Spain 2007

Voyage is nearing an end, and if I could click my heels and get back to Kansas, I would do it in a heartbeat. Crossing the Atlantic on this rolling ship ain’t gonna be fun.

Cadiz and Barcelona were great cities to round out a very busy and exciting adventure. We arrived early as usual on the morning of Nov. 23rd, and I headed directly to the bus station to buy two tickets for Sevilla where Patty Wattenmaker and I flew to Barcelona from. My Spanish turned into Italian in various places, but we finally managed to arrive in downtown Sevilla, and after circling the city square, caught the airport bus.

Barcelona by night (and Christmas lights as a bonus) found us in Catalunya Pl. trying to find the Eurostar Gaudi hotel…convenient to the Sagrada Familia, but not to the center of the city. Took some photos at night and couldn’t sleep wondering what this famous church would look like in the daytime. And there it appeared next morning, its spires visible from our hotel balcony!

Work on Sagrada Familia began in 1882, but Antoni Gaudi did not become the official architect until two years later. He stuck to the basic Gothic cathedral cross-shaped ground plan, but devised a temple 95m long and 60m wide that was able to seat 13,000 people. What I thought interesting about the church (one of a hundred things), was seeing a large church in the process of being built. I’ve seen many cathedrals in Europe, Middle East, Mexico, etc. built during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but never one that was being constructed before my very eyes.

The church is quite open to the elements at this stage, and the concrete forms, tools, etc. are lying on the floor waiting to be hauled up to the ceilings and towers. Everyone looks busy doing something to get the building finished by 2015. There are stained glass windows, sculptures depicting the nativity and crucifixion…angels, trumpets, vegetables on the towers, columns in the shape of trees, stairways in the shape of chambered nautiluses. George Orwell once described the church disdainfully as a gigantic mess, but fortunately other architects did not agree, and continued to design and build more of Gaudi’s dream.

I loved the organic feel of the building…it was obvious Gaudi was a very religious man, but he also loved, appreciated and studied the forms of nature to build this church. His talents are observable all over Barcelona…in apartment buildings, parks, houses and all have his imprint of wavy lines, beautiful wrought iron, whimsical chimneys, and beautiful furniture. On our last day we visited the Parc Guell in northwest Barcelona, and I felt like a small kid roaming through the snake benches (Banc de Trencadis), feeding the lizard fountain, and looking up at mosaics in every enclosed space. There is a Hansel and Gretel style gatehouse at the main entrance, a “Hipostila” room with a forest of 84 stone columns (some of them leaning), intended as a market. There is also a house now called the Casa Museu Gaudi where Gaudi lived for most of his last 20 years that contains furniture by him and other memorabilia. The man was undoubtedly a genius, but unfortunately was hit and killed by a tram in 1926.

The Picasso museum is in the Gothi district of the city where small alley ways, interesting shops, cafes, gelateria, churches abound. I found the museum interesting because it was a retrospective of Picasso’s work, but starting when he was a late teenager. The earlier sketches and paintings were representations of nature and folk in his village, but one could see the forms and colors beginning to take shape for his later abstract years. Very few images from the blue period and also very few from his older years.

I wandered the alleys, had another dose of calamari and white wine and ended up in the Ramblas or main promenade leading from Catalunya Pl to the harbor. It was a beautiful fall day, and families were out strolling and watching the busters along the way. Cafes were full to the brim and the shops were doing a hefty business. Made it down to the harbor and the Mare Magnum, a large nouveau shopping center built down near the thousands of yachts tied up for the winter. Starbucks and Ben & Jerrys are there.

I forgot to mention the football game the previous evening. Barcelona is 2nd it its league, and I was anxious to see how the fans reacted at all the plays, ref calls and goals. Nothing was disappointing. There were 98,000 fans in the stadium, blowing horns, yelling, (smoking, ugh!), eating hot dogs. It reminded me of a bullfight I once saw in Spain except there was no bull to get bloodied up and stabbed. Much saner and more fun.

Flew back to Sevilla and Cadiz on Monday, got some chores done on ship and next day headed out for a great day in Cadiz city. Friends had told me that there was nothing special about the city, but I found out otherwise. Anne Shine (friend from D.C.) and I started roaming at around 10 am and did not return to the ship until 8 pm. We had a very long lunch at a restaurant called El Faro…many fish tapas and lots of white wine. Cadiz may be the oldest city in Europe, perhaps founded around 1100 B.C. and called Gadir.It began to boom after Columbus’ trips to the Americas. He sailed from here on his second and fourth voyages. Cadiz’s golden age was the 18th century, when it enjoyed 75% of Spanish trade with the Americas. It grew into the richest and most cosmopolitan city in Spain and gave birth to Spain’s first progressive, liberal middle class. Lots more happened over the years to plunge the city into a decline from which it is still recovering.

There is building and renovation going on all over the city…scaffolds up, windows boarded, lots of interesting graffiti. We poked our heads into a few doorways to catch a glimpse of the tile work the Spanish are so famous for, some fountains and wrought iron gates. There are many public parks, some in front of beautiful churches, others surrounded by cafes. They provide some breathing space between the huddled streets of the old city. Walked out to the harbor and an old fort…the sky was clear blue and lots of men were fishing. It was the most pleasant of days to experience before boarding the M/V Explorer bound for Miami.

This has truly been the trip of a lifetime. I’ve met many fascinating people, enjoyed being with students from all over the U.S., and thought a great deal about ways in which people learn about new cultures. For deep immersion I still go with staying in any one place for months and even years so that every day life becomes a habit, language becomes easier to learn, shopping in the market becomes pleasurable because one can cook at home. However, visiting as many ports as we did gives one a good global perspective on economies, religions, history, etc., etc. ad infinitem…at least enough information to question whether the whole world needs to become one whole melting pot. Do we have to have dozens of Starbucks, Macdonalds, KFC, Dunkin Donuts in every city in the world? Does everyone have to speak English? Is the world getting flat enough for people to lose their cultural heritages? And what about the global environment? Can every country in the world band together to clean up the air and water for mother earth?
I return home with more questions than answers, and yet a better understanding of why everyone in the world can’t be part of one big happy family….too many self interests. I used to think that not remembering history makes people repeat all their mistakes and go to war. Now I know that we do remember history and simply ignore what we know to be true for reasons of self-interest.

I recommend Peter Maass’ Love Thy Neighbor; a story of war. There is a particularly good quotation from Rebecca West that reveals one of life’s truisms:

“I have been struck again and again by the refusal of destiny to
let man see what is happening to him, its mean delight in strewing
his path with red herrings.” ( From Black Lamb and Red Falcon, 1993)

The world continues going round and round in spite of the things we do to it and to ourselves. But aren’t we lucky to be a part of its history and development.