Walking Around Barcelona

I've been meaning to do a post entitled "Walking Around Barcelona" for a while. Today was my opportunity to do it. My goal is to capture what it's like to walk around in this city. Let's see how good of a job I do. Also, yes, Donna, I got your comments. Thank you. I was hoping people were still reading this. I'm not sure if the "quality" has been as good lately, but I promise you I'll continue to find interesting things to share.

The very first thing I realized about Barcelona is that it doesn't have street signs. Okay, I guess it does, but not the way we have them in the U.S. They are these stone placards on the side of buildings. The locals claim they're everywhere and easy to find, but, even after being here for over 6 weeks, this system still doesn't make a lot of sense. I've got it down, for as well as one can get it down, but it still makes finding streets difficult. And again, contrary to what the locals claim, they are not on every corner or intersection. Here's what one looks like (carrer is Catalan for street):
Not too bad... Could be easier, but usable. However, the tricky part is when they're not at every intersection or when they are at what I like to call, hmm... actually, I guess I haven't come up with a name for the weird intersections yet. Let's call them... um... the octagon intersections. Yeah, that will do.

So, at octagon intersections, there are areas for cars to park as seen in the photo below. Kinda.

Anyway, the buildings on the "corners" are angled, so there can't be signs on them. This means the street sign, if there is one, is down a good 60 feet. So, if you're walking around, trying to find what the cross street is, you have to walk down it a ways to find the sign. This problem is magnified at night. Here's a good example. See the sign? Okay, when I went to draw the yellow box around it, I realized that it isn't a street sign. It's a sign for the restaurant to the right of it. Hmm... Well, I guess that proves my point that there aren't signs at every intersection. However, if there was a sign, it would be in that area, and you can see how far away it is from the crosswalk.

And here are a few pictures of what the sidewalk looks like at these intersections.
For these reasons, big main streets are a lot easier to walk on. You don't have to zig zag up the street but can walk in a street line (while dodging tourists though. I guess nothing's perfect).

Also, while walking around, I noticed a lot of water would be dripping on me. I soon figured out that it's water dripping from air conditioning units. You know, the window types.

And crossing the streets is interesting. Here's an example of the lights.
When it's green, there's a blinking yellow light to tell drivers to yield to we pedestrians. They get right up to that line, I tell ya. And when it starts blinking green, you better get your booty to the other side. As soon as it turns red, they're off. It's funny/scary too because a lot of drivers try to time the light just right. As it's blinking green, or the half second that it's red for both sides, one can hear mopeds revving up. So you're crossing the street, and all these little mopeds are going "vroom vvvrrroomm" (is that how you spell that?). And they love to honk at pedestrians. Let's say it's red, but you can easily, easily, beat the car coming towards you. They honk. If you're in the cross walk, on say, a big street, and it turns red, they'll honk. Even if it's still red for them.

And on main streets with lots of tourists, there are a number of beggars. I took this picture secretively so it isn't the best.
This is a rare photo. Most of the time, they are dressed like this, with their hand out, head down. It was really weird. They would just sit there with their head hanging down.

And today was suppose to have some rallies or something, but I guess I missed them. Nothing exciting happened on the day to celebrate when Columbus discovered America. Ah, and worth noting, 1492 also marks the year when the last Muslim stronghold, in Granada, was conquered by the Christians.

Here's a statue of Christopher Columbus. He's suppose to be pointing towards the Americas. Although, in my opinion, that's a big area to be pointing at, so I assume he's just pointing West.

So I hope you get a slight feel of what it's like to walk around Barcelona. A little different than in the U.S., but after you do it a bunch, you get the hang of it. Have a great weekend everybody!