Catalonia Dispatch

“So how did you end up in Vic?”

This question persisted throughout our stay in Spain! Our home exchange outside Barcelona was in the ancient town of Vic, the current center of the Catalonian independence movement; population 42,000. We actually enjoyed the town, as our huge, beautiful old burgher’s residence from the 18th century was just steps away from the Plaça Maior. The town has few tourists and several good restaurants around the plaça, with both Barcelona and the coast only an hour’s drive. 

Vic's Plaça Maior at night:

  ...and on Market Day (every Tuesday and Saturday):

By 1:15pm there is no trace of a market!

Note the yellow and red flags draped from balconies, proclaiming the wish for independence. The Catalan flag was hanging in the regular version and the all-red-on-yellow Communist version. Our hosts had the entire collection of Lenin's writings lined up along a wall!  

Our beautiful Vic home:

Our old building typically included our large, elaborate residence with high-ceilings one short flight up, then subsequent floors with smaller apartments and lower ceilings.

The floor tiles alone were enough to thrill me!

Elise, Jake and Larissa joined us for most of our stay. When the kids arrived in Barcelona, we celebrated on La Rambla, the main boulevard:

The prices were so reasonable in Vic that I had to point out to Elise at her first dinner that the €7 for the white wine on the menu referred not to a glass, but to the entire bottle!

Elise was the Birthday Girl this trip

The home exchange included quite a nice hybrid Lexus SUV with a pre-programed GPS and the added convenience of the host’s existing parking plans in both the center of Barcelona, where he works, and a short walk from the apartment in Vic. Our old street in Vic’s historic district offers no chance of parking.

My favorite quote from the summer was after Newton accidentally selected the Barcelona parking garage in the GPS instead of the local garage after dropping Jake and Larissa off with their luggage by the Vic plaça. Once he returned to the apartment after being guided to the Barcelona highway instead of just a couple of blocks away, he cursed, “The damn GPS has ruined my sense of direction!” 

Salami & Cheese Store

The kids enjoyed hanging around the local swimming pool a short drive away or exploring the town and sampling the delicious local food. Our favorite was an Italian restaurant, La Gruta, which made the best pizza, the best pasta and the best burgers! We returned several times. Of course, the Spanish cheeses (on which vegetarian Jake and no-red-meat Elise and Larissa concentrated), salamis, chorizos and jamon were always a reason to eat.

Local Pool

In our beautiful garden

Our first big excursion was to Gaudí's Park Güell in Barcelona. We had made the required reservation for our entry time weeks before and arrived at this amazing Gaudí creation in the middle of the hottest day imaginable. We finally had to cut our drained wanderings short in search of air conditioning.

Gaudí miraculously broke beautiful Spanish tiles into pieces and rendered them his signature mosaics:

Our kind, generous and handsome Catalan friend in Natal, Jordi (or as I refer to him, Giancarlo Mastroianni), moved back to his hometown near Vic several months before. He was our official guide extraordinaire around the area. We started with a tour of the beautiful winery, Abadal:

Here is Elise's attempt to copy Jordi's perfect long arc of wine into the mouth from the special decanter...takes years of practice!

Jordi led the way to an excellent Catalan lunch at Restaurant Ramon in the village of Santpedor.

Soon, the imposing Montserrat loomed before us:












The Basilica and Abbey Santa Maria de Montserrat

The funicular took us up and up to the top for the spectacular view of the rolling hills and farms below.

Thank you, Sweet Jordi, for your expert tour-guiding!   

The apartment has such a nice garden and pizza oven that we threw a pizza party for ourselves one evening. Jake organized an elaborate blind wine-tasting with our new wines. 





Newton was an expert pizza chef.

We had to laugh at the disparity of our wine descriptions and preferences at the end, even after having tasted some of them at the winery. All of us were quite confused! 

As we headed up from the garden, Jake tripped on the brick-high level change in the landscaping and…broke his foot. A very nice doctor at the local emergency room fixed him up with a plaster cast (€200) and sent us off to get crutches (€25). The wheel chair rental was only €1.50 per day, so Jake opted for both! What a reasonable health bill, with the dollar almost one-to-one with the euro. Jake was unamused by the mishap, but bravely rose to the requirements of traveling-while-greatly-inconvenienced!

With Jordi's suggested itinerary, the five of us took off for the weekend along the Costa Brava. 

The fantastical Salvador Dalí Museum in Figueres is a must-see:

We spent the night in a beach town, Roses, where Newton lost his wallet at dinner. We inquired at the restaurant when we discovered it missing the next morning, but to no avail; then we looked along the curb and under all the parked cars in case it fell out of Newt's pocket when we were dancing on the way home! No luck. Good-bye euros, drivers license, credit card and bank card. We carefully monitored any sign of foul play on the cards without canceling them so we could use my cards with the same numbers. I’m happy to report that worked out fine until we were able to receive new cards at our next exchange.

We passed through the seaside town of Cadaqués on our way to the Crep de Creus peninsula. There, we drove up and up to the lighthouse and ate lunch at an outdoor restaurant overlooking this:

The second night we stayed in the beach town of Platja d’Aro (Catalan spelling). This offered another pool for hanging around, plus the beach scene.

An extraordinary thing happened when we were eating a mussel-themed lunch on the beach: Newton suddenly spotted our Natal neighbor, Pascal, walking through our restaurant! We knew he commutes between Brazil and Spain (and his native Luxembourg), but we never realized that this was the Catalan town where he and his wife, my friend Carmen, have an apartment. We were in shock! Off we went, after lunch, to enjoy some wine on their breathtaking balcony. Carmen had a shock back in Natal, as well, when she saw our photo on Facebook in her home!

When we all went bowling in town that evening, Jake was able to try out this special wheelchair bowling apparatus. I lost soundly.

Our last three days in Spain were in Barcelona with Elise in a surprisingly chic AirB&b, behind this ghetto-looking door and up a decrepit staircase! It was located in the hip Born 2 neighborhood, or “Brooklyn,” as Elise called it! 

One of several plazas in every direction from our flat

We had a last dinner with Jake and Larissa before they took off for the US.















Alas, the plaster cast incorrectly positioned Jake’s ankle in a slight torque, so the stage where he could begin to put weight on it in a boot was too painful. Traveling with crutches it was! When he got to his next stop in New York, a doctor took the cast off and replaced it with a convenient removable velcro model so progress could resume.

He was sited on the dance floor with Larissa soon after at the Block Island wedding of a friend.

Larissa and Jake then moved to Vancouver for the fall, where Jake can ply his Texas Hold’em trade online.

My dream since visiting Barcelona eight years ago was about to be fulfilled: seeing Gaudí’s Casa Batlló and Sacrada Família Basilica again, but with Elise! Gaudí’s creative imagination is right out of Lewis Carroll, so I always knew that my once and future Alice - Elise - simply had to partake. How exciting it was to be re-flabbergasted at Casa Batlló through Elise’s eyes!

Organic art nouveau forms and deep sea references influence Casa Batlló throughout, rendered in painstaking workmanship.

















Gaudí's trademark use of light:

Sea turtle and conch evoked:

Graded shades of blue tiles in the central atrium:

Refracted glass partitions render the atrium "watery"

Unvalted arches and a unique ventilation/drainage system in the walls of the top floor

Fantastical turrets on the roof

Elise by the Dragon Roof

As coincidence would have it, one of our dearest friends, Marty from Toronto, was visiting Barcelona with her daughter Amy. Marty is a veteran Montessori teacher and Amy, a recent college graduate. We had not seen them since visiting their island in the Thousand Islands between Canada and New York eighteen years ago. We dined at the Mercado Santa Caterina for one of the most delicious meals ever, including, hands down, the best octopus ever. What a joy to catch-up with this decades-long soulmate, whose late mother, Donna, was also my close friend and neighbor from Cleveland. We went to their Jugg Island many times. Now our daughters had a chance to go out and hang with the cool crowd of Born while we talked for hours. I love you forever, Marty.

Here are Elise and Amy with Danish girls they met.

On our last day, a picnic lunch in Ciutadella Park was followed by Gaudí’s incredible Sagrada Família – now eight additional years towards completion. 

 

Eight spires are currently in place, though Gaudí’s plans include eighteen spires, the completion of which will make this the tallest church in the world. It has been privately funded and sustained by tourist ticket sales, with the completion date set for 2028; this is two years past the original goal, which would have fallen on the centennial of Gaudí’s death.

Scroll down on this link to the video Elise found that demonstrates in a minute what the final Sagrada Família plans look like…quite a ways to go:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/70277/barcelonas-sagrada-familia-begins-final-stage-construction

Elise was off to Los Angeles and the very lucrative-but-crazy-making full-time job in graphic design and video editing she had been suffering through for almost a year. It required a killer daily commute to Santa Monica, to boot. Soon after, her sincere wish to be laid-off came true (having very little to do there during recurring spells), along with a fantastic severance package. Immediately, demands for her free-lance services materialized from all over the place! She is now extremely happy to work from home with her cats and apply all that commuting time to the satisfying application of her quick and sure eye. Well done, Elise!

We were off to our fifth and last home exchange in Salò, on Lake Garda in Italy.

Love,
Sandy

Berlin Dispatch

Our arrival in Berlin fortuitously and unexpectedly overlapped the departure to Brazil of Felix, Julia and little Zoë, whose Prenzlauer Berg flat we were exchanging for the next nine days. We ran into them on the sidewalk in front, about to catch a cab to the airport! Felix, an actor with the public theater, led us up the five flights of this historically preserved building for a brief introduction to the spacious and light-filled flat. I was immediately swooning over the collection of Arne Jacobson and Charles Eames chairs that Felix had inherited from his parents and the Danish lighting fixtures that lent the perfect continuity to the summer's mid-twentieth century design theme. There were Felix's creative instructions and suggestions for our stay and a variety of art on the walls to examine later.

This Prenzlauer neighborhood is known for its young families, the big park out our front windows with the old water tower - now refurbished into hexagonal apartments - and loads of shops and international restaurants, bars and cafes. We found the prices the lowest we had seen in Europe, by far, and cannot help but think that this plays a big part in the youthful and creative dynamism of this former Eastern Bloc of Berlin, which has risen so splendidly out of its communist grey. Some say that Berlin is now the capitol of Europe!

Jake and Larissa were staying in a beautiful AirB&b in the Friedrichshain neighborhood. They joined us the first evening for happy hour in a neighborhood Argentine bar and a true introductory Berlin biergarten dinner. I finally had sauerkraut after nine years! Unfortunately, sauerkraut is a Bavarian dish and was not available again until our last night in a simple German restaurant.

A kindergarten in our park filled the mornings, once again, with the squeals of happy children. We spent the first few days walking the neighborhood, sampling the Thai, Russian and Italian food and visiting a huge flea market in Maver Park with many live music venues. Small kiosks painted like strawberries were everywhere selling strawberries, so we succumbed to the temptation next to our flat and never stopped eating the most incredibly delicious strawberries of our lives for the remainder of our stay. We are at least temporarily ruined for those sketchy things that are called strawberries elsewhere; we simply cannot eat them for the time being. We loved the semi-weekly street market on the next block, where we sampled the famous currywurst and the gözleme, a popular turkish crepe with vegetables.

We had a great Asian fusion dinner with Jake and Larissa at Toca Rouge on Torstrasse, and a sunny summer's afternoon at Lake Liepnitzsee together, an hour's drive in the lovely old Audi station wagon that was part of our exchange. It was fun to see the swimmers of all ages unabashedly changing back into their street clothes along the shore...a reminder of our ingrained puritanical roots! (Sorry; no photos.) We had a ping-pong reunion on a small island in the lake:

Jake's dear friend (and wedding groomsman) Thomas Schulzee was then moving to Berlin from Thailand. He is practically one of the family! Another of Jake’s friends from Nyack High School, Jake Schickler, lives in Berlin. His father was visiting at this time, so we all met up for another biergarten dinner at the famous Tiergarten Park. Plenty of bier, and I discovered one that is not so heavy or bitter, now that I’m accustomed to such light-though-flavorful Brazilian beer. It was a fun reunion with lots of Nyack, New York reminiscing. 

Our dear friends - more like relatives - Anke and Klaus, arrived from Herford in Westphalia for a few days' visit. Anke was my family's year-long American Field Service exchange student in 1964 in Tulsa! She has always been the fifth Needham daughter, and shares an appreciation of and love for my departed parents. Klaus is now retired from his bank managership, so we did what we talked about doing three years ago when we visited Herford: meet in Berlin after his retirement! They became our native guides to the historic wonders of the city and our partners-in-dine!

We got off to a rough start when we were to meet them at Hackescher Market; the place was swarming with happy hour crowds and we could not spot them anywhere. We even checked with one of the bartenders if there might be a specific bar called "Hackescher Market?"...but, 'no.' Finally we saw Anke walking towards us. Sure enough, across the street out of sight was the very chic Hackescher bar where they had been forced to start without us! We found a great little Italian restaurant, Vino e Basilico on Tucholskystrasse near their hotel, and had a rollicking, wine-infused dinner.

At Brandenburg Gate

But it got worse: the following day we were to meet them at the Parliament by the Brandenburg Gate in Mitte, the city center. We made our way by tram to the Alexanderplatz underground just below the highly visible Funkturma broadcasting tower. It was our first underground ride since arriving from the airport, and we assumed that we would consult the subway map in the station - as we were accustomed to doing - and then head to the Brandenburg station. The problem was, there is no map and no information booth, just various stairways with a list of stations...not that one...beside them. We called Anke and Klaus after plenty of frantic running around the station - not even knowing where to start. They told us how to arrive at the huge new Hauptbahnhof station and wait for them in front. They trudged on foot in the heat from the Parliament to meet us. Organized Anke and Klaus: meet the forever ill-prepared Sandra and Newton! It was a sweltering day and now they had to turn around and lead us back to the sites, but not without Anke stopping first chance to buy us a map of Berlin!

Funny story: apparently the citizens of Berlin consider themselves the pinnacle of civilization in Germany and exhibit a bit of condescension towards their podunk countrymen...in their own rough way! There was one woman already at the counter where Anke wanted to pay the one euro for the map already in her hand, but when she tried to place the coin on the counter, acknowledge the clerk and leave, the clerk admonished the refined, former professor Anke and explained that it was impolite to pay ahead of the woman in front...except the woman had a notebook and pencil out and was painstakingly planning an entire itinerary at the counter. Finally, the clerk relented and took the damn euro. Anke and Klaus get a big kick out of this Berliner attitude.

Reichstag - Parliament

We then visited Parliament, called the Reichstag, though we did not go up in the dome, which requires a reservation; we passed the stunning modern Parliament buildings; visited the famous Brandenburg Gate, which leads to the fascinating Unter de Linden boulevard lined with linden trees from the days of the Prussian kings, featuring palaces, embassies, and the world-famous Humbolt University (29 Nobel prizewinners!), among many distinguished historic buildings. The Gypsy Memorial pays tribute to the thousands of Gypsies killed by the Nazis, and the classical Neue Wache War Memorial, to all victims of war. Even though we did not walk around the Jewish Memorial, we drove past it and were able to experience the emotional effect of its design. Germany is a model for the world for healing in the way that the country so openly faces the past without subterfuge and honors the victims of Hitler's madness. 

Parliament  Buildings

Gypsy Memorial

Neue Wache Memorial

Holocaust/Jewish Memorial

There were happy sun-soakers along the River Spree.

The oldest church in Berlin is St. Nicholas Church from the 13th century:

We stopped in Gendarmenmarkt Square to see the French Cathedral, originally from a Huguenot congregation; the Neue Kirche, German Calvinist; and to enjoy these playful bubbles in front of the Koncerthaus:

This is a popular summer refresher that revived Klaus and Newton.

Tobias Quack, a personable and brilliant young man, is a friend of Anke and Klaus’ son, Jan, and a past visitor to our home in Natal! He had an internship at Volkswagon outside São Paulo a couple of years ago, then made his way to the Northeast of Brazil and stayed a few days with us. His Portuguese seems as perfect as his English! Tobias’ married older brother and little nephew live in Berlin, so Tobias took this chance to visit the city and share in our fun with Anke and Klaus and to meet Jake and Larissa.

We all met up for dinner in the bohemian neighborhood of Kreuzberg, home to a large Turkish population, punks, hipsters, artists, an amazing food market and street art! We settled on Swera Indian restaurant on the animated Bergmannstrasse because it had an outdoor table for seven! What luck, the food was magnificent. 

Of all the ever-popular Turkish gemüse vegetable kabob stands in the city, this one in Kreuzberg is the most popular of all, with a line stretching all the way down the block.

Our next expertly-guided day with Anke and Klaus was to the Pergamon Museum on the ‘Museum Island’ of Berlin. We visited the Middle East museum within it, with an outstanding collection of Sumerian, Assyrian and Babylonian artifacts, as well as the reconstruction of a provincial Roman market gate from the second century A.D.:

The collection is astounding.

Anke and Klaus had eaten at our neighborhood Russian restaurant, Pasternak, on a previous visit and loved it; Felix highly recommended Pasternak, as well, so we showed them our apartment and had yet another fantastic dinner on our last night with Russian food and Russian vodka! Thank you, Anke and Klaus, for such a rich and fun view of Berlin! We adore you and look forward to our next rendezvous...in Brazil, perhaps?!

I had a strange 'Eastern Bloc' experience when we joined Jake and Larissa on their first anniversary at a Sunday afternoon riverside bar and DJ scene, off the beaten path. I hadn't eaten and expected to get some lunch at the bar, but the kitchen had just closed till 6:00pm. The bartender sent me to the large restaurant next door...same story. The manager inside the restaurant sent me to the restaurants "down the block." Well, I walked and walked in what looked like a street of old abandoned apartment buildings, as there were no people or cars around and nothing open. After about a mile and a half, I got a real taste of the old neighborhood when I entered the open door of a bar where the male bartender and the two card tables of gruff men groaned in objection when I stepped in. The bartender sent me further down the street where, after another mile, I found a Turkish fast food spot at last. I had been time-traveling pre-1989, until the falafel, at least! Luckily, I finally made it back to the family in 2015 and shared some anniversary champagne.

The four of us visited the remnants of the Berlin Wall, painted by international artists after its fall:

I am studying here the photos on this pillar bedside the wall. You can see the photo of the dilapidated bridge directly behind me, now restored:

The "Topography of Terror" is an outdoor/indoor museum located on the site of the Gestapo and the SS from 1933 -1945. It is fascinating to follow the sequence of escalated Nazi suppression documented in photos and captions as you move along this exhibit.

I was very struck by the rapidity with which the horrors of the Third Reich and the horrors of World War II segued into the rapacious invasion of Berlin by the Red Army in 1945. Anke told me that her grandparents from both sides were Berliners, but that her parents fled the city ahead of the Soviets, eventually making their way to her hometown, Bielefeld in Westphalia, via her father's employment opportunities. 

One cannot avoid loving the vigorous, iconic "Ample Man" - the 'walk' signal on Berlin's traffic lights. This was designed in East Berlin during the communist regime and was replaced with West Berlin's 'walk' figure after reunification. Before long, citizens objected and this happy artifact from an unhappy era was re-instated citywide! Its jaunty hat and energy say so much about what survived.

We were off to Barcelona - Larissa and Jake soon to follow for our family reunion with Elise.

Love,

Sandy