Spring in Spain

March 7th to the 11th, I was in Barcelona with a bunch of my RADA friends.  We woke up at 4 am to grab a double-decker bus to London Victoria station, there to take another coach to catch an 8:05 plane from Stanstead to Barcelona-Girona airport.  Traveling with four actresses and two filmmaking women, it could've been problematic, but everyone kept his or her cool, and we were especially relaxed getting off the bus from the airport to the sunny Carrer de la Marina of downtown Barcelona.

We reserved a spacious and cheap hostel just a few blocks from the Sagrada Familia, a hundred year old cathedral, still under construction, following blue prints from the late Antonin Gaudi.  The archtiecture was wild.  Elaborate carvings of bible scenes tower high into the skyline.  It reminded me of King Louie's palace in "The Jungle Book."  

Barcelona is a large

, spread-out coastal city.  We got to know the metro system pretty well in the four days I spent there.  It's another city designed on a grid, and there are a number of historical monuments

, so the metro works very intuitively and efficiently.  Intersections on the grid spread out into dia

mond shapes, which is very frustrating for the pedestrian, who has to move left and across the street, then right to get back on the block.  Plenty of space to park vespas and motorbikes, though, which is very much the vehicle of choice.  (Especially for the crooks, too, I think.  Two of my friends were robbed within two days of our being there.)

Our first night, Anna and Liz and I went to watch the fountain light show near Montjuic Palace.  It was a little corny, listening to a recording of Freddie Mercury sing "Barcelona" or Celine Dion's "My Heart will Go On" in English as water shot up in the air.  Apparently, the Belagio models its fountain off of this one, so that was pretty cool.

My favorite part of the trip was our visit to the Gaudi park up West in the hills.  On our third day there, Jon and Phil and I found a little grocery chain to buy salami and baguettes and Spanish chocolates to make some lunch while we sat under the stone caves and palm trees.  

The beach was an hour walk away from the hostel, and it was crowded even in the 55 degree weather.  On my second day, I had paella in La Barceloneta, a row of restaurants.  A little pricey, but the chorizo was lip-smackingly good.

It was certainly hard to leave, but four days was just about the right amount of time.  

Our fourth day, we visited Barcelona Cathedral in Las Ramblas, built in the 14th century, and discovered a courtyard inside with a geese-inhabited pool and palm trees!  Church in the tropics, baby.

Our last night, before hitting up the clubs in the old city called "Las Ramblas," (where you are free to purchase roosters on the street, if you so desire).  I ran down to a local fruit vender to grab some strawberries for our dessert.  (It was also a chance to dust off the old Spanish and make an old, leathery-faced Spanish friend.)  Soon, a confusing exchange ensued in which I didn't really know how many "fresas" I wanted.  

"No sé.  Siete o Ocho?"

"Bueno.  Ocho."

The man pulled out eight strawberries and put them on the scale.  It came out to about 1.63 Euro, a pretty awkward number, considering I had given him 2 Euro.  So, I put my foot down.

"Bueno.  Es que, quiero más.  Doce fresas, por favor."

The man pulled out four more and it ended up being exactly 2 Euro.

"Perfecto!"  I smiled.

"Perfecto!" the man laughed.

A lame story, but it made me happy.

More to come on the second half of spring break with Biggie M. Harvey, soon.

Birthday Bard

Sorry for the major gap in programming, here.  It's been a busy past few weeks.  I'll be doing these posts in segments over the next few days to avoid half-assing them.

On February 28th, the day before I officially turned 5 and 1/4, I went to Stratford-upon-Avon to see Shakespeare's hometown.  We met an old local off the train with our Studies in Shakespeare teacher Mandie, and the man gave us just about every tidbit of info on the town we possibly would want to know.  He told us that Stratford was once a sheep-sheering town, but it became more famous for its beer right around when Shakespeare was in secondary school, helping to explain why William was off partying in the cornfields on weeknights, or sometimes alone out there with his eventual wife Anne Hathaway.

We walked past the house where he was born, and a scary man dressed as Shakespeare's ghost was terrorizing children in the neighborhood.  He was curiously attired in seventeenth century clothing, covered in stark white paint, including his pants, his breeches, his stockings, mustache, top-hat, you name it.

"the whining schoolboy with his satchel / And shining morning face, creeping like a snail / Unwilling to school." Jacques, As You Like It

Later we hit up Shakespeare's school, which began in a chapel at 7:30 to morning prayer, then on to translating Greek and Latin until 6 pm on hard wooden benches in dim-lit rooms.  No recess, and classes met every Saturday, too.

Our guide also explained that because Shakespeare's family had no money to pay for college and school in Stratford was free, Shakespeare did not receive the same education as University wits like Ben Jonson or Christopher Marlowe.  We know this, in part, because the the Greek and Latin stories William had to read and translate based many of their rhythms in the iambic pentameter, and, of course, 60 percent of Shakespeare's plays use this verse structure.  Shakespeare had the iambic beat drilled into his creative mind from the beginning.  The university philosophy at the time was to break this mold and find new ways of expressing verse poetry.

We went on to see a matinee production of The Tempest, the last play Shakespeare wrote.  It was a production created in South Africa, with an entirely South African cast.  This production tackled head-on the issue of Apartheid, and for characters like Caliban and Ariel, the theme was a compelling factor throughout the play.  The best part about the production was its use of the space.  I sat stage right, house left, on the side of a thrust stage that protruded way out into the audience.  Being on the side didn't pose a problem, even if sometimes the actors backs were too us because we felt like we were in the world of the play.  (When I saw Twelfth Night at the RSC, it was a proscenium stage, which kept the audience distance from the front of the stage and kept the actors always facing out in a rather tired Elizabethan manner.  Not to say it wasn't good, but I'm finding the thrust is really the more effective venue for engaging an audience--at least in Shakespeare).  Spirits were South African natives with grass skirts and congas, and they even used large, 'Day of the Dead' style puppets for Ferdinand and Miranda's wedding.  The most powerful moment came when Prospero set his slave spirit Ariel free by washing the white paint off his chest with a tin basin.

After the

 show, we made an unsuccessful attempt to visit Shakespeare's grave site.  In my opinion, it was fitting that we didn't see it, because to me it was a sign that Shakespeare is still alive and well.  (Corny, I know, but I had to find some redeeming quality to getting gipped out of seeing the tombstone.)

We got back to London around 8 pm, with plenty of time to drink some beers and break out the mattresses for a birthday "Fight Night," in which my friends and I took over the ping-pong room at the dorm and wrestle till we were tired.  All in all, an excellent 21st birthday celebration!