A weekend reflection
This is the mirrored ceiling above the entrance of the Maremagnum shopping mall in the Port Vell.
More weekend reflections right here.
Oh yeah, that’s me in the photo…
Going to the great sea
On the bridge going to the Maremagnum (latin: great sea, meaning the Med) shopping center, in the old port, Port Vell.
Las Arenas
This used to be a bullring… As much as I dislike forcefed capitalism, this is still so much better than bullfighting. Bullfighting is illegal in Cataluny, by the way. A good thing.
A weekend reflection
Sundown in one of the windbreakers at the Maremagnum shopping mall, on Friday night.
Click right here to see more weekend reflections!
The bridge
Walking on the bridge connecting the Maremagnum shopping mall to the continent. With a fabulous light!
The diagonal forum
Behind the shopping mall called Diagonal Forum, there is a small fountain. It doesn’t look like much during daytime, but is so much nicer at night.
Tintin et Milou
A little piece of Belgium, inside the Arenas shopping center. Dedicated to Luna, Leia and Cezar, in Belgium, and not in Luxembourg anymore.
Post 1322, last of 2012
We wish you all a very happy new year, une tres bonne annee, un feliz ano nuevo, ein froehlisches neues Jahr, um feliz ano novo, a güets nëies johr, kali chronia, shana tova, gelukkig nieuwjaar, gott nytt år, kia hari te tau hou, ath bhliain faoi mhaise, 新年好, bon any nou, あけまして おめでとう ございます, Chúc Mừng Nǎm Mới.
On January first, there wont be an ‘official CDPB ‘ theme day, but some of us will be posting our best photo of the year, here.
Probably the best bookshop in the world…
I never do publicity for anything commercial, and this is THE exception: Altair. Simply the biggest travel bookshop in Europe, and one of the biggest in the world. They have everything you can dream of, and even their own travel agency! Wanna find out how to go to Gavdos, Aitutaki or Fakaofa, this is the place! And it’s just around the corner! Been coming here for 30 years.
What is your best bookshop in the world?
Sweets for my sweet…
We both love oriental sweets, and you can get them everywhere here. Dangerous!!!
CDP December theme: our street
Our street is the theme for this month on the CDP portal, and this is the photo we chose, a photo about the street around the corner from ours.
Click here to see other people’s streets.
The great sea
The Maremagnum (great sea) shopping center, seen from Montjuic hill. A shopping center with a normal cinema, an IMAX cinema, many restaurants, painters, artists… A very lively place in the Port Vell, the old port.
Quite a spectacle!
Well… A pretty colorful shopfront! And a sight for sore eyes…
English word of the day: grammar…
word history: Although the two concepts are rarely associated with each other, grammar and glamour are linked. Recorded in Middle English, the word grammar came via French gramaire and Latin grammatica from Greek grammatikē (tekhnē) ‘(art) of letters’. In the Middle Ages Latin grammatica was often used to mean ‘learning’, and because many people associated scholarship with magic, grammar seems to have taken on the meaning ‘enchantment, magic’. It was in Scottish English in the 18th century that the spelling change from grammar to glamour occurred, and the form glamour became fixed in the meaning ‘magic’ and later ‘an attractive and exciting quality’. Similarly, grimoire ‘a book of spells’ derives from an alternative spelling of French grammaire ‘grammar’.
For the small pleasures in life…
Yet another shop in Barcelona… There are shops for everything here!
A new word…
As an English teacher, I absolutely like discovering new words. Found the very nice boustrophedon the other day… Anyway, fashion made of trash? TRASHION, of course! In this case, bags made of recycled plastic.
La señora de la tienda de abanicos
Aka the lady from the fan shop. It is still quite hot here, 28 to 30 degrees most days. So hail to this most Spanish of all inventions!
A night on the town
Getting up most mornings at 6 or earlier, I don’t really get much out in the evening. But there are some exceptions… The old bullfighting arena, now a trendy shopping mall. Bullfighting is illegal here in Catalunya, unlike the rest of Spain.
The golden ant
La Formiga d’ or, or golden ant, is one of the nicer bookshops in town. We just love the place, being giant bookworms. There are 2 of them in town, one in the cathedral’s cloister, and one nearby. Both have a very medieval feel. What’s your favorite bookshop like?
One for the trendy lady about town
Nice bags, wouldn’t you agree?
http://cdpbthemeday.blogspot.com.au/
Candles
A very nice candle shop, just behind the cathedral shown yesterday. I will come back to the cathedral and it’s inside in a few days.
Our World Tuesday, right here.
Woodstock/Barcelona
According to the press, we have here in town Europe’s only museum of Rock. Many interesting artifacts in there, this poster, for example. Mandy took the photo, but it brought back some nice memories to me, Rob.
I mean, get the picture a bit bigger, and read the names of the bands present! The best ever concert, ever,ever! No?
Should you want to go there, it is in the Arenas shopping mall on Plaza de Espana.
The circus, part 3
Our World on Tuesday, of course!The bag shop
A trendy bag shop nearby. Don’t you just love the desk?
With a little help from HDR, Photomatix Pro. See more black and white photos here.
Happy anniversary!
Our yearly Christmas market, the Fira de Santa Lucia, is 225 years old! Congratulations!
Our World Tuesday, right here.
Indios
Indios in Barcelona. Not exactly what you might be thinking. Indios, Indians, were people from Catalunya who emigrated to the West Indies, mainly Cuba, during the 19th century, made a fortune there, mainly with cane sugar, rum, and so on. They later came back rich, and built many of the fine buildings in Barcelona. One of them opened this shop in the Raval, where you can still buy good quality sheets, linen, blankets…Many of the rich merchants who helped the struggling modernist architects such as Gaudi at the begining of the 20th century were Indios.
Pointless post
I went to a shopping mall nearby yesterday, and guess what? I saw some strange things going on.
Dude, where is my chicken?
Some Tshirts hanging on a wooden wall… Want to know more? You can go there:
I didn’t check it out. I mean, what’s the point?
Catalan vs Spanish: BIG trouble in little Catalunya!
This is what Wiki has to say:
Catalan (English pronunciation: /kætəˈlæn/, /ˈkætəlæn/, /ˈkætələn/; Catalan: català, IPA: [kətəˈɫa] or [kataˈla]) is a Romance language, the national and the only official language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian (valencià, IPA: [valensiˈa]), as well as in the city of Alghero on the Italian island of Sardinia. It is also spoken, with no official recognition, in the autonomous communities of Aragon (in La Franja) and Murcia (in Carche) in Spain, and in the historic Roussillon region of southern France, roughly equivalent to the current département of the Pyrénées-Orientales (Northern Catalonia).
Although recognized as a regional language of the department Pyrénées-Orientales since 2007, Catalan has no official recognition in France, as French is the only official language of that country, according to the French Constitution of 1958.
OK, thank you Wiki. Now… BIG trouble! Since 1982, teaching in catalan schools, kindergardens, universities, is in the Catalan language.
But since there are some Spanish people (…) living in Catalunya as well, some of them protested. They want their kids to be tought in Spanish, the language of Cervantes and Lorca.
So, what happened? This week,the highest tribunal in the country (meaning Catalunya, not the other one, not Spain) decided that, to respect a tiny minority’s wishes, teaching will from now on be done exclusively in Spanish, in schools, universities, kindergardens, etc.
The Catalan majority literally exploded, as you can imagine!
To be continued…
Meanwhile, in Barcelona… I took this photo in February, long before this story started. The owner of this shop, with an originally Spanish sign, tried to ‘ catalanise ‘ it, transforming escritorio into escriptori, papeleria into papereria. He might be a member of one of the few political parties here fighting for independance from Spain.
Many economists say that without Catalunya, Spain would long be bankrupt… As I said earlier, TBC. We’re living interesting times.
… and now over to the weather report…
Facing the Corte Ingles, on the Portal del Angel, there is probably, according to several of our guidebooks, the tallest thermometer in Europe.
It comes complete with a small weather station underneath.
My World Tuesday
Shopping trolleys. Everybody’s got one, young, old, male, female, posh people, students, rich, poor, etc. We have 2, an old orange one and a brand new purple one. In the supermarkets here, you need to leave them near the tills. But no worries: you put one euro in the thingy and you can chain your trolley up, so nobody can take it.
Some trolleys even come complete with a foldable chair, so you can sit down anywhere. Very convenient. Some are made of fabric, some of leather, plastic, moleskin, and so on and so forth. Some are real pieces of art, made by designers. It is truly a fashion statement here. And they can be extremely expensive, of course!
When will you get your own?
Please check out how other people’s World looks like on Tuesdays!
Skywatch Friday
And another SOOC, straight out of the camera, photo. The Plaza de Espana, late one evening, with the Barcelona Arena, former bullring turned into the latest shopping center in town.
Check out what my blogger mates did for Skywatch Friday!
HOG days: the ones for sale
You gonna get the blues with that one!
Love, sex and diamonds…
…is the name of a shop we walked in one day, selling clothes, gadgets, lamps, guitars, flower pots… Anything really.
Fira per la Terra 2011: shopping
Many nice stalls for shopaholics and others were there, of course. Everything slightly or more so alternative. Or not.
This was, I think, the smallest of them all…
The bullring
Right. We’re in Spain. In Spain, we have bullrings. Here is a different kind… After being built in the early 20th century, after a long onslaught, it closed down, and was remodeled into what it is now, a brand new shopping center, Las Arenas. It wasn’t easy. Due to the worldwide economic crisis, the works stopped for almost a year. But it finally opened 3 weeks ago. Inside? The same high-street shops you can find everywhere else, plus the first ever museum of rock in Europe. And a great view over Barcelona from the top, or so they say: too many people when we tried to go there.
Here is what inside looks like.
About the museum of rock, I will show it to you when it will be possible to enter the place without having to queue for endless hours. Soon!
This shop on Good Luck Square…
…sells handbags made of recycled stuff.
The shop’s furniture looks kinda groovy, but is it recycled?
Anyway, welcome to Good Luck Square, la plaza del Bon Succes.
Post 615: Mc Merry-go-round???
…as seen near the Maremagnum shopping center, in the Port Vell.
Once again, I’m having header problems: tried to change it for a new one, but whatever I put comes out blurred. Anyone knows what’s happening?
Weekend Reflections 70
Oh look, that’s us! Let’s take a photo!
Another weekend reflection. Want more? Click here!
Experimenting some header problems. Will try to fix it ASAP. Although it might be a good idea to K.I.S.S. for a while…
Do you need any…
… scissors?
… bottle openers? This is the place to go, on Plaza del Pi!
This is My World, on Tuesday! Please click here to see more worlds from this world!
Weekend Reflections 69
Barcelona airport, 5 AM…
This is for James’s Weekend Reflections meme. Please click here to see much much more!
Breaking news!
Mr Santa, aka Pere Noel, Nick Cringle, Weihnachtsmann, etc. Big guy, elderly, big belly, white beard.
We think we know all about him. And that’s a fact. Some of you don’t believe in him.
Well, I’ve got some news for you! He’s real! Want some proof?
None other than Mrs Santa told me! She was in town the other day, Christmas Eve, in order to finish her (much older) hubby’s shopping. Well, someone has to do it, he is quite busy, you know!
Anyway, I met her coming out of some trendy fashion shop on the Ramblas (whose present did she buy there???). Nice girl.
One thing though… Can’t stand that partner look thing!
This is for My World Tuesday. Click here to see more.
Please check also out the BIGGEST CAGANER IN THE WORLD EVER on my other photo blog, right here! Front and back!
It’s Christmas!
So, well: merry Christmas to all of you celebrating it, happy holidays to others, and, finally, have a good day at work to some others! You know who you are.
Incidentally, it’s my sister’s birthday today as well. Bon anniversaire, vieille branche!
Tomorrow, we’ll start talking about some very serious, very extreme sailing…
I want to break free!
Please set me free!
Been a while, but here we go… This is our friend Xavi’s garden (well, mostly) blog. Have a look, it’s fabulous!
Theme day: Time
You might remember the summer of 1982 (if you’re old enough, that is). This little guy came to visit us by accident. All he wanted to do was to phone home. He did indeed fly home at the end of the summer.
28 years later… TIME flies. But…What happened to him???
Well, and this is breaking news: we are very happy to report that he chose the beautiful city of Barcelona for his long awaited comeback!
His planet’s money not being worth peanuts here, he was lucky enough to get this job, selling TIMEpieces in the Raval, in Carrer Tallers. Bienvenido a Barcelona, tio!
PS: original picture reworked, as it was very dark, and as I somehow had to get rid of the reflections on the window.
This is for the monthly theme day, this month’s theme being TIME.
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants
This is also for ABC Wednesday, Round 7 hosted by Mrs. Denise Nesbitt and the ABC Team of Denise, Roger, Jay, Troy, Barb, Gattina, Sylvia, Annelie, Linda, Donna, Helen and all those I forget or don’t know about. To participate and view what others have in mind, please log on to this site.
Free
Barcelona is a very youthful city. For a person in his late teens or twenties, it is a paradise: beaches, bars, discos, many many concerts all the time. And surfboarding! Here is the little shop in our street, selling the free spirit.
Lady in red
Saw this lady in red, with dog, in a fashion shop near the cathedral. Wouldn’t you ladies want a dress made of roses?
The english cut
Night shot of the main building of the gigantic Corte Ingles, on Plaza de Catalunya.
El Corte Inglés (English: The English Cut as in tailor’s cut) is Spain’s only remaining department store chain, as well as owner of several associated businesses, such as supermarket chains Hipercor, Supercor; Opencor, fashion chain Sfera as well as a travel agency (Viajes El Corte Ingles) and telephone provider (Telecor).
It has a nice food corner, where you can find such delicacies as Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, black pasta, selected rare cheeses, very fine wines and cigars, and so on. Expensive for Spain, but worth a treat now and then. A must. And of course, all the clothes, IT stuff, photo stuff one can dream off. A dangerous place for our wallets.
Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquis of Dalí de Púbol
It’s good to be the King!
We’re away for the weekend, to the beautiful city of Lourdes, in the french Pyrenees. But no worries, the King of the Frogs himself has gently agreed to keep you company, for a price (75 euros). Thanks, Froggie!
PS: please call him His Maj!
Jack!
We’re away for the weekend, to the beautiful city of Lourdes, in the French Pyrenees. Jack Nicholson graciously agreed to keep you company meanwhile. Thanks, Jack!
Window shopping
It is still too hot for me to go out a lot during the day, so we went for some window shopping the other night, at a safe hour, after most of the shops closed. They usually close at 10 PM. The windows actually look nicer at night.
Why do they put handbags behind bars? To protect them from bag snatchers? If they knew me, they would rather put the candies behind bars!!! 🙂
The dog is hot
Right, we moved to the Raval, and it wasn’t too bad or tiring. We even came across a nice special offer on internet, but… it will take 10 to 20 days for a technician to come and to set it up. Meanwhile, I am sitting here at the terrace of a famous Seattle-based coffee company, with free wifi, posting a hot dog place. Amazingly, you can even have your hot dog with some choucroute/sauerkraut, (xucrut in catalan)which is quite rare in Catalunya!
Fira Mercat de Bellcaire, aka Encants
I know: it says one photo a day. Well, today, we’ll do an exception. Rules are made to be broken, innit?
Anyway, before moving out of the area, I went back to this magical place which is the fira mercat de Bellcaire, the Encants flea market. Quite an amazing place, I suppose you can find pretty much everything there. Very old place, been around since the 14th century. Christopher Columbus wasn’t even born yet! Open 4 days a week, over 100.000 visitors a week…
Here is some of the things you can see and/or buy, from doorstoppers to matrasses, air guitars, clothes by the kilo, any doll ever made… And so much more!
Many of the stall owners hate photographers, so be careful when you go there, as they’ve been breaking some people’s cameras. Just play the part of the stupid tourist, as I usually do: it works.
Diversity
We are currently exploring the Raval part of Barcelona a bit further, as we will be moving there this saturday. Some of the things we really like in the area is the cultural and gastronomic diversity.
This one below is specially for our many filipino blogger friends: the first ever filipino restaurant we’ve really noticed in Barcelona.
Unfortunately, as they seem to have mostly fried dishes, and as my doctor say I should NOT (!!!), not sure we’ll ever eat there.
Some flowers for you all
Went on a tentative stroll through Gracia today, with a camera, to check the limits of my momentary strength. Doing good!
And we found this lil’ old lady selling a couple of flowers (back of the 2nd photo, hiding in the bar, white top, pink bottom).
Different shopping
Well, let’s face it: you can get everything in Spain.
Not smoking this stuff ourselves, I’m not quite sure about the legal side of this shops (been told it’s a chain). Must be legal, I suppose. Photos taken in Valencia, but there are Mr H shops in Barcelona as well.
Gracia market scenes
Many many covered markets in Barcelona, and we love them. Here are a few scenes from the one in Gracia.
My world tuesday
…and there is also this slightly surreal shoe shop in the Barri Gotic. Selling shoes. Or should I say: selling one shoe, in many different colors and materials.
This is for My World Tuesday. Please click here to see other participant’s worlds in pictures.
Different worlds?
Did a bit of window shopping lately, and I came across these 2 very different mannequins. The first one was in some trendy alternative shop in the popular part of the old town…
… and the second one is the latest trend from Chanel, on Passeig de Gracia, Barcelona’s Champs Elizees. Yep, topless.
Which one would you prefer?
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Emotions
Emotions. Mute dreams. Emptyness. Space. The space of a second. Loving without forgiveness. To lose the innocence of being.
Emotions, by Antonio Iglesias.
A shop window.
Faster, food!
Quite a common sight in Barcelona, tshirts, jackets, bags with a supposedly funny picture or slogan.
I actually rather like this one, on someone’s jacket.
Run, pussycat, run!!!
My apologies to Luna (click HERE!) if this picture is traumatising. I’ve read somewhere that you can now get shrinks for pets, should you need it.
Plaza de toros
This is one of the 2 bullfighting arenas I know of in Barcelona.
Bullfighting. Whatever you might think of it, the news here are that many people try to stop it. Some want to stop it entirely, some want it to be just a sport, with no actual killing of the toros, the way they do it in Portugal.
Well, this arena is being transformed into a giant shopping center. Due to the crisis, the works stopped for a year, but they started again. The complex should open early next year.
And once again… Sorry for having so little time to browsing your blogs. Will try to come back as soon as possible.
Jamon serrano
Ubiquitous jamon serrano… Wherever you go in Spain, you’ll find it, in shops, bars, restaurants, everywhere.
The name means mountain ham.
The way it works. You buy a whole leg, and the special outfit to hold it. Take a very sharp knife, keep it as flat as possible, and start cutting the finest possible stripes of delicious ham.
One thing though: you’ll need some good ans sharp teeth to eat it.
Recipes? Hundreds, probably thousands!
More info here!
Mannequins
Mannequins. Getting weirder and scarier everyday. Would you cook, dressed like this??? Would you wear your nicest lingerie and a … chef’s hat???
Click on the links to see similar posts in Olympia, Ocala, and Tampa.
2.28PM, the latest weather update: sunshine, 19 degrees, 66F. We did it, we survived the winter!!! Yeah man!
The weaver
Occasionally, not early as often as we would like, we come across some more traditional markets and fairs.
This guy was weaving (and selling) baskets. He was teaching some kids, and they seemed totally enthralled by his art.Nice gentle and patient face too.
Barcelona Daily Photo 
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