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What a day we've had. We had two incredible architecture experiences today, one of them among the most astounding buildings we have ever seen. It was also a long day. We are currently recuperating in our hotel room. Allan's blisters have blisters.

* * * *

We took off early today, heading for La Sagrada Familia. We booked our tickets online the night before. If you ever go, this is a must, and a tip we discovered by accident. There's no service charge or extra fees, and you avoid hours of queueing up in the hot sun. We booked the first entrance time, between 9 and 10 a.m., and entered with almost no waiting.

To say Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia is unusual is an understatement. Anything I can say about it will seem like hyperbole, but is not. It is breathtaking. Yesterday I mentioned that when the church is completed, some 10 to 20 years from now, it will have 12 towers. I was wrong: it will have 18. Twelve towers represent the apostles, four even taller towers will represent the four evangelists, one distinct tower will represent Mary, and one massive 170-metre centre tower will represent Christ.

Inside, you are in a forest of columns, and not only because there are so many. The columns actually resemble trees - they branch out, and they are not completely straight, but curve slightly like trees. Everything in the temple, as it is called, is modeled after natural forms. Everything around you recalls trees, flowers, plants, frogs, turtles, snails, grasses, leaves, roots.

I love Gothic cathedrals, and have never tired of visiting them. This, though, is a completely new experience. It's the Gothic cathedral as seen through a thoroughly modernist lens. It redefines the form. Decoration is everywhere, yet the overall effect is clean and restrained, light and airy. It doesn't feel at all ornate. Some of it is downright playful.

I decided not to try to post photos during this trip - too much work - so I can only link to images online for now. We simply could not stop taking photos. I feel as if I could return to this building every day for a week and never stop finding new details.

There was an excellent exhibit about Gaudi's use of natural forms. I knew the standard buzzword for art nouveau or modernism: forms from nature. Think of the famous Paris metro sign, the way it resembles vines or the branches of a tree. This exhibit brought me a much greater understanding of the "forms from nature" theme. Gaudi studied crystals, honeycombs, trees, flowers, the tops of grasses. He studied nature's curves and arches - parabolas and hyperbolas. He studied the scars that form when a tree is cut, and how the new branches form and don't grow in a straight line. He studied the reptiles and amphibians and mollusks and birds from his native Catalan. And in nature he found the expression of his own faith, and of the family of all humankind. He was deeply religious, and Catholic to his core, but his spirituality seems to have been very broad and encompassing.

The exhibit showed each natural form - the beehive or the snail or the tree scar - juxtaposed with details from La Sagrada Familia that echo that form, as well as the challenges Gaudi and his engineers faced in bringing the vision to reality.

The exhibit also included several quotes that revealed Gaudi's humility and his doubt. No one had ever tried using not-straight columns before, and he needed them to work somewhere else, in another building, before he would dare bring them to "the temple". He was afraid of taking a misstep, but he was also driven to see his vision realized.

Allan and I wandered in and around the basilica for a long time. It was designed to hold 13,000 worshippers, so there is plenty to see. There is also a small studio, an amazing building with a wavy, curved roof set over a wavy, curved body. Gaudi originally designed it as a school for the children of the labourers who worked on La Sagrada. It was also his own studio, and he ended up living there during what turned out to be the final years of his life. (Gaudi was killed in a tram accident in 1926, at the age of 73.)

I feel like I could write about this La Sagrada all day and never touch the heart of its power and astonishing beauty. At one point, Allan said to me, "This is definitely one of the most amazing buildings we have ever seen." That's it.

* * * *

Eventually we dragged ourselves away, took the metro back to the neighbourhood of our hotel, and went to a supermarket. In the entranceway, shoppers park their own carts like bicycles, locked to poles. There are also lockers where you can leave items before you shop.

We bought yogurts, bananas, bread, two kinds of cheese, two kinds of meat, and 4 litres of water, and were shocked to pay only 12 euros, about $16. Why is food so much cheaper here?

After eating in our room, we took our dirty clothes, which were already packed in reuseable shopping bags from home, and set out to find the lavanderia. First to the mystery address where no lavanderia existed... then to the lavanderia that wanted 36 euros (about $50) to clean our clothes... then to the place the first laundry said another laundry would be... then into a hotel to ask for directions... all the while lugging these bags of dirty clothes, walking, walking... and finally, there it is! And it is not 36 euros to clean our clothes, but 18. And we are happy. But we are tired.

So we rest on a bench, and we almost quit for the day, but we somehow gather ourselves and continue.

* * * *

The next part of our day was a walking tour of some modernisme houses of Barcelona. They are all located in the district called The Eixample, a tony area of broad avenues, beautiful old apartment buildings in the European tradition, gleaming shop windows, inviting tapas cafes. It's a big area, though, and this took a lot of walking!

The exteriors of these houses were very impressive, full of curved and wavy lines, stained glass, strange turrets and cupolas, mosaics, wrought iron that resembled vines or tree roots. We saw the interior of a pharmacy with incredible woodwork - apparently the modernisme crowd designed pharmacies (see here), and this one's original interior is intact.

We used a walking tour in our Time Out Barcelona guide, and we saw about half the buildings listed, plus at least two we stumbled on. The weather was perfect - sunny, breezy, a little cool. We stopped for a late-afternoon caffeine break, and although our feet were very unhappy by this time, we decided to push on ahead.

* * * *

Finally, we arrived at Casa Batllo (pronounced "bahy-yo"), one of the great Gaudi residences that you can enter. It's easy to find the building - there's a huge crowd outside, photographing their friends in front of it. Admission is expensive at 20 euros for an adult, but well worth it if you love architecture. Casa Batllo is a UNESCO world heritage site.

As it turns out, the exhibit we saw at La Sagrada Familia - about Gaudi's use of natural forms - was the perfect introduction to Casa Batllo. The entire house reflects this vision. It is all wavy lines and bright mosaics, woodwork that almost appears alive - very ornate, but also playful, and suffused with natural light, which Gaudi regarded as part of architecture. You can see images of Casa Batllo here.

The tour allows you to walk throughout the entire building, including an inner patio courtyard on the third floor, and the roof, which affords terrific views of other modernist roof ornamentation. This building - which is still owned by the Batllo family and maintained through admission fees and the family's own resources - does not share the simple, restrained majesty of La Sagrada. It's a cacophony of colour and light and shapes and textures.

One nice thing about the tour: everyone gets an audio guide. I turned mine off and enjoyed the building in peace, but the audioguides keep everyone quiet! Both here and at the Gaudi Home and Museum in Park Guell, the admissions people ask each visitor what country they are from. From the people in front and behind us, we heard Germany, Russia, and South Korea.

More things I learned about Gaudi. He liked to use materials from demolished buildings, prefiguring our own emphasis on recycling and sustainability. He also designed buildings and furniture to be as ergonomic as possible - for example, a banister that fits the curve of a human hand. Building a school for the children of labourers also speaks to a social responsibility well ahead of his contemporaries.

* * * *

We emerged from Casa Batllo with sore, aching, tired feet. We both agreed there was little chance of going out at night, especially given that dinner begins at 8 or 9:00. And we knew that once we got in and took our shoes off, there was no way we were going out again. So we forced ourselves to go back to Mercadona, the supermarket a few blocks from our hotel. This time our purchase included two bottles of wine, baby wipes (great for road trips), cookies, and more cured meat. Total price: 10 euros. WTF??

The most expensive wines at the store grazed 10 euros a bottle. Many "vino tinto" table wines were priced at 1 euro per bottle or less. We also saw five-litre containers of wine! That is new to me. The wine we bought was 2.50 euros and quite drinkable, comparable to the Pelee Island pinot noir I drink at home.

Once at the room, there was quite a lot of groaning and sighing and inspection of blisters. Over dinner, we planned out our next few days, and booked a hotel for our next stop, Granada. But first, more Barcelona!

* * * *

Two more notes about the great metro system here. Many stations have vending machines with cold drinks, and at least one we saw had a vending machine as large as the refrigerator section in a supermarket, stocked with all kinds of juices, yogurts, water, and drinks. There are also vending machines with electronic accessories - cell phone chargers, USB drives, memory cards, cell phone cards.

In the large exchanges between subway lines, it's not unusual to see tiny cafes and bars - bright, smart-looking places serving cappuccinos, or atmospheric, cave-type places, where men are eating tapas and drinking wine.

Distribution of The Winnipeg
RAG Review reader responses to the poll
question "which riding do
you live in?"

Image Source: Modified
Wikipedia imageWell, the readership by riding unscientific poll has been done for a while. Might as well go over it.


Table of responses constructed by The Analyst.Sample size was 29 and a plurality of respondents (slightly above 27%) reside in the riding of Winnipeg Centre. Other ridings with a high portion of the poll respondents (each with just under 14% of all respondents) were Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia, Winnipeg South and Kildonan - St. Paul. Each of these other ridings were markedly less central.

Graph of responses constructed by The Analyst.

The Median number of respondents for a given riding was 3.5. Elmwood-Transcona (1), Saint Boniface (2), Winnipeg North (0), and Winnipeg South Centre (3) scored below this.

Of some interest, the riding with the most reader respondents is heavily New Democratic Winnipeg Centre, but a plurality of reader respondents from Winnipeg (or 69% of 'Peg respondents). The remaining just over 30% of 'Peg city respondents are those in Winnipeg Centre.

One respondent doesn't know or care, another is from out've Winnipeg, and a third prefers not to say.

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There's nothing Steve Harper likes better than to bask in the glory of a celebrity.  He gets his nose so far up their bums that sometimes you wonder how they'll ever get away.

So, what's in store for Canada's latest global phenom, Chris Hadfield?

I think Colonel Hadfield presents more than a bit of a problem for Sideshow Steve and his government.

One thing that Chris Hadfield is known for world-wide is his utter reverence for planet earth and, especially, our atmosphere.   Look at the many high-def photographs he posted online and the comments that go with them.   Hadfield seemed like nothing so much as an orbiting endorsement for the Green Party.

Hadfield reveres our atmosphere, the same thin band of life-sustaining air that Stephen Harper and his bitumen-boosters are working so furiously to poison.   Hard to see the natural fit there.

And then there's the Canadian Space Agency that has taken a funding and management pistol-whipping from the Harper regime.  Not too sure that Steve wants to revisit that controversy either. 

There's sure to be the obligatory photo-op but it will be more than interesting to hear what Colonel Hadfield has to say about our planet and our environment.  I'm guessing he has plenty to say.

Woo-hoo!.

From the Fetal Gore Tour nutters:

Anti-Abortion Face-Off with Stephen Harper

Postcards with Aborted Fetus Images Alongside Harper Images Go to Constituents

Calgary, AB. Starting today, a group of anti-abortion activists will circulate postcards with images of Prime Minister Stephen Harper next to bloody, graphic pictures of late-term aborted children to homes in Harper’s constituency.  Harper is the first of five politicians the Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform (CCBR) says it will make “Face the Children”—the name of its new project.  The group plans to distribute 250,000 postcards in the five ridings by summer’s end.You can see the postcard at the link.

They are keeping mum on the other politicians they will target.

This is a beauty lose-lose for Herr Harper.

Last week's running mostly didn't happen except for the Sunday run though I did fit in two 5km walks; however, it didn't feel the same. So yesterday I didn't download and play my usual podcast (which would've been week six I believe) and instead laced up my shoes and threw on Bif Naked's Essentially Naked album. After a week 'off' I wanted to see what I could do so after a one song warm up I started jogging and didn't stop for a long time. How long? 2km! I couldn't freakin' believe it.

After a short break I jogged some more, until my thighs were plenty mad at me, then walked the rest of the way home. All told I did 5km mostly at a jog, which is my furthest Sunday yet, and on Wednesday I'm looking forward to whatever my podcast tries to throw at me. I think I psyched myself out last weekend when I heard on the podcast that by Friday I'd be expected to do a 20 minute run; first day was 3, five minute runs  (which I did no problem), then 2 eight minutes, then twenty in one stretch. 20 minutes? That's far, and I'll admit I was intimidated, which is in part why running didn't happen. Throw in that Ryan's on a new schedule and finding the right time to go was difficult. This week? This week I'm going to go for it and kick it's ass.

Am I the only one weirded out by the reaction of Americans to the shooting of 19 people at the New Orleans Mother's Day Parade? 

"OhGodOhGodOhGod!!!....wait it's just drug and gang related? Whew! We were worried for a second..."

What?sdnxry5z7g

Our roads.

Image Source: Access Winnipeg
Obtained from comments to the Freep's website version "Growing pains: The debate over Winnipeg residential development"

swindleman 10:15 AM on 5/11/2013  Widespread development, dilapidated infrastructure & poor public transportation are what Winnipeggers want, so that's what you're going to get. Katz/Shindleman 2014 Honestly, Katz has embarrassed us with countless flip flops and poor plans on rapid transit.

And under his mayoralty our suburban sprawl problem is just getting worse as our infrastructure budgets are being spread thinner and thinner.

Hopefully, Winnipeggers will prove that they want better in 2014.

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Like a moth in congealing wax, the independent spirit of young girls is still too often drowned in the sludge of sexist imagery and symbology that defines our “advanced” society in 2013. The picture above is worth much more... Dr.Dawg http://drdawgsblawg.ca/

Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading.

- Michael Harris tears into the Cons for their latest set of Senate abuses:
It is time once more to throw up on your shoes over the Senate. We all did that when Liberal Senator Andrew Thompson went missing in action for a decade at public expense — our man in Mexico.
This stable of political studs put out to pasture at public expense for party loyalties costs Canada $92.5 million annually in salaries, senator allowances and administrative costs...

Each lottery winner in the Senate receives a base annual salary of $135,200. The Speaker of the Senate, currently Conservative Noel Kinsella, pulls down $187,500.
...
The Americans figured out that an unelected Senate had no part in a democracy in 1911.

But that didn’t stop this unelected body from killing by stealth Bill C-311 after the House of Commons had passed the climate change bill. And this under a prime minister who once promised that he would never allow an unelected Senate to go against the will of the majority of Members of Parliament. - Marilyn Reid comments on the role of free trade agreements in facilitating corporate control over government policy. But Stuart Trew notes that the end result isn't inevitable, as several Latin American countries are discussing ways to make sure that trade agreements don't unduly interfere with democratic decision-making.

- The Guardian discusses how the UK Cons' privatization agenda is putting many essential social services at risk - including the availability of safe donated blood. And Jim Holmes nicely sums up the effect of corporatizing wastewater treatment in Regina.

- Vanessa Brown reports on the people's housing summit being held at 3 PM tomorrow to give mere renters some voice in Regina's development (in contrast to Michael Fougere's developer-heavy version which considers a $300K house to be an example of "affordable housing").

- Finally, Mia Rabson laments the Cons' choice to make Canada's census more expensive and less informative. And Daniel Wilson writes that First Nations will be hit particularly hard by the Cons' "don't want to know" attitude toward social realities.

Late last month I wrote a post entitled More On The Online Community Experience, a followup to an earlier one in which I discussed the importance I place on the online communities I am a part of.

Within the post I included an excerpt of a piece written by Matthew Heesing, a United Church worker in Columbia, on the importance of presence in helping us to bear the vicissitudes that life has to offer, whether they be of a personal or a societal nature. This morning I received a comment from him, which directed me to the full version of what he wrote.

I reproduce both the comment and the link below. I hope you will take the time to read his original blog post, as it reminds us of the strength we can all derive knowing that we stand not alone, something that I think is especially helpful in these very troubled times in Canada under the Harper regime:

Greetings!

My name is Matthew Heesing, and the author of the above excerpt! I was surprised to see my own words in a local church bulletin...a wider search brought me here!

I just wanted to share a fuller reflection, for your own interest--the cut-and-pasted version above is taken from a previous blog post of mine, which you can find here:

http://colombianjourney.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/building-solidarity/

Thanks for sharing, and I'm honoured to play a role in your reflections!

-Matthew

Recommend this Post

Joseph Stiglitz writes in this morning's New York Times that, just as America is beginning to recover from the crisis which rocked the world financial system, another storm is about to hit:

The crisis that is about to break out involves student debt and how we finance higher education. Like the housing crisis that preceded it, this crisis is intimately connected to America’s soaring inequality, and how, as Americans on the bottom rungs of the ladder strive to climb up, they are inevitably pulled down — some to a point even lower than where they began.
Just as home owners found themselves with mortgages they couldn't repay, American students now find themselves with debt they can't repay:

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, almost 13 percent of student-loan borrowers of all ages owe more than $50,000, and nearly 4 percent owe more than $100,000. These debts are beyond students’ ability to repay, (especially in our nearly jobless recovery); this is demonstrated by the fact that delinquency and default rates are soaring. Some 17 percent of student-loan borrowers were 90 days or more behind in payments at the end of 2012. When only those in repayment were counted — in other words, not including borrowers who were in loan deferment or forbearance — more than 30 percent were 90 days or more behind. For federal loans taken out in the 2009 fiscal year, three-year default rates exceeded 13 percent.
And the aftermath of the Great Recession has made things worse:

Like much else, the problem of student debt worsened during the Great Recession: tuition costs at public universities increased by 27 percent in the past five years — partly because of cutbacks — while median income shrank. In California, inflation-adjusted tuition more than doubled in public two-year community colleges (which for poorer Americans are often the key to upward mobility), and by more than 70 percent in four-year public schools, from 2007-8 to 2012-13.

With costs soaring, incomes stagnating and little help from government, it was not surprising that total student debt, around $1 trillion, surpassed total credit-card debt last year. 
It's a depressingly familiar story. Caught in the jaws of a financial system which piles up profit for the few, the economy stagnates -- because, faced with a mountain of debt, students neither form families nor buy homes:

Those with huge debts are likely to be cautious before undertaking the additional burdens of a family. But even when they do, they will find it more difficult to get a mortgage. And if they do, it will be smaller, and the real estate recovery will consequently be weaker. (One study of recent Rutgers University graduates showed that 40 percent had delayed making a major home purchase, and for a quarter, the high level of debt had an effect on household formation or getting further education. Another recent study showed that homeownership among 30-year-olds with a history of student debt fell by more than 10 percentage points during the Great Recession and in its aftermath.)

It’s a vicious cycle: lack of demand for housing contributes to a lack of jobs, which contributes to weak household formation, which contributes to a lack of demand for housing.
The Masters of the Financial Universe have given birth to a vicious, not a virtuous, cycle. They really aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

Sometimes, especially on a cold spring day like today, I can't help feeling depressed about living in a country like Harperland.

I can't help thinking about how great we might have been, and what the Cons have made of us.

How once we were admired by the rest of the world, as a cool young country with decent, noble values. And how Stephen Harper and his reactionary cult have shamed us, and turned Canada into a grubby little pariah state.

And when I feel like that, as I did today, all I can say is thank goodness for people like Chris Hadfield...
Read more »

It's a fighter pilot, natch.



Did I mention he's a fighter pilot?  What's with those guys anyway?  Oh wait, I remember, they're Fighter Pilots - the coolest variant of humans ever to exist.

Vocals by some guy named Chris Hadfield.  Oh wait, that's right, the Fighter Pilot guy.

I'll be waiting for your safe landing tomorrow, Major Hadfield.  You make my proud to be Canadian.  Did I mention you were a fighter pilot?

Neil, Neil who?  You, Hadfield, with your son Evan's guidance, have done more to reinvigorate public enthusiasm for space travel since Armstrong set foot on the moon.   That is a positively astonishing accomplishment.

Shorter Christie snorter : 'Hey leftie enviros! If you're not gonna vote for 2nd-place me directly, please at least split the vote by voting for the 3rd place Green instead, promoted right here at the top of my full page ad in the Times Colonist and paid for by "Today's BC Liberal Party".'




Gotta love that "Today's BC Liberals". 
Nothing at all to do with Gordon Campbell's "Yesterday's Liberals" presumably, from whom Christie inherited her unelected premiership. 

h/t to RossK for Ian Bailey's pic of the Liberals' Times Colonist ad, to CBC for the May 9th Ipsos Reid poll, and most especially to :

• those $500-a-ticket fundraisers held for Christy at the Calgary Petroleum Club "targeting deep-pocketed oil patch players", 
• Gwyn Morgan of Encana for smoothing over the transition from the unre-electable Gordo to the unelected Christy, and 
• Encana itself for donating over half a million dollars to Christy's Liberals in the last three years while simultaneously lobbying the BC government about LNG terminals and fracking.

.

Barcelona is amazing. Some people suggested that five days here were too many, but we can barely fit in all the things we want to do - even though we are omitting one major tourist attraction and the most popular day-trip in Spain. (More on that later.)

I managed to sleep a little more than usual today, a rare gift, and we purposely got a later start than usual. After breakfast, we took the metro to our first views of La Sagrada Familia. This building, Gaudi's great masterpiece, is truly unique in all the world. It is also famously unfinished, under near-permanent construction, with a projected completion "date" of 2020-2040. (What's a decade or two, mas or menos.)

We weren't going to try to get in today - if you don't purchase tickets in advance, you can wait for hours for admittance - but I wanted to at least see the exterior as soon as possible. It did not disappoint.

What can I say that can possibly describe this strange structure? It is both an homage to the great Gothic cathedrals of France, and an homage to modernisme, and to human imagination, and nature, and according to many people, to Christianity, writ large. It may be most recognizable by its spires, topped with bright orange pinwheels (there will be 12 in all, one for each apostle, when the building is complete), but what really knocks you out is all the crazy detail. The crucifixion, the pieta - all the stories are told - in gigantic form, with great emotion and intensity. There's so much to look at, it feels as if you could come back every day and discover more details you had never seen before. Here's a Google image search of the basilica and here's another of exterior detail. The searches are not very precise but it might give you some idea.

After taking a huge number of photos, we found a charcuterie kind of place doing a brisk take-out business with locals. (Supermarkets are closed on Sundays, so we're still without provisions.) We got some salad and an assortment of croquetas, and were about to leave... when I did one of the stupidest things ever. I'm such a klutz, I don't even want to tell you what I did.

One moment I was walking out of the store, and the next moment I was holding my head and seeing stars. The very nice man from the deli came out with a bottle of cold water and a paper towel, and then returned with a chair. My head hurt. A lot. But it was also totally ridiculous and funny, and we both had to laugh.

We ate our lunch on a bench in the park in front of La Sagrada. Amazingly, my glasses were undamaged, and I don't seem to have a lump on my forehead - only a headache.

* * * *

Next we took the metro to the neighbourhood of Park Guell, another Gaudi gift to Barcelona. It's a long walk from the metro to the park, with increasing crowds and touristy shops the closer you get.

Park Guell is a modernisme paradise. There are crazy wavy buildings and parapets, everything adorned with mosaics. One building resembles a Roman temple that the modernists pulled apart and reassembled. Another one recalls the Islamic-Moorish influence. Everything resembles plants and waves and animals and other forms of nature. From a balcony, you can see La Sagrada Familia in the distance, and beyond that, the Mediterranean.

There's a small museum in what was Gaudi's home. On display there is some furniture he designed in the art nouveau / modernisme tradition, incredibly simple, naturalistic designs that I find stunningly beautiful.

I was thoroughly taken with the whole park, and took a zillion photos. The only drawback was the crowds. As soon as you leave the most famous area - from the entrance gate up the steps and into the Roman temple-like building - the crowds thin out to nothing. But when we were among the park's most famous structures, it was packed. Some details were almost impossible to see. People took each other's pictures with a famous mosaic lizard - a steady stream of posing and shooting, often three or four people at a time, so there was no moment the lizard was left alone for his own photo. The crowds were a little hard to take.

In one of the gatehouses, I waited my turn to shoot from a window at the other gate house across the entrance way. As I began to shoot, I felt someone touch my head and stepped back, startled. A man was extending his arms over my head to take pictures. I stepped aside, glaring at him, but he avoided my gaze. It is a tribute to how I have mellowed with age, and how Canadian I have become, that I stood quietly until he was finished, then went back to the window to continue shooting. A younger, more hot-headed Laura would not have borne that quietly.

So the crowds were trying, but the park is magnificent.

On the way back to the metro, we shared a small plate of paella - the fast-food version, in a quickie cafe - and a couple of glasses of sangria, before heading back to our room. I was making notes for this post when Allan called me to the window. An enormous crowd was marching down the Gran Via! We went out on our little balcony to watch. Although the signs and chants were mostly in Catalan, I could make out that it was an anti-austerity, anti-eviction demonstration. (Allan took lots of photos.) There were drums beating, horns blaring, chants, shouts, and songs, thousands of people taking up the very wide street, completely packed for many blocks. Honestly, I was in tears. The people here are suffering but they are vocal and organized and they are not giving up.

Eventually we went out again, and hunted down El Bixto, a little tapas joint Allan found in our guidebook. It was beautiful - a tiny wooden room with seating for maybe 20 people, including the bar. The menu - tapas offerings, drinks, desserts - are written on separate papers and taped on an overhang. The host (who might have been the owner) seemed to know a lot of the clientele, or else all her friends happened to stop by.

We had a plate of assorted Spanish sausages and cheeses, a potato fritata with smoked salmon, and some other crazy potato dish that we couldn't even finish. The house red wine was 3 euros a glass. I'd like to return tomorrow night - it's more fun when the hosts remember you - but Allan has his eye on another place.

* * * *

The Barcelona metro is fantastic. The stations are clean, the trains are quiet, the signage is perfect. They are all disability accessible. Trains come every three minutes (or six minutes late at night), with a digital countdown to the next two arrivals. On the train, a vertical pole divides in three, so more people can hold on without having to avoid each other's hands, one of the most clever little design touches I've ever seen on public transit. A card buys you 10 trips at less than half price.

Most signage in this city is in three languages: Catalan first, then Spanish, then English. We see Catalan flags hanging from many balconies and windows. Gaudi is described everywhere as "the great Catalan architect," never as Spanish.I don't know anything about the Catalan independence movement, but I wonder if the language primacy is a great concession, meant to placate (or neuter?) the separatist movement. Canadians know how that goes.

* * * *

Random notes:

I called my mom today from Park Guell, to say hi and wish her a Happy Mother's Day. She was so happy to hear from me! I was really glad I called. Happy Mother's Day to all! Hope you had a great day.

Miss Essie Ash tells me that she and the pups go to the dogpark every day! Allan usually takes them once a week. At this rate, Tala and Diego will be sad to see us come home!

We see so many lovely dogs here, as we did in Paris. Many people walk their dogs without leashes.

Motorcycles are very popular. There are far fewer bicycles than you see, say, in Toronto. But motorcycles are always zipping by, and you see dozens of them parked everywhere you go.

We did some work on our feet - I'll spare you the gory details - and they are feeling better now.

I checked Canadian news today for the first time, and read about houses in Manitoba being destroyed by waves of lake ice. While eating paella later in the day, we saw that story on the news.

I am totally loving our new camera and lens. We also have our nice little point-and-shoot with us, but I'm not sure it will see daylight.

* * * *

We have three full days left in Barcelona, and a long list of things we want to see.

One of the main attractions here is Montjuic, a very large park that is home to museums, theatres, and various cultural attractions. There is a "magic fountain" - a sound and light show - and a castle or fortress with a dark past. It was where the fascists tortured, imprisoned, and killed people during and after the Spanish Civil War. Now it's a family playground attraction. All of  Montjuic is considered a must-see for Barcelona tourism, but we have no real interest in it. Allan is great at helping me have the courage to say no to things that is one is "supposed to" do, especially when there are plenty of things we want to do more.

I did want to go to Figueres, Salvador Dali's hometown, and the place of his museum and theatre. It's a day trip from Barcelona, and it would mean giving up too much we want to do here. In addition, Lonely Planet says it is the most heavily touristed spot in Spain. People wait for hours to enter the museum-theatre, then the crowds are so thick they can't see anything. Oddly enough, the best time to go is in the high tourist season, because tour groups cannot book at that time. Between not wanting to leave Barcelona and our fear of those kinds of crowds, Figueres may not be in my future.

This is rather interesting:

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Because he doesn't maintain his own blog yet offers blistering commentary that lacerates the pretensions of his subjects, I am once more placing as a guest post the searing analysis The Salmander offered in response to my post on the hypocrisy of that old young man, Pierre Poilievre, currently one of Harper's favorite poodles.

Enjoy:

.. hypocrite .. yes .. that captures the shallow ethics of this preening vain and glib political insectivore that hatched in Calgary, and who deserves careful examination under bright light and a magnifying glass.. by honest and objective political scientists.. or forensic anthropologists.

His pasty white cretin pedigreed shell may have evolved or metastasized from radiation/toxin poisoning that leached from Tom Flanagan, Stephen Harper & the rest of those flawed supremacist trogs that tend to lurch from the tailings ponds and the Calgary School for young Harper wannabe's.

Look who is right behind primped up poutine Pierre in the image from the video !... Why there is Michelle Rempel ! Cut from the very same cloth .. tho she is the staunch defender of Peter Kent.. our great boreal forest slayer along with Joe Oliver.. and Queen Stephen from Toronto.

Ah yes, oily Pierre .. former amour of political operative Jenni Byrne.. who of course worked hand in hand as deputy campaign manager on the 'in-out' 2006 election fraud and plea deal with the late immigrant and 'Reformer' Senator Finley.. Byrne was the lead hand campaign manager of the 2011 election fraud, live & robo calling, shadow MP's, data mining - and later data base and call record erasures & sanitizing etc.. denials and defender against baseless smears.

The tete a tete's of Pierre & Jenni would likely be delightful to those who enjoy the hissing of serpents and garbled maudlin moralistic pontifications.. vote moving & suppression strategies and pretending to be Canadian.

Let's be clear .. this Poilievre specimen is seen as potential cream of the Harper Party fungus crop. A soon to be Minister. Lesser lights have withered, flailed, retired or landed on the Harper dung heap a la Helen Guergis, Del Mastro, Sona etc.. or suddenly migrated to Abu Dhabi. Or gone to suddenly spend more time with their family .. or altruistically feel compelled to assist the BC Liberal Party, or the Alberta Wild Rose tea party..

The ascendant evangelists though.. like Poilievre, Kelly Leitch, Van Loan and Michelle Rempel.. screech the Harper Message, massage or lie to the mainstream media and communicate with or receive PMO marching orders and talking points via private email, smoke signals or agreed upon secret hissing and handshakes.. all outside, offside, out of sight of legal & required procedure.

At times I wonder how thrilling it must be to be paid by the people of Canada to screw them over, lie through your teeth to them.. and kiss Harper Party ass, suck & blow simultaneously, obstruct truth & justice, litigate against military veterans, First Nations, senior citizens, unions, women.. conspire to trash the environment & Charter of Rights and Freedoms on behalf of foreign energy consortiums and bow towards Israel and Calgary .. all at the same time.

It must be possible, but only if you're are a smug, forked tongue, entitled, two faced, purely unadulterated sanctimonious, and ethically bankrupt, ambitious paid public servant ..

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This Guy Not Only Drank Your Water First, He Made It.London's Thames Water utility is polling city residents for their views on drinking recycled sewage water.  It's one solution being considered for a looming water shortage facing the British capital.

London residents are being asked by the company for their views on the idea of drinking sewage water that had been treated, put back in the Thames or another river and then retreated.

Key to whether the proposal went ahead was whether Londoners were happy with such a water supply - or revolted by knowing its origins, even after being reassured by scientists about its quality and safety.

London would face a growing water shortage as the population increased towards 10 million.

It's all pee, every last drop of it.  It's been estimated that every molecule of water you drink passed through at least four dinosaurs in the course of their era and who knows how many other critters ever since.

The difference is that we're overwhelming nature's ability to supply us with enough clean freshwater.  So the Brits want to take sewage water, treat it, chuck it in the river, take it back out and retreat it again so they can have a lovely cuppa. 

As far as I can tell, putting the treated water into the river and drawing it back out again, is a gesture to make it seem a little less repugnant to users.  Other places already doing this don't bother with that formality.

After all Chris Hadfield and crew don't have any river on the International Space Station.

This morning I saw a few minutes of a CBC Newsworld political panel and again concluded that Canada must abolish its senate immediately. Abolish it now! There is no time for messing about.

The dishonourable, fraud-committing senate serves no legitimate purpose in this day and age, and it’s debatable whether it ever did. The unelected, patronage-appointed, archaic institution is an insult to democracy; costs us an obscene amount of tax money; and provides a bad example to young Canadians that crime does pay. It is nothing but a den of Liberal and Conservative crooks and liars living high on the hog at our expense.

In fact, we should take it one step further. Make it an offence under the Criminal Code to be a Canadian senator. Make it a criminal offence to appoint a Canadian senator. Apply the penalties retroactively. No statute of limitations.

Charge them, convict them, sentence them to prison and seize their assets — including the estates of dead slimeballs like the cold and stiff Con senator Doug Finley, who Stephen Harper appointed in 2009 as a gift for organizing the illegal “In and Out” funding scam in the 2006 federal election.

Finley is survived by his Con MP wife Diane, the fuckhead who is responsible for accelerating the replacement of Canadian workers with underpaid “temporary” foreign workers, cutting programs and funding to help Canadians get jobs, and screwing laid-off Canadians out of their Employment Insurance benefits (which is insurance they paid for, not a charity handout).

The recently-croaked filthy senator was also apparently a friend and role model of a certain Sun Media spin artist and right-wing Liberal Party dirty-tricks operative, as well as an idol of another infamous right-wing, pro-Liberal, anti-progressive blogger. Birds of a feather…

Enough is enough! Canadians deserve better!

"This place in Uzbekistan is called by locals “The Door to Hell”. It is situated near the small town of Darvaz.

The story of this place lasts already for 35 years. Once the geologists were drilling for gas. Then suddenly during the drilling they have found an underground cavern, it was so big that all the drilling site with all the equipment and camps got deep deep under the ground. None dared to go down there because the cavern was filled with gas. So they ignited it so that no poisonous gas could come out of the hole, and since then, it’s burning, already for 35 years without any pause. Nobody knows how many tons of gas has been burned for all those years but it just seems to be infinite there."

If it was in Canada, Harper would have tried to sell it to Chinese as a natural gas reserve.