Bigger Deal

Casino Barcelona, the site of the European Poker Tour’s first stop, doesn’t open until 3:00 PM, both good and bad news. The good news is that we have most of the day to see the sights of this city (and it’s already made it into my top five coolest places in Europe). The bad news, of course, is that the tournament day doesn’t end until the wee hours (“Three-ish…” says PokerStars  staffer Hilda).

But back to the good bit. After breakfast this morning, I grabbed my Lonely Planet Barcelona guide and hit the streets. Now, I forgot the camera, but if I make this piece about a thousand words, I guess that’s as good as one jpeg, and it takes a lot less time to upload.

Some time ago, my wife, Lisa, dragged me out to start walking. “We gotta get in shape,” she said. Five years (or whatever) later, I can walk essentially an entire day. Genetically, this shouldn’t be all that surprising. My mother celebrates her 80^th birthday next year, and she still walks 5-6 miles a day. That’s been an incomparable gift, because it gives me a whole new way to see a city. You’re not on a bus, [1] you’re down on the corner, and out in the street.

Walking up from the beach area, I make it to the fringes of the Barri Gotico, the old part of town. If you’re in the U.S., you probably think “Ah, old – like 18^th century. The ‘Old Church’ in Boston.” Try “The current cathedral was built in the late 14^th century…” So I’m walking across stones that are easily many hundreds of years old.

Someone gimme a stone.

A stone that I can walk on.

I found myself in a large-ish gothic cathedral, but it was virtually empty. Weird. Just a small handful of tourists milling around. And it was so simple. No side chapels, etc. – just the cathedral itself. I knew there was “The cathedral” that I was looking for, and it began to dawn on me that this wasn’t the main event. But I often find myself drawn to the back-up locations. They’re quieter and leave more room for you to find your thoughts and feelings. So I stayed quite a while and simply appreciated the space. [2]

Then I slipped into the warren of tiny streets that makes up the Barri Gotico proper. With the narrow twisty alleyways among multi-story buildings, it wasn’t hard to imagine people living in this neighborhood seven or eight centuries ago. Now, let’s not over-romanticize it. All those people living in close proximity to each other, before modern sanitation – the stench must have been awesome. But the whiff of the modern sewer gasses (which regrettably fill many of Barcelona’s streets) added a bit of that history to the scene.

Those tiny streets are filled with souvenir and mobile phone shops now where I imagine fish mongers and leather merchants once plied their craft. But after a couple of mis-turns and references to the guide book (“You are in a maze of twisty narrow passages, all different”) I popped out at the “real” cathedral – “La Catedral”. Of course, here in Barcelona, the cathedral that everybody cares about is the Sagrada Familia, the massive cathedral designed by the turn of the 20^th century architect, Gaudi. But “La Catedral” was from the 13^th century, and I’m a sucker for old churches.

It quickly became obvious that everybody that I thought would be in the first cathedral was in this one. It wasn’t like a church as you imagine it – it was like an exquisitely beautiful, ornate bus station. People everywhere, taking pictures, taking videos, talking, looking, tour groups, etc. It was far more impressive than the first one. There were side chapels, an amazing choir “loft” (that you could go into for an extra €1.50), the remains of their patron saint, Saint Eulalia (a 9^th century martyr), in a fancy reliquary, etc. At first, all the stuff and noise and people bothered me. But I got to thinking: it’s these people and their interest in the place that have kept it going all these centuries. It took a couple hundred years to build it, so a lot of folks had to work on it knowing they’d never live to see it completed. Then throughout the years, they had to maintain and defend it from the elements, marauding invaders, etc. And it’s kind of reassuring about the human race. It seems that we spend all our time trying to wipe out all traces of everybody that isn’t like us. So when some folks manage to hold one physical place together for 700 years, well, that’s a point in our favor.

With that in mind, I let the noise wash over me and imagined the same cacophony a hundred, three hundred, six hundred years ago echoing off the same stones.

Turns out they need stones. There’s major renovation work going on (currently, the entire west façade of the cathedral is covered for construction). And they have a “Sponsor a Stone” campaign – €10 for one stone, €20 for two, etc. Seems like you should get a volume discount, but they didn’t offer that. Anyway, I had a €5 note in my pocket, and was too cheap to buy two stones. I felt kinda bad about only giving half a stone, but then a cool thing happened. Somebody had put a €10 note in the box, but hadn’t pushed it all the way into the slot. It was about 1/3 out of the box, a sure target for somebody to pluck out. I figured they were only even money to have that note go into the box before it got plucked. So I took my €5 note, pushed in the €10 note, and made sure mine dropped too. That way I gave ‘em €10, which is a full stone’s worth.

Someone gimme a stone.

A stone that I can build with.

With that, I headed over La Rambla, a major shopping street running north-south from the sea. Everybody said, “You gotta see La Rambla.” Meh. It’s a giant divided street with stands and benches and touristy stuff in the median. Even the buskers were disappointing. They were a bunch of people standing there in costume, mostly with some kind of death/goth theme, expecting us to throw our coins to them. Hey – play me some good music and I’ll be the first to throw my Euros. Do a hip-hop dance that blows my mind, or juggling that looks like you should be in Cirque du Soleil, and I open my wallet. But standing there, motionless, in costume, expecting to be rewarded? Heck, I make the kids on Halloween say “Trick or Treat!” if they want candy.[3]

The chicken shwarma pita was good though.

I walked back south down La Rambla and got back to the sea and the beach. After La Rambla, I needed something more real, more natural. The ocean, even with the crowds and all, was just the ticket. I took off my trainers (“tennis shoes” for the Americans) and stood in the cool shallows of the Mediterranean. Knew what I had to do.

 

Picked up a nice flat stone and skipped it across the water surface, enjoying the light reflecting off the spray.

 

 

P.S. This piece wasn’t about poker, but this is poker blog and I guess I should say something poker-related in here. I felt kinda bad about forgetting the camera today. Then I got into the first cathedral. All these people taking pictures and videos that won’t come close to capturing the true sensation. I mean, the picture doesn’t get anything like the view you get with your eye. It doesn’t hear the echoes of your footsteps on the stones. And it definitely doesn’t hear the echoes of the people walking across those stones 500 years ago. Which is kinda like some poker players. They just look at their cards and don’t think beyond that. Like somebody trying to capture a 14^th century cathedral with a pocket digital camera – there’s way too much there. Those people, with their cameras – I would play poker against them.

But there was a woman, in her 30’s. Blonde. Her t-shirt said “Marshall”. Noticed that because my sister is a doctor at the hospital at Marshall University in West Virginia. This lady, she was sitting in one of the pews, her head resting on the pew back, facing the ceiling. Eyes wide open, and a blissful smile on her face. She was in that exact position most of the time I was in the cathedral. Then after a while, I settled down to just take it all in. A little after that, her husband came along and tapped her on the shoulder. Took a second to get her attention because she was in the 19^th or 17^th or 14^th century. She smiled at him and they walked out of the cathedral. That lady, I don’t wanna play poker against her – she’s way too good at taking in the whole picture.

 

[1] Don’t get me wrong – a bus tour is a great way to get a first bird’s eye view of a town. You see something cool and say to yourself, “Gotta get back and get a closer look at that.” Back

[2] I later learned that I was in the Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar. From the 14^th century. If you get to Barcelona, go there. Back

[3] There was a guy outside the first cathedral, playing Bach on some kind of hammered dulcimer thing. He had a background recording of the chamber orchestra, and he was playing the solo part. Really well. He was reading the music and concentrating as hard as I’d expect from any professional musician. His phrasing and dynamic touch were beautiful, and worth every penny of the two Euros I gave him. Back

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