HOT FLASH FROM BARCELONA: Graffiti Art







Photos: Graffiti in Barcelona's Barri Gotic, the medieval and oldest section of town, along the waterfront

HOT FLASH FROM BARCELONA: Strawberry Report
Strawberries are in season here in Barcelona. They're on the menus at all the restaurants we pass, and the market stalls of the fruit sellers at La Boqueria, the big outdoor market on La Rambla, are filled with boxes of red strawberries glowing with freshness. We decided to have them for dessert last night at Tragaluz, a hip restaurant in the Eixample neighborhood of the city.

I'm not generally a big fan of strawberries and will usually choose raspberries instead. But the strawberries last night were out of this world. Served in small white bowls, they were sliced over a scoop of hyper cold vanilla ice cream. The waiter brought a little pitcher of strawberry emulsion (a fancy word for the syrup of the berries), which he poured over the berries in our chilled ceramic bowls.

I love my life at home and all the many privileges that come with being American. But we don't do justice to the food we eat. We should be in love with strawberries the way I was last night, dreaming about them, and choosing them every time as the only possible dessert. I know I'll yearn for my Barcelona strawberries when I get home and will remember them as the thing that transcends all the grit and grime and noise and bustle and stink of this Mediterranean port city.

Photo: Ready-to-eat fruit at La Boqueria, the outdoor market on Barcelona's La Rambla (pedestrian street)

HOT FLASH FROM BARCELONA: Weird Things

I've wanted to come to Barcelona ever since I saw All about My Mother. It's the movie that turned me into an Almodovar groupie. Watching his movies is like eating. It's a sensual experience, and this movie, set in Barcelona, is a feast for the eyes.

Aside from physical beauty, Almodovar also sees the beauty in freaks and weird things and life on the margins. I thought about that today at Gaudi's Park Guell, a hilltop park overlooking Barcelona and the sea, with walking paths, mosaics, small fountains, flowering crabs, and blooming mimosa trees.

A scene in All about My Mother (or is it Volver?) is set here, and as we wandered the grounds, I read about Gaudi's patron, wealthy industrialist Eusebi Guell i Bacigalupi. He happened to meet Gaudi at an exhibition in Paris in the late 1800s, and from that chance encounter flourished a productive relationship, one result of which is the Park Guell in Barcelona. According to my National Geographic guidebook, Gaudi and Guell overheard passersby complaining that one of Gaudi's buildings was too "weird." Guell is said to have remarked, "Mr. Gaudi, now I like you even more!"

Photos: mosaic tile at the entrance to Park Guell; mimosa tree in bloom in the park

HOT FLASH FROM BARCELONA: Penelope Takes One Home
We're in Barcelona for a short visit before returning home, and the city is quite a contrast to neat and tidy Paris. Street sweepers here brush light trash off the sidewalks into little plastic paniers in the evening, but everything else, at least down by the waterfront where we are, sports graffiti and layers of grime, no doubt from the heavy car exhaust that permeates the air. And yet it's a lively, happy place to be, and the weather is fabulous. Now in late February, it's sunny and close to 60 degrees, and while locals bundle up in winter coats, my father and I enjoy light sweaters as we walk past swaying palm trees and flowering cacti. It's a nice way to prepare for the six inches of snow awaiting us on the other side of the ocean.

The Spanish newspapers today are filled with coverage of Penelope Cruz's win at Sunday's Oscars. Full page articles in all the rags show her in her vintage Pierre Balmain evening gown, kissing the statuette, and the news reports on television replay parts of her acceptance speech over and over. (It seems she did not faint after all.) Spain is proud.

Photo: Me calling home from the phone booth just outside our hotel in Barcelona. The city seems to have a phone booth on every block, and I love this photo of me looking like an Almodovar character who's hopped off her Vespa to make one of many calls to a crazy character who is, no doubt, ever elusive.