle and I also started corresponding. At first it was by regular mail and eventually primarily via email. And we became friends. Very good friends. I quickly became enamored of her generous heart, her passion for service to those behind bars and other outsiders in this game called life, her taste in music and literature and her enormous appetite for adventure, for exploring the new.

Eventually I decided I had to know her in person, so I arranged a side trip here when I was planning my Italian trip, and that’s when I first met Jean-Maurice, who is now retired from the Swiss foreign economic development service, and their two sons, Jean-Baptiste, and Antoine. I saw her in Houston a couple of times, when she went to visit Rogelio in Livingston, about 90 miles north of Houston.

Isabelle is also a most excellent and creative quilter. Her work is amazingly beautiful. A number of years ago I wrote to her during one of my visits to Texas and described a meal by one of my sisters, which included nopalitos (cactus leaves). Within weeks I received in the mail a small quilted square depicting nopales and using some of the words I had used in my letter. And then Isabelle sent something similar to Delfina, my sister. And that was the start of another friendship. Fina wrote to thank Isabelle and Isabelle wrote back and they have been writing to each other ever since. A couple of years ago, during one of Isabelle’s visit to Houston, I drove Isabelle to Crystal City so she could finally meet Fina and my other sisters. It was a lovefest.

So, in many ways, Isabelle and Jean-Maurice are family, and each visit to their home is increasingly special.

I GOT HERE about 7:45 this morning after an overnight journey by train, a new adventure for me. I’ve ridden trains before, but this was the first time that I’ve ever paid to travel in grand style, along with a private sleeping birth, a shower, a full dinner and breakfast in the dining car, etc. We left Barcelona around 7:40 last night. My initial itinerary called for me to get off in Geneva and then take a local train to Fribourg, but when I got on the train, I discovered that the train, with Zurich as its final destination, would actually stop in Fribourg, so I asked a conductor if I could stay on and get off here and he said no problem.

The dinner wasn’t that great. In fact, it was disappointing. The waiter got both my appetizer and dessert wrong, and I made the mistake of ordering stuffed peppers, which turned out to be bland, bland, bland. I was so covetous of the roasted chicken most of the other diners had ordered.

By the time I got back to my cabin, it was about 10:30 and I was tired. I tried to read but soon gave up and went to sleep. I was afraid that I might have problems sleeping on the train, but I slept soundly. I woke up several times when the train stopped, but for the most part, I slept. The best part was that when I got up to go to breakfast, I had no lower-back pain and stiffness, which had been bothering me from the beginning of this trip. I have to sleep on my side otherwise my back will bother me. Unfortunately, most of the hotel beds are very soft and make sleeping on my side difficult, so inevitably I end up sleeping on my back, and I suffer for it in the morning. The pain and stiffness are gone soon after I wake but, but while they are present, they can be, well, a pain.

Riding the train like that was a strange experience. I kept remembering scenes from movies that featured train rides. In particular, the movie “Julia,” with Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda kept popping into my head. I half kept expecting Nazis or other equally evil characters to emerge from dark cabins.

Sunday, May 1, 2011. Barcelona

SEE WHAT I mean about this city?

Hungry for something — anything — to eat after wondering around all morning, I finally saw an outdoor restaurant with an available table. So I took it, only to find out it is a Mexican restaurant (La Cantinita: that should have told me something!) not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you, but you hardly travel halfway around the world to eat the food you grew up with. I ordered a beer and loked at the menu. I settled tacos de pastor but I wasn’t sure I’d have enough euros to pay for the tab, especially if I ordered a second beer, as I planned to. An order of four tacos was almost 11 euros. I wasn’t sure how much the beer would cost so I opted to order two tacos. When the waitress came, however, she informed me that the tacos were the special of the day and were only a dollar each. So I ordered three. Should have gone for four. They are delicious.
But my hunger was satisfied, so three was plenty. They’ll hold me until dinner in the train tonight, which us included in the ticket. As is the bed in a private berth, the shower and breakfast.
I had been regretting that u would be traveling at night and would therefore not get to see any if the Spanish and French countryside, but it gets dark so late here that I’m sure I’ll get to see the Spanish countryside. And I hope to see at least some of the Pyrenees.

I WENT TO church today. Two of them. This being Sunday, most if the churches that are closed during the week are open, so I sat in on parts if two masses, both to take in the magic of Catholic rituals and to look at the beauty of the church interiors. It felt good, especially when I walked in the first church and the organ was playing a hymn I recognized from my childhood (O Jesús o buen pastor, dueño de mi vida …)
One of the things that struck me about both masses was how few people were in attendance, and how old they were. The only people under 50 seemed to be tourists, or dark-skinned immigrants. Granted, the masses I attended were one of several at the churches, so it could be that the earlier massed drew crowds, but I kind of doubt it. My hunch us that the Spanish church is facing the same problem as the church elsewhere in Europe; it is becoming irrelevant in the younger generations’ lives.
What moved me about the second church, which was in Spanish the first was in Catalan), was the priest. As ancient as the one at the first church, he had a magnificent singing voice, however, and listening to him was pure joy. The voice showed the strains of old age but it was beautiful and soothing nonetheless.

Sunday, May 1, 2011 | Barcelona

MY LAST DAY in Barcelona. My last day in Spain. A bit after 7:30 tonight, I’ll get on a high-speed train that will take me to Geneva, arriving around 6:30. From there I’ll take a local train to Friburg, where my friends live. I’ll spend three and a half days with them then hop on a plane to London, where I’ll spend the night at the home of some longtime friends then, finally, fly home Friday evening.

I’m going to miss Barcelona. It’s a wonderful place. I haven’t seen a tenth of what I probably should have seen, and I likely haven’t seen a thousandths of the city, which means I have not seen its grittier, poorer side. I read yesterday that Spain has an unemployment rate of more than 21 percent. That sounds incredible, and judging by all the people shopping furiously yesterday, it doesn’t make sense.

But I guess, Spain, like the United States and other countries, is really two separate countries. One where there live those who are paying the cost of their leaders’ bad economic decisions, and one where those who are not affected by economic downturns live. They do a good job of keeping them separate here; I’ve only seen a handful of street people, beggers, during my stay, and waiters and shopkeepers have become pretty good at shooing them away quietly, lest they bother our sensibilities.

BARCELONA IS ALSO interesting in that there is another language spoken here, in addition to Spanish. In fact, most official signage are in Catalonian. On my way here I read a letter to the editor in a Barcelona paper by a Madrid resident, complaining that she couldn’t get anybody to speak Spanish to her whenever she visited, so I was a bit concerned that I might have problems.

I needn’t have worried. Every person I spoke to here was willing to speak in Spanish to me. And, in fact, more than anywhere else in Spain, there was a tendency to want to speak to me in English. It’s a strange and pretty language and if you listen closely to it, you can make out what is being said. That is, if you know Spanish. I haven’t studied it that closely, but it seems to me as if it’s a crossbreed between French and Spanish.

I DIDN’T DO any touristy things yesterday, unless you consider shopping touristy. I guess I should say I didn’t do any sightseeing, although without even trying, I ran into another Gaudi building and gawked at that for a while.

I had a great dinner, though. It was the first really nice, relatively pricey meal I’ve had on this trip – and it was a restaurant, called Bar Marfil, with an Asian, not Spanish influence. I picked it purely by accident. I was hungry and tired and this place’s outdoor area looked enticing, so I sat down without even looking at the menu. I’m glad I did. The food was great. For an appetizer I had some scallops, the most-tender, juiciest scallops I have ever had, in some sort of Japanese sauce. My main course was chicken with green curry sauce (I must learn to make green curry sauce!). The wine was a Spanish red, Disco, by Ribera del Duero. Smooth. And for dessert I opted for flan with ice cream. I forget what flavor ice cream, but it was some Asian fruit. The flan came under a small tent made from a palm leaf of some sort, and I can see why: that thing was so light (and delicious) that they were probably afraid it would float away!

IN ADDITION TO the ties and other stuff I bought yesterday, I also bought two pieces of art (I always try to buy some inexpensive art object on every trip): a print by an English artist who lives near here, and a small acrylic painting by a Haitian street artist. The painting was so new that I had to wait for some of the paint to dry before I could take it with me. I love them both and I can’t wait to get them up on my walls. I just hope I can get them there without damaging either of them.

SO THAT’S PRETTY much it for Barcelona. I don’t know what I’ll do today. I have to check out of the hotel at noon, so I can’t wander off too far. I want to be able to come back here and freshen up a bit before checking out. I’ll think I’ll just do what I enjoy best: roam around and see what new surprises await me.

April 30, 2011. Barcelona

AND ON THE twelfth day, he shopped. After 11 days playing tourist in Spain, I decided I wanted to play shopper instead.
I had one aim at the beginning of the day, and that was to buy the perfect tie. I have this obsession about buying at least one exquisite tie whenever I travel to Europe. It started when I stumbled into a great tie store in Florence a number of years ago. I left with two ties, both brown and black. I still have one of them; the other I gave to a nephew after I made him promise he would appreciate it’s simple beauty and take care of it forever.
I haven’t been as successful in buying beautiful ties abroad since. When I went to Paris, I searched high and low and was unable to find a good tie. I figured out I was just in the wrong parts of town. I was beginning to fear that might be the case here, for I looked everywhere, including some of the most expensive stores in Granada and here, to no avail. And I was nearing the end of the day here (most stores close on Sundays) and I had yet to find the perfect tie.
Here’s my criteria for a perfect tie. It has to whisper elegance and grace. It must not shout, scream or even speak loudly. Like a good child, it cannot draw attention to itself. But once someone’s eye falls on the tie, he will tell himself, “Oh my!” He will move his eyes away from the tie but they will come back and again he will think, “Oh my!”
A perfect tie will say, “I am not, never have been and never will be considered for wearing by Donald Trump, Regis or David Letterman. Clark Clifford may have worn me and James Franco might, but not Tom Cruise.”
A power tie can never be a perfect tie. A power tie is, consciously or unconsciously, an egotistical person’s attempt to assert his manliness. Think about it: what is the first thing you see when you meet a person wearing a power tie? A bright yellow arrow. And where is that arrow pointing? You got it.
Men who are sure of their masculinity feel no need to draw attention to that area of their anatomy.
The funny thing is that I happen to think that ties are stupid. I know many men who feel the same way and never wear one unless they absolutely have to, and then only reluctantly. At work the policy is that we don’t have to wear a tie unless we are meeting someone outside the organization, so I usually don’t wear one, except when I am wearing a shirt that doesn’t look good without a tie. A Houston Post colleague wore the same tie every day and as soon as he got out of work, he’d roll it up and throw it in his glove compartment. I admire guys like that.
Back to the power ties: as far as I’m concerned, all those yellow, pink, light blue, light green and other pastel-colored ties should be rounded up and burned, and they should be banned by a constitutional amendment, or a commandment. Either will do.
I realize that by writing this those people who work with me will from now on look at every tie I wear and judge it, and very likely they will laugh at my choice of ties, and say to themselves, “What a fool we have in Juanski!” But that’s something people have been saying ever since I started writing.
SO, BACK TO shopping. I devoted this entire day to looking for the perfect tie. I went up and down the main shopping district streets, poking my head into every men’s clothing store I walked by. I didn’t find anything close to what I was looking for. The couple of ties that came close to having 75 percent of what I wanted were way too expensive.
But guess what?
I bought other stuff. Here’s a few of the items that I can remember:
A pencil sharpener
A wind-up lantern. Needs no batteries.
Some stick-em labels
Five fine-point black pens
Another pen
Colored pencils
Two notebooks
Two sketch pads
A paper fan
A shopping bag.
That’s right: I paid for a shopping bag. It’s a black fold-up (and stylish, of course) job made from some synthetic fiber and it folds up neatly so that I can put it in my backpack so that when I stop at the grocery store on the way home, I won’t have to pay the nickle-per-bag tax.
See? There’s a reason for everything I bought (except for the stick-ems; I can’t remember the last time I used one!). But you have to understand: everything I bought is cool. Stylish. Necessary. They were all in a Japanese store called Muji, which is sort of like The Container Store, except it has cool, stylish things (even clothes).
When I started on this trip I swore I would not give in to the allure of brand new sketchbooks because I must have at least 20 lying around the house, and only a few have more than a few pages with anything resembling art. But once I was in that store, all resolve remained outside.
So, yes, none of the items I bought were necessary. But each was essential in it’s own way.
OK. TIME TO move on. Stopped for a glass of wine on my way back to the hotel but now I’ve had two, and if I stay any longer, I will likely have another. So I’ll finish this later.
But I will tell you that I did find a tie, late in the day. Two of them, at an Adolfo Domínguez store. And they weren’t even expensive. I’m not sure they are the perfect ties, but they come close. I harbored some doubts about them at the store, but when I got back to the hotel, i took them out to inspect them. And they are nice. I am happy. Mission accomplished.

April 29, 2011, Barcelona

ENJOYING A SECOND beer at an outdoor cafe. My first beer was accompanied by a jamón sandwich, which has become my favorite food in this country. That and paella, although paella is a distant second. This place is in the Dreta De part of the city, an upscale area filled with expensive shops, office buildings and apartment buildings. Sort of what Houston’s Galleria area would be if the Galleria had any character. Or pedestrian traffic. The wide tree-lined streets remind me of Paris.
The weather is perfect although it looked a bit iffy this morning. Rain.
I didn’t do much today except into a new hotel (I only had enough Starwood Hotel points for two nights at the glorious Le Meridien) and walk over to see Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia. I won’t even attempt to describe it for you. I’ll just echo the words of a tour guide to his group, “Its incredible with a capital I.”
Sitting here, I noticed that I’m half a block away from. Another Gaudí masterpiece, the Casa Milà, also known as La Pedrera (the rock quarry), so I’ll go see it when I finish my beer and head back to the hotel for a rest.
Because I had to check out of the first hotel around noon, I couldn’t go very far, so I just moved around along the side streets of La Rambla, the main tourist drag. When it started raining, I picked up a sandwich (jamón, of course) and headed back to the hotel to watch the wedding. Yeah, that one. It was not bad. Too many damn hymns. Too many prayers and readings and sermons. The royals did OK, but I was disappointed that not a single one of them took out a cell phone to take a picture. The hats were a hoot. The bride was beautiful but not stunningly so. Her dress was OK andI’m glad she didn’t try to compete with Diana’s gaudy circus tent of a dress. Her hair and veil didn’t do her any favors. Loved Anderson Cooper for insisting that some of the royals were riding on a bus to the big church after one of the CNN Brits proclaimed haughtily that they weren’t buses but rather, “motor coaches.”
I LOVE BARCELONA. After Granada, it’s my favorite Spanish city so far. Unfortunately, it’s overrun by tourists. They’re everywhere, damn them.
The old sections of the city are much more intriguing, with a lot more opportunities for good photos than any of the other places I’ve visited in Spain. If I don’t leave here with some very good photos, I’ll have no one but myself to blame. The Boqueria food market, which my guidebook tells me is Europe’s largest, is a feast for all the senses. And La Sagrada Familia is the most beautiful church anywhere, even in its unfinished state. I almost talked myself out of standing in line to buy a ticket to go in. What a mistake that would have been. I won’t even attempt to describe what I saw or felt in there because I couldn’t do it justice. I just don’t have the words to describe the experience. It’s that good.
There’s a lot to see here and I’ve only seen a tiny bit. Fortunately I have two more full days to explore.

Barcelona, April 28, 2011
After an uneventful and pleasant shirt flight from Granada, we arrived at the Barcelona airport around 11. At the baggage claim area, there is mass confusion among members of a group of old people who are traveling together. None of them, apparently bothered to look at the screen that clearly said our bags would come up on carousel No. 7 and they were all walking around like lost lambs trying to figure it out — even though the rest if us were all gathered around No. 7. I tried to convince a couple of them that 7 was the right one and they seemed satisfied. But immediately one woman announced that she could see bags on No. 4 so therefore that must be the right one. And away they all went to wait for their bags at No. 4.
The rest if us, of course, stayed put and after a while, something must have convinced the lost group that they were at the wrong carousel because they all came back, grumbling about the woman who had led them astray. She tried to defend herself but no one would listen. Finally, she said, nearly in tears, “Alright. I made a mistake. Has no one ever made a mistake?”
That seemed to mollify the others. And besides, the bags were beginning to come up the chute.
I got my bag and headed to the cab stand. There was a line if cabs outside so I didn’t have to wait at all. I told the driver my hotel and he started laughing.
Oh god, I thought, he’s probably going to tell me that my hotel no longer exists, or something equally bad. Instead he tells me that his dispatcher had just told him that the street the hotel is one had been closed because if the celebration over Barcelona’s revenge victory over Madrid in a game that had just ended. He said he’d take me as close as he could and I’d have to walk the rest if the way.
And that’s what he did. He dropped me off at the police barricade and pointed in the direction if the hotel. I start walking towards where he pointed and within minutes I am in the middle if a huge boisterous crowd, a number if them were lighting and tossing around huge firecrackers that sounded like bombs.
I could see hotels all around me but nowhere could I find Le Meridien, so I start asking the revelers and none if them knew. I asked a fireman and he said he recognized the name but he wasn’t sure. I walk down the street a while and I start asking some of the few older adults mulling around, and they didn’t know. I got the Spanish National Response to Requests for Directions: walk a little that way then ask somebody. Finally, I get to another hotel and ask the doorman. Ge points across the street. I go there and sure enough there is a hotel there, but I can’t see any name. I walk in to the Libby and ask a bellhop and he points behind me, across the other street.
I turn around and there is the beautiful Hotel Meridien Barcelona. It is waiting with open arms. I am greeted warmly and promptly assigned to a room.
And oh, what a room it is! The most modern and comfortable and chic room I have ever slept in. It is luxurious. The bed feels as if nobody else has ever slept in it. The sheets feel new also, or freshly ironed. I was so hot and tired from the trip and the walking that I quickly turned on the shower and it was as if the skies had opened up and all the rain that has not fallen in Texas the past year were now falling on my body and nowhere else.
And the best part is that it’s all free, thanks to the Starwood Hotels rewards program.
I can tell you now I am going to be very happy here. Too bad I only had enough points to stay here two of my four nights in Barcelona.