February, 2015
My birthday
fell on a Friday this year. Party weekend!! Now what to do now that I'm
one step
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| MyTiny Kitchen in the Born |
Marta and
Bonnie were coming for a dinner that Marta was going to prepare in my tiny
kitchen. In the days leading up to Friday, she had sent me a list of food to
get at the market. Since I have more than enough time to go shopping, it became
my purpose for a couple of excursions out into the various markets around my flat.
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| Santa Caterina Market |
The main
course was going to be fish, a Hake, to be exact. A species I had never heard
of. I had all the known items gathered up, so now it was time to do
some fishing at the Santa Caterina Market. It's my local multi stall
market and although I had been in there a number of times exploring the unknown
territory of market shopping, I had yet to venture into the fishmonger section. I wandered around looking for a sign stuck in a
fish that read Merluza, Hake in Spanish. I didn't see one, so I just stopped at
a stall that wasn't busy and started to peel off the shell I keep around me
when I'm out of my element.
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| My Monger |
Marta had
sent me complete directions of what to ask for from the monger. It was
very detailed, so I simply copied it down and once I had the lady mongers
attention, I just handed her the paper. In Spanish it directed her to remove
the head and tail and to filet the fish. She was then to keep the spine along
with the head and and tail for soup. She read the instructions smiled and then reached
under the counter.
She then
flopped this great huge, and incredibly ugly fish on
the chopping block. Since
only three of us were having dinner, I asked in my Pig Latin Spanish if she had
a smaller one. No, they only got bigger. I suddenly imagined these great ugly
fish swallowing whole ships. I took the small one and she began to hack my Hake
with all the intensity of a prize fighter. By round three it had been
reduced to three containers of manageable size.
With Hake
parts in hand I headed home. Now it was time for me to make my last shopping
foray. If I told you I was going to cook the fish in a casserole, I bet you
wouldn't think of a covered steel pot. If you did think of that,
it's because you are from Barcelona. I learned this lesson just after I had
gone out and bought a casserole dish capable of holding the baby whale I had
just brought home. Fortunately the shops here will let you return items.
They won't return your money, but they will let you have a store credit. Since
I shop there a lot, I figured it wouldn't be long before I had used that credit
up. No harm done in this lesson of translated translations.
Dinner
was prepared by covering the bottom of the pot with a bed of dampened and
packed salt. The filet was seasoned and put in the pot. It was cooked with only
heat from the stove. It was a way of cooking fish that was new to me. Never
doubt the cook, it came out tasty and tender. It went well with the soup Marta
had made. Then it was time
for my birthday cake. In my honor, Marta made her now famous Half Baked Cake. Apparently she has been making this cake for years, but just now found someone deserving of the title. The cake was delicious, but getting to it proved to be a challenge.
Not being
much of a blow hard, proved to be my undoing when it came time to blow out the
candles. Or so I thought until I realized that no amount of blowing would ever
extinguish them. It was then that a small but determined brain cell came
fighting it's way into the vortex of my memory. Candles you can't blow out. Yes! I had seen them
a lifetime ago. I'm pretty sure I had terrorized a small child with them
sometime in my distant past. Now it was payback time. It must have been Bonnie
that suffered the brunt of my fatherly humor, because the laugh she was
now having, carried a hint of revenge in its tone.
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| Marta at the Dali Museum |
The night
ended with the promise of a very interesting weekend yet to come. Last year
Bonnie and a friend had gone to the Salvador Dalí Museum in Figueres. She was
very impressed with it and had told me then that I should go to see it.
I knew of Dalí, but had always thought of his
work as that of a very famous crazy guy. His museum was to prove me wrong.
Marta had made an entry appointment online, so we could avoid standing in line.
That worked well, since when we arrived, there was a light rain damping the
spirits of those queued up without an umbrella.
We
weren't long in the museum when we came to a hallway gallery of Dalí's early
pen and ink drawings. I was absolutely captivated with the intricacy of these
completely absurd drawings. From that moment on I had newly found appreciation
of his true talent. The rest of the museum tour made it clear to me that crazy
or not, the man was truly gifted. If you
should ever find yourself in Figueres
Catalunya, I can highly recommend the Dalí Musuem as not only a way of seeing
the body of his work, but a delightful escape from the common.
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| Cadaques, Spain |
Now our
journey was to take us to Cadaquès. A beautiful seaside village in its own
right, made famous by being the home that Dalí favored. In expected
fashion, the streets and the GPS could not agree with each other. A wrong
way here, and then a couple more, just for good measure, finely got us to the
hotel without a street. It had a street once, but it was transformed into
a pedestrian way without a notice being given to Google Maps. That would
explain why after the third or fourth other way, my GPS flipped me off and shut
down.
A walk
along the seaside over the smugglers trail occupied the remainder of our daylight.
The Camino de Ronda was a series of trails built along the Spanish coast
originally to aid in the coastal defenses. It's unintended use came primarily
as a smugglers route for contraband and necessities into Catalunya and other
parts of Spain. For us, the smugglers trail served as a welcome path trough the
jagged rocks that make up the Costa Brava.
Our
return to the village led us to the Casino. Not to gamble, but rather to have a
bite to eat and a glass of wine. The Casino in Catalan refers to the locals
meeting place and bar. The word bar here even has a different
connotation. A Spanish bar is just a cafe type restaurant serving a
simple fare and offering a beverage of your choice, as long as it fits into the
choices of the owner.
The night
ended with a wander through the narrow streets and passages that led up the
hill
that was occupied by the church. From the courtyard we could get a nice
view of the village, the harbor and the sea beyond. On our way back down we
noticed that the people living on the passageway we were taking had begun
painting the electrical access panels, with depictions of the village and the
seaside. These paintings lent an artistic flare to the
large and otherwise austere panels. These artworks brought to mind the large
electrical boxes that are scattered throughout Fort Collins, Colorado The
electric company was spending a
lot of money removing graffiti from these
boxes, that can be as big as an old VW Beetle. Someone came up with the idea of
having local artists paint the boxes as a means of providing not just a dash of
local art throughout the city, but also in the hopes that the graffiti artists
would respect the art, and not paint the boxes. It worked. The city has
the work of its local artists on display and the artists have a 24/7 showcase
for their work.
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| Port Lligat |
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| Marta trying to hot wire a Calessino |
Sunday
started with our now traditional hotel breakfast picnic. The car was repacked
and we were off on our walk to the other side of town. Port Lligat is the other
harbor port in Cadaquès. It is also the area in which Dalí had his home. The
home is now a museum. We walked over to Port Lligat not to see more of
Dali's work, but to see this beautiful area that served him as a refuge and an
inspiration. Picturesque is the word of choice for this area.
After a short walk up the Camino de Ronda, that was still intact in this area,
we walked back to Cadaquès, and the car. Our walk took us past a small hotel
that had two Piaggio Ape Calessinos out front. I think these cars are among my
all time favorite three wheel cars.
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| In the park |
The wind
had been blowing all day, which is common for the Costa Brava, but soon we
would know why the wind has a name. Tramuntana is the name given to the
prevailing and relentless wind that is one of the hallmarks of the area. We
drove through the Cap de Creus Parc Natural with the lighthouse on the
point being our destination. We stopped along the way for a picture or two and
found ourselves leaning against the wind in order to accomplish that.
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| The Costa Brava |
When we
got to the lighthouse we had to force the doors open in order to get out. If we
had parked the car in the other direction, I'm sure the wind would have turned them into doomed kites. We stumbled our way up to the overlook where we found a place to sit
that put us in the lee of the wind. The Cap de Creus is a wild
place with jagged rock outcroppings, arid and windblown, with a tumultuous sea.
Not a place for landlubbers or seamen alike.
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| Someone trying to walk in the wind |
We
stumbled back to the car as the wind was attempting to blow us out to sea. The
road through the park led us out to the seaside village of El Port de la
Selva. We passed through town, because our destination was Sant Pere de Rodes. An ancient village that overlooks the entire peninsula and the lands to the
west. This ruin
sits on the top of the ridge that separates the Costs Brava Peninsula
from the rest of the Girona region. The ruin is of a community that thrived
there for centuries.
On the very top of the ridge are the ruins of the castle of Sant de Verdera . Just down from it is the restored Monastery that was built during
the Romanesque Period.
We enjoyed our afternoon picnic among the ruins
in a spot of late day sunlight. With the late daylight came a chill that set us
walking again. We explored the outside of the restored Monastery before the
twilight reminded us that we still had a long drive back to Barcelona.
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| The ruins |
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| The Monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes |
The road
down the ridge and over the mountain to the highway was long and winding. It
was the type of road that demands the joy of jamming gears, brakes, and
smashing the accelerator to the floor. Although Marta's car is a station wagon
with a small 6 cylinder engine, it's Ferrari red and that was enough for her. She jammed through the curves with the
intensity of a rally driver, all the while wearing a Cheshire grin.
We came
up on the highway and we both realized that not only was that amazing stretch
of road over, but so was the weekend. The highway lead us to Barcelona and back
to start. I got out at the Born and bid Marta farewell. Once I was sitting
back in my living room, I spent a few minutes reflecting not only on the
weekend, but now at 59, I was living a life I could have only dreamed about
just a short time ago.
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| Goin' Home |
With a
birthday weekend like that, I felt it could only get better. I had a feeling
that 59 was going to be a banner year. In fact, I know it is. This story
was from February. It's now June and what has happened in the interim, confirms
my reflections of that evening.
Darryl
Photo Gallery
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| Cadaques |
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| Cadaques |
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Port Llgat
Sant Pere de Rodes
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| Port Llgat |
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| Port Llgat |
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