Describe
Catalonia in three words
A sound: The sound of a gralla: I don’t like sardanes. but
the gralla (the main musical instrument of the sardanes) has a sound that if you here once, you’ll never forget
it. It’s like a deep cry, with a very high volume; you can hear it from miles!!.
It’s like if somebody wanted to say, Hei, I’m here!!
A flavor: El pà amb tomàquet= Bread, scrubbed tomato,
olive oil and salt: The simplicity of 4 natural ingredients with all the flavor
of the Mediterranean. There are two schools of thought when you speak about the
pà amb tomàquet,; the one that says
you have to put the salt before the oil, and the one that says the salt is the
last thing you have to put on. I’m still thinking which one is the best
A smell: Well, we can speak about de “DNA
of Catalonia” telling typical things as “El
Barça”, “Els Castellers”, “The Montserrat Monastery”, “la Caixa”, “The 92’
Olympic games”… But one of the
things that shocked me my first years in Barcelona was that the city smelt
roasted chicken on Sunday mornings, at that time like 12 in the morning, the vermouth time. If the smoke of the chicken
steakhouses had the roasted chicken color, a big roasted chicken cloud would
cover the entire city every Sunday, at that time between 12 and 1 o’clock
Why did you move
to Barcelona?
At that time we had not many Colleges in Gran Canaria, and my parents asked
me to choose between Barcelona and Madrid for doing my studies. I’ve always
asked myself what would have been my live if I had chosen Madrid…
Where is your favorite
place in Catalonia?
One of my favorite places in Catalonia is “El Camino de Ronda”, in the
Costa Brava. The summer sun touching your skin, the smell of the pines and the
aromatic plaints as rosemary, thyme, the sound of the waves hitting the rocks…
And the seagulls that come to say hello and remind you that in the other side of
the sea there is another path with people also walking and saying hello to the
same seagulls
Tell me one
thing that you love in the city but most of the tourists don’t know about it.
Down the doric columns, in the Park Güell, there is a big tank for
collecting the rain water. I had the chance of getting inside one day, when
they were restoring the Park. At that time the Park was closed and the workers
had gone. We went into the tank; it was enormous, it’s extended for all the
doric columns room. It was like a secret cave. They say that Gaudi was a mason.
I think I could see his spirit going around inside the dark and silent cave… Nowadays,
every day thousands of tourist’s steps do the echo walking over this closed and
unseen cave.
Is there
something you don’t like in Barcelona?
The short time that the traffic lights give to the pedestrian to cross the
streets. It’s especially serious for the elderly, when they are crossing big
streets as Diagonal, Aragón… I see these streets as wild rivers that old people
can’t cross; they have to wait until the Sunday, when the city is quiet and the
cars are resting. That’s the moment in which the elderly can go to the other
side of the city to visit their families
Tell me about a funny
cultural misunderstanding you were a victim of.
One friend of mine that came to visit me in Barcelona went out to take a
walk. He took the metro, and to remind in which underground station he went
out, he thought that writing the name of the station could be a good idea.
After a couple of hours walking around, he asked somebody for the station which
name was “SORTIDA”. It was hilarious,
because “SORTIDA” simply means “EXIT”.
Special thanks for Juan Carlos for participating in my questionnaire.
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