We landed safely under a hazy, 68 degree morning. Our trip from San Francisco was 16 hours of uneventful flying, punctuated with magellanic desires of circumimbibulating the first local bar I encountered. As we made our final approach and banked over the broad beach that stands between Barcelona and the sea, a tangled Monserrat pushed its way onto the horizon. It stood like a great dorsal fin of rock, capped with a bewildering monastery; built by catholic penance for the ages. More on this later.
         Once through customs we were escorted to a waiting 2CV, where our Irish pilot whisked us south to a sea-side cafe for iced vermouth and tired, but happy hellos. After our short stop on the sea, we pushed inland toward Villafranca and the region where cava is vinted. Another short stop in Villafranca yielded money exchanges, more film and an Estrella, a light but tasty Spanish beer. Onward to Saint Marti, our final destination.
         More hellos, Melanie (my travel partner) has family living and visiting here. I awoke from my short nap to the clanking of bells. The local shepherd was feeding his flock in a nearby field. We both are well and happy to be in Catalunia. It is harvest season in Villafranca. Cheers, Dan.

Date: 22 Aug 97 20:14:45 EDT

         We have survived to the weekend. We have survived the muggy, sodden air, laden with fumes and mysterious smells. We are tourists, we take pictures, we see those things a million others see. We go THERE.
         Our first night was capped with a barbecue featuring salad essentials from the neighbor's garden, protein from the highest levels of the food chain, unending bottles of cava, rounds of coffee and American whiskey sipped around the clouds produced by Andorran cigars.
         Mandy and Paddy, our hosts, produced this small party of neighbors, who filled our evening with affable chatter largely unintelligible to my foreign ears. I felt like a greenhorn farmer foraging for a volunteer crop of nouns and verbs, as I tried to follow the lively and animated talking. I speak Spanish like Tarzan speaks Chinese. I leaned in and listened to the evening. I listened to the stillness of our Spanish countryside and followed the moon on its raft of clouds.
         In the morning, we piled into our borrowed 2CV (an elegant French four-seater know as the Deux Chaveaux), rumbled into Vilafranca (now spelled correctly) and stepped onto a train for Barcelona. One hour later we emerged into a sweltering city of three million. We emerged into a city of the broadest streets, paraded by sturdy, beautiful, lycra-clad women, and earnest, handsome, dress-shirted men.
         In a few steps, we entered an older, shop-strewn realm of narrow streets, lined with four and five story dwellings. It became less frenetic, but an exigence remained. We drifted and stopped for coffee and beer. Ironwork surrounded us, peering own from each tiny balcony. I mused of the lives behind those balconies. These old buildings are where men and women still haul their water to their floors. Here there are no rivers of people, but the stream is steady. They work, go home for lunch, walk back from lunch and open their shops. There is an ease in Barcelona.
         The following day we toured a local castle, which turned out to be a heap of rocks. First occupied by the Romans and finally by medieval Spanish poking at the Moorish settlers, the rocks on the hill looked out over the cava region in a grand three hundred and sixty degree sweep. One particular point of the mound possessed tombs chiseled into the rock. Emptied, those question marks hammered into the Spanish hill held only mosquito larvae, darting in the pools left by convectional forces.
         That evening we drove to the coastal town of Vilanova for superb tapas in a crowded working class bar. If the Oakland Raiders came to Spain, Vilanova would be their logical home. The forklift drivers of Vilanova eyed these foreign invaders, who consumed the coveted table, seafood and cava with backslapping ferocity. With the bill paid and the olive oiled fingers properly wiped on the jeans, we sauntered down the ramblas for ice cream, coffee and cognac, and found our way back through the fifteen kilometers to our beds.
         From here we will find ourselves in some of the local Fiesta Majora. Each town celebrates the harvest with parades of masked merry-makers, food and cava. Onward to the coast, back to Barcelona, to see those things a million others see. Cheers, Dan.

Date: 29 Aug 97 04:06:56 EDT

         This is a landscape of stones. Thunderheads sent torrents of water upon those stones and softened the jagged edges into sweeping, rolling hillsides. These are not the smooth hills of interior California, nor are they the vaulting ramparts found in alpine territory, but are rough hewn hills. They seem like rock piles with soil tossed on top.
         On this clear day, Montserrat again pushed its fingers into the sky, and the few remaining clouds worked a patchwork of light and shadow onto the pinnacled spine. A steady breeze danced through the vineyards to the flutter of a million grape leaf flags. I walked along a country road and noticed the pleasure resting on the face of a farmer who told me he was cutting the grapes for the best cava in the region. Now each of the million flags waved furiously, as if signaling to the farmer that this was a day of perfection.
         A few days prior to this day, we were entertained at a barbecue at a neighbor's house. The group was entirely English speaking, though we were the only Americans. Fabulous food was prepared and consumed, and the evening was capped with songs and poetry from a most stereotypical Irishman. We all attempted various songs, but his were the sweetest. I surmised that our Irish singer was a bit of an embarrassment to his children, but the party was delighted.
         The following day we worked our way through the interior of Barcelona. The winding corridors of shops and cafes seemed more familiar. Later we followed the well-worn tourist track to the large and unfinished Sagrada Familia.

Date: 29 Aug 97 20:44:55 EDT

The last message was sent prior to its completion.
         The Sagrada Familia is an uncompleted work of Gaudi. Its large and imposing towers were filled to the brim with tourists. We spent the rest of the evening browsing the shops and wandering through this capitol of Catalunya.
         The following day took us to Tarragona, a seaside city dating back to Julius Caesar. This town had also an unfinished cathedral, but unlike the Sagrada Familia, the cathedral lacked only the top of the facade. The interior was beautiful, like many other cathedrals. We entered through a doorway awash with the colored light from one of the many stained glass panels perched high in the vaults. The church held many ancient tapestries lining the choir, and the altar possessed a life-size crucifix and a bleeding messiah thereon impaled. The drama of it all.
         The Romans really knew how to build, and Tarragona held testimony to that fact. Though most of the structures were gone, the city beneath held grottos hidden from the present. The Tarragonans simply built on top of the Roman construction, so one could peel away the ages like an onion. Some of the many artifacts were marble memorials to chariot racers. One champion was but twenty three when the fury of hoof and dust churned him into the abyss.
         I was inclined to photograph the demolition of newish apartments lying on top of the newly found Roman labor. To my enjoyment, I found a shot of modern rubble perched on rubble from the past, with an elderly woman peering at us through her binoculars. She waved me away, as if I was violating her native rights. I waved my hat at her like a patriot on the fourth of July. Later, clutching her binoculars, she waved at us like we were old friends. I thought that it must be easy to make friends in Spain.
         Our next day found us in the seaside town of Sitges, to enjoy oceans of seafood, vineyards of wine and the local Fiesta Major, rumored to be the best around. After a relaxing swim in the impossibly calm Mediterranean, we ventured into the throng to be nearly blow to bits by burlap covered devils, who ignited spinning and exploding fireworks with aplomb. My rakish hat sustained the brunt of the inferno, while receiving only minimal damage.
         The Fiesta Major is a tribute to the patron saint therein defined. Each starts with a few speeches, a couple of bands and about sixteen megatons of explosives. From there, a cacophonous group of devils unleash the aforementioned inferno of fireworks, followed by nicely constructed papermaché heads bobbing to traditional dances, and various groups of musicians and dancers doing the musician-dancer thing. There is beer, wine and cava in this place. All of the above was enjoyed, with some weight added to the latter. Somehow we got home...
         Montserrat rose with imposing destination on the next day. Five people in a 1971 2CV, and we were off.
         We drove into the Spanish countryside, enduring a grade slightly more robust than the horsepower of our vehicle. The eroded pinnacles loomed closer and more surreal as the kilometers clicked past. The slightly metamorphosed sedimentary rudiment of the Spanish countryside rose from a landscape eroded. The stones refused to be cleaved, and the monument arose. These folks built a church.
         A vision of the Madonna appeared in the rocks, and the throng of visitors affirmed such a belief. We traveled with a Brethren minister and his wife (They abstained from the alcoholic parts of our journey), who ventured into the bastion of Catholicism and viewed the black Madonna. I jumped the local funicular to the top of the rock for plant identification and gaping vistas. This place seemed to be the Yosemite of the religious world. We bought crappy souvenirs.
         After a day of rest and a day at the beach we resumed our safari into the nearby city of Vilafranca del Penedes, for their version of Fiesta Major. They too blistered our faces with explosives not seen since the nefarious tests in Nevada, but we endured, took pictures and sampled a fine, yet unusual Spanish beer: Estrella. There were large papermaché heads and the champion casteles, who stacked themselves, shoulder to foot, five high.
         This concludes this report from abroad. But a closing thought pushes into the keys...popular culture is closing in on all those things held culturally precious. Each culture reduced to a roadsign, as the road becomes the destination. We go THERE. Cheers, Dan.

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