Our Ship's Come In! (where do we put it?)

We came home late one night and found this sign and tape in front of our apartment building: finally, a notice that said our moving truck would deliver our goods -- 12/11/2022 (November 12) between 08:30h and 14:00h. This was ten days hence, what the city requires, but fell on a Saturday which seemed suspicious but our moving company, Flippers.es, confirmed it. 

We had already taken apart one section of the sofa that came with the flat: it was too big to fit in the elevator, fortunately the remaining section came apart with simple bolts so we didn't have to hack at it like the previous piece. The living room looks quite large now, it should easily accommodate our furniture... right??

Just before 9am, the movers arrived. The contract was to "unpack, and put everything on any flat surface". We thought that meant they would put all the individual items on surfaces, but realized there was simply no way the contents of our 67 boxes would fit on the horizontal planes of the house. We neglected to get photos of the truck or guy(s) down below unloading and loading the elevator, but our guy unloading the elevator gave us boxes, unsealed them, and we frantically unwrapped and put individual items wherever we could find a space -- we were barely able to keep up.  The first item to arrive was my bicycle; the wheel would arrive a couple hours later. Then everything else started coming up quickly, in random order.

Stuff was strewn all around the flat, waiting for us to give them order. By 12:30, the final piece was brought in, the Brazilian sofa as one massive paper-wrapped item -- it barely fit in the elevator. For the first time since buying the apartment years ago, we finally had a comfortable place to sit and relax.

Sadly, two of the artworks suffered damage. This was especially disappointing because we'd paid to have custom wooden crates made for both. A large framed lithograph by Bruce Conner had cracked glass, which grew to span the entire frame in 24 hours, and risked cutting into the artwork.

The other piece I bought from artist Marcia Fry at Artomatic 2012. It's a rich assemblage of "found objects": the top spire was broken off, and the library of miniature Shakespeare books was tossed asunder. 

One of my VMPS speakers had an adjustment knob sheared off which prevents me from tuning the sound to match our new room, but this probably isn't that big of a deal. I had insurance on the shipment and have already filled in the claim forms, and am waiting to hear back. I hope they'll pay for a good framing shop to provide UV-blocking non-glare "museum glass", and I'll ask Marcia for her suggestions to fix "Saint Germain". 

We've gotta find room to hang all the art work, and only have one non-glass wall in the house. Most of it is black and white, or shades of gray, or very muted tones, and we've got one very large intensely blue and yellow canvas Bethe Bronson painted years ago. It'll be a bit cramped for my aesthetic but we'll make it work.  

We've moved from a 16x27 foot kitchen (with 106 drawer and door pulls) into a space that's quite small (by our standards), with cabinets that were designed for style rather than function: there are no drawers and very few shelves. To provide home for most of the stuff strewn over our table and cooktop, I started with the four wall cabinets.  These came with 2 shelves each, evenly spaced, which held very little and couldn't even accommodate some oversized wine glasses we have.  

We learned something from designing two kitchens that I never see mentioned about shelf spacing: to provide accessibility, put short things at the bottom, tall things at the top -- this seems counter-intuitive but we find you can grasp the bottoms of the tall things even if they're high up.  I made some estimates and figured we could add 7 shelves to the existing 7. We'd moved the existing dish drain board down directly over the hole in the cabinet bottom so we could drip dry delicate things that would be damaged by the dishwasher (my parents' wedding crystal with a silver rim would be eaten by detergent). We made another trip to FUSDEC with a drawing of what I needed: the cabinet widths were not uniform so I spec'd a couple of different widths; he told us they'd be ready "tomorrow morning". Seven shelves for under 7€ a piece, with laminate edge banding on the front -- a very fair price.

I spent the rest of the day determining heights based on contents, marking and drilling 5mm holes for mounting pegs. We picked up the shelves and 32 support pegs and got to work, iteratively adding a shelf, populating it with glassware, plates, etc, and repeating until we had accessible locations for everything.

We repeated this for the remaining 3 cabinets and now are able to hold our glassware, cocktail shaker, coffee pots, prep plates, platters, and my parents' wedding china (which we use daily). Everything's accessible except for rarely used items at the very top -- very acceptable.

 

Next up: we've gotta add drawers to the two door-front cabinets to hold flatware, knives, kitchen tools, utensils, spatulae, and all the other paraphernalia needed by us avid cooks.

Festies with my Bestie

There seems to be a festival of some sort happening constantly in Barcelona; like, every day, some neighborhood or organization has an event. It's impossible to keep up, and we've stumbled upon one by happy accident.  Here are the most recent.  (they were a lot more fun than the painting in the last post!)

Barcelona International Community Day

On Saturday, Barcelona held Barcelona International Community Day to connect prospective and new residents with organizations and companies that could help them: property finders, residence and tax lawyers, business development organizations, schools, etc. Totally free, in the beautiful Maritime Museum, just a 20 minute walk from our place. 

Ironically, one of the talks was "Tips for following the city's cultural calendar and not die trying". :-)

But the one that floored us was the dry-titled "Barcelona 2030: ongoing projects for a more sustainable and digital city"; we figured it'd be blue-sky, but Bárbara Pons, Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, Ajuntament de Barcelona, gave an informationally-intense high-level view down to the street-level plan for a city with better transit, improved inclusion, and on and on -- all supported by rich multi-layered maps that backed up the city's goals with definite plans. When someone asked about the high-tech development called "22@" she dove into it with enthusiasm and details, and almost had to be pulled off the stage due to time constraints. It's fantastic to see a speaker that's got all the data at her fingertips and makes the subject matter compelling. 

The last session was the most fun, "Experience Barcelona by bike: the best routes" by Marta Casar, Member of the Board of Directors, BACC (Bike Club of Catalonia), website bacc.cat,  Bikes are extensively used in Barcelona, and the city's done a great job of providing separated lanes and even crosswalks for bikes, but Marta pointed out some areas they are pushing for more protected lanes.

She then provided a number of routes to explore the city including the most stunning examples of architecture in the Modernisme style, as well as some very challenging ones to the top of Montjuic and Tibidabo. She also presented some routes where you could take your bike north or south on a train, then return by bike path to Barcelona -- this sounds excellent: we've seen the path along the coast from the R1 train line.

Side Bar: Cocktails

We headed home and stopped for a drink, but the first cafe wasn't welcoming, so we looked into a narrow street in El Raval and spied a place that looked like a cocktail bar: Somnia. Oh, yeah, a cocktail bar if you've got nightmares of circus clowns! The place was over the top decorated, and all the seats in the upstairs "Big Top" room and the downstairs area were reserved, but we were able to sit at the bar. Good thing, too, because the bartender was top-notch. In addition to a bunch of obviously popular wild-assed concoctions (a drink served in a bathtub-shaped "glass" complete with molecular gastronomy foam bubbles), he built us some classics and variations. I enjoy telling bartenders my favorites (Negroni, Last Word) or ingredients (amaros), and seeing what they create. In addition to a fine Negroni and Manhattan, I got a Cynar-based drink that was delightfully dry, boozy, and balanced; if I can remember the ingredients, I might be able to create it -- if not, well, that's the fun, it's a unique experience. He realized we're into classic cocktails and recommended three bars to us: Paradiso (just won an award for best bar in the world, Sips (the number 3), and for the classics, Boadas (the oldest coctail bar in Spain). I really appreciate getting recommendations for the competition. He also said if we stuck around, at 8pm a magician came to perform tricks for the guests -- sounds like fun, for next time.

Accidentally: A Fest for Tomato Bread

We headed home -- again-- and as we crossed the pedestrianized Ronda de Sant Antoni, we heard music, saw tents, and lots of people. Better check it out!  There was a DJ spinning tunes from my youth, folks nearly my age dancing in the street, vendors serving local wine and beer, and a bunch of food stalls.  We headed to the beginning of the tents and saw it was a festival celebrating the Catalan classic "Pa amb tomàquet", tomato bread: bread (frequently toasted to crisp it a little), rubbed with a specific kind of tomato bred for this, lashed with good olive oil, and a sprinkle of finishing salt.

 

After a couple drinks, we headed to the beginning of the tents and -- for 7€ -- got some big slabs of hearty bread, which the first tent topped with rubbed tomatoes and oil, and the next two topped with the precious jamon Iberico and conserved tuna. It was tasty, rustic, authentic, and filling -- no need for the dinner I'd planned at home!

Check the Lava Lamp at this drinks tent

Pa amb Tomaquet with tuna, escalavida, and jamon

Festival of Markets

We love the municipal markets in Barcelona. We tend to frequent Mercat del Ninot (just 10 minutes walk), but are also 7 minutes from the beautifully restored Mercat de Sant Antoni, and 13 minutes from the famous (and tourist-clogged) Boqueria. There are 32 of these markets spread throughout the neighborhoods of the city where you can get to know your fishmonger (different vendors for fin fish, shellfish, cephalopods, bacalao), meat (choose cow, chicken, pig, sausage), amazing cheeses, vegetables (including seaweeds and seasonal mushrooms), beans/lentils, and much more. 

This weekend, there was a Mercat del Mercats, where it seems each market had 2 stalls where you could sample an amazing array of foods ready to eat, meats you could take to another stall where they'd grill them for free, things to take home, as well as local beer, wine, cava, and vermut. This was at the modern Plaza Glories in the shadow of the Museu de Desseny building adjacent to the Glories tower -- a 17 minute bus/train ride away. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the festivities: these are from two nights earlier when I was returning from a Python Meetup:

Funnily enough, despite being on the other side of town, we ran into Dani and Maria who run Milar Catalá downstairs from us, the shop where we bought our water heater and fridge.  It's the second food festival where we've run into them -- maybe we have a connection!

We wandered, tried the beers and wine, got some delicious snacks from vendors, and I let one talk me into taking home a lovely cured Llonganissa sausage and butifarra negra (blood sausage) that Irene enjoys (I'm still a little squeamish). 

What's Next?

No idea. I need to find various planners, like the one presented by the Visit Barcelona developers on Saturday. Or maybe we'll just stumble upon another. Either way, I'm sure it won't be long before we're eating, drinking, and listening to much more of what this vibrant city has to offer. 

un-Paint It Black

All the walls in the apartment that are not glass are black: flat black, satin black, glossy black; the bathroom areas are flat black with sand in it, impossible to repair or match.  The back room is dark, despite being a hall of mirrors. The bathroom where an in-wall toilet tank was replaced has a terrible patching job. In the bedroom, we removed an unnecessary wall mirror and ripped out an over-built night stand, leaving gaping white areas in the paint. We decided repainting was in order -- not the entire flat, not yet anyway. 

This post is probably only useful if you've done renovation yourself, or at least a medium-sized painting project. The next post should be more fun!

After removing the gym-sized Everlast punching bag from its massive support in the ceiling we were left with gaping holes, so we patched them, then repainted the entire structural beam and column with a "satin" black we had in the house. When dried, it was more a gloss, reflecting even the alarm camera; a bit garish, but it's much better.

We hit our favorite ferreteria, CaurBCN just a block away, to get a flat medium gray to cover over the old gray. Since we didn't know the original color, we knew we'd have to paint over everything -- no biggie with a roller. (Strangely, here, you cannot seem to buy replacement rollers, we've gotta buy a roller and the wand/handle -- seems a waste). We started where the 2-meter wide mirror had been, and my mediocre patching of the ex-nightstand. Then continued on behind the bed (a 500-pound custom behemoth of steel studs and drywall!), and the wall facing the living room.

 

Bedroom after

We then went after the back room (we don't have a better name for it) which is glass, mirrors, and an oppressive black wall. When Irene wasn't looking, I started in on the bathroom, with a pretty embarrassing attempt to merge the bad toilet repair plaster job with the old sand coat -- lipstick on a pig. First, the cutting in with a white primer to cover the black.

Then, cutting in and rolling with the same flat medium gray we used in the front of the flat. Before and after, for the back room and bathroom:

The taping may have been the hardest part, but certainly made the cutting in and rolling a lot faster. Where I didn't do a great job, I had some cleanup with razor blades, but mostly on glass and aluminum trim, so not that bad. 

Once "our ship comes in" with our furniture from Virginia, we may attack the front of the house and unify the three or four different black paints with one to tie it together; we just can't decide: flat for its quietness (but shows paw prints), or a minimal satin to reflect light (but shows poor paint technique).