Spain
Cafes con leche in Barcelona
I moved to Spain, or Catalunya, originally for a month, armed with no Catalan and very little Spanish besides the extremely useful “un café con leche, por favor.” I stayed almost a year, and returned for another summer later, and in the course of that learned considerably more Spanish, and some Catalan. Nonetheless, [...]
On the Beach
It’s almost February, and the winter stretches ahead many unappetizing and uncompromising months. It’s sunny but cold. What better moment to stop and reflect on summer days on the beach in Barcelona?
The sand. The sand is so strange in Barcelona. It isn’t real, it’s imported from somewhere, and it’s so [...]
A bicycle-bound view of Barcelona
My poor clanking, clattering, perpetually missing-a-brake bicycle! Bought with handlebars so low you had to bend double to ride it off an Argentine couple who couldn’t believe my lack of Spanish, fixed by a friends flatmate, dragged home on the metro and up and unbelievable amount of stairs going through the Passeig de Gracia [...]
Chocolate con Churros
I knew chocolate con churros as a winter-day’s treat in Barcelona. After a day of shopping in the gothic quarter, or simply wandering the streets of all the old neighbourhoods to drink in the atmosphere, it is often necessary to warm yourself with a truly decadent treat. So it’s straight to the Xocolaterías, [...]
Castley Bits, part 3
This summer I went to one place completely different from the cookie-cutter British cities, the Medieval Toledo, only half an hour from Madrid on the High-Speed Train. Toledo sits atop an excrutiating hill, beige and roasting in the intense heat, a walled city that was once home to the three religions that coexisted in [...]
Castley Bits, part 2
Speaking of anachronistic buildings next to each other in Europe, obviously a far greater occurrence than in North America.
The tower of London and Londn City Hall facing one another across the Thames are an example of positive contrast. The modernism of the City Hall does not take away from the grisly dignity of the [...]
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