Hip and gaudy Barcelona

( First of three parts )

I never thought the Ketchup Song (Asereje) by Las Ketchup would sound so sweet until I found out I was going to Spain.

On my first European trip (Vienna), we lived like locals. We stayed in one place and absorbed what it was like living in that place. This time, however, we were 100 percent tourists, hopping from one destination to the next, following an itinerary. I had no time to laze around but I learned a lot.

This time, I just didn’t gawk at churches or museums, there were guides who told us the history. The trip was almost perfect but I wished somebody my age tagged along, just so I had somebody in the same drift. (Titas could only do so much.)

The moment that familiar cold wind (now even colder since it’s winter) greeted us at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, a triumphant "I’m back" grin appeared on my face. Mental note: When in Europe, bring rolls and rolls of film because everything is worth capturing on film.

Among European destinations, it seems Spain is one of those taken for granted by Pinoys. I heard this said often enough in our group. Perhaps being a former colonizer has tainted its image. And having studied about colonial Spain in school, we thought we knew the country well and were no longer curious.

Too bad, because there’s nothing like seeing Spain and experiencing its culture. There’s more to Spain than paella (which we had and it was incredibly delicious), bullfighting (which we didn’t have), Ibiza (not) and flamenco (yes). The Spaniards are aggressively promoting tourism, even if they get about 50 million tourists a year, if not more.

First destination: sunny Barcelona. It was sunny but not enough to warm us in the wintery cold.

If I can’t live in Vienna, I would love to live in Barcelona. Famous for the suspense-filled lighting of the torch during the ’92 Olympics, it is the second most important city in Spain after Madrid, and the most metropolitan among the Spanish cities. The roads are exceptionally wide, so it doesn’t seem congested. Carefullly planned, the city is spacious and designed for long walks.

The second largest port in the world after Miami, the Barcelona port can hold 10 cruise ships at a time. Contrary to popular belief, not all of Spain speak Spanish (Castilian Spanish, that is). Barcelona and the region of Catalonia are exceptions. Like the Philippines, the Spaniards have a strong sense of regionalism. People from this region speak Catalan, which is entirely different from Castilian Spanish. Being different from the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, they are proud of their identity and heritage — a country within a country, it seems.

Would you believe that in this part of Spain, bullfighting isn’t a favorite pasttime? We got quite a handful of our vocabulary from Catalan, especially the "colorful" ones.

Who said young people cannot enjoy Europe? The old world charm is not necessarily wasted on the old. There are leisure alternatives aside from nightlife and malling. Barcelona has a youthful ambience. It’s cool to go to museums — nobody has to put a gun to your head. Barcelona’s rich culture boasts so many artists, led by the famous Antoni Gaudi, an architect I found ultra-hip, given his attention-grabbing colors, his way-out shapes and forms.

I finally saw Barcelona’s symbol and most famous landmark, the Sagrada Familia Cathedral, Gaudi’s masterpiece. Built 120 years ago, it remains to this day, a work in progress-which shows you the Spaniards’ commitment to art and culture. They say it will take another 20 years to complete it.

People, both old and young, will not have a hard time relating to Gaudi because his works have a youthful exuberance of color. Actually the word "gaudy," which means ostentatious or flashy, was derived from his name. Though his works seem exaggerated, they were done with taste. Gaudi’s imaginative creations can be found all over the city.

A walk though Park Güell was a thrilling experience. Gaudi designed to show off how his architecture was in complete harmony with nature. At the entrance, you walk through what seems like a tunnel of stones — rough and hard, slanting and graceful, so you feel like you’re in a womb. Amid trees and vast greenery jut structures in candy colors, in the cutest graceful shapes and forms — it’s like being in Disneyland designed by a painter.

You see children being led by their teachers, out on a field trip, discovering the structures which meant to be used, like curved benches with colorful mosaics. Though made of concrete, the benches had such soft curves so they not only looked good, they were quite comfortbale.

The famous Sagrada Familia is like no other cathedral in the world simply because it has so many phases and faces, you could not peg it to an era or an architecture. Well, after all it has evolved through the century. On one side, it looks like a cave, with very rough, irregular, natural forms. On another, it’s so old world, so Gothic (don’t know how many times I heard this word throughout the trip). On yet another, it’s almost clean and modern. I never saw the Nativity and other scenes from the Bible interpreted in so many various forms. It kept the young so preoccupied. Plus, we have the energy to walk, I mean walk, all around.

Gaudi, we were told, was a very religious man, so that his works were God-centered. While he never became a priest, he died a bachelor.

The people of Barcelona are extremely proud of this man, and what better way to show their gratitude than by making sure Spanish children know the man.

Even at the young age, they are exposed to the things their country and culture have to offer, so they grow up with a strong sense of what they are as a people. You see kids romping along the garden designed by Gaudi, for instance, or craning their necks looking at the sky-high domes of Sagrada Familia.

In the course of appreciating other people’s culture, I learned to appreciate mine. Too bad we only had a day to enjoy Barcelona. I’ll tell you more about it next week.

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Email the author at ketsupluis@hotmail.com