Silence In the Library: Borrowing Books in Barcelona

Barcelona has an excellent library system. There are 36 libraries in Barcelona, which may seem like few until you actually think about the neighbourhoods and how small, in my opinion, the city is. According to the official website of the library system,  there are on average 2 volumes per inhabitant in the collection (meaning approximately 3 million books); 27 libraries out of 36 have multimedia collections (read: DVDs of movies and TV shows, CDs, videogames), and each and every library has free Wi-Fi. The whole library catalog is naturally available online. Ayuntamiento (the city government) spends 15€ per inhabitant to fund the library system: that's a lot of euros from the city budget well spent, in my opinion.

And get this: anyone is allowed to obtain a library card in Barcelona. Anyone. You live in Barcelona or elsewhere in Spain? Have it. You live in Europe? Have it. You are visiting for three days? Have it. You are here illegally? Have it, I guess, no one will ask you how long you are here for and why. To get a library card, you need a valid ID, which could be your DNI, NIE or a passport - any passport. You do not need to prove you live in Barcelona, you do not need to provide a permanent address, you do not need to explain why you want the card. I am not sure if this is due to upholding the human right to information and knowledge, or the Barcelona library system is just so all-inclusive just because, but basically, if you are here and you want to borrow books and movies, you are free to do so.

You can fill a form online to get a card or go to the nearest library directly. The card will be made on the spot for you anyway, so whichever option you prefer for whatever reason works fine. As I said, you will need to provide a valid ID with the name matching the form filled and the picture matching your face, along with a local address, but nothing will be actually mailed to that address, so it could be temporary accommodations or your friend's mailbox. So you show up at the library, ask for a card, give the librarian your ID, and they print the card out in 5-10 minutes, which you are free to use right away. With the card, you are allowed to borrow 15 books or magazines, 9 DVDs, and 6 types of other media (CDs and videogames for example), for 30 days, from any library in the system. That's 30 pieces on entertainment for a month. In Spanish, Catalan or any other language you can dig out. For free. It is truly very impressive.

You can renew each borrowed item three times, provided that it is not reserved for another library user. If you fail to renew or return the item by due date, each day you are late is marked with one penalty point per item. Once you accumulate 50 points, your card is automatically blocked for 15 days, during which you cannot use it to borrow other books, reserve a computer or use other library services. If you lose an item, you need to buy an exact replacement for it, and if you can't find one, the library will indicate the material or cost necessary to reimburse the loss. Sounds pretty fair to me! Oh, and one last thing: you don't need to present your card when returning the borrowed materials, so you can ask a friend or a relative to return them for you if for some reason you can't make a trip. Cool? Very cool.

I personally have started using my card already: I have three books and one hiking map on loan at the moment, and I'm in love with the future possibilities, considering how impressive a DVD collection in my local library (Poblenou-Manuel Arranz) looks. I'm a bit afraid to forget to return the books, but the library website helpfully tells me that I will receive an email reminder three days before the due date.

Great job, Barcelona libraries.

Infecting Europe with all the good things

Barcelona, like any big city in the world, has a fair share of places catering to any possible hobby you could have. Dance schools, gyms, tango, painting, wine pairing, opera signing, ballet, even hockey (yes, in Spain), what have you - there is tons to occupy your free time if you have it, and so many options to spend it, if you only look for the thing that interests you.

Of course, martial arts are no exception, being the highly regarded and followed sport around the world. There is a lot of variety in the world of martial arts themselves, even more than you could imagine: lots of people have heard of boxing, karate, and possibly kung fu, but there is also kick boxing and Thai boxing (Muay Thai), jiu jitsu and Brazilian jiu jitsu, capoeira, jeet kune do, wresting, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) and many many more. And basically, if you want to try any of it, you are in luck, because in my experience every big city has at least several studios, gyms or dojo that offer martial arts training in one or a few disciplines. Yes, even for adult beginners.

Barcelona being no exception, it didn't take a lot of time to find a martial arts school just for me. I was looking for a place to continue training in Muay Thai that I started in Canada, preferably close to where I was going to be living in Barcelona - no small feat because, alas, you can't count on the gym being close to you, only on the fact that it exists somewhere. As luck would have it, I found an academy 10 minutes away from my apartment. Barcelona Martial Arts Academy had a website (!), it was close by, it looked good, and I laughed my ass off at their awesome headline, "Infectando Europa con Fuerza Técnica" (I still laugh at it, but now I love it, because I know it's true).

So in April I went there, intimidated like hell, because all I did in Toronto was fitness-oriented kickboxing. I was in good shape, could take multiple reps of abs crunches, seat-ups and body kicks, do cardio and more cardio, but technique-wise I was an absolute beginner, and I knew that. My first class was a complete failure, or so it felt like, - but it was no question if I was going to be back for more. I mean, eventually I would learn the difference between a jab and a cross and won't have to ask Natalia to show me how to do a hook, right?

Right!

BCNMA is addictive. In spring, I was coming three times a week for an hour, mostly because I had to commute from a temporary apartment I knew I was moving out of. In summer, when I came back from Canada straight into my permanent accommodations that were close to BCNMA, I started going four times a week without fail, week in week out, Monday to Thursday. At  some point I realized that it was not enough and picked up a personal trainer for Kali (a Filipino martial art that we do as part of the self-defense class) in the meantime: basically, a super-awesome friend who goes to BCNMA as well agreed to hang out and beat me up in the park or on the beach with bamboo sticks so that I could learn the basics faster.

And then, not very long ago, I was at last allowed to move up from the foundations level to what I call "everyone else level" (and what Michael calls "Combat Athlete Program " level, but I like my version better). All it means is that I no longer wear a grey T-shirt, but a blue one, and I am allowed to attend classes where beginners shouldn't go, for the sake of their egos among other things, because the stuff taught there is much harder. I am so damn proud of my blue shirt I now take my ass to the academy five times a week, doing two classes at a time on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That's the plan anyways; in reality, sometimes it turns to three classes per night, because hey, why not learn some Brazilian jiu jitsu as well?

We now have a gorgeous new space with two training areas, so now two classes can run simultaneously. We have awesome people coming in to train, mostly guys (not surprisingly), but quite a few girls too. All classes - be it Muay Thai, self-defense or BJJ - are really, really fun and educational. They are fun all thanks to the instructors, obviously, and BCNMA is a very special place, because it is run by people who make it so every single day. Michael and Natalia are the only ones teaching, and they are the owners, so there is no slacking, neither in teaching nor in being taught. I used to be intimidated by both of them, albeit for different reasons, but that feeling sort of went away, now replaced by endless respect and admiration.

If I don't literally have heart eyes (like so ), while at the academy, it does not mean I don't feel this way every single time when I'm there. Sure, there are bruises, and sweat, and hair getting in the way, and shins kicked, and insteps injured (ouch), but this is my favourite place to be in all of Barcelona. Well, maybe apart from my bed. Zzzzz.

Amsterdam: First Impressions

Amsterdam is lovely, but I didn't have to tell you that, did I? It is totally picture-perfect, making it impossible to put the camera away, because there is always some other canal, some other impressive boat, some cute fat cat or some comical Spanish restaurant to take pictures of. Amsterdam requires a lot of getting used to navigation-wise: any change of course may spin you in a new direction while going completely unnoticed... Having to navigate toward (really cute) bridges to cross canals, we took the wrong way numerous times, and we have only been here one day!

Today, Amsterdam was so choke-full of people that my friends and I had to hold hands so that we don't get lost in the crowd. Thing is, I had no idea that I will be visiting the city on Gay Pride 2013 weekend, and while super-duper awesome, it was also really tiring to get off sidewalks (for the lack of space) and jump away from bicycles to avoid injury, only to have to squeeze through colourful groups of dressed up people and having beer spilled on. Crowds get old really fast, but the general merriment and the definitely commonly shared feeling of "We are proud" was beyond amazing. Amsterdam, you definitely earned your right to be proud!

I have one random complaint though. Some places do not accept credit cards, only debit (but not Visa Electron) or cash. Some places do not accept cash, but take chip-and-pin cards. What's the deal? I am as of yet not terribly inconvenienced, but my limited supplies of cash are slowly dwindling! Please take my touristy Mastercard more, will you, Amsterdam?

Speaking of touristy, we visited Rijksmuseum, albeit briefly, De Jordaan, the Sex Museum (funny, tacky and a great way to spend 4 euros), and the New Church today. Does not seem like much, but we walked all across the city, got sunburnt and had a really light lunch, so by 9 pm we were beyond exhausted. Mid-afternoon Amstel and an early evening Kaldi espresso helped to balance out the day though. Plans for tomorrow: Rijk again, Stedelijk and Van Gogh!

A view of Barcelona

Here is a gorgeous shot of Barcelona taken from the Collserola mountains!

Bicing

You haven't lived unless you cycled on a Bicing bike, complete with its gloriously uncomfortable seat, while wearing a short skirt and no leggings underneath. You haven't known disappointment until the last Bicing bike was taken from the station right before your eyes. Also you haven't lived if you have never merged into carrer Aragó rush hour traffic on Bicing (or any other bicycle for that matter).

I can't think of another service that inspires so much love and so much situational hate. Bike sharing is a great initiative for any city even marginally suitable for cyclists (Paris, for instance, Toronto, Milan and many, many others). Not every bike sharing program is well-run and not every one is a success, and the Barcelona one definitely has many faults, but is still wildly popular. I have nothing to compare it to as I have never used any other system (I have my own bike in Toronto and I don't spend nearly enough time anywhere else), but I can still point out its ups and downs.

Barcelona is a fantastic city to cycle around. It has plenty of paths and cyclists-only lanes, it's a drop-dead gorgeous city in general and the weather is nice most of the time. There is nothing like pedaling down Enric Granados watching Eixample buildings swoosh by; there is nothing like stopping at a red light every five seconds on Passeig Sant Joan (weird charm of annoyance); and there is nothing like being able to just grab a bike and go.

Well... The problem with Bicing is that very often grabbing a bike and going is the problem. There are plenty of stations and plenty of bikes, and I'd go as far as to say that the ratio of bikes to users is theoretically quite balanced. The problem lies in distribution. Barcelona is a hilly city and people are lazy (that's universal), so people cycle downhill, from north to south, from the mountains to the beach, and park Bicing downtown. Not many people grab a bike down south to go back up; there are still plenty, myself included, but not nearly as many as those who go downhill only. So even though there are Bicing vans circling around redistributing bikes, every day is essentially still the same story: during rush hour, all the bikes uptown are gone in a jiffy, while downtown the problem is the lack of spaces to park them. This a geographical problem, the one I cannot criticize Bicing for; yet, I still rage when I cannot get a bike to get to my kickboxing class or make it on time to my appointment near Arc de Triomf.

Many people also complain about the quality of the bikes in circulation. Many are faulty, even more are not glitch-free, some are downright dangerous, which can be especially frustrating if there is no other bike in the station to turn to. Still, I have been relatively lucky with Bicing so far: the brakes were barely functioning only once (which I find the most dangerous obviously), a few times they made noises so loud that they startled both the pedestrians and myself; once the bike kept switching into second gear while I was attempting to ride in third.

Also, once I rode the bike number 666, and it got me to my destination safely. And that's all that matters to me, really.

Turbulence and happiness checks

I fly a lot. Maybe not as often as my fellow Diamond Medallion travellers, but still a lot. Upon leaving the Azores, my dad teased me about being "an experienced flyer" because I had my laptop and liquids ready for X-Ray before he took his jacket off. Yup, my weird thing to boast about is clearing security in under two minutes (NEXUS helps a lot here too). I feel really comfortable in airports, they are like these bastions of life neutrality for me, especially during layovers - nobody knows me here, nobody knows where I am going or where I came from, nobody, frankly, cares, and neither do I, because I am in the no man's land - not quite home, but not quite at my destination either. It temporarily clears me of all responsibility, problems, morals even. I work on the go, sure, but I almost do not exist when I'm in transit. I love this feeling. This, I think, prepares me to arrive: to let go of the place I left and arrive into my new or not-so-new destination, focus on the life I am about to start leading, be it for three days or for two months. But when it is time for my plane to finally take off, when the chassis stop touching the tarmac, I always battle the emotion that used to be fear and that now is just exhilarating tinge of worry.

Funny, right? At this age and stage of my travel life, when I jump aboard a plane, what seems like, every week, it is silly to get anxious about flying, about the plane going into steep turns, about turbulence. Yet, I confess, I still do. It is not fear of flying per se; I love flying, but I still get these jolts of adrenaline when the plane I am on jumps and shakes. Sometimes I get scared, sometimes it's a pure adrenaline shot, and sometimes antics in the air simply soothe me to sleep with no worry at all. It's still mysterious to me why I'm not always troubled, but when I am, I, without fail, think of my "happiness check".

Sounds pretty dumb, I know. These thoughts hadn't had a name at all before my most recent flight (which was really calm, by the way), but now that I've come up with a "Happiness check", it stuck. I always think how I have everything going for me in my life, how lucky I am to be doing exactly what I want and see people I love, all over the world. I know that if I were to die in a plane crash, however slim the chances might be, I would certainly die very very scared, but at least with all these happy memories in my head and things that I did rather than didn't do.

The happiness check doesn't calm me, by the way, it usually results in me thinking "oh god I don't want to die, my life is so great", which is exactly what I need in order to remember that planes don't just drop down from the sky, and a touch of turbulence never hurt anyone (except for you stubborn newbies who do not fasten your seat belts while seated).

Philly In Photos

Enough jokes about it being sunny in Philadelphia! Here are some pictures of wonder and gloom.

This, in particular, is gloom. The Eastern State Penitentiary is the oldest solitary confinement prison in the U.S. (now not functioning).

This is 4th St. It was pouring rain on a Monday night, and the only thing lacking here is a carriage.

Corner of South and 4th.

A highly recommended place to visit.

Even more recommended! Philadelphia Museum of Art

 View of Center City

 And the City Hall!

For the interested souls, I made a map of Philly's most essential spots, including museums, sights and good places to eat and drink. Check it out, I think it's neat, not to mention über-beautiful.

NYC art museums? What NYC art museums?

It's not always sunny in Philadelphia, but it is pretty swimming there, 24/7. While running through the Barnes Foundation, trying to at least look at the artwork I no longer had time to admire, I was thinking how I could not believe I was in North America, because never before was I so impressed with the art collection at a given American (much less Canadian) museum. Spending an hour and a half in the Rodin Museum before that was a great start: the museum is only one room, basically, but has a superb audio-guide with informative bits on almost every sculpture on display, including the striking Gates of Hell and the Thinker (the original!), so I couldn't leave without listening to them all.

And it only got better the next day, when the Philadelphia Museum of Art opened. Much, much better. Van Gogh was really just the cherry on top of the magnificent Impressionist cake, Monet, Pissarro and Renoir especially. Speaking of Renoir, he was also heavily featured in the Barnes Foundation along with Cézanne, quite literally, since they hang side by side there, in every room. Where the Barnes Foundation impressed me with Modigliani, the PMA had Schiele, Klimt and even Ayvazovsky, Degas, Miró... Indescribable aesthetic pleasure all day, every day. 

Three Days in Philadelphia

On Sunday morning I am boarding my first flight from Billy Bishop International airport in Toronto, also known as the City Island airport, found about five minutes on foot from my brother's place and separated from land by 120 meters of water. It is going to be the shortest ferry ride ever, and it's going to be freeeeee! The airport code for Billy Bishop is YTZ, in case this bit of info is somehow interesting. I will be flying Porter to New York City... well, to Newark, to be exact, but I'm not staying there even for a minute and heading to Manhattan the second I step off my plane.

From Manhattan, which undoubtedly is going to be all green and Irish (it's March 17, Saint Patrick's Day, after all), I will be taking a bus to Philadelphia, where, I heard, it is not always sunny, but many other wonderful things are found. Their art museum is supposedly exceptionally good. A quick Wikipedia read tells me that it houses Van Gogh's Sunflowers and Monet's Japanese Bridge and Water Lilies, which is good enough for me, even for $20. Another pleasant news is that the price of admission to Philadelphia Museum of Art covers two consecutive days, which means that I can visit Rodin Museum on Monday (while all the other buildings are closed) and continue with the main building and the Perelman building on Tuesday. Here is hoping that my hopefully light post-St. Paddies hangover will not interfere (or make an appearance at all).

Other random plans for Philly include cheesesteak, Liberty Bell, live music, and striking random conversations with people. After that, it's back to NYC for a few hours and then off I fly on Porter back to Billy Bishop!

This waiting for Barcelona. This pregnant pause.

Peter Murphy "Subway"
It's like there's a straight way you know, you know
I've told you before it's as thin as ice
As thin as the razor snow
Don't freeze in the snow
Don't bake in the heat
I'll be your breath
There's a place where we can meet
Use me
Don't sleep in the subway
Don't sleep in the pouring rain
By my voice in my midnight meditation
When I wake, be my heart's floatation
Come and fill, come and fill from the overflow
Come and play, come and play be like a bird
Don't sleep in the subway
I'm needing you well - I
I feel you, you're closing down yeah
Get close, talk right through me
Get close, keep tight with me
If you fall now it could be forever
I'm telling you the line is thin now
I've told you before this hate is a sin
Empty out for the overflow
Let love begin

The blue Azores

I'm in the middle of the Atlantic on an island that I had been calling the European New Zealand even before landing here. I think I am right and also very, very wrong, because this is as European as it gets, yet despite all the greenery and picturesque mountains shrouded in clouds, one cannot make a mistake as of to where she is. Definitely not the Pacific!

The Azores are lovely - this is my sweeping generalization of the day. There are nine islands in the archipelago, and we are stationed on the largest one, Sao Miguel, and, naturally, the most administratively relevant, as it houses the biggest airport and the capital of the autonomous region, the town called Ponta Delgada. We are staying on one of the main streets of Ponta Delgada, two minutes away from the "Gates to the City" and the marina, and yet this central street is as narrow as Travessera de Gràcia, which I find hilarious, awesome and not relevant to our stay at all. It's great, really: everything is so close, and yet the island is big enough (or should I say long enough?) for us to explore. This is precisely what we are doing tomorrow! The weekend was all about the relaxing strolls about, but volcanoes, crater lakes and hot springs are waiting.

Locals speak superb English: anyone I uttered a word of English to responds in kind without skipping a beat. Breakfast, dinner, yielding a cycling path, asking for Internet - doesn't matter, they understand, and it's very refreshing. Now Spanish is a different story, of course :)

They grow pineapples here. And tea. Azore Islands have the only tea plantation in Europe. I'm done justifying, I'm in love.

From Argentina to Portugal

Okay, my socks have had the top position in my blog long enough, time to grace it with some new content. I am staying put in Toronto at the moment, so there are no immediate travel adventures to report about, sadly, though I really want to get away to the States for a weekend (somewhere... anywhere). Money is a bit tight right now, so I must be strong and remember that in March I am heading to the Azores for a week!

The story of how this trip came to be should be called "How Buenos Aires turned into Ponta Delgada". I had wanted to visit Buenos Aires before heading to Barcelona in spring, and invited my parents to come with. My mom is an avid tango dancer, so it was only natural to expect that she would join me. Dad, on the other hand, doesn't dance and doesn't eat meat, so, blimey, Buenos Aires at a glance is not a great choice for him. He did want to go on a trip with me so we all decided to compromise and head to Chile, because Chile was also in South America and apparently gorgeous. After a quick plane tickets search Chile was off the list, because we wanted to treat this trip as a last-minute relaxing whim, and 14-hour flights for $1300 are not our idea of an ideal one-week getaway. So then the conversation shifted to Peru, because Dad has always wanted to climb Machu Picchu (and who doesn't, really?). Air Canada flies to Lima non-stop, so that was okay. We left the trip preparation at that: Peru in March.

A week later we had been drinking a nice bottle of Priorat red, when Dad brought up the March trip again. We talked about direct flights again, and somebody, I can't even say who, said: "Oh if only there were direct flights to the Azorean Islands from Toronto! If only!" The Azores are a perfect meeting place between Europe and North America, since they are found almost exactly half-way between the two continents. Mom said that maybe we could scratch Peru and go to the Azores instead. Well... I ran upstairs to check tickets, and lo and behold: non-stop YYZ to PDL with SATA Portugal, $650 round-trip! Could that be true? Only 4,5 hours in the air to reach the Portuguese domain in the Atlantic?

It was true alright. We booked tickets two hours later. Only after the decision was made did I realize how NOT crazy I was about going to Peru. It was not the destination per se, of course, I want to go there one day. I just wasn't feeling it at the moment: I was prepared to take the expense of flying and lodging in Buenos Aires, speaking a beautiful language, staying out till morning, enjoying the vibe, the food, the wine. Not so much in Peru, since I know nothing about it.

I know precious little about the Azores as well, but I will find out! The guidebook has already arrived and March is drawing closer and closer.

On the road again

Onboard, Toronto-Montreal train. I am already spoiled by free Wi-Fi and empty seats in front of me. The mind is entering a festive vacation state again: only pleasure ahead, if only for a few days - art, food, wine, snow, an apartment in Old Montreal, my parents, my tablet loaded with books. And with that, I just want to finish the horrifying Stephen King story and start with rude sensual Henry Miller. No more fear and pain, even in the books I'm reading for now.