Falling in love...

They say you can fall in love with a city, but I would not believe them. You may feel comfortable, you may even feel at home but "love" is a word far to strong to describe a person's realtionship with a city. For me these relationships are more like family. You are born with your city, you carry it with you until you die, although occasionally you may move from place to place. But falling in love with a place?

Last week it happened to me. And it was the kind of unjustified, not-at-first-sight, sentiment-mining love that cannot be explained. Nor was it anything like a movie-style , firework-embellished feeling. Fireworks, though, were included in the proccess.

Barcelona, was at its best during the Fiesta Major of La Merce, a four day festival, sourrounding the 24th of September, which like so many other "fiesta" dates, suspiciously coincides with an astrological timepoint, (this one with the autumn equinox), is suspiciously masked under a catholic religious miracle (the Virgin of la Merce saving the city's harvest from a swarm of locusts) and has unsuspiciously nothing to do with religion itself. This means processions of gigantic statues of everyday heroes instead of saints, "batucadas" instead of religious hymns and pagan parades of torch-bearers (correfoc) instead of devout marches of yougnsters carrying candles. And given that the equinox has been in this world far longer before the locust-scaring Virgin, it seems pretty likely that the turning of the season is behind the whole fiesta after all.

This whole extravanaza, of course, means anything else than calm, peaceful and quiet afternoon walks in the Gotico or in Barceloneta. The usual people-buzzing Ramblas are now infested with tourists once more, there is no place to appreciate the stuffy, humid air in the streets of Born, you can nomore actually listen to the tramondana blowing all the way down from Tibidabo Hill, bringing with it the suicidal tendencies Marques once described. The city seems to be stripped off from everything it would make it attractive to its regular inhabitants. She is no longer the kind housekeeper that welcomes you every day after work. You now look at a glittering, all made-up hostess trying to shine as much as she can, although you know she 'll be out of this dress soon and she 'll also have a hangover.

Still, I fell in love with her exactly then. When I saw this city trying to do her best to make her guests have a bowl! Even more when I felt pretty confident that I would like her more the day after, after all this would have gone. When people would no more be acting like crazy, kicking empty beer cans all around Plaza Reial at 4 in the morning, when Francisco will be back working instead of chasing around his shoes in the midst of all this frenzy. When car-horns replace free concerts, the garbage trucks occupy the streets of the batucadas and fireworks are substituted by the cloudy sky, completely devoid of stars.

Until next year's Merce, I 'll be living with my sweet, loving housekeeper.

Autumn in the city

The street cleaners take a moring break after having worked all night. They are having "cortaditos" in the bars of Barceloneta, while the city is slowly waking up covered in the mist. Bikers pass me by on my way to the lab, morning joggers trrying to find their way through the thick, humid atmosphere.
Cars make no noise, passers-by remain silent, the buildings are in black and white, the streets as if sprung out from a film-noire. Autumn is here.

You notice it, when you can't wake up because you think you might not want to, when the dawn starts to look less attractive than dusk, when you search your ipod for something to listen to and the only thing you come up with is Rachmanninov's concert #2. Seagulls fly in circles outside your office, signalling that rain is coming, the sun's reflection on the screen no longer bothers you. A night in with a movie now sounds like a plan instead of just an alternative.

Somehow it is not just melancholy. The Gothic Quartier as if made in sepia, locals actually living their lives, tourists silently retiring to the sidewalks of the streets that are beeing reclaimed by ordinary people. The time has come for everyday life to become the focal point.

And another night in with the tindersticks and a glass of wine does not sound that bad. The city can be silent...

...but only until tomorrow.

"Out of memory!"

When one sees a message like this appear in his terminal window, two things may be happening. One, his code is seriously full of bugs or Two he is probably trying to decipher all the hidden messages embedded in the human genome, the Bible, the jewish Torah, the books of Prospero and James Joyce's Ulysses ALL AT ONCE!
Well, I am not really sure my work does not imply the second one, but it is highly likely that my arrays are a bit overflowing, or to put it in a simpler way, my code is a bit sloppy, maybe even crappy.

After spending almost all of today trying to bypass the memory problem I am finally getting something out of it. Not the truth hidden in the Torah but something at least presentable in next week's group meeting. The method was the usual. After having been fed up with error messages on my screen, I took a big breath, went out on the balcony, had some chocolate (that's really optional in the method but it helps), went back in, put Tool's latest record on the headphones and started debugging. Now, my eyes are all sore with small red veins popping out but it is worth it going home.

All of the above is part of our daily routine but I have to admit it is a rather pleasant one. We are now in the new building of the PRBB (Parc de Reserca Biomedica de Barcelona). From our office in the fourth floor we can admire the Mediterranean and the inside of the building is quite interesting from architectonic point of view. It is not at all bad working here. The company is very good, the whole environment is quite inspiring and the weather is not bad either.

Looking out of my window, I can say that "out of memory" messages will be quite memorable in this place.

Moments stolen, moments won

We never quite realize when we start taking things for granted. When exactly happens this transition that makes us pass from appreciating things to considering them permanent rights. It happened to me only today, when passing from Carrer de Ginebra in the Barceloneta, a route I take every day to go to work. There, at the corner of Ginebra with Rector Bruguera there always stood a half-demolished building, whose destruction had led to something of a work of art. I say "always" because I have grown to think as if it has been there since the beginning of time. First time I saw it, old wallpapers still hanging, washing basins and showers still springing from the dead mural of what used to be the bathroom walls of its inhabitants, I stood amazed. People were taking photos of it everytime I would pass by but I never did, probably because of this feeling of permanence that soon prevailed over my appreciation. Too bad, it got completely demolished last Tuesday. So yesterday I did not find it there. My chance for a photo was lost and so was the feeling that I somehow owned this view on my everyday walk to work.

There come monents like these that make you realize you may becoming a bit superficial about everyday routine. That you do not anymore appreciate simple things in life, and this may be far more important than a semi-demolished building being brought down by the buldozers of the Ajuntament. You realize that you have to try appreciating moments that are evasive, just because so many worthy things inevitably are. They stand there only for a little while and then drift away leaving no evidence they once existed.

On my way back, just a few meters from home I rode by the tapas bar that is really close to my place, "Pulperia Celta". I was in a hurry so I was riding quickly but this did not prevent me from caughting a crying man's voice coming from inside the bar. I turned the bike around and stood outside the bar for a few minutes. There he was, a guy in his late forties, who could equally probably be a school teacher, a taxi driver or a construction worker singing a flamenco "a capella" after the request of his friends and a few canas of beer. The song lasted a whole two minutes and then Paco, received the applause of his friends and another cana from the bartender. For the few of us that had the luck to be passing by it was just one of these everyday moments that make a Sunday really worth it.

...In a beautiful world

Sometimes we make our own soundtrack. I explain myself. Often one finds himself floating out of his body and watching over this awkward puppet he really is, running up and down, trying to look as if he's having fun when he actually isn't and getting his share of happiness exactly when one could not tell by the look in his blank face. It is in moments like these when a melody may slowly tune in inside your head, a song that sounds as though made for the occasion has just started in your MP3 player, the soundtrack kicks in, your pace gets to be rythmical, things look as if they fall into place...

Last Tuesday in Charles de Gaulle airport I had one of these moments. I was flying to Barcelona from Athens, through Paris on a trip that apparently connected three of my most favourite cities. Holidays were just over, people very beloved were once more unvoluntarilly left behind, I had witnessed landmark moments in the life of good-old friends and been happy with how things were turning out for most of them. I had my deserved summer-share of parties and beach-relaxing. In all, I was leaving for work carrying a heavy load of all the things that make me still love my birthplace and all those that make it something more than rocks, blocks of bricks and polluted air. Bottomline was: I was sad I had to go.

It had only realised it when out of my Creative-Muvo TX 1GB player a well-placed tune by Coldplay almost commanded me: "Don't Panic".

I lifted up my head and the cold, impersonal sign welcoming me to France suddenly seemed to be polite and warm, my summer memories all melted into a crystal clear image of a precious souvenir that will keep me company throughout the winter, origins and destinations all merged into a symmetrical trajectory with no beginnings nor endings. I was once again on the road heading more for the journey than the place it was supposed to end. Life is hard, but we are masochist enough to like it that much.

through my headphones I could now listen to the chorus:
"We live in a beautiful world..."

...there are no miracles,
for miracle flows in the veins of man...

Giorgos Seferis