I'm incredibly blessed to know a large number of people from all over the world. Many of them I know personally, but quite a few I know only online. Today, I finally got to meet a friend in person that I've known online for nearly 15 years. He took time out of his day to show me Barcelona, answer my innumerable questions, and show me his city as only a local can do.
There will be a post a bit later that's all about my impressions of what I saw, but this one is about the little tidbits that Isaac shared with me as we wandered the streets of Barcelona.
First, I'm annoyed with Isaac. As we walked around Barcelona and I gasped at the incredibly old buildings and magnificent feats of architecture and ingenuity that we passed, he merely shrugged and said, "Meh." When we walked inside one of the most incredible cathedrals I've ever been in, every hair on my body standing completely on end, Isaac said, "Yes. It's nice."
When you're surrounded your entire life by things older than some countries (*coughs*), I suppose it does start to seem a bit... inane. I mean, what's a 700-year-old church to someone who lives in a city of a dozen of them? But to me, who can boast growing up in one of the oldest houses in Des Moines, IA - built in the 1850s - and who studies 700- to 1000-year-old books, today was heady and strange. I touched stones carved with hammer and chisel and hefted onto wagons to build a cathedral taller than most buildings. I witnessed sun streaming through windows made by hand hundreds of years ago.
To Isaac, however, it was Tuesday. So yeah... I chastised him. "I'm going to need you to be a bit more impressed with your own damn city, please." Look of surprise on his face. "I need you to understand that we are right this very instance walking down streets built by people who wouldn't understand anything you or I are saying - in Spanish, Catalan, or English - because our version of these languages took another several hundred years to develop." A slow nod. "Please. Just tell me you understand my excitement." A smile and a slightly bigger nod.
So yeah... annoyed.
Second, some of his anecdotes made me love this city more than I already did. Things like the 19th century city leaders feeling like Barcelona - the city with a dozen 13th and 14th century cathedrals - wasn't "historical" enough. So they did silly things like build an ornate bridge between two 13th-century buildings to make it look older.
Or create a new building by cobbling together bits and pieces from a slew of medieval buildings - of varying times. (I haven't seen this yet, but I'll post a picture here once I do.)
And finally, he knew stuff. He knew about an elephant statue tucked away in a park. He knew about this incredible building with a lovely bit of mosaic decorating the outside. He knew the how and why of so many things. I could ask him about a building, and nine times out of ten, he was able to answer my questions. (The one time he didn't know the answer, he went home and looked it up and shot me an answer within a couple of hours of saying ciao.)
I guess my point in this post is two-fold: If you have an opportunity to visit a city with a local, jump at that opportunity; and if you do, please recognize the value that person brings to your stay. Isaac ordered tapas for me at a restaurant, he spoke to the guard at one cathedral when we both had a question, and he was just genuinely a delight to spend a day with.
By the end of the day, I would guess that we had walked around 33,000 steps together. In that time, I learned a lot about my friend of 15 years, and about the city that he called home. We laughed a lot, we learned a lot, and we found that we had a lot more in common than not. We need more of this in the world right now, and I, for one, appreciate my friend so much more today than at any other point in the last 15 years.
There will be a post a bit later that's all about my impressions of what I saw, but this one is about the little tidbits that Isaac shared with me as we wandered the streets of Barcelona.
First, I'm annoyed with Isaac. As we walked around Barcelona and I gasped at the incredibly old buildings and magnificent feats of architecture and ingenuity that we passed, he merely shrugged and said, "Meh." When we walked inside one of the most incredible cathedrals I've ever been in, every hair on my body standing completely on end, Isaac said, "Yes. It's nice."
When you're surrounded your entire life by things older than some countries (*coughs*), I suppose it does start to seem a bit... inane. I mean, what's a 700-year-old church to someone who lives in a city of a dozen of them? But to me, who can boast growing up in one of the oldest houses in Des Moines, IA - built in the 1850s - and who studies 700- to 1000-year-old books, today was heady and strange. I touched stones carved with hammer and chisel and hefted onto wagons to build a cathedral taller than most buildings. I witnessed sun streaming through windows made by hand hundreds of years ago.
To Isaac, however, it was Tuesday. So yeah... I chastised him. "I'm going to need you to be a bit more impressed with your own damn city, please." Look of surprise on his face. "I need you to understand that we are right this very instance walking down streets built by people who wouldn't understand anything you or I are saying - in Spanish, Catalan, or English - because our version of these languages took another several hundred years to develop." A slow nod. "Please. Just tell me you understand my excitement." A smile and a slightly bigger nod.
So yeah... annoyed.
Second, some of his anecdotes made me love this city more than I already did. Things like the 19th century city leaders feeling like Barcelona - the city with a dozen 13th and 14th century cathedrals - wasn't "historical" enough. So they did silly things like build an ornate bridge between two 13th-century buildings to make it look older.
Or create a new building by cobbling together bits and pieces from a slew of medieval buildings - of varying times. (I haven't seen this yet, but I'll post a picture here once I do.)
And finally, he knew stuff. He knew about an elephant statue tucked away in a park. He knew about this incredible building with a lovely bit of mosaic decorating the outside. He knew the how and why of so many things. I could ask him about a building, and nine times out of ten, he was able to answer my questions. (The one time he didn't know the answer, he went home and looked it up and shot me an answer within a couple of hours of saying ciao.)
I guess my point in this post is two-fold: If you have an opportunity to visit a city with a local, jump at that opportunity; and if you do, please recognize the value that person brings to your stay. Isaac ordered tapas for me at a restaurant, he spoke to the guard at one cathedral when we both had a question, and he was just genuinely a delight to spend a day with.
By the end of the day, I would guess that we had walked around 33,000 steps together. In that time, I learned a lot about my friend of 15 years, and about the city that he called home. We laughed a lot, we learned a lot, and we found that we had a lot more in common than not. We need more of this in the world right now, and I, for one, appreciate my friend so much more today than at any other point in the last 15 years.
So - what's the story with the elephant? I got a selfie with it because I loved it so much!
ReplyDeleteWell, Isaac's story is that as a very young boy, he climbed up the elephant's back with his father's help. We agreed to add this to the list of things parents of our generation would likely go to jail for today.
DeleteThe elephant is there in that park, however, because it was patt of the display for the 1899 Wotld's Fair. In fact, that entire park, all its buildings, and the Arc d' Triumpf were all built specifically for that World's Fair.
The park was dedicated to Natural Sciences, and the "elephant" (a mammoth) was the first statue in a proposed series showing extinct animals, the others were never built.
ReplyDeleteA pleasure hiking through town with you Roana!
Thank you so much, again, for showing me all the sights! I had so much fun!
Delete