Monalia's World

1) My new writing spot 2) I have taught our dogs to do this pose anywhere, anytime… so why not on our new beach?

I have been staying here in Barceloneta for almost a week now – we came out a couple days before Easter and although Mark had to go “home” to Gracia to take care of some business, I have been here all week and with luck Mark will rejoin us later this evening. We bought a traditional chocolate cake in the form of a house and shoe and 3 days later we are still munching on it:

1) Hard to choose which one. 2) We ended up with chocolate shoe house with 2 dogs and easter chickies

Easter here in Barcelona begins a few days before Palm Sunday. Before I write in the present tense of where I am now, sitting in my writing spot on the beach I will share a few images of palm leaf products for sale for Palm Sunday:

I love these delicate icons, hand made from palm leaves and very traditional. I bought one for good luck.

More Palm Sunday products,

candy, candy, more candy… plus a Catalan vendor of palm leaf products

Okay, I’m free to blog about where I am, here and now. I can actually hear the ocean surf from my spot, and view sailboats, windsurfers, ocean liners as well as people who walk by my little slice of beach, not to mention the seagulls. The aural landscape is fantastic, soothing, takes me back to my days of living on the beach in Malibu. The fresh ocean fragrance is also envigorating.

1) This is Mark’s “work station” on his side of the house. 2) Mark enjoying a few moments basking in the glow of “my” spot before heading back to Gracia Partners In Rhyme headquarters to do more thorough work than is possible from his laptop in the sun

It’s fun getting to know Barcelona from yet another point of view. With my bicing card I can grab a bike at any nearby station and pedal with Quixote alongside to wherever I want. Sometimes I’ll check the bike in at a station at a beach too far to easily walk to, then I’ll throw sticks on the beach for my dog, and then check out another bike to ride home to our piso attico in Barceloneta. The 6 flights of stairs to our funky attic are getting easier to scale by the day.Once our remodelling begins I/we will be forced to stay in Gracia again, so we’re trying to get the maximum enjoyment before the reformas begin.

some photos from riding bikes around my new neighborhood and nearby beaches with my dog Quixôte.

1) View of our beach from below Hotel W – you can even see the ugly building that blocks our view. 2) View of our beach from beach below the Geary fish sculpture

One of my favorite easy bike ride destinations is the Hotel W, which I find imminently photogenic and intriguing from all angles.

1) Shot from below and close up 2) Neon lit view from our beach at night

Hotel W on a cloudy day; I love how the clouds reflect off the building.

In my new capacity as Barceloneta tour guide I like to take my Catalan friends to see the Hotel W up close, because its a different experience than one imagines.

Jordi and Sol were our first visitors from Gracia. We walked to Hotel W, where I posed them in front of the skull graffiti on the hotel breakwaters.

Yesterday I rode my bike through a nearby park and came upon what appeared to be a graffiti overpass of some sort. I rode to the top, optimistic that it might be a short-cut to the zoo or to CIutadella Park, but instead it ends abruptly – how very bizarre! The cool thing is that it is an aural vortex, and it seems like all sounds converge there. I could hear a live circus band, a boat bellow and what sounded like zoo noises, all the sounds separated as if on different audio channels. Surprisingly I could not hear the cars whizzing by on the street below me. I will go back with my NAGRA audio recorder in the future … what a weird find.

Graffiti bridge… to nowhere!

This morning was overcast, balmy, breezy with big waves. I took the dogs down for their early morning walk and although my iPhone camera reduces the surfers to mini pixel size, there are actually scores of surfers out there..

Surf’s up!

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Eating lunch in my spot, while the dogs hang out in the adjoining room instead of their respective comfy spots. I think they’re bored and confused because Mark hasn’t been here in 2 nights, though he’s on his way here now. I think this spot might be destiny for me – its really nice to write in, and yet keep track if the day picks up etc. I have a feeling the more I stay here the more my forays into the environs will be longer with bicing, and the more I huff home up the steps afterwards the more appealing it is to not leave again and just stay in and write etc…

Lunch for 1 in my spot plus 2 dogs lurking in my room (off to the side).

I finish today’s blog with two Happy Easter photos; one of Mark in his room camping out on an air mattress with the dogs, the other of a nice sand sculpture taken on Easter Sunday:

1) Love in the Ruins. 2) Happy Easter! (Feliz Pascua)

The following photo of my dog, Quixôte posed on a sculpture in front of the new Hotel W in Barceloneta says it all, as to the latest turn of events in my life: Living in a state of Bliss

We recently bought a “fixer upper” attico piso located in a great spot in Barceloneta, so my blogs will be from a new point of view of my adopted city. Although we plan to keep Gracia as our home base, we bought this steal of a piso simply for the location and for the affordability . At 149 thousand euros, the price was half the going rate of most pisos in Barceloneta. And we could fulfill our goal in the process of having a little slice of sun or “trocito de sol” as they say here.

It has several real drawbacks, the most obvious being there is no elevator so its a 6 floor climb to the top and the second being that although we are in an ideal spot, our view of the ocean is obstructed in all but one spot. Here is a photo of our one view of the ocean so you can see how close we actually are:

View from our new beach shack using a zoom lens

We have been living in Gracia for three years now, and charming as the neighborhood is, it doesn’t have much sun. By buying this little fixer upper, we now have our little place in the sun. My life has suddenly become even more magical.

Although my cadaver gloves make it hard to see, in these photos taken March 5, we got the keys to our new piso and I dangle them for the camera, with Mark and then with the realtors who sold us the place.

The first thing we needed to do was replace the water heater so we can at least spend the night there, as is. We hired our friend of 15 years, Isi. He came in, replaced the water heater, gave us a great estimate for the work to be done, which involves knocking down walls, adding window doors with electric persiana blinds. He’ll move a wall too, as well as moving the water heater outside. He will do the whole job with his comañero, Jose for six thousand euros which includes the windows and doors. I sure hope he’ll accept some tips, because his estimate is really low and he is a very thorough and reliable worker.

Before I go on, here are some before photos of the labyrinthian 50 meter piso attico – before we start knocking down walls and adding window doors to the decks, replacing the existing windows.
These shots are not of all the rooms, but you get the idea…

Rosalia and Albino are the elderly Catalan couple from whom we bought our place. Although they lived there for 30 years and raised 3 kids there, it now looks like a mad scientist labaratory, as evidenced in the above thumbnails.

1) This will become the master bedroom, with a glass door instead of a window. 2) The glass door will lead onto this sunny balcony.

This is the first wall to get a hole punched it, a defining moment that our reformas have already begun.

Our reformas team are intense, capable, efficient

When our team took its 3 hour lunch break I took a bike ride with my dog while Mark lounged and napped in the sun. One of the things I love about Barcelona is the socialist Bicing bicycle stations placed everywhere. For 25€ a year I am able to bike around the city by simply swiping my card at any station and then riding off wherever I might want to go. Bicing stations have become ubiquitous. There is one at the end of our street in Barceloneta. Quixote and I wnet for a ride, direction Geary golden fish sculpture. There was a bicing station near there, so I turned in my bike and went for a walk along the beach with my puppy. After about a half hour of that I checked out another bike and headed in the direrction of the new Hotel W. As it were, there is a brand new paved walkway and a convenient bicing station at the end, so I again checked in my bike and proceeded to explore the grounds of the new Hotel W Barcelona.

Hotel W seen from my boardwalk, then explored up close by foot

1) My dog is a natural poser, but here in this close-up you can see his real feelings 2) That’s my tiny dog posing on that W!

The grounds of the Hotel W feel Olympian and I am one of the few who think it is a wonderful exhibit of grande architecture. It gives a fresh point of view from which to look at Barcelona, the enchantress city.

What we have bought into with all this, is the lifestyle. Our place is modest and here the ugly truth that obstructs our view. If it weren’t for this one building we would have a great beach view:

1) the big, ugly building which obstructs our sea view. 2) Our beach, as seen from as soon as we descend and walk a half block.

Our immediately reality, even as a fixer upper we are enjoying the experience of owning a slice of heaven. Here’s a self portrait with iPhone plus one of Mark and Quixôte relaxing in the sun.

1) The Barceloneta Beach lifestyle suits us 2) The place already has a nice, big bathroom which is in fact one of the nicest rooms in the place.

We plan to spend Easter in our new Love Shack.

MAY 8, 2010 – THE DAY IT SNOWED IN BARCELONA

It never snows in Barcelona. I hear the last time it snowed was 25 years ago. So when we woke up on Monday, May 8 it was a drizzly day, so we set about our morning errands with umbrellas. It was so chilly I mentioned in passing to Mark, “if it drops another 3 degrees we’ll see snow,” never for a moment thinking this would actually happen. About 10 a.m the first flurries started falling. People everywhere looking up, in wonderment.

THIS IS A LITTLE MOVIE WE THREW TOGETHER WITH MY NEW VIDEO CAMERA.

Barcelona being hit with a huge snowstorm covering the streets and people with a blanket of white and bringing the kids out to play, some of whom have never seen the snow in their lives.