The architecture is so unique and influenced by many time periods and places that it has been used repeatedly in films from Lawrence of Arabia to Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones.
Author: theblissabyss
I Want to be the Shady Dame of Seville
“I feel like we are in a Spanish-themed TGI Fridays,” I said. “Or a barbershop quartet porn set.”
I blame the striped wallpaper, but the double-sized tub had a portrait of a woman who gazed appraisingly upon us when we bathed like, “Ok…uhhuh..Yeah, I’d hit that.” And I think I need a copy of her to hang outside my shower today. I always left my bath thinking, “This lady gets what I got going on!”
Park Guell – Where People Now Go to See Themselves
Once we squeezed past the El Drac admirers, we made it to the exit and looked at each other in exhaustion, like we were a litter birthed from a selfie-stick-lined womb.
Escaping Crowds: Sunburned Scrotums and Modern Art in Barcelona
The spiritual experience that so many of the more modern, crowded museums lack is the opportunity to be alone in a beautiful place with art. I’ve never found anything but stress in dense crowds, which is probably why you won’t see me at a music festival in a mucky cow pasture, either. We strolled through the concrete spaces and viewed the abstracts and sculptures in silence, with no flag-waving tour guides reciting their histories in sight.
Not all art is spiritually transformative, but I’ve always found a good museum far more inspiring than any cathedral.
Finding the Authentic in a Bourdainified World: Barcelona Dining
This will sound sacrilegious to his fans, but try and block Bourdain and that dusty photo on the wall entirely from your thoughts. You deserve your own authentic experience, or why are you even there? It could be great! He may have been right about that hotdog, and you may feel your atoms realign to become more harmonious with the universe after your first bite. Or, it could just be a regular old hotdog served by an indifferent waiter and a hefty bill because of the Bourdain-endorsed stamp that brings more customers in. Sorry to say, when you leave this place, you may simply be full instead of imbued with any distilled goodwill or cultural understanding.
Barcelona Gothic Quarter: Tiny Alleys and Big History
One of the things that many may not realize is that very little of the architecture in the quarter is genuinely Gothic. Through restoration and romantic flourishes, much of it was styled in the 1900s to appeal to the World’s Fair crowds. Those neo-Gothic additions were a good choice for crowd appeal, which still draws them today. The quarter feels romantic, like you are walking through a movie set made for a Victorian vampire love affair, and I can see how it would have the same appeal to visitors in 1929 as it does today.
Warsaw Food Tour: Miles to Go Before We Eat
We were all dehydrated, tired, some a bit hungry still, and the raw meat and vodka were not helping.
Warsaw Chill: Drinks on the Vistula River
We spent Saturday in Warsaw drifting around before our food tour that evening. We walked over to the towering example of Stalin-era architecture, the Palace of Culture and Science. The building is loved and despised, hated for its history and severe façade, and loved as Warsaw’s tallest, most recognizable landmark.
Big Time Darts in Warsaw
I don’t know anything about professional darts. Still, if you ask me if I want to attend an international dart tournament in Warsaw, the answer is unequivocally yes. I don’t need a reason to go anywhere, but it pleases me if I can find an unusual one. For me, the PDC International Dart Tournament fulfilled this completely.
Warsaw: Trying New Dishes in the Old Town
This soup tasted how I wished every spring could be – fresh, sweet, smooth, and colorful. It tasted like something fairies in a magical forest would tip into their tiny mouths from silver thimbles. I imagined this soup sipped by queens, by powdered ladies in a gilded salon, by woodland nymphs, by angels when they needed a lunch break. This soup made us happy. My husband looked at me, and I looked at him. We did not have to speak. We were lucky, we both thought, so goddamn lucky, to be eating this soup together right now. Nothing could be better than this moment and this soup.