Back in Barcelona, preparing to return to the US, after a few days of business and sightseeing. A walk up La Rambla from Liceu to Plaza Catalunya, followed by a bit of crisscrossing through alleys reminds me something is missing in the US
Back in Barcelona after Madrid and Montserrat, capital and mountaintop experiences, respectively.
They say La Rambla is the tourist strip in Barcelona, and I’m staying at the HostalOpera, which is right around the corner from St Pau’s church, close by the Liceu metro stop.
I’m glad I stayed in a residential area for the first few days of the Mobile World Congress show as it provided a way to see the Catalunyan (Catalonian) capital closer to the way a resident sees it. I was right near the St Antoni market, which would make shopping for fresh seafood in the States something akin to microwaving salmon.
Walking through the alleys on either side of La Rambla, though, I realized the thing I miss most about the US is the lack of echoes and good piazzas and public spaces.
Dickens had it right when he said it was hard to tell whether the echoes are coming or going.
Turning a corner this winter evening in Barcelona, the echo of a hand organ grows, but is in a place that’s elusive unless one stumbles on it or listens carefully and then performs trial and error searching for the source of the bouncing sounds. I listened, but then stumbled in a way that I didn’t think was the right way, only to come face to face with the organ grinder beginning a Bach fugue.
A good night indeed.
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